Shaun Duke

Shaun Duke is an aspiring writer, a reviewer, and an academic. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric and Writing at Bemidji State University. He received his PhD in English from the University of Florida and studies science fiction, postcolonialism, digital fan cultures, and digital rhetoric.

World in the Satin Bag

The Good and the Bad of Attending Uni

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Well, this has been an interesting time these last few months. I’ve begun university level coursework at University of California, Santa Cruz, and it is proving to be a much different experience than I thought. There are things that really annoy me, misconceptions, etc. that I feel should be addressed for anyone out there thinking of attending a university level college. Misconceptions: Private schools make the claim that at public universities, like my school for example (and yes, there was actually a private school that specifically targeted my school for this), you will never be able to talk to the professors, your classes will be enormous and only be lectures, etc. This is really somewhat of a lie. I have only taken one course that had more than 80 people in it, and that was a class that EVERYONE has to take (no matter the major, it’s a requirement). It’s understandable that that course would be full. While the class was only lecture, with some time for discussion, the sections (discussion groups separate from class) were really smile. There were only 15 people in my section for that class. I spoke to my TA every section, directly, without having to beg for an appointment.Of my other courses, only one was over 30 students, most were under 25. The idea that you can’t approach professors is actually a lie. You can approach them and they encourage you to utilize their office hours, email them, set up other appointments, etc. I get the impression that really students don’t bug them enough for their liking. Remember, these people have valuable information. If you have questions, ask them. Professors love answering questions (well not all of them, but a lot do). They like to know you’re interested. You will read so much you’ll never have fun again (or at least until you graduate). This has more to do with managing your time than having lots of reading. Last quarter I had about 20 books to read, this quarter it is significantly less, but equally difficult. It’s actually not that hard to read all that, if you just sit down and do it. Public universities don’t help their students in a bind. That’s a lie too. While those lovely private schools might want you to think this, it’s really not very true. If you have a legit problem, there is usually some sort of help. Talk to your financial aid office. Often times they can work out deals with you, etc. Truths (the bad): University level work is expensive. Yes, it is. Not cheap. I get my fees, books, travel, and living expenses paid by tax payer’s dollars. I’m making good use of that money. I’m not failing my classes, I study, I’m working on going to graduate school, etc. I also paid into this for several years and I am grateful for people who do pay for my college. College is not cheap. Text books are disproportionately expensive. Another great truth. Text books are actually ridiculous, especially at university level. You buy these books for 20 or 30 bucks (we’re talking small novels here, not giant science texts) and then when you want to sell them back you can’t get much more than 1/10th of that. I list mine on Amazon, because I can get more money back for them. Another problem is that a lot of these books don’t get used again for a long time, which further reduces how much money you can get for them. Course Readers are stupid. Yes, they. Here’s why:When you buy them you can’t sell them back, even for a small chunk of change. You also can’t sell them online because they aren’t actual books, but groups of articles put together by the professor into a ringed binder. Alternately, that reader will likely never be used in the same way ever again or articles will be changed. That means, basically, you’ve just spend money on something that is useless to anyone else. They’re essentially a waste of money. University students bitch and complain about the stupidest crap ever. I’ve heard this one a lot: “I can’t get out of bed by 9:30 to get to class by 10:00. That’s too early.” Bull. You know what’s hard? Trying to get to campus by 7:45 when no buses run that early where you live. Yeah. They also complain about things like “Gosh, I have to read five pages tomorrow” or “I had four weeks to start my essay but now it’s due in two hours”. I’ve also heard other complaints that have little to do with school, and they are equally as stupid. Get over it. This is the easy life. Wait for the real world. I’ve been there. The “I can’t get up that early” excuse is a surefire way to get yourself canned. Learn discipline now while you still can. Yes, things can be stressful, but that’s no reason to bitch about stuff that, in all actuality, is trivial. You reading five pages is not remotely the same as someone losing their home, or being booted out on the streets, etc. Campus transit is somewhat difficult during the middle of the day. The problem is that university students are excessively lazy. Here’s an example: I’ve seen students take a bus that goes all over campus, only to get off two stops (about a quarter mile) later. Were they late for class? Nope. They were just meeting friends. Now the problem with the transits is that they are overcrowded during the day. Nobody walks. They all cram into the buses. This is stupid and counterproductive. Just walk. It’s good for you and you can walk just about anywhere on campus in twenty minutes. I know, I’ve done it. Some lack of diversity in coursework and difficulty in finding professors with similar interest. If you love science fiction, it’s rather difficult to learn more about it in an academic setting in most universities, including mine. Lack of discipline.

