World in the Satin Bag

World in the Satin Bag

Writing and Poetry

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Alright, so this weekend turned out far different than I had intended and it totally screwed up my whole process.Originally I had planned to go on a trip with my friend for his geography class up into the mountains. So I purposefully planned the week so that I wouldn’t have to worry about having Chapter Four ready to post, since I wouldn’t even be home to write it and would have no access to a computer for typing (I rarely write freehand because it takes way too long for me to write and sometimes the stuff going through my head just goes by way too fast for my poor hands to scribble down…so computers are just better). Well, that trip got canceled because my friend decided he wasn’t going to go. I didn’t find this out until Wednesday, which was a concert day so I had no way to even sit down and try to cram out a significant chunk of Chapter Four anyway. I have class and work M-Th, so usually my writing gets done on Fridays and Saturdays and I do final edits on Sundays whenever it is post time. So, basically my whole plan was screwed because I usually have 4 days worth of actual writing and then an edit day, and that had suddenly become 2 days. Essentially, Chapter Four is going up next weekend as I had stated, but regardless, it has become a constant irritation to have plans made and then canceled knowing that I could have had other things planned instead.I do have good news though. Chapter Four is going to be really cool. I’m loving some of the things that I’ve done in it so much. Now on to poetry. I figure I might as well give you all something to view while you wait an additional week for the next installment. I’ve been doing a lot of poetry writing (I’ve always done it but there’s been a big spurt because my girlfriend broke up with me and it gave me something strong to write about).I’ve also grown quite fond of My Chemical Romance, a punk-pop band that is just really good. So, I’ve started writing songs, I guess that is what you would call them anyway. I’d love to start up a punk-pop band. I love the style, and MCR is just really entertaining and fun. So, I’ll post something I wrote today that I’ve not exactly finished. Hopefully you like it. I would appreciate any constructive criticism on it. I’m not a song writer by nature, so this is really my first attempt at it. Lay down little world,it’s time for bed.All those around you,are bleeding and dead.Come on little world,the night has come,and where you turn your back,descend into black,I follow you down..Lay down, lay down.I want to show you all the scars around,the trenches dug about,the battles screaming out,the dead rising from graves above the ground..Lay down,and ignore.The world you know is gone,blasted to the floor.Come on little world,wake up once again,rise up from the ashes my friend,and follow me down..Lay down, lay down.I want to show you all the scars around.the trenches dug about,the battles screaming out,the dead rising from graves above the ground.I said lay down,and accept your fate.It’s not too late, too late.The mother’s crying now,wondering why and how,the flags of our fathers draped over the gate..Lay down. Lay down.Lay down. Lay down… Alright, so that’s what I have for it. I am contemplating adding a bridge and one more run through the chorus, but maybe it is good just the way it is. I dunno. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. Even guess what it’s about 😛

World in the Satin Bag

Writing, News, and Bunnies

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Alright, so this weekend has been one of the most exciting of weekends ever *insert sarcasm here*First off is a bit of info on my writing. Next weekend would normally be when I put up the next chapter, in this case it would be chapter four. Unfortunately, however, I will not be in town to edit or do anything of that sort to the chapter, and as such, will have to post the chapter the following weekend. Sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be. I don’t have a laptop to take the writing with me, otherwise I would surely get a lot more writing done. I can type far better than I can write by hand.Also, as suggested by Mr. Bramage, I will be posting a hyperlink at the beginning of every chapter to the previous chapter so there is an easy way to reference back. Now for news…Well, to start the week off, I got sick on Monday with a cold. It got horribly worse Tuesday, then slightly better Wednesday. I had a concert on Wednesday as well which made things lovely cause I was sick. Thursday was much better and then Friday I was mostly okay with your usual leftovers of a cold, which I still have today.Friday, however, decided to be the day of reckoning or something of that nature.First, my girlfriend broke up with me, saying something about how she wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, which just didn’t seem quite right considering that was what she had said she wanted in the beginning and from where our relationship had been going it didn’t seem to make much sense. Then to top it off, when I went over to my friend Sarah’s house for my usual consoling time, we went out to dinner and then her car decided to rupture a hose and we had to get it towed back to her house. The following day was spent getting presents for my brother and then hanging out at my Mom’s house for his party, which was perfectly fine except for the part where my Mom had to bring up the whole “where’s your GF” thing. Uncomfortable? Yes, and irritating too. Luckily I had fun hanging out with my brother and his friends and was able to forget the events of Friday for at least a little while, or at least until I got home and was forced to remember after seeing the lovely pile of sheets I have yet to clean. So, essentially, my weekend was rather crappy. My best friend basically secured himself in the position of asshole by being completely negative and unsupportive, and luckily my other best friend Sarah was able to compensate for his lack of friend-ish-ness. But the good news is that I am still writing and things are still going well for this lovely story. So in two weeks I will have chapter four and all will be happy. Also, I am planning to go to an open house for the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit Catholic college. If I like the campus and such I can hopefully get accepted there and maybe get help paying for it, since it is expensive. They have a great MFA in Creative Writing program with dual teaching, which would be great because I can see myself teaching. So, maybe something good will happen in the near future…

