The Pygmalion Syndrome: What’s New in 2006?

NOVEMBER 2006

23 NOVEMBER: LIVING DOLL HOUSE: I’ve finally found and re-inserted the header image for the Salon des Living Dolls page. About the only thing that’d missing now is the original Blade Runner still, but everything else is more or less as it originally appeared.

22 NOVEMBER: NEW MALE STORY: Ketrin Part Seven. After another unconscionable 18-month gap comes (sic) the latest thrilling instalment in the Ketrin saga, bringing the total to something like 73,000 words. I’ve also altered the background colour of the Ketrin pages, just to give them a slightly more jungley feel.

3 NOVEMBER: SITE NEWS: Made some revisions to the Portal design to try and reduce clutter. In the process I’ve removed a few link buttons. I might replace them with text links, or not... I haven’t updated the Introduction page for ages, and the FAQ page is just gathering dust. I don’t think it would do the site any harm if I just retired them altogether. Stay tuned.

2 NOVEMBER: SITE NEWS: Dollstories.net has put a link to this site on its front page, and my stats have taken a big jump upward as a result. It remains to be seen whether the increase in traffic will be permanent, but I’m always grateful for a link. Thanks, guys.

OCTOBER 2006

22 OCTOBER: NEW MALE STORY: Sarmin’s Garden. Just a little something I put together while not getting around to writing Ketrin Part Seven.......

5 OCTOBER: SITE NEWS: Waaaah! My PageRank’s gone down from 4 to 3! Quick, hurry up and link to me so my score goes up again!!!

3 OCTOBER: ART GALLERY (male subjects): rearranged the haphazard collection of images on the Jean Antoine (Antonin) Marie Idrac page into a virtual walk around the statue, adding three images by Anonymous Benefactor.

SEPTEMBER 2006

30 SEPTEMBER: ART GALLERY (male subjects): Added a black and white photo to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux page - this image is a heavily cleaned-up version of a picture I found on the web.

23 SEPTEMBER: ART GALLERY (male subjects): Added three photos by Anonymous Benefactor to Antone-Denis Chaudet page and removed one crappy old picture.

22 SEPTEMBER: ART GALLERY (male subjects): Added two photos by Anonymous Benefactor and one from another source to François Rude page.

21 SEPTEMBER: ART GALLERY (male subjects): An Anonymous Benefactor who does not wish to be named has very kindly sent me a bunch of photos, mainly of male statues from the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, which I’ll be incorporating into the relevant Art Gallery pages over the next few days, beginning with the Hippolyte Moulin page. When I update other pages I’ll let you know right here.

AUGUST 2006

29 AUGUST: NEW FEMALE STORY: Horny Goddess. Hopefully marking a return to productivity after a hot, dry summer.

28 AUGUST: ART GALLERY (male subjects): Added one new image to Frederick William Macmonnies page.

18 AUGUST: ART GALLERY (male subjects): Added one new image to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux page.

1 - 16 AUGUST: ART GALLERY (male subjects): Added some new images to Hippolyte Moulin page.

JULY 2006

JULY: As I mentioned on the portal page as well as on my blog, I had a bit of a nightmare trying to convince Fortunecity that I had actually paid for another year’s hosting - I felt like Michael Palin in Monty Python’s Argument Clinic Sketch. “Yes I did - and that was never five minutes just now!” My account was officially suspended for a while (though I was still able to post updates) and I was afraid I was going to lose it. Finally after what I thought was going to be another futile attempt, I finally persuaded their stupid software to accept my details and my account was officially reactivated, at which point I collapsed from nervous exhaustion.

That’s not the only reason for the lack of recent updates, although it was a contributing factor. Another was that I was actually doing some work. Not paid work, unfortunately, because it was for a family member, but nevertheless honest to goodness physical toil. At one point I was even mixing concrete, and I'm sure I got RSI in a couple of fingers from lifting that shovel. Well, it certainly wasn’t from writing stories, was it?

I do have some stories in the pipeline - not the one BP America was forced to close, you’ll be pleased to hear - and I’ll try and find time amidst all my other distractions to finish the damn things. Thank you for your time, unless of course you didn’t bother to read all this, in which case: typical....

MAY 2006

7 MAY: NEW MALE STORY: Still On Display. After a mere 7 years, here’s a sequel to one of my earliest male stories, featuring both robotic and statuephile material.

APRIL 2006

27 APRIL: SITE INFORMATION: I’m now hosting the All Under Control and ASFR Collections sites, by permission of their original webmaster EHY (aka Aden).

The ASFR Collections consists of lists of contributors’ favourite ASFR and related stories. If anyone wants to add their own, take a look at the site’s guidelines for information on submissions.

Contrary to what you might think, I’m not looking to re-host every deleted ASFR site I can get my mitts on, although I am keeping a beady eye on one or two other sites that haven’t updated for a while.

21 APRIL: Happy Birthday, Yer Maj, and also to William Shakespeare who’ll be celebrating his 442nd birthday on April 23rd.

As part of this site’s ongoing policy of improvement, renovation and what-the-hell’s-he-playing-at-now, all of the red lettering on the site that then turned green, has now turned maroon. And what a maroon! This is my attempt at a compromise between having the text stand out and having it cause eyestrain. Comments?

16 APRIL: NEW MALE STORY: Trophy. A few weeks ago Brian 56321 e-mailed me, pointing out that I hadn’t posted any new male stories since The Plain of Ice back in August 2005. This is an attempt to redress the balance a bit. In the same vein, I’ve decided that the next couple of stories to be given completion priority will also be male. I’m afraid that means fans of girly action will just have to be patient for a little while.

