Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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Notice anything different around here?

Why, yes, my site has had a redesign. Isn’t it gorgeous? The fabulous Stephanie Leary has remade it so that it all fits neatly in WordPress.1

My request for the redesign was pretty simple:

  • Make it look as much like the existing blog as possible. Only, you know, better.
  • Keep it clean and simple and easily navigable.
  • Set it up so I don’t have to turn to a designer every time I have a new book to add.

Stephanie succeeded on all fronts. I love it. SO MUCH.

Not only is it beautiful but there’s loads more stuff such as:

The musings, which were my pre-blog blog, have been added to the Archives so they’re much easier to access than previously. They stretch back to 2002. Some of them are quite revealing and some embarrassing. A few I’m very proud of.

I was sad to leave my old site behind. It was a gorgeous design and I’ll miss it, which is why I have this page to commemorate the old site and thank its designer, Deb Biancotti, for all her work.

Please have a bit of an explore. Let me know what you think and report any typos, broken links, weirdnesses that you find. I wants it to be perfect, I does!

Here’s hoping you like the new look as much as I do.

  1. I never have to deal with Dreamweaver again! My happiness is huge. [↩]
  2. Yes, all my novels come with glossaries. [↩]
  3. It’s better than a DVD! [↩]

Posted by Justine at 20:50, 23 July 2008 under Admin, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy, Writing goals & milestones | 25 Comments »

Comments

  1. Patrick Says:

    I AM FIRST TO COMMENT ON NEW BLOG!

    July 23rd, 2008 at 9:04 PM

  2. John Scalzi Says:

    (rolls eyes at Patrick)

    It looks very pretty, Justine. Enjoy!

    July 23rd, 2008 at 9:05 PM

  3. Patrick Says:

    Scalzi’s just jealous because I WON!!!

    July 23rd, 2008 at 9:12 PM

  4. PixelFish Says:

    Snazzy. I like the swirly watermarked letters.

    July 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 PM

  5. Nadai Says:

    I love the background and the colors.

    A couple of weirdnesses, though – for some reason, the scroll wheel on my mouse doesn’t work here, though it does on every other website I tested it on. And when I filled in my name and email, and now typing this comment, there’s no indication on the screen of where the cursor is. I pick the appropriate box and typing in it works, but I can’t tell I’m in the right place until the letters start appearing, if that makes any sense. I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.16, not IE, but I didn’t have either problem on your site before. It’s certainly nothing major, but it’s odd.

    July 23rd, 2008 at 10:10 PM

  6. Stephanie Says:

    Nadai, I’ll check that out. Thanks for mentioning it!

    July 23rd, 2008 at 10:13 PM

  7. cuileann Says:

    Ooh! Very lovely!

    I will now scurry off to the HTDYF section.

    July 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 PM

  8. Liset Says:

    aw I LOVE your new design!
    Most excellent!
    ^-^

    BUT…!
    I found a mistake (in something old I think)…
    In Making Magic you wrote:

    “We gave each other all sorts of brilliant ideas that improved both Midnighters Two: Touching Evil and Magic or Madness out of sight (for instance, the snow fight was Scott’s idea).”

    Isn’t Midnighters Two called Touching Darkness,
    not Touching Evil?

    So do I win a prize?
    Tehe

    July 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 PM

  9. Julia Rios Says:

    Wow, this looks fantastic! It really takes the best elements of the old design and makes them even better.

    July 24th, 2008 at 12:04 AM

  10. 10. Justine Says:

    Congratulations, Patrick, you are clearly blessed forever now.

    Thanks everyone. So pleased you likes it!

    Liset: Good catch. Fixed.

    July 24th, 2008 at 12:11 AM

  11. rebecca Says:

    beautiful! i love it. :) i’ma go stay up all night reading all the new stuff! :D

    July 24th, 2008 at 12:58 AM

  12. lotti Says:

    very nice – It’s all modern-y

    July 24th, 2008 at 1:03 AM

  13. sabrina Says:

    Lovely design. The word that comes to mind is “crisp.” And I wouldn’t even have known you re-designed if not for the post, since I read almost everything on my RSS feed. Cannot WAIT to read How to Ditch Your Fairy. :)

    July 24th, 2008 at 9:02 AM

  14. Carrie R. Says:

    I love it! Totally full of awesome and win!!

    July 24th, 2008 at 9:55 AM

  15. Josie Bloss Says:

    Your site is lovely! Very clean and easy to navigate…great design!

    July 24th, 2008 at 11:15 AM

  16. Stephanie Says:

    Firefox people with missing cursors: do you have your cursor back now? I’m using FF but I can see my cursor, so this is tricky to fix.

    July 24th, 2008 at 2:23 PM

  17. Haddy-la Says:

    the new site is made of awsome but…

    when you click on the footnote numbers it brings up a different page of the thing. On the old one it just brought down the page. It dosent matter that much but its kind of anoying.

    July 24th, 2008 at 5:28 PM

  18. Nadai Says:

    Firefox people with missing cursors: do you have your cursor back now? I’m using FF but I can see my cursor, so this is tricky to fix.

    Stephanie, I don’t have a cursor yet. I *am* getting the scroll wheel to work intermittently now, though – it works when I first call up the page, but as soon as I stop scrolling, it quits for good. Maybe it’s just my computer being wonky.

    July 24th, 2008 at 8:24 PM

  19. Nadai Says:

    On the plus side, I’m *not* having the problem Haddy-la (#17) is with the footnotes. :)

    July 24th, 2008 at 8:25 PM

  20. marrije Says:

    it looks just lovely!

    small kvetch: i don’t get a mouseover on the ‘submit comment’ and the ‘subscribe’ button, and my cursor doesn’t turn into a little hand either, so i miss a tiny bit of feedback there. also, the buttons are in a boring old serif font (is that times or something?), while the rest is all lovely and crisp.

    i’m on firefox 3.0.1

    July 25th, 2008 at 1:42 AM

  21. Ariel Zeitlin Cooke Says:

    Justine,
    Guess what? I just got a job at the Newark Pub Library and I am feverishly spending my book budget before they take it away from me. And I get to buy your books! Hurray, power at last! Ariel

    July 25th, 2008 at 4:19 PM

  22. Little Willow Says:

    Very pretty, Justine.

    I definitely have a cat fairy.

    July 26th, 2008 at 11:39 AM

  23. marrije Says:

    follow-up comment from work, where i have firefox 2.0.0.16 (crazy firefox version numbering), and where indeed i do *not* have a cursor in the comments field. most odd.

    i’d ask my resident css-guy what might be causing this, but then he’d find out that i am not working when i should be finishing something important, and that would not be good.

    July 29th, 2008 at 3:17 AM

  24. Stephanie Says:

    Oh, I’ve found the cause: it’s a bug in Firefox. (So unusual! IE is generally the one with the bugs.) Fixing it is another story; it’s very badly documented.

    July 29th, 2008 at 10:21 AM

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