World in the Satin Bag

Chapter Three: The Satin Bag

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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.) James sat up. He took a moment to let the dizziness and throbbing pain fade away and then slowly stood. With one hand he rubbed his eyes and with the other he felt the large knot that had made its home in the back of his head—hard and round. “Dinner’s ready,” his mother called from the other room. A few hours had passed since his parents had had their argument, or ‘serious discussion’ as he liked to call it. He had spent the time watching the ceiling. It had occurred to him that he had no choice but to question them. The fact that he had overheard things he wasn’t even supposed to know might lend him the leverage he needed to get the rest out of them. The Council, whoever they were, wouldn’t allow his parents to leave because of what they knew, and he doubted that he would be given any different treatment. He wondered how many people in the town had seen the inside of the Manor. Either the people who had were keeping silent, perhaps ordered to do so by the Council, or few people really knew what was in there. James had never paid much attention to who came and left Woodton, but now as he thought about it he realized that not many came and not many went. James stretched his arms delicately. He still felt lightheaded and didn’t wish to strain himself. Then the cloth caught his attention, the same cloth from the Manor. He looked with disbelief. He had forgotten all about it. Yet, it wasn’t just the sight of the cloth that truly suspended him in disbelief. The cloth was clean. There were no bloodstains or marks. It looked brand new. And his arm felt fine. He plucked at the knot in an attempt to get it off. When it didn’t work he opened a nearby desk drawer and produced a pocketknife. He flicked the blade out, but the instant the blade touched the cloth it tightened like a snake. The knife fell from his hand and he clasped at the cloth as it began to cut the circulation off. A moment later and the cloth loosened and resumed its original tightness. The design of Saint Brendan’s Cross shimmered. James swallowed hard. His heart thumped as fast as a mouse in his chest. This is insane, he thought. What is going on? I’m losing my mind. The thought was absurd; he knew that. He was far too logical to succumb to insanity. Regardless, something about the last day and a half made him feel like he really was going crazy. The only bit of sanity he could grab onto sat in whatever it was that his parents knew. Angtholand. “Oh dear! You didn’t have to get up. Dinner in bed.” James’ mother came into the room carrying a tray. Sitting in it were a glass of water, a bowl of pudding, and some sort of mushy looking soup that resembled rotten fruit. James nodded softly and sat down. He hated soup, a product of his inability to eat it properly. His mother would say “don’t slurp” or “close your mouth when you swallow” any time so much as a drop of the stuff escaped his lips. If he could help it he avoided the stuff. “Besides,” she continued, “you should be resting. Understand?” She set the tray down on the bed then pointed. “What is that on your arm?” “It won’t come off,” he said, trying to sound calm. “Did you get it from the Manor?” He looked her in the eye to tell her yes. She understood and took hold of the cloth and tried to untie it. “I tried that. It just…” As if on queue the cloth squeezed hard on his arm. He groaned and she let go. James looked into her eyes. She didn’t look at all surprised, but he could see through her attempts to look oblivious. “You can’t take things like that. It’s stealing and I won’t raise a thief. And why did you have to tie the knot so tight!” “Laura tied it.” “Yes, well Laura will be getting a talking to by her mother I imagine. Now eat your soup and I’ll get some scissors.” She scurried out of the room. James sat down and poked at the steaming bowl of goo. He wasn’t sure what to call it. It looked strangely like a yellow clam chowder, but there were chunks of chicken in it. Peas too. He gave up trying to guess and took a bite. It didn’t taste half-bad and he took another before sipping some water. His mother came in a moment later brandishing a massive pair of scissors that looked more like sheers than conventional scissors. If she had been someone other than his mother James would have been frightened by her stance. She stood like a murderer in a movie, shadow tracing along the ground in a long line as light poured in over her shoulders. She walked over to his bed and sat down. Taking the scissors she tried to work the pointed edge under the cloth on his arm. The cloth tightened violently, pushing the point of the scissors into the muscle. He yelped in pain as a small trickle of blood escaped from under the blade. She retracted the scissors in a knee-jerk reaction. “Mom, you can stop hiding whatever it is you’re hiding,” he said. She looked at him, brow curled confusedly. “I overheard you and Dad.” Her face contorted to that of fear. “I’ve seen an eye,” he emphasized ‘an’ because he couldn’t be sure if it were the same eye

World in the Satin Bag

When is it okay to tell people to burn a book?