World in the Satin Bag

(Almost) Required Essentials For Writers

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These might seem like no-brainers, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t have or do something of these things. I’ve learned the hard way, which is probably not the best way. Regardless, there are things that writers really should have, whether it be a product or a feature turned on in a program, or whatever. So, the following list is a bunch of stuff you should be doing. Some of them do overlap, but they are options for you to think about: Extra ComputerIf you have two computers, keep a copy of all your writing on each one. This gives you that lovely buffer. MS Word Auto-saveTurn on your auto-save to every minute. For slower computers this can be a problem, but what happens when you’ve just written 500 words and your computer suddenly shuts off? Well, sometimes the recovery feature doesn’t get those words, and that auto-save won’t have them either because it wouldn’t have been on. I lost 350 words the other week. They were awesome words. I turned MS Word’s auto-save to one minute and haven’t lost anything since. A Flash Card/Stick/Disk/WhateverYou need one. Period. There is no argument here. Computers do break and explode. Get one. I got mine for $15 USD. That’s not that much money considering the time and the frustration you’ll save by having a little flash drive to stick your work on. They come in GB these days–1 GB to 4GB on average. If you’re not rich, get a 1 GB, or if you can find a smaller one look for a 256 MB. Even that little one would have problems holding all your writing.This is no joke. Trust me, I learned this the hard way by having my computer get killed by a virus due to XP having stupid problems with it (MsBlaster and Sasser). I almost lost everything. Use Google Docs, Personal FTP, etc.Google is awesome, if not a little insane. They have a great feature that allows you to keep spreadsheets and documents. It’s a great option if you have files you really want to save. If you don’t want it there, you can put up a password protected FTP, which is relatively simple to do, or use another online document service to keep files safe. This is great if you do your writing at work and would like to save it somewhere other than on the work computer or in an email. It’s great as a backup too. MS Word, Open Office, etc.Obvious right? It is. While MS Word isn’t the most perfect word processing program, it is probably the best. Its spell-check is decent, though not perfect, and its grammar aid can help you pick out the most noticeable of your issues (which saves you time). You can get great statistics about your writing, such a grade level, reading ease, etc.There are other programs too, though I’ve never used them. Regardless, if you use a computer it’s great to have a word processor. .txt is not a good format for writing, trust me. Electronic DictionaryIf you are like me and you travel and write or go in places where you can’t bring your computer without destroying it, then you should really consider getting a little electronic dictionary. I have one from Franklin. It’s small and functional. It’s beat up too, since I’ve taken it with me into the woods and sat on it a few times. But it works wonders. It’s great for getting a definition, finding a similar word, etc., and wonderful if you’re sitting around and can’t remember something. Dictionary SoftwareI use Word Web. There are many others out there. Word Web has a free version and a pro version. Both are excellent, though the pro version is a little better. However, as far as free dictionary/thesaurus software goes, Word Web is the best. Become Friends With Dictionary.comNo, I don’t mean that literally, but you should become acquainted with the site. While you should probably turn off your Internet when writing, Dictionary.com is great for finding stuff in ways that a free version of Word Web can’t. You want the etymology of a word, then go to Dictionary.com. End of story. Writersplanner or anything else to keep track of your submissionsI use Writersplanner and it works great for me. You should always keep some sort of spreadsheet or use some sort of software to keep track. There are few things that look worse than sending a story twice to a publisher/magazine. It’s amateur and looks bad. So keep track. There you go. So, do you have those?

World in the Satin Bag

Fantasy Maps: Are They Important?

