What's happening behind the scenes to bring new GHAWG content? The GHAWG Diaries is my recap of what I've been doing.
Cover image designed by @magnacarta using emojis and Excel 2007 for text. Minor edits made using MS Paint.
Introduction
There's more to #GHAWG than just daily zapfic entries and the spreadsheet I use to track them. There's research. There's review. There's also thought and inspiration. Then there are the tools involved in doing any of those tasks.
Just to keep things from getting scrambled in my head, and also to document for myself what I've been considering, I began keeping a diary of my activities as they concern #GHAWG. With posts in the GHAWG, Uninterrupted series on hold at Interlude 3 while Act 7 remains in progress, I decided to share these diary entries with everyone on Hive blockchain.
On Mondays which don't feature a GHAWG, Uninterrupted post-- GHAWG-U-- I'll post diary entries from the previous 7 days or between GHAWG-U posts if the time between them is short. For Part 45, there are 7 days' worth of diary entries. The first entry starts on 2024-September-09.
Before anyone scratches their heads at a few terms, here are 3 I began using many posts ago:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
Rate Bike | Code name for #GHAWG (the first and current zapfic serial) |
Blue Lion | Code name for the middle zapfic serial in the GHAWG Universe |
The Bronze | Code name for the final zapfic serial in the GHAWG Universe |
Monday, 2024-September-09
📓 The focus today is on getting TGD44 published. The content is almost set; all that remains are backlinks and the cover image. I also need to review the spreadsheet to see where I can make improvements in functionality. At this time, the GHAWG timeline is still at 2028-October-05; since I ran into the block of zapfic entries meant to fill gaps and to effectively redo the New Mexico portion of the Old Route 66 storyline, this will take me a while.
Tuesday, 2024-September-10
📓 Between an earlier than expected appointment (plus the siesta after returning home) and the highly anticipated presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, I had little time for GHAWG aside from getting the daily zapfic entry published. I was expecting a decisive outcome from that debate (one way or the other). Instead, it turned out to be less than what I was expecting. Had the debate been substantive and probing-- or, at worst, a major spectacle or even a total train wreck-- I wouldn't have minded skipping GHAWG for the day. With how that debate turned out, now I feel bad for not working on GHAWG during the free time I had. It turns out that, regardless of political persuasion, many people were disappointed by that debate. Now that it's out of the way, I should have more time for GHAWG-related activity.
Wednesday, 2024-September-11
📓 There's a scene I'm thinking about for near the end of Rate Bike, after David and Rhonda Bella Guardia reach Davenport. It involves a discrepancy in how they formally met each other at the bar in Davenport, Iowa, US. Essentially, David thought he went into one bar when Rhonda clarifies for him that it was at a different bar where she found him. He finds himself confused, then he understands why people reacted to him as they had. However this scene ends up at the time the zapfic entries are published at [LeoThreads](https://inleo.io/threads/latest), I think it would be one of the more humorous scenes both because of what it's about and because of what know about the characters up to that point. This scene isn't fleshed out in my mind, but the essentials are in place.
Thursday, 2024-September-12
📓 I'm almost done defining the GHAWG timeline on my spreadsheet. It took me a while to slot 65 zapfic "gap" entries where they needed to be. At some point I need to resequence the zapfic entries in the spreadsheet; it will not be any time soon, of that much I'm certain. Once the GHAWG timeline is done I can go back to adding entries to the zapfic queue.
Friday, 2024-September-13
📓 After a few false starts, I finally completed the GHAWG timeline. At the moment, it is at 2028-October-11. What does this mean?
- David Guardia has been on the road (including multi-day layovers and {his hospital stay}) for 91 days since he departed his native Bayonne, New Jersey, US;
- In GHAWG time, David and Rhonda Bella met formally in Davenport 69 days earlier;
- David arrived in STURGIS 65 GHAWG days ago;
- Our Heroes, the combined group of the "present" day Felix Legion with The Mongols led by The Mongols, reached Seattle, Washington, US 46 GHAWG days earlier;
- Our Heroes reached Portland, Oregon, US and picked up Lindsay Etxeberria 44 GHAWG days earlier;
- 31 GHAWG days earlier:
- Our Heroes brought Lindsay to Riverside, California, US;
- Harry Hoqualogue decided to be born again; and
- David and Rhonda married each other in an impromptu ceremony;
- Our Heroes arrived in San Diego, California, US 30 GHAWG days earlier;
- The group which would later become known as Felix Legion began the ride along Old Route 66 19 GHAWG days earlier.
