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 Big Day (Writing and the Show)

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Today has been a big day. Actually, the whole weekend has been a big, well, weekend. Shall we run through the list of things that have happened? I think so :P. Note: The current schedule I am holding for blogging right now (every day but Wed.) is not going to be my standard schedule. Likely I will do three blogs a week and every third week a new chapter (or every month entirely depending on what I can manage). So just take note of that to check back every other day in the future. 1. I finished Chapter One! It’s not going to be up, as I said yesterday, but I finished writing it. Next weekend I will edit the little thing and get it at least presentable to the world. Then I’ll post it that weekend. I was surprised that I finished it when I did. Sometimes I say “oh I will finish this at such and such time” and then I end up writing about it for a long long long time. I’ve actually hit a deadline. This is good news because I have proven to myself that I can actually succeed at hitting a deadline that I made for myself. Good news good news. So that will go up next weekend. 2. Got in a lovely argument with a friend. Well, it was more like a serious discussion than an argument, but it involved our friendship and the issues we’ve been having with it. Needless to say it was not ‘fun’, at least not in the same sense as going to an amusement park, but at least the issues have sort of been resolved. 3. I just realized how much homework and reading and note taking I still have to do for the weekend and it will all have to be done after my thing today (a.k.a. Saturday). I am taking the following classes this semester:a) Traditional Native American Artb) Concert Bandc) Spanish (the first class for it anyway)Note: This is actually a light load for me and there’s good reason. Everyone has a subject they aren’t very good at. Well, languages aren’t my forte, especially when they are ones I am not interested in. Nobody teaches Latin or Japanese anymore around here and it’s terrible.So I have about 45 pages left to read for TNAA, which involves highlighting and eventually writing down notes and printing them since this teacher allows us to use our notes for the tests. Then I have to prepare for a presentation for Spanish and the first exam on Thursday. In all honesty I think I will ace the first exam, but only because it’s really simple stuff and requires mostly some memorization. We don’t have to write paragraphs yet, because that crap is hard. I shoud know because I took Spanish once in High School and didn’t get a passing grade and I also took one college semester way back when that I had to drop out of because of medical reasons (a.k.a. Cancer and being stuck in a hospital for two weeks). The reading is probably going to kill me the most. The problem with Art History classes is that the reading tends to be rather dry. I took an Asian Art class from the same teacher a while back and the book was one of the most dry and boring things I’ve ever read. However, when we started getting into the stuff about Samurai and how they designed their swords, the number of stages and hammering it took to get them in the perfect shape, etc. It was all fascinating and amazing. Zen Buddhism was also fascinating, which by the way is not just meditating. There is a whole lot more to it. Anyway, so the reading will be dry basically. 4. The Sacramento Reptile Show & Sale: Well I got back today (well this post will be shown to be the day after so just assume this was ‘yesterday’) from the 9th Annual Upscale Reptiles Show and Sale in Sacramento. It was awesome! I got to hold a corn snake, a snake called a Cribo (which was HUGE), and a baby Reticulated Python (who was so docile and amazingly neat I couldn’t believe it). I had a Leopard Gecko on hold from Marcia at Golden Gate Geckos and ended up getting a second from her, both females. The one on hold was an adult Chocolate Tremper Albino Jungle, and the other that I picked out was a gorgeous Bold Stripe Jungle.And to top things off, I took the plunge I had been expecting to come for some time. I bought a Crested Gecko! His name is Tim. He’s so adhorable. He’s sort of this wood brown/orange color and it’s so hard to describe without pictures. Hopefully I’ll have some soon to show everyone. He was absolutely gorgeous and I couldn’t resist when I saw him. His little darling face and everything! Oh man he was cuuute.My Leo’s are cute too, it’s just this is a new type of gecko for me and I’ve grown a fascination with them over the last few months.So needless to say things went very well. I spent all the money that I had brought with me, which was expected I suppose. I also found an insect that I will actually want to keep cause it looks so cool. It’s called a Whiptail Scorpion. No, it isn’t a scorpion in the traditional sense, nor a spider. They are actually completely and utterly harmless: no stinger, venom, or anything of that nature. They just look evil and I think they are fascinating little creatures. There’s also a little insect that looks like a scrunched up scorpion but instead of a tail with a stinger they have this long stringer tail and apparently when they are threatened they secrete what is basically like vinegar. It’s very acidic but doesn’t hurt you or anything, in fact you could lick it and apparently it would taste similar

