Struggling with the Demon!

-

The Muse. We writers refer to her a lot. She's a goddess. She's creative, inspiring, and when she's with you it's a fabulous feeling. Your ideas flow and your fingers fly over the keyboard. But sometimes she's elusive. She teases you; she's just out of reach. You struggle to grasp her and she slips from your fingers. You're left staring at a blank screen.

Well, I've had a week of staring at a blank screen. Let me introduce you to the Muse's evil twin, the Demon. Demon. It's a great word, isn't it. The dictionary definition is fascinating (yes, you know I'm a word geek!) "An evil spirit or devil; cruel; skilful, possibly a genius..." Hmmm. If you are going to call your business "Demon" you are setting some high expectations. Hopefully you are going for the skilful and genius end of the definition - unless you're offering some pretty specialised services. Which brings me back to the blank screen. The blank screen is what happens when I try to call up my website. It hasn't been working for a week. I'm quite upset about this because my Brides of Fortune trilogy is out at the moment and everything had been going really, really well with masses of hits on the website and loads of great feedback and the chance to chat to lots of lovely readers. I know it's not a matter of life and death, but it is a matter of skill and customer service.

My website is hosted by a company called... Well, you can probably guess. It isn't Muse.

Here's the gist of what happened when I rang up yesterday to check on progress in fixing whatever fault is affecting their server.

Me: (Ringing a number I had previously been given for customer service): Hello! Please can you tell me the latest on fixing the problem with my website? This is the reference...
Person at other end: You've come through to the wrong number. Just a moment... (Several minutes of tinned music)
Me: Hello?
Another person at the other end, sounding annoyed: Yes?
Me: Good afternoon! (It's hot and I can tell he's stressed so I'm being really nice). Please can you tell me the latest on fixing the problem with my website? This is the reference...
Person: You're not the only one whose website is affected you know!
Me: (Slightly taken aback) Well, no, I had worked that out... (I'm neither so web illiterate that I thought I had my own personal server nor so self-centred that I thought it was just me!) I was only enquiring to see if there was any update on when the problem is likely to be sorted out?
Person: No. There's an engineer working on it at the moment. It could be ten minutes or two hours.
Me: Two hours? That would be great!
Person: It might not be two hours. I can give you absolutely no timescale for fixing this.

They can't give a civil answer or an apology or any kind of customer service either, can they? If you know of a good, reliable web hosting site, please let me know!






Comments

Kate Hardy said…
Supanames are very good. I've been with them for about seven years. They'll sort out the domain name transfer, too. :o)

Hope your muse comes back quickly. Have you tried the "take dog for walk so no paper is to hand" trick? Usually works for me. (That, or watching a good film and letting myself drift into "what if...?" mode.)
26 June 2009 at 11:18
Nicola Cornick said…
Thanks for the recommendation, Kate. I chased it up again this morning and the guy at the other end was really helpful but didn't know anything. He assured me it would be fixed by this evening (where have I heard that before...)

Interesting that you do the dog walking thing to get the ideas flowing too. Poor old Monty has been dragged out at all hours! He was fast asleep yesterday evening when I decided to take a stroll!
26 June 2009 at 11:29
Jan Jones said…
34SP is what we use, Nicola. They've always been hugely helpful - and quick! - whenever I've had problems (which isn't often)
26 June 2009 at 16:33
Anonymous said…
I had terrible troubles with my old host being down all the time. I use Bluehost now and no trouble at all.
26 June 2009 at 20:57
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Books of Your Childhood.

-
Image
This is a fantastic meme from Michelle Styles for anyone who loves to talk about books, especially the books that captured you when you were a child and are still with you now. Name at least one book that you read as a child (ie 11 or under) that still exists in your memory as a perfect story. You can say why if you wish, or simply give a list -- your choice. It can be a story that you are now uncomfortable about having loved or were uncomfortable at some point and have now come back to or alternatively just one that you have always loved. Here is my list: 1. A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. History fascinated me even as a child, as did the idea of stepping back in time. I’ve been hooked on timeslip romance ever since! 2. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. I could name just about every Alan Garner book for this list. I was totally hooked on his writing. The combination of adventure, magic and something just a little bit strange and spooky fascinated me. Plus the fact ...
Read more

Fans!

-
Image
This weekend I visited a fabulous little antiquarian bookshop, Evergreen Livres, in the historic market town of Stow on the Wold. It's the sort of bookshop I can easily go mad in and spend a fortune on out of print historical reference books. It has a great stock of unusual and reasonably priced books, the owners are very friendly and they have a cute dog - all recommendations as far as I'm concerned. One of the books I picked up was about fans. I have been aware of the language of fans for a while, although I knew nothing about what the different signals meant. Now I can see how you could build an entire story around this clever and complicated art. Some of my favourite gestures/ messages are: Placing the fan on the left ear - I wish to get rid of you. Drawing the fan across the forehead - You have changed. Covering the left ear with the open fan - Do not betray our secret I can see a couple of difficulties here, not least that some of these gestures seem quite odd and might ...
Read more

A Brief and Selective History of Swimming!

-
Image
I've taken a longer-than-expected break from the blog over the past couple of weeks due to a terminally stubborn set of book revisions that simply refused to work. I knew there were problems with the manuscript and, hard as I worked to fix them, my writer's intinct told me that there was still something wrong even when I had finished draft 2. I tinkered, I re-wrote, I changed one thing which led to another which brought the whole thing down like a pack of cards. I had a fabulously helpful set of revision notes from my editor but still I could not do it. I cried. I comfort ate. I didn't sleep. Now I have draft 3, a sleep deficit, and no idea whether the book is any good since my judgement is shot to pieces. I love being a writer. Anyway, now I've emerged into the daylight I see it is a beautiful hot sunny day so to get back into the blogging I decided to post a piece about aspects of the history of swimming, some of which is taken from an article I read in the Daily Tel...
Read more