World in the Satin Bag

World in the Satin Bag

I Met Wintermute

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Okay, I didn’t meet Wintermute exactly. I met his creator: William Gibson. He was at the Capitola Book Cafe last night doing a reading and signing and I was fortunate to be there for it! It was fantastic. Mr. Gibson read the second chapter from his recent novel, Spook Country. It was fantastic to hear him read. His prose is simply stunning in this book!Afterwards he took questions, which resulted in a few clever jokes being said, and then he signed books. There was a huge line and I got a copy of Neuromancer and of Spook Country signed!My friend Jennifer showed up later on and we hung out and talked. Mostly I stood there in complete awe, my two signed books clasped in my hands like tomes of mystical knowledge about the universe. At some point I got the courage to ask Mr. Gibson if I could get a picture with him, and being the cool guy that he is, he said yes!It was fantastic seeing Gibson in person. He’s quite legendary, as you probably know.Gibson wasn’t the only famous person there, by the way. Rick Kleffel of the Agony Column was there as well! If you don’t know who he is you need to get out more. He works for NPR and his column is a fantastic resource of intellectual interviews with authors of all sorts of books, from regular fiction to speculative fiction. And I got a lovely picture with him too! It was a great night indeed!Afterwards, Jennifer and I got something drink, shared a cookie, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Good times indeed!

World in the Satin Bag

An Update: SoD WIll Resume

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I know there are some of you expecting more of The Spellweaver of Dern; you’ll be happy to know that I have every intention of continuing with the expansion, creation, and propagation of my fantasy world. When do you say?Well, I think we’re due for a little discussion on that. Firstly, I have to say that I am somewhat ill from the lack of writing over the last few months. The situation has been explained ad nauseum–school was killing me, literally–and so I won’t go into any detail with it. School, however, is almost over. How much time is left? Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 4 PM. That’s when my last essay is due. Then the quarter will be, for all intensive purposes, over. I may or may not take a course over summer, a matter which will be heavily discussed with myself and likely with my girlfriend, who will no doubt have objections to such a conception.That said, everything will be falling back into place. Effective Friday, June 13th, 2008 at whenever I wake up (likely 8:13 AM), all of the following prior personal goals will resume: Write 2,000 words a day or more. Read 100 pages a day or more. Edit two short stories or two novel chapters a month. Submit at least one story a month, preferably more. I expect that the next chapter in SoD will be up the week after next (which would not be the week starting tomorrow for those of us still on the 8th). I intend to write the chapter I have and drive forward with it. Hopefully I don’t stick my food in my mouth. I also think I am going to attempt a rough drawing of a new continent to be put up for your perusal. We’ll see.So that is what I am promising to do, or at least that is what I’m promising myself to do. Yeah!

World in the Satin Bag

Confused About Journalism

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Forgive me if I rant out of pure ignorance, but I came across an article on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog that has me a bit baffled. First, my assumption is that journalism, by and large, is about telling stories. Not fictional ones, but real ones in a way to convey information that paints, at least to some extent, a picture of what really happened. When journalists talk about literature, it tends to be a little different: usually you might consider them to be like semi-critics of the literary genre in the sense that they make insightful investigations into aspects of literature (even when they are idiotic investigations). So, when someone writes an article about some aspect of literature I expect to see not only some sort of presentation of the facts in a semi-story form, but some intelligent conversation on whatever it is the journalist is writing about. But then I saw this article and I am completely and utterly confused. It’s about constructed languages within fiction (primarily SF and F). While I appreciate that the author (one Karen Sandstrom) has laid out the information very clearly, I find it baffling why this article fails to do anything remotely journalistic. It’s not attempting to paint a picture of any sort, even a boringly historical one, nor is it attempting to make any sort of attempt to engage the material behind simply pointing out what most of us probably know already (yes, we know that Tolkien wrote his own bloody languages for his books). All of us who have read Lewis Carol’s work are aware that he made up a lot of words, some of which are in common language. So instead of trying to give us an interesting article about the subject, Sandstrom has done what Wikipedia is incapable of doing: laid out the information in plain sight to be read like information tablets or little High School index cards. I don’t get it. I have looked and reread the entire thing four times over in the last ten minutes trying to understand what it is Sandstrom is trying to do. I thought maybe I had missed a moment where it declared that her article is nothing more than a quick response to some other article, perhaps in the same vein as a Letter to the Editor. But I see no such signs. The article is pointless. Is there something I’m missing? Has journalism changed so drastically? Or is this just one lame article that happens to be on an interesting subject, but fails to do anything interesting with it?

World in the Satin Bag

RIP: Algis Budrys

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I just heard from SF Signal that science fiction author Algis Budrys has passed on. I have yet to read his work, but he will be missed nonetheless! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this).

World in the Satin Bag

SBS Magazine: Submissions Open

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I don’t know why I haven’t talked about this. As many of you know I am co-owner of a website called Young Writers Online, or YWO. YWO is, basically, a site for writers of varying ages (generally those under 25). The site has been doing remarkably well, in my opinion. We’re growing steadily, expanding, and revamping.That being said, when my friend Andrew and I created the site we set out with high hopes. Why? Well, because we wanted to have a really great site for young writers of all ages to go to not only find a supportive community, but a place where they could receive constructive critiques on their work from people the same age. And YWO has delivered such a place.But YWO is going to a place not a lot of sites have gone before, at least not successfully. And we’re taking it very seriously.I give you Survival By Storytelling Magazine (or SBS Magazine for short). Anything and everything you need to know about submission guidelines can be found here (these will eventually be moving once we upgrade YWO and add a new page specifically for magazine things). There is also a discussion thread here where you can post questions, comments, etc. (you have to be a member, obviously). The magazine will publish fiction, poetry, and small one act plays by writers of various ages in any genre. There will be some contests held in the near future as well (two or three of them, actually).Feel free to spread the news about this! I look forward to seeing submissions from our members too! And if you’d like to join YWO, we ‘d be glad to have you! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

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