April 2007

World in the Satin Bag

Stuffs For Us Writers (Part One)

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Decided to have a short post of nifty sites, programs, and the like that I have discovered that could come to great use for some of you guys out there. FreemindI’ve already mentioned this program, but it is worth mentioning again. Freemind is a mindmapping program. Here’s a picture of one of my mindmaps for a military scifi idea I have–updated from the last one I had shown. (click the image to see larger version) StickItThis program I randomly discovered has become one of my favorite little tools. This program allows you to put little post it notes on your desktop. Perfect for keeping track of all the writing stuff I have to do. I love it. It also apparently has a feature where you can send notes to other users provided they are added to your friends list. I haven’t used it yet, but sounds like a cool idea to me.Here is a pic of my desktop with StickIt running. (Click for larger image) WordWebWhat better a program to have than a portable dictionary on your desktop? Wordweb is an awesome software program that comes in a free version and a pro version ($29). It’s a great program to have on your desktop while writing. With a click on the icon in your taskbar you can start searching for a word right away. What about stationary?Well, what about it? Are you craving strong little journals and notebooks that can withstand a nuclear explosion and still won’t let your ink or pencil smear? Then you should probably be looking into Moleskine’s. A little pricey, but when you think about it, it’s not a bad deal at all in comparison to the competition. Moleskine notebooks come with acid free pages, a hard cover, threaded binding, a nifty place keeper, an back cover inside pocket for keeping stuff in, and a lovely elastic band for keeping it closed. You can get lined, blank, or even squared pages. There are many sizes and styles too. Check them out. Large: $14.95 Small: $9.95Now, if you are wanting to go for a cheaper notebook, you can try the ru Journal from Xonex. Now, these are blank paged pocket journals in the same fashion as the Moleskine, only a little flashier and without the legendary reputation. $5.00Now, I wouldn’t recommend anyone go this direction unless they intend to make good use of it. If you aren’t very serious about your writing, don’t bother forking out the money for any of these items. It falls upon the dilemma of placing value on the item rather than on the writing and really if you aren’t serious you might as well be spending $0.25 on a regular every day notebook than one of these.But if you are serious, I can definitely recommend the Moleskine as a good start. I’ve enjoyed mine thoroughly thus far. Critique CircleI’ve mentioned this lovely place before, but I have to bring it up again. This is one of the best places to go for online critiquing. It’s completely free, but there is a pro account that offers a few more features that in all honesty most of us will never use unless we are in desperate need for an organized system for personal critique groups (something I brought up before as an idea). Check it out! The Gender GenieThis site has been passed around quite a bit I think, but I find it rather interesting to allow this little web app to attempt to figure out whether you are male or female based on a sample of your writing. Go on, give it a try. Take a short story or chapter from your WIP and throw it in. According to the site (using Ch. 14 as an example) it says that I am male by a margin of almost 1,000 points (which isn’t saying much really). The Official Seal GeneratorThis has absolutely nothing to do with writing, but I couldn’t help but put it in. It’s such a nifty idea. This site allows you to create a little seal with a whole slue of options. I made a couple below. Go ahead, put them on your website. It’s not my attempt at shameless promotion…not at all. Honest. Okay, it is, but I think it’s completely adorable how you can create these little things. Go on, put it on your site, wrap some HTML tags back here on them, and there you go. Or just look at them and say they are pretty. Enjoy!