4 APRIL: SITE INFORMATION: Following some discussion of my site design over at the Naga’s Den Forum I’ve decided upon a few changes. You’ll notice that all of the red lettering on the site has now turned green (thanks to CSS that was easy to accomplish - if I’d still been using vanilla HTML it would have taken forever), and the page background images have now been replaced by pale blue. The change from red lettering to green will at least in theory make the site easier on the eyes, removing the background images (not without a certain amount of reluctance on my part) will improve readability, while the pale blue background is less contrasty than white and potentially soothing to the eye as well. Now tell me what you think of it.

MARCH 2006

28 MARCH: SITE INFORMATION: New Portal design. Well, actually it’s a modification of an earlier design, which I thought would reduce the clutter and make the site easier to navigate. I realise that this has, among other things, removed the links to the earlier page designs themselves, as well as the Logomania and Chronological Story List pages. I hope to find a space for these links and the other miscellaneous front page material shortly, but for the moment the Portal contains all of the links to the important bits of the site, laid out in what I hope is a neat and convenient format. As always, comments are welcome.

ART GALLERY: Added new image link (warning: 769k jpeg) to Benvenuto Cellini page.

OLD 6 MARCH: SITE INFORMATION: Replaced the trashy old Links logo with something a bit neater-looking. Further graphic tweaks will probably follow as and when I feel like it.
NEW

FEBRUARY 2006

24 FEBRUARY: SITE INFORMATION: This site’s Google PageRank has hit 4/10 for the first time ever. Whoohoo! This is probably due to the recently added links to this site from Other Worlds: Doll Stories and Rent-A-Dude, so huge thanks to Gromet and Brian.

Page Rank 4/10

19 FEBRUARY: NEW FEMALE STORY: The Fountain. This is my second new story in two months, marking something of a return to productivity for me. Send me your happy thoughts and I may just finish a story every month!

JANUARY 2006

11 JANUARY: NEW FEMALE STORY: Chola and Seki Parts One and Two. I actually completed the first part last May and posted in the Pygmalion Group’s Files section, but I didn’t feel it was worth posting here or on other fiction sites before I’d completed Part Two.

1 JANUARY: GENERAL: Happy New Year, world. Here we go again with another annual What’s New page. Can’t you feel the excitement? Nah, me neither.

Last year I set myself the goal of writing 6 new stories. I actually managed 5, which ain’t bad, but I’m determined to increase my productivity this year. I’m hoping to write at least EIGHT NEW STORIES this year. Join me in 12 months’ time and we see if I managed it.

DECEMBER 2005

21-26 DECEMBER: SITE INFORMATION: I AM NOW HOSTING THE LIVING DOLL HOUSE site following its deletion by Geocities. Fortunately I had cached all of the surviving pages, although there were some files missing. With the help of the Wayback Machine I was able to retrieve most of the remaining files. I also found a couple of items from earlier versions of the site that I felt were worth restoring. A few files remain elusive, although apart from one missing page header they’re not really crucial and I have been able to make substitutions in a couple of instances.

The ones I’m still looking for are:
ldhead2.gif
sharon.gif
eicke.jpg
prishide.jpg
~~elena01.rm~~ [Update: file now found.]
If anyone's got them, I’d be grateful if they’d send them to me. Please include a relevant Subject line to avoid being shunted into the Junk Mail folder.

8 DECEMBER:NEW ART GALLERY PAGE (male sculpture): Cellini’s Perseus.

1 DECEMBER: SITE INFORMATION: New Pygmalion Syndrome logos using Agenda font.

OCTOBER 2005

31 OCTOBER: NEW FEMALE STORY: Soulsnight. My first Halloween story, and to date the only story I’ve written to a deadline.

13 OCTOBER: ART GALLERY: Added new thumbnail and image link to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux page. Also updated source code to CSS and made some revisions to text and layout in the process.

SUMMARY of 2005
Full 2005 page

5 new stories (total 40).
DECEMBER: Began hosting Living Doll House legacy site.
Added first new Art Gallery page in a couple of years: Cellini’s Perseus.
JUNE: My first ever pieces of fan art by Brian56321, starting with this piece for Mist in Stone.
MAY: The site’s 5th Anniversary came. And went. Thanks a bunch, fans.
MARCH: Launched Blogmalion as a proper blog, although admittedly I haven’t been as active at updating it as I’d have liked. Also launched Pygmalion Group (ditto).

SUMMARY of 2004
Full 2004 page

8 new stories (total 35).
DECEMBER: Posted Cendriller, a mere 35 months after first announcing it.
JULY: Began converting entire site to CSS.
JUNE: Short-lived feature "Blogmalion", later relaunched as a proper blog.

SUMMARY of 2003
Full 2003 page

3 new stories (total 27) - not counting Avo & Ivo, which was incorporated into Ketrin Part Five.
JULY: Launched p-synd.com domain. The additional webspace allowed me to move the Art Gallery back onto main site.
MAY: Long-awaited appearance of Ketrin Part Four (only two years late!).
MARCH: Art Gallery running out of space.

SUMMARY of 2002
Full 2002 page

3 new stories (total 24).
SEPTEMBER: Added navigation buttons.
MAY: Joined The New ASFR Webring (now obsolete)
New article: The Library of Frozen Men.
JANUARY: Announced forthcoming story Cendriller. Unfortunately this took a little longer than expected to complete.

SUMMARY of 2001
Full 2001 page

7 new stories (total 21).
SEPTEMBER: 9/11 tribute.
AUGUST: Moved Art Gallery to new server (now obsolete).

SUMMARY of 2000
Full 2000 page

5 new stories (total 14).
DECEMBER: Separate Male and Female story indices.
NOVEMBER: Launched Geocities mirror site (now obsolete).
AUGUST: Began Ketrin series.
JUNE - JULY: Site began appearing on search engines.
MAY: Launched site with 9 stories.