Other things have taken place during those 91 days, but these stood out to me in terms of the stages of The Epic Ride of Templar (David's alternate identity and Felix Legion moniker). Going forward, it will be easier for me to track GHAWG time. I'm expecting the soon-to-diminish Felix Legion to be on the road another 45 GHAWG days when The Newlyweds, David and Rhonda, conclude the ride in Davenport.
Saturday, 2024-September-14
📓 Today I worked on the Weekly Summary to get it published later in the day. Due to a change in format-- from enclosing each entry-comment pair in a 2-cell table to separating entry and comment with an embedded thread (or at least a link to it)-- it took me longer than usual to get this post ready for Prime Time. It turns out that hyperlinks generated via Markdown won't render properly when they are enclosed within a block of text enclosed by HTML `
` elements. It doesn't make sense to me why this behavior takes place, yet it's what I have to deal with. Once I realized what was happening, I manually replaced Markdown hyperlinks with HTML hyperlinks. This is yet another reminder: HTML will always work regardless of blogging platform. Given the numerous flavors of Markdown, it's hit-or-miss as to whether some front-end will render it as expected or not. When in doubt, use HTML.
Sunday, 2024-September-15
(This entry is a continuation of yesterday's entry, but the content is exclusively for today.)
📓 The spreadsheet formula I use to build the content used for each Weekly Summary entry needed to be modified to handle the new post format I started using this month. Without getting detailed, this is a satellite view of what I did.
Despite looking hideously long and vomit-inducing, the formula itself is actually simple. The formula (before and after modification) is a series of smaller formulas joined together by the concatenation operator: the ampersand character (&). The smaller formulas alternate between fixed text (either literal text or generated text) and variable content (such as hyperlinks and actual zapfic entries).
My concern was the embedded thread, which is entered into the Weekly Summary as a hyperlink. The path used for each zapfic entry uses one directory path, while the embedded thread link uses another directory path. Once I located the smaller piece which handles the embedded thread,I replaced the static value (an absolute cell reference by itself) with a REPLACE() function which returns the proper directory path for the embedded thread.
📓 Related to the above, I added HTML hyperlinks to the textfile I use containing the Markdown hyperlinks I had been using for commonly used backlinks I add to GHAWG-related posts. The HTML hyperlinks will be used when I find myself using HTML paragraph elements. The Markdown hyperlinks will remain in case I prepare posts using mostly Markdown.
When (and Where) To Catch #GHAWG
When
This is the normal schedule for the posting of content for #GHAWG:
● Daily -- Each zapfic entry is posted shortly after midnight, from New York
● Weekends -- Weekly Summaries (with modified screen capture from LeoThreads as cover image) are usually on Saturday, sometimes Sunday
● Monday -- Either GHAWG, Uninterrupted if present, or The GHAWG Diaries
● Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday -- GHAWG Behind the Scenes -- The goal is to publish these posts on all days not dedicated to the Weekly Sumamry, GHAWH-U, or The GHAWG Diaries (TGD). There may be days with no post, so I'll minimize those occasions as best as I can.
Where
● Daily zapfic entries drop at LeoThreads, usually posted shortly after midnight from New York (sometimes around noon)
● All long form posts-- Weekly Summaries, GHAWG-U, and TGD-- can be accessed using the #GHAWGnav sticky post or from my InLeo profile page
That's it for this edition of The GHAWG Diaries. I'm 
[!!]
Thanks for your time. Give the post an upvote or a reblog if you liked it. Feedback is welcome. Until next time!
[!!] -- Graphic signature was designed by @ahmadmanga
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