World in the Satin Bag

Chapter Fifteen: To Ti’nagal

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(Note:  This is not official version and may be removed in the near future.  This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter.  I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that.  This novel has since been rewritten.) Hours passed and the morning slid away into afternoon. The sun rose high in the sky casting short shadows along the mountain face. James slung his freshly washed pack and all his other items over his shoulder. His sword was tied snugly to his pack and he looked longingly at the wall of trees ahead. Ti’nagal lay far below the mountain, to the east. He wished he could see it from where he stood. He knew the risk of going there. If Luthien is there, he thought. James had not quite gotten over the horrible battle, and he knew that it would take far more time than a few hours, and more than a warm and soothing bath, to clear his mind of all the horrors and fear than blew through him like a torrent of wind. Yet he refused to see his reaction as abnormal. He had seen far too much death in the last couple of days to believe that he was weak. I’m only twelve. Pea and Darl stood by, looking to where the mountainside declined to the east. “We should be able to reach Ti’nagal tomorrow evening,” Darl said, running his hands through his beard. “You are welcome to join us.” Indicating the Lean. “I have nothing left in this sacred place. And I would not wish to remain here knowing that my guard has fallen and the place I was bound to look after has become a corrupted bough of carnage.” The Lean shifted as if wind passed through him. “Very well.” Then Darl started off into the trees. Pea and James followed and the Lean simply glided through the shadows, appearing here, disappearing there, and reappearing again. This time there was no path to follow. Darl had to push his way through the brush and bushes, trampling anything else that got in his way. Birds chirped in protest; squirrels and other small animals scurried away as their hiding places were crushed to the ground. James didn’t like it, destroying things along the way, but he realized that there was no other way through the woods that would lead to Ti’nagal. The woods, however, did not last long. Soon the trees and brush broke away to expose a mishmash of rock—boulders dozens of times larger than James, cliffs that fell to regions unknown, and farther below a massive chasm that divided the mountain into two pieces. Beyond he could see a short field that stopped abruptly as an immense tree line formed—the Forest of Gall. Ti’nagal lay some distance away where the mountains blocked his vision. He knew there were rivers there too, many that Luthien would be forced to cross to take the city. James had not read about Ti’nagal in the etiquette book, but he got the impression that it was not a large city—not like Arlin City. We can’t stay there long. Luthien will destroy that place too. How much of his army survived the battle in Arlin City? How many will survive Afeir? There were other places in the valley too, he remembered. Nirlum sat not too far from Arlin City, and there were villages throughout the entire valley. Those villages would be burnt to the ground in minutes. He shivered the thoughts away. He couldn’t think about it anymore. Darl guided them down the hill at a fast pace. James slipped and fell several times; Pea luckily had the strong hands of someone far bigger than him—namely James—to catch him in his moments of inelegance. The Lean had the easiest journey of them all seeing how he could neither be affected by the physical world, nor could he affect it. He simply glided along, occasionally passed in and out of shadow, and seemed otherwise unhindered by the foreboding journey. High noon passed and the sun rested above the point of the mountain behind them. Darl paused every so often for no more than a few minutes. James, though despising the journey and wanting to collapse and take a breather every moment, refused to stop for too long. Ti’nagal would not be visible for hours and he didn’t want to get lost in the dark trying to find it. Hours glided by as if they were minutes. Darl avoided the crack down the middle of the mountain, instead cutting across the mountain face to the eastern side. The occasional sprout of trees forced them to take a longer route, but slowly, and surely, they reached the bottom of the mountain into grassland. Far off was the Forest of Gall and James came to realize just has massive it truly was. The trees were tall, larger than the redwoods back home he had become familiar with. They were so tall that their twisted limbs and branches made them look almost as if they were living beings. He imagined them with faces just as twisted. Darl allowed them to rest for a moment and James, though anxious to get on with the journey, gratefully took the opportunity to site down. Darl passed the pouch of water around and everyone but the Lean took their fill. James felt stronger now, more so than when he had first come to the Farthland. Something had happened to him, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Perhaps it had to do with his mentality on the whole situation. Regardless, he began to sense that his endurance had increased and it couldn’t have been entirely from all the physical strain he had been forced to deal with. “We need to move soon,” Darl said. “Ti’nagal could easily be a day and a half journey from here.” The Lean appeared next to James. James flinched,

World in the Satin Bag

Maps!

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I present to everyone who wishes to see the maps of Traea. First is my original hand drawn map. It’s a little difficult to see, but good nonetheless.Next is the final version done by a lovely professional cartographer by the name of Steff WorthingtonHope you all enjoy the image. Click it to see the full version of it of course! Let me know what you all think! Note on all these maps. Clicking them will take you to a larger image. You can then expand those images. In Firefox it should show as a magnifying glass with a + in it when you put the cursor of the image. Just click and it will expand.

World in the Satin Bag

Subplots: How Much Is Too Much?

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It has occurred to me as I attempt to catch up on the novel posting that something I should discuss is subplots. I have been lax on the whole writing thing, and that is partly my fault and partly the fault of fate, which will be in another discussion of course. As for subplots, I find that sometimes I start adding in so many of them that it gets to the point where I have to ask myself “how much is too much?” At this point it is literally impossible for me to, in a decent enough fashion, end WISB in one novel. I could end it, but it would mean the novel itself would be of a caliber I wouldn’t be proud of and I don’t think my readers, as few as they are, would be all that interested in a terribly shortwinded attempt to tie up all the loose ends. As such, we’ll just have to carry those over into a second book and see what happens from there.Do any of you find the same problem with your subplots? I have quite a few going in WISB. Thus far the main plot is James trying to save Laura and get home. There are just too many subplots to name, and most of them are in the form of questions as I haven’t fleshed out enough of the ideas to adequately give an idea of the direction they are going.