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1. When it is packed full of lies.2. When it insults the people it is trying to convince.3. When it is complete and utter crap. When is it not okay? 1. When the book grabs the attention of a wide range of people and compells them to read. Harry Potter anyone? I seem to recall many religious nuts (no offense to anyone that is religious, this is not a rant against religious people, just extremists) who thought that HP was evil and should be burned. Interesting really considering for the first time in probably 20 years kids were actually enthusiastic to read again…2. When the book is actually good and presents information truthfully.3. When the book doesn’t insult people. Now, before I get into the book that has sparked this sort of rant I have to say a few things. I am a believer in Evolution and I understand that many out there are not, and that is fine. I’m not such a wacko that I want all of you to believe in Evolution (and I don’t mean Darwinism, which is so far different than what we call Evolution today). You believe what you want, that is your right, but I must rant about a book that a friend gave me and that I just picked up to peek at for the second time since it was given to me. I understand fully and completely that EVOLUTION IS A THEORY. You don’t have to repeat it to me and I in no way will ever tell you that the evolution of man or long term evolution is completely proven (though evolution in the short term is since we can observe the evolution of bacteria, but you could probably call that something other than evolution anyway). So the book is: The Evolution CruncherNow, I initially had no problem with this book when it was given to me. I’m open to new interpretations and new information. In fact, I’m so much open for it that I respect the scientific method and allow such ideas and concepts to help me devise new ways to look at evolution. This book is about as far from the truth as you can get. I have not finished this book, and I never will. Here is why.When I first picked this book up I flipped to a few interesting sections just to see what it had to say. One section was on stratigraphy (the study of rock layers). The author had no idea how stratigraphy worked, which immediately indicated to me that this supposed genius man who had dispelled the theory of Evolution in one massive book was nothing more than a ill-educated imbocile. He tried to claim something to the effect of there being no correlation between all the different steps in human evolution in the layers and that some things were above and some below certain time periods. But, what the author failed to even mention was that:a) Rock layers should never be your primary basis for scientific thought on evolution because of the fact that they are easily affected by weather and natural phenomenonb) Rock layers have a specific method for being interpreted which doesn’t involve just staring at it and going “well this one is higher than that one so it must be younger”Stratigraphy should and often is followed by Carbon Dating, which is pretty much as accurate as you can get these days and is constantly being improved upon. Things move in the soil, they don’t just sit there through thouands or millions of years of earthquakes, plate movement, erosion, etc.Now, what has caused me to talk about it today is this. I picked it up today and started to flip through, hoping that I might find something interesting in there that would spark my interest and cause me to do some additional research. Well, this book has secured itself on my shelf of crap. If you want someone to believe you and take in your new ideas and dispell something they have been taught and believe fully in, you don’t insult them. The author of this book did just that. Almost every other section has to flat out say “evolution is a load of bullcrap and is wrong and people are stupid for believing it”. That is unaceptable in my book. So, this supposed expert has landed himself in my pile for authors that should be burned at the stake. Not to mention he has a whole section on this book that I didn’t notice that dispells the Big Bang Theory, which any educated person knows has NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTION. The Big Bang is so loosely a theory that it will never be proven just as there is no way to prove or disprove there is a God; you just have to believe. It is one of those scientific ideas that people just believe or don’t believe. But it has nothing to do with evolution. The evolution of man or any other species or thing is not in any way affected by the Big Bang except in that the Big Bang was supposed to be the starter of it all. But Big Bang doesn’t explain how we came from microscopic organisms. All it explains is how the planets, stars, and other space matter came to be. That’s it. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea.So, if anyone happens to read this and has a book that follows my little rules at the top that discusses flaws in Evolutionary Theory I would really like to read it. I’m open to new ideas here. I’m not set in stone on what I believe, but I don’t want an author to shove his or her moral or personal agenda down my throat while trying to ‘educate’ me. Anywho, that’s my rant for the day. New chapter up Sunday. Look for it 🙂

World in the Satin Bag

…Kinds…

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There’s always been a fascination with the way people create fantasy worlds for me. I do it every so often in the form of a map, but for this current project I have yet to take the plunge and draw something. That is on purpose. I don’t want to design a map and then get bored with my world too quick. However, I did come up with something awesome, at least I think so, for this project. Kinds I realize that is just a simple little word in our language. But for me the inspiration came from some music I was listening to. There is a song on the soundtrack for Chronicles of Narnia by Alanis Morissette called Wunderkind. I started to think about that word and thought to myself that using kind as a root word for a variety of creatures would be great. I’m not sure what the english term is for what I’m talking about, but that’s what I came up with. So, I know for certain that Wunderkind will be one of these creatures, but I’ve yet to come up with different kinds. But regardless there will be something like this in my little work of fiction here :). So, that should be interesting to have. Good news is that today is my birthday and it has been the greatest day in the world :).