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I was doing my usual browsing and blog checking when I came on to this post from The Deckled Edge, which led me to this forum discussion, this post by Joe Abercrombie, and this post over at Neth Space. I guess it never occurred to me that the concept of map-making was such a big issue out there. As a fantasy reader, a ‘writer’ if you will, I do get a certain sense of joy from maps, but I’ve never held it against a book for not having a map, or against the author for that matter. So what is this big deal about maps? I think there are some serious issues with having maps, even though I do like them. Addressing the bad things first is probably the best way to approach this, giving me ample time to talk about the good things at the tale end. What are the bad things? First, I think there is this stigma with maps that if you make one, as I have, you have to stick with it so long as it is available to the prying eyes of readers. I learned this very lesson the hard way when I realized I had designed the map for Traea with one location in the wrong place. This resulted in a whole slue of text being wrong. Originally I had wanted to beg the fine fellow who had given me the professional quality map to fix it for me, but realized that would be a waste of time. It wouldn’t take me more than ten minutes to go through the text and change all the words indicating the direction of this location to another location. But my work isn’t in print. I have that luxury. I can change things as I see fit and have leeway to do so. Writers who are published can’t screw up if they publish a map. This presents some problems, obviously. If you screw up, people are going to notice and they will probably hold it against you, especially if you’re popular. Also, you can’t fix it. Meaning, you can’t screw up. Once that published map is screwy, that’s it. This is a significant problem because sometimes writers want to change things. Maybe they put a city somewhere and realize “hey, I don’t want that there after all”. This is part of the reason why I’ve left some of the areas of Traea unexplored. I didn’t want to indicate what is out there partly because I don’t know where or what it is at the moment and to leave a little suspense. Second, maps have a tendency to leave out bits and pieces. You can’t put everything into a map and as a result people with too much time on their hands will ridicule it. This is an argument made against Eragon, possibly for a valid reason, though I’m not sure. The map from Eragon doesn’t show any smaller towns aside from those cities and places mentioned in the story, yet there are massive armies. I think one has to be very careful when making maps when it comes to this. You have to make it look realistic, which leads us to our next problem. Third, realism is somewhat important in making maps, but at the same time we’re dealing, primarily speaking, with worlds that don’t exist. It’s sort of a catch 22: you have to be real, but unreal at the same time. So, maps that look particularly ridiculous end up really making the book seem stupid, if people pay attention to them at least. If your map is shaped like a bunny and your story is supposed to be serious, well, you get the idea. Maps do have benefits, though. Fans love them and they look pretty. Those are two very good things, obviously. They’re fun to make too. Who doesn’t like sitting around drawing random maps of stuff and making up little worlds? I have an entire folder full of maps that I’ve drawn at some point. Most of them will never get used, but I had fun doing them. But are maps important? Do they really need to be there for the story to succeed? That’s a definite no. If your story can’t survive without having a map, then it’s not a very well written story to begin with. I shouldn’t have to resort to looking at your map to figure out where your characters are or what the terrain might look like. That’s your job as the writer to describe everything properly so the reader has an idea what is going on. This is especially important because some people don’t look at maps. I personally am not a map person when it comes to reading books. I might glance at them, but I never examine them. Basically, I see no point in using a map to keep track of things in the book. As I said, if you can’t write well enough so I know what is going on, then you’re wasting my time. Joe Abercrombie says: Call me foolish as well, but I do think having a map there can damage the sense of scale, awe, and wonder that a reader might have for your world. It’s like that moment in the horror film when you finally see the monster. What? That’s it? I was scared of a piece of foam rubber? The unknown can be mysterious, exciting, in a way that a few squiggles on a piece of paper often … aren’t. It’s a bit like the problem I have with literal fantasy artwork of the characters on a cover. Pictures work very powerfully compared to words. Straight away the reader’s imagination is constricted by what they’ve seen there, and I’d like to think of my readers’ imaginations running wild and free, roaming far and wide like a noble mountain goat, or something. I fully agree. There is a sense of awe that is lost. That great feeling of reading and