World in the Satin Bag

The World in the Satin Bag

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Well I changed the name to the blog because Parvulus Mens Mentis Mundus, while fascinating, doesn’t quite fit into the scheme of what I’m doing here. That and I had a stroke of creative genius at work Wednesday about the name for this YA novel I’ll be writing: The World in the Satin Bag. That’s the name of this novel. Intriguing? Interesting? Does it spark your interest at all? It did for me. Cause right when I was thinking about what I needed to write in the first three chapters, this title came into my head. I think it’s pure genius, but that’s me. How is the writing coming? Well, to put it frankly, very well. I am hoping to finish the very rough first draft of the first chapter this weekend. Then next weekend I will edit and hopefully put it up, but that all depends on a few factors:a) I am satisfied with the edit.b) I haven’t blown my brain trying to edit.c) Something terrible wrong doesn’t happen in my life.and d) I don’t screw something up during editing and make the story all weird.But, if all goes well it will be up next weekend, probably on Sunday. Sunday is also the day I update my webcomic which you can view here! It’s sort of different but I like it. Really I only do it for myself and my friends, but I have a couple of other fans out there someplace. I don’t know where, but I get hits on that page, so obviously someone other than my friends reads my comic :P.Note: My webcomic is in no way an indicator of what my fiction writing is like, so don’t be misconstrued about that. I think the first chapter is only going to be a few pages or so. Right now I have about three printed pages written. A printed page is not a type page on your typical word processor, it’s actually, on average, double the lenght of a typical word processor page. Meaning, you double space something on Word and one double spaced page is roughly the size of a printed page depending entirely on what a publisher prints: font size, page size, etc. But typically your average paperback novel page is the same as a double spaced page in Word.Anyway, so I expect the first chapter will be only six or seven pages simply because it’s the attention grabber and I want to get right to the end of it quick so you’ll be going “holy crap, what happened”. I sort of already have an idea of what is going to happen in the next chapter, but hopefully I can weave that into an interesting chapter, which will likely be just as short. The third chapter is going to be the most interesting of the opening chapters I think though. I love leaving people in suspense 😛

World in the Satin Bag

Writing Through Irritation

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I’m going to compile a little list of things that are really irritating when you are writing. I get really bothered by being unable to write when I’m in that writing mode due to factors out of my control. So, I decided to make a little list of those things that really irritate. This isn’t just the fault of those things, but also the product of my flashes of writing genius coming at the most horrible times when I can’t write. 1. Work: I hate when I get a sudden spark of creative genius and I’m at work, leaving me unable to write anything more than a tiny sentence that won’t help me later on because I will have forgotten whatever it was I was talking about. I’m one of the many writers who has to have a full time job, a job in which there is no conceivable way to begin writing while on the clock. 2. School: This is not quite as bad as being at work, but it is just as troublesome, depending on the class and how much attention I actually have to put into whatever is going on. Sometimes I can start jotting things down, other times I am furiously taking notes and don’t even have time to write a quick note to myself. 3. Important Phone Calls: How many times have you been writing amazing stuff, on and on, page after page, and suddenly get a phone call that you can’t avoid? I hate when this happens. Yes, I can ignore the call, but when it comes to calls dealing with bills or whatever else is bothering my life at any particular moment, phone calls become rather difficult to avoid. And with me, when I’ve lost concentration in my writing, I’ve lost my creative burst for the whole day. 4. Being Interrupted: I find it rather annoying whenever I am interrupted by a member of my family or someone else when I’m right in the middle of writing. It breaks my concentration. The same thing goes for when I’m doing homework. Then whatever it was that I was doing is lost for hours or even the whole day. 5. In the Car: Have you ever been in the car and suddenly get a stroke of genius and can’t write it down because you’re on the highway and can’t stop? Annoying isn’t it? And then you try to remember what it was later so you can write it down and it’s gone… 6. Brain on the Fritz: This happens to me from time to time where my brain will be churning out awesome words, and then suddenly it just stops. It’s as if my brain is running Windows XP and randomly had to reboot, losing all those lovely images and ideas just as would happen if you had a Word document open and the computer died before you could save it. Gone to the abyss and if you are lucky your mind autosaved the stuff somewhere in the dark recesses of your subconscious and you are able to retrieve it. But that’s if you’re lucky… 7. The Internet: The Internet is one of those fascinating products that is both useful and distracting. The problem with the Internet too is that while you would think you could just set it down and not worry about it, you often find yourself using the Internet to feed your writing. At least that is the case for me. With writing fantasy and scifi, I find that I constantly go to the Internet to look up certain terms, research concepts that might already have been started in our world today, or even to spark and idea in my head. What runs along with that is all the email checking, random searches that have nothing to do with my writing, and all those other things that have a tendency to stop you from doing anything productive. 8. Music: I am one of those people that can’t write when there is music running, even if it is classical. I love music, don’t get me wrong, and I sometimes can write when it is playing, but for the most part I find it distracts me from doing much of anything, especially if it is music with words. I don’t know how anyone can write while their CD of Greenday is blaring in the background. How do you concentrate on the writing when you are singing the words outloud or in your head? When it comes to classical or orchestrated music I find myself humming along, but sometimes the music will really help my mind get moving. But only sometimes… 9. TV: This use to be one of the things that distracted me the most next to the Internet. Luckily for me I don’t watch it much anymore because, in all honesty, I think commercials are the most terrible inventions since Hitler invented the Concentration Camps. I hate commercials with every fiber of my being. That isn’t just exclusive to TV either. Radio commercials are just as retarded, annoying, and downright bad for society. Don’t get me wrong, there are some commercials that I actually enjoy. In particular are the Geico commercials (most of them except for any with the new gecko voice because I don’t like that accent on my gecko…). Regardless, in the days when I actually watched TV I found myself always distracted by it and if there was another factor that distracted me beforehand I always reverted to the TV or the Internet to occupy my mind. I do watch things on tape and DVD, just not on actual TV. Alright well I think that is a good enough list for now. I might come up with new reasons and add them when I can think of them. If anyone pops by leave me a comment if you have anything else that you think is distracting or irritating. Now in other news, it’s 8:09 AM and my new leopard