World in the Satin Bag

I Must Apologize…

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I am not going to be able to get the chapter up this weekend. I’m trying, but the following is the cause of my inability to write:Yesterday was actually a good day. I drove down with my friend to UCSC to visit the campus. I’ve decided I want to go there. We went, we came back, all was well. The lady at my work had a pair of geckos she wanted me to take from her stepson, so when we got to her house on the way home I went to go get them. One of the geckos had died, so they had buried him, and the second one which they had said was just “a little thin” turned out to be far worse. This is what is causing me grief and preventing me from finishing the chapter (I have 8 pages written…but it’s not enough).This animal is in the worst condition I have ever seen one in. I own 11 of this specific breed (Leopard Gecko) and have had my fair share of issues, but nothing like this, and in fact I would never let it get like this. This is unacceptable in my opinion. The animal has a disease called “Metabolic Bone Disease”, which basically caused deformities in its bones. It also has a lot of other issues which I can’t name, and who knows if it has parasites. Its legs are the shape of U’s. He can walk on them, but barely. His jaw and face are deformed because of a lack of calcium and MBD. He has saggy skin and his tail is just skin and bones. Here is an example, but not nearly as bad as this little fella is, of what a healthy leo should look like, and an unhealthy one:You can obviously guess what a healthy one looks like. The unhealthy one in the picture has MBD. You can see the deformities.The leo I took has swollen shut eyes, one of which it managed to open and looks to have some sort of terrible eye infection. I’m surprised the poor thing can even lift its head.This is what has caused me so much grief in the last 12 hours. I am in a horrible position right now. This animal is suffering. I should put it to sleep. There is a very very very very very x infinity, remote chance this animal could survive, but most doors are looking towards death. I am sick to my stomach thinking about this because I hate the thought of putting animals to sleep. And EVEN MORE SICK to think that this animal shouldn’t have to be because if it had been cared for appropriately, taken to the vet MONTHS–yes months, not days, weeks, but MONTHS–ago it would likely have lived a very healthy life. It’s tearing me up inside because I cannot stand the thought of putting animals to sleep. It hurts so much. I’ve had to do it once and it killed me, but in that instance it wasn’t from neglect. The animal was attacked and I had no choice. This animal was neglected! It was left like this for months to suffer and get in this condition.So I apologize everyone. I will do everything I can to get two chapters up next weekend, or try to get this chapter up in the middle of the week.…

Book Reviews, World in the Satin Bag

Book Review: The Elder Gods by David & Leigh Eddings

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David Eddings has earned himself a very strong reputation as a great fantasy writer. I am familiar with his earlier work simply because I have heard of it, but have not had the opportunity to read it. I imagine, though, that for those that are a fan of his work, this particular novel will read as less than amazing.The four god siblings–Zelana, Veltan, Dahlaine, and Aracia–are on their way to going back to ‘sleep’ so that their counterparts can return to run the world for a while. But things have gone haywire when a long told event begins to take place. That-Called-the-Vlagh has begun assembling its armies and now wishes to control the world. But That-Called-the-Vlagh has begun in Zelana’s domain first, where her people are nothing more than Native American-esque people who possess no technology whatsoever. Zelena finds she must convince her siblings and the people of their domains to help aid in the oncoming war.(That is a severely diluted synopsis…quite frankly there is way too much going on for me to post an accurate synopsis without giving everything away).The Elder Gods is not necessarily a terrible novel, but it is a severely lacking novel. The story begins much like a mythological tale would, which essentially is information the reader doesn’t necessarily need at first. We generally can grasp the concept of multiple gods without need of explanation, and again we don’t need an explanation of who the bad guys are from the start. Such information should be learned by the main characters.The characters in this novel are varied. Some of the best characters should have remained the main human characters, but unfortunately Eddings goes off on some characters that really aren’t all that important at all. Characters of note are: Captain Sorgan Hook-beak, Longbow, and Rabbit. There are secondary characters I liked too–Eleria especially. Now, Eddings runs into a problem I’ve mentioned before in reference to other books: he has way too many character viewpoints going on. Three would have sufficed, but Eddings switching POV not only in the beginning half, but in the second half as well. There is no clearly defined main character. Zelena, who starts as the main character, suddenly falls off into no-man’s land and doesn’t even get the benefit of being important towards the end of the book. Hook-beak, who should have had a greater presence, has the same issue towards the end as well. Rabbit, who we know about for a while and suddenly are thrown into his head, gains a presence half way through the book rather than having one earlier. I liked Rabbit, but the problem was that he wasn’t really introduced until Longbow speaks to him. This POV jumping and what not really hurts the pace of the novel.Another issue was that Eddings constantly has characters retell the same information to other characters. Rather than just saying “He told Hook-beak what Eleria had mentioned to him” or something of that nature, he goes on for huge paragraphs having the characters tell the information. This happens over and over until the last 30 pages when characters stop doing that and he simply does what I mentioned in the quotes. Why all of a sudden? I don’t get it. But it wastes valuable time and space to have the characters do this over and over.One thing I did notice about this book is that it is written almost as if it were intended for a younger audience. The language indicates this very much. That isn’t a bad thing, but it does play out in how the individual characters speak, which comes off as somewhat unbelievable. Characters with huge reputations likely would not speak like 10 year olds.Last of my issues was with the battles. I’m going to spoil this for everyone because I want to. Towards the end all these people from other continents have been paid to come out and fight the battle. Nothing bad happens to the army as it travels across a wide ocean. Then again, when they begin to fight the enemy, which is supposed to be somewhat of a hive mind, first a massive flood takes place that kills the first wave. Then a volcano explodes and kills the rest of the Vlagh army. Very few good guys actually die, which is disturbing because Eddings tries to make it seem like the Vlagh is actually rather sneaky, which would make for a rather prolonged and arduous battle. Needless to say, EVERYTHING GOES RIGHT FOR THE GOOD GUYS. Where’s the conflict? Shouldn’t something go wrong? Shouldn’t something be hard? Now, I’ve rambled on and on about this book. I personally would not recommend this to anyone unless you are a die hard Eddings fan. It is probably not even close to his best work. So, read at your own risk.

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