World in the Satin Bag

Controlling the Weather: Stupidity in a Pretty Box

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(Edit: Helps if I spell “controlling” correctly)A relatively recent article over at io9 presented the reality that we are already fiddling with the weather, which seems to me to be somewhat of a stupid thing to do. That’s right, we’re actually messing around with the natural order of the Earth. Now, setting aside that we’ve already pretty much messed with how things work on this planet as it is, there is a serious issue with screwing around with something as strong and destructive as the weather.The story has it that Chinese meteorologists can actually ‘seed’ the clouds, or make them drop their payload of lovely, beautiful, useful rain at another location, rather on where they might drop them, wherever that may be. The reason for the article is that China wants the meteorologists to step it up a notch and fiddle with heavier rains to make sure the Olympics are rain free.I see lots of issues with this not because I think it’s somewhat environmentally immoral to play around with things that occur naturally, but because this has to be a big step towards that little realm we call stupid.I don’t know if fiddling with the weather the way these meteorologists are will have any adverse effects on the environment, but is that a risk worth taking? What I don’t understand is why they don’t just fling a giant tarp over the top of the dome, or build something over the top to keep the rain out. This seems like a risk not worth taking. Let’s propose some what-ifs in this case. What if we fiddle and nothing happens?Then we fiddle some more until something does happen and someone paying attention throws a fit. Humans are impulsive and we’re always pushing the boundaries without paying attention to the long-term effects. This is especially so in political policy, but science too. I don’t think anyone paid enough attention to the atomic bomb before two were dropped on Japan (perhaps if more people realized how bad radiation is they’d think twice). Often times, when we look at such events in science, this means that new policies are put into place that hinder the ability to do things in a non-damaging way. Take cloning technology. Well, they jumped ahead and made themselves a sheep, and some other things, and people had a fit and said “oh it’s immoral” and “it’s playing God”, and completely ignored all the medical benefits that can be learned from cloning. We might develop ways to create new, perfect organs personalized to your DNA, which could rid all those pesky problems of bodies rejecting new organs. But we don’t have that. Instead we have a society afraid of cloning technology.In this case, we fiddle, something goes really wrong, and nobody is allowed to fiddle with much of anything anymore. Yes, I can see that happening. If you screw up the weather permanently, by some stroke of misfortune, who the heck is going to let you fiddle with anything life-changing again? What if we fiddle and something goes wrong, but it’s not so bad?So if we fiddle and something minor goes wrong, say we change a simple weather pattern and it messes up some crops or something, then we will see a reversal of science that will put ridiculous and detrimental restrictions in place. Such restrictions will be narrow-minded, as they always are, that manage to stifle scientific advancement. Scientists are forced to waste time working around these restrictions to find different ways that are much more difficult and expensive to do the same things they were doing before. In this case, however, we’d see a complete shutting down of the science, rather than allowing scientists to learn from it so they can reverse any negative effects or even find ways to do good things with said technology. What if we fiddle and something goes very very wrong?This is the worst case scenario, actually. Everything goes wrong, the weather gets messed up, and we’re screwed, or at least things have to change so drastically for us that a lot of people end up screwed. The likelihood of this happening, of course, is very slim, but that’s not the point. If it does happen, we’re screwed. There’ll be three outcomes of this: Religious zealots take over and drive us straight into a time of oppression–of science, removal of freedoms like speech, thought, etc. among other problems. This is probably your worst case scenario, though, because here everything really goes wrong. We see civil liberties go out the window, human rights trampled on, war, death, disease, and hatred clouding everything.Yes, this is a legit claim against religious authority in a post-disaster world. As much as religious folks would like to think that things wouldn’t go so far downhill, they will, as has happened in the past repeatedly. Religions want to keep a hold on things and when it comes to survival they will take drastic steps to ensure control. Science takes over and does two things: We end up in a huge recession where death, disease, war, etc. all take over nad people start dying and fighting desperately for survival. We end up figuring out either the miracle cure OR we somehow figure out how to survive in the changed world. Religious zealots and science fight for survival, bringing us into a battle that may or may not be violent, but will have adverse effects on society economically and environmentally. If the world is already suffering from extreme environmental downfall, then so too will it suffer from the doings of a political or militaristic war between the two factions. To put it simply, this is utterly stupid. Why would we even consider messing with the weather in this fashion? Granted, nothing may go wrong, but what if it does? Think a little more outside the box and be certain that nothing is going to happen before going off and messing with things as powerful as the weather.