World in the Satin Bag

Story Beginnings and Story Ends

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What exactly is it about writing beginnings that is so difficult for me? I’ve always found that when trying to write anything that I intend to be longer than a short story, the beginning paragraphs become a barrier that I can’t seem to pass. I wrote three different beginnings for this new story that will eventually become the blog novel this site is meant for, and only on that third try did I get something that started to go the direction I wanted. The first started out way too much like a short story. Yes, a novel should open and grab your attention, but the difference with short stories and novels is that a novel has a little more time to grab you than a short does. The second attempt ended up being way too annoying for me. It started sort of setting up a scene but in such a childish way that I didn’t like it. I think I was thinking way to Harry Potter for it and it just didn’t work. The third, though, clicked I think. It’s not perfect, and I don’t expect it to be on a first draft, but I liked how it opened and displayed in a small short paragraph this very memorable scene. The first paragraph doesn’t have the character yet, but it’s not finished. I have maybe 4 sentences in that first paragraph and right after this scene is set I will introduce the main character. It’s really going to be an exciting story. I got a few ideas from stuff I saw on TV over the weekend on Law and Order and a blurb of Lifetime (which is a terrible channel. Notice that Lifetime is TV for women, yet the women are always being killed, beaten, raped, etc. on there). Now to what I find to be EVEN harder: endings. For short stories it is always a battle for me to find an appropriate ending. I’ve got a few stories that I’ve written that really clicked for me in the ending and I was actually happy with, and then I have a whole bunch that I was disappointed in how I ended them (some of which I reworked and moved over into that happy section). Novels are notoriously difficult for me. I’ve yet to actually finish a novel. I’ve made a few attempts and can easily reach that one hundred page mark, but I’ve yet to get to the end. So endings have me a little apprehensive about the whole thing. I will write this story, and I will finish it, but I am always afraid of what will turn out in the story as it develops and how the story will end. So with my thursday coming up fast, the weekend dwelling in on me, and my writing set on its way I end this post. I am going to write a fun list of stuff in my next post on Thursday about the irritating things that happen when you are trying to write. Should be fun. Adios!