World in the Satin Bag

Chapter Two: Lights

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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.) James woke, groggy, head throbbing rhythmically. He kept his eyes closed and groaned. He didn’t dare touch whatever bruise had formed on his skull for fear of the pain. A whistling sound, like a train in a deep cavern, played brightly in the back of his ears. Radio reception, he thought. Someone had told him once that the high pitch sounds in his ears were unfiltered radio frequencies. He never believed it—after all, it was pure nonsense—but for some reason it had stuck. Finally he worked up the nerve to open his eyes. He took it slow, half-expecting there to be bright light shining through the window. But the room was utterly dark, empty. Without any source of light the bedroom on the second floor of Hansor Manor was as dark as during a solar eclipse. Thick mats of clouds hid the moon and rid the landscape of any shadows. In a way James was glad for the darkness. It meant his head wouldn’t hurt, at least not any more than it already did. At a snails’ pace, James lifted himself up and gently felt the back of his head. He let out a groan as his fingers touched the small bulge there. Then the entirety of all that had happened hit him hard. He took a few groggy steps forward and blindly knelt and ran his hands where the burnt circle had been. The charred wood crumbled like dried bread beneath his fingers. His movement released a fresh scent of burning wood. “Laura,” he said. His voice quivered. There was no answer, just the call of wind rushing against the side of the Manor and the faint roar of thunder in the distance. He hadn’t expected an answer, but had hoped for it. James held back the urge to panic. Now, more than ever, he had to resist temptation. He had to be more like Laura. It had never occurred to him that there would ever come a time when he could not rely on Laura’s unending adventurous personality. He wanted to scream out her name and the urge to cry welled up. His legs twitched as if they could bolt at any moment. He resisted. Every instinct he had he resisted. Silently his hand brushed along the smooth fabric of the satin bag. He ripped his hand back momentarily as if just touching it would set off whatever had happened to Laura. For a moment he stood still, and then he slowly lifted the bag to his face. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness and he could begin to make out the outline of the shield knot. He took hold of the drawstring, pulled it tight, tied a thick knot, and then leaned back slightly relieved. What am I going to do with this thing? What about Laura? The thought brought a bad taste to his mouth. She had disappeared right before his eyes and somewhere, someplace, she still lived. The flames hadn’t killed her. He was sure of that. He shivered. Then something twitched against the side of the satin bag. It wasn’t the wind or the bag itself, but something inside. The bag moved again and he nearly dropped it out of shock. Then the bag burst into continuous motion, thumping like a sporadic heartbeat. He dropped it. The bag thumped on the wood floor and sagged over creating a bulbous mass of fabric, squiggling as if it was filled with little worms. A thundering clap rang in every direction and he looked up. Items all over the room began to wiggle like the bag, but he quickly noticed that only the things adorned with a Celtic symbol were in motion. The dresser, bed, and chairs remained motionless. He stood straight. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could make out the shapes rustling about. To his surprise, as if nothing else could possibly make the situation any more frightening, an inhuman cry burst from the bag, jolting his gaze back to the floor. The noise resembled the sound of an eagle, bear, and the airy hiss of a snake melded together. The unnatural noise ripped through the air loud enough so that he had to clasp both hands over his ears. As he did so, the shield knot on the satin bag slowly lit up as little orange embers followed the pattern until every inch glowed red. Then symbols across the entire room burst alight until it seemed like daylight—bright and overwhelming. James backed away, weary and slightly afraid. Again his panic reflex called, but he ignored it. He eyed the window nonetheless. He saw his reflection in the window and realized that the cloth wrapped tightly over his wound glowed bright red as well. Backing away farther until he touched the wall with his back, he pulled one of his hands from his ear and began to tug at the knot. It wouldn’t come loose; Laura had tied it tight. Tugging harder and harder he kept his gaze partly on his arm and partly on the room. The terrible noise changed pitch. Suddenly several glowing items hopped into the air from various parts of the room, flew across and circled the satin bag. The knot he had tied burst open and a bright white light shot up through the center of the room producing a swift wind that circled like a vortex. James tried to move farther away but kept running into the wall. He looked around for a door; the bag, whirling items, and circle of wind blocked access to the window. The door sat along the wall he clung to at the far end of the room. He

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