World in the Satin Bag

Podcasts For Writers: A Treasure Trove (Part One)

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One of the most fascinating things about the Internet is that it has become a vast compendium of knowledge for just about everything imaginable. For writers it is both a magical device and a curse. On the one hand a writer can find anything he or she needs (of course, when I say writer I mean anyone who thinks of themselves as a writer), but on the other hand it can become a distraction. While Google is certainly the most accurate and valuable search engine ever created, it isn’t perfect and sometimes it can take a while to find things.And then, sometimes the Internet is a distraction that makes you happy. In come podcasts, one of the most interesting Internet creations I’ve come across aside from the slue of random flash games that seem to have absolutely no point other than to draw your attention for hours upon hours. There are a lot of podcasts out there, and like the Internet there are probably podcasts for just about everything. I listen to a lot of writing podcasts, or podcasts dealing with science fiction and fantasy as literary genres. Why? Because sometimes the best way to learn anything of value is to listen to someone who actually knows what the heck he or she is talking about. So, the following are podcasts I listen to, whether regularly or irregularly, that have been of use to me for just about anything to do with writing (some of the podcasts mentioned might not be in my links section on the right-hand sidebar yet): Adventures in Scifi Publishing (Shaun Farrel and Sam Wynns)This is the podcast that introduced me to the entire field (often called podiosphere). This is one of the most fascinating and useful podcasts not only because it is directed towards my fields of interest (it does address fantasy too, by the way), but also because every episode has an author interview or some other feature. The interviews are top-notch and thoroughly engaging. They have a little commentary and discussion, author interviews, and, as an added bonus, Tobias S. Buckell does a regular feature called “Ask a Writer”, which should be self-explanatory.They are currently in their second season after a brief break. The Secrets Podcast (Michael A. Stackpole)I think this podcast is officially on hiatus, however you should certainly look through the huge archives and start listening. Stackpole is an author of many books, including several novels for the Star Wars universe and works of his own creation (referring to world creation of course). He knows what he’s talking about and his writing advice is in-depth and truly helpful. While Stackpole is primarily a science fiction and fantasy author, his advice could easily apply to any other form of fiction. Balticon Podcasts (Paul Fischer)The official podcast of Balticon, a science fiction/fantasy convention in Baltimore, MD. I just started listening to this one and I am already enjoying it greatly. So far I’ve listened to two interviews with authors and both have been fascinating. I love hearing authors talk about their work and how they write. You can learn a great deal that way. I don’t have too much to say about this other than what has already been said, but it is good so far! The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy (Tee Morris)I think this one is on hiatus as well. Last I checked Mr. Morris was in the process of writing three books, all of which had deadlines very close to one another. The Survival Guide is sort of a guide for fantasy, for podcasting, for writing, and everything between. I’ve learned a great deal from this podcast not only because Mr. Morris is a writer, but because he has a lot of insight into the field from a different perspective: he’s a small press writer. His books have been published with Dragon Moon Press, who I have done reviews for, and so his perspective on things is not the same as those who are with the larger presses. Download the archive of podcasts and give them a good listen! Jay Lake’s PodcastsJay Lake is a relatively new author in the field, but his name has exploded. His interviews are really rather interesting and if you follow the link you’ll find several panel discussions and interviews that he has done. I just finished listening to most of them and they are all quite good. He’s a joy to listen to and he is obviously very passionate about his writing, and has a lot to say about the subject. The Agony Column (Rick Kleffel)Interviews, interviews, and more interviews. Kleffel has such a huge archive of great interviews. I’ve been listening since I discovered Adventures in Scifi Publishing and Kleffel certainly knows what he is doing. Huge authors are in his list of mp3s! Tor and Forge Books PodcastTor is a major publisher of science fiction and fantasy. Their podcast is generally interviews or panel discussions with authors and the majority of them are rather good and valuable. John Scalzi has been on there a few times and it is worth a listen. I plan to do more posts on podcasts later as I listen to more of them and become better acquainted with the field. Still, the ones above are a good start and really useful. Check them out!

World in the Satin Bag

The Signal: More Clips For You

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I just received another email about more clips from the new movie The Signal. Check them out:This first video has some interview material in it, which is really rather interesting I think. This next clip is directly from the film. I’m not sure where it takes place, since I haven’t seen it yet, but it gives you some idea what is going on. There you go! Enjoy! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

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