World in the Satin Bag

Names and Things

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So it comes to it that I am forced to actually write now :). This is good because I have every desire to write something fascinating and altogether appealing to audiences out there. So intermingled between posts–probably once a month–will be chapters for this new story I have cooking.I think some might be turned off by the fact that this is a YA novel, novella, or whatever it actually turns out to be. Perhaps I am just speaking from what I think others might think, which as a sentence in and of itself is confusing in its own right, but I think there should be a big distinction made here. YA doesn’t mean it is going to be dull and uninteresting to more adult audiences. Look at the fame of Harry Potter, the Phillip Pullman’s series, or heck even Christopher Paolini’s Inheritence trilogy (well or saga…not sure if he’ll stop at three books). All of these books are geared towards that YA audience, and even younger, yet adults read them like mad.I’m 22 and I love the Harry Potter books. Granted Rowling didn’t choose the most original ideas, but did she have to? I think just writing style and the characters alone hold the novel above all its cliches. So, a YA novel doesn’t mean it won’t be of interest to adults, not at all. In fact I hope to write something that fits into that inbetween space between “just for kids” and “just for adults” so that what I write is something both kids, parents, adults, older kids, etc. can enjoy. That’s the whole point of wanting to write a YA fantasy. I think writing for a younger audience while making it accessible to adults is a great thing. Look at what the HP books have done to reading. Sure, most kids don’t read, but can you imagine how many more kids wouldn’t be reading if HP hadn’t come around and forced the market to explode? I even have to laugh at those extremist Christian groups that condemned the book because of its imagery of magic and the like. How can anything that causes kids to read be evil? Not to mention, book burnings really don’t do anything to stop the book from being made. You have to pay for those books you burn, so in reality the publisher and the writer are getting money for your silly little demonstration which will only renew peoples’ interest in the book.So while I write this I had all this running in my head. I’m not sure exactly why it popped in there.To add I’ve found that coming up with names for places, people, and things is altogether quite a difficult thing to achieve. Why are names so hard? You’d think that with it being so easy to create things in a mind that is already half-delusional that it would be just as easy to come up with something that would fit into that delusional world. So, I wonder if anyone that pops by has any ideas on how they come up with names. It doesn’t have to be fantasy names. It could be SF or straight Fiction. What’s in a name that makes you select it when you design a character? Is there something striking about that characters personality that makes you pick that name? Now in other news are my fun little plans coming up. I’m a big herp hobbiest. Herp is basically a term used to say “reptile” (and if I’m not mistaken it applies to amphibians too). I don’t have any snakes, not yet anyway, but I do have six leopard geckos, a bearded dragon, and three baby common musk turtles. This thursday I have two more beautiful leopard geckos coming and I just can’t wait to see them :). I found them online through a lovely breeder at ID Gecko. Following that will be the Sacramento Reptile Show and Sale where I’m picking up another beautiful Leopard Gecko from Marcia at Golden Gate Geckos. Who knows what else I will find there. Anywho, so I’m planning to breed them next year :). It should be super exciting to be involved in the process of raising little leopard geckos from the egg on up to the point where I will find them new homes. I love it :). As such I end my four day weekend on a high note. I’ve started this blog. I’ve declared my little mission of writing a fantasy novel, which I have really wanted to do in the YA area for so long, and I am merely days away from the most fascinating weekend since FanimeCon 2006. Things are going to be good from here on out I hope. 🙂

World in the Satin Bag

Good News & Bad News

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As the post says I have good news and bad news. I’m going to give the bad news first so that hopefully the good news will soften the blow. As some of you may already know, Steve Irwin “The Crocodile Hunter” passed away yesterday. He was killed by a stingray barb to the heart while doing a new documentary. He left behind his American wife Terri and two children. This is tragic news for anyone that is familiar with his work on and off screen. He did so much for Australia and various wildlife conservation efforts across the world. He showed millions that reptiles are not animals that should just be feared, but animals that should be respected and loved just as any other animal. Mr. Irwin will be sorely missed. I already miss you Steve :(. Now for the good news I suppose.Last night I was doing some thinking about what I was going to write about. For those that are new to my writing or the way I work, I don’t think up entire stories and do outlines and such. The problem with outlines, for me anyway, is I have no interest in actually doing the full writing because it’s already been written out, leaving me with no mystery or new things. So, for the most part I think of a single interesting idea to write about and that’s what usually sparks my interest.In other words, I have the beginning of a story. I just need to come up with a few things first before I start writing. But, don’t you worry, there will be some writing on here for sure in the next month or so. I will however keep this thing updated regardless until such time as I have writing to produce. Maybe I’ll put a short story I’ve written up here or something. Who knows.Anywho…

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