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World in the Satin Bag

Russians Rule the World Today (Sort of)

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Okay, so I’m on a roll with the misleading titles, but really you can’t blame me given what today is. Happy Birthday to Sputnik!That’s right, today is the birthday of the flight of Sputnik in orbit around our little blue planet. In a way, it was both the most amazing and most frightening thing in a time when one world war had ended and people were deathly afraid that another would occur (with the Russians obviously). But, seeing how, in theory, the Cold War has ended and, in theory, we’re semi-decent buddies with Russia, for however long that will last, we should pay some respects to that little spacecraft that captured the world for a rather brief moment in time. For a little more info, Sputnik flew for about 3 months and then dropped out of orbit. The interesting thing is that you could actually pick up the beep of its transmitter (or whatever it was that was sending the beep in the first place) on little radio receivers–you know, those ones that people used to use to talk to people in other cities sort of as a hobby. In a world afraid of nuclear war that’s a rather frightening thing. So, Happy Birthday Sputnik!For more information check this article out by ABC.

World in the Satin Bag

Changing WISB For All Mankind

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Some of you might have noticed some serious changes around here. I’m doing some work on the blog to try to get new readers and the like and due to some suggestions some things are changing. First, things have moved around a bit, and the archives are now a drop menu to save space. Most of you never look down on the right hand side. Usually I have a group of image bars there from sites I am a part of. I try a lot of places to see what places seem to bring traffic to the site. I’m not trying to simply increase traffic, but what I’m doing is trying to bring new readers in to my blog. That’s all. So I try various things, and from time to time I delete all the things that aren’t doing anything for me from the blog. Which is exactly what has happened. All the links that weren’t adding to my new readers are gone (I pay attention to sitemeter) I’ve temporarily removed the word meters on the right hand side. Why? Alex suggested that perhaps they are misleading because they are expecting that perhaps those word meters refer to works that are on the site, considering that WISB is on the site. So I’ve taken them off for now. My other reason for taking them off was because, while they are nice, they are just too big for me. I wanted smaller word meters that take up less space. Thus far I haven’t found any. I’m trying a new thing called BlogRush, which you can see in the right. This is temporary, but it seems to be a way not only to bring readers of my blog to potentially awesome sites related to my blog, but might bring people from other places here. We’ll see what happens with that. I’m using Creative Commons at the bottom of my page now. I was using a different copyright before, but CC seems to be the common route for a lot of writers now, so now it’s there. That about covers it for now. Hopefully things look okay. I’m giving this BlogRush thing a try, but if it doesn’t prove useful, then it’s gone.Thanks all! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this)

World in the Satin Bag

A Solid Farewell To An Icon

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It’s really irrelevant if you liked Robert Jordan’s work or not. You can’t deny his impact on fantasy literature, one that while not as powerful as Tolkien’s, is certainly recognizable. Jordan pioneered the massive fantasy epic series. There is no doubt that his writing (including not only the Wheel of Time, but various other work too) has brought rise to countless long-winded fantasy series. And like all literature, it’s hit or miss. The impact is undeniable, whether or not you see it as positive or negative (though you have to admit that his impact is a little of both).With his passing he has left behind quite a legacy, including an unfortunately unfinished fantasy series that we all of have heard of–The Wheel of Time. Like Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber…I have never read any of his works, but I recognize his importance to the fantasy genre, much like I recognize Tolkien even though I was not a fan of his writing (the story was excellent, but it wasn’t written very well in my opinion).So with that, here is a wonderful adieu to an icon that seems to have left his mark.

World in the Satin Bag

Updates, Changes, and New Writing Projects

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So I am officially moved in to my new place for the next couple years. Well, at least for the next year. There is a good possibility I will be spending some considerable time in New Zealand next year, but we’ll see. Things are still a bit hectic. Some things are not yet unpacked, and things are a little misplaced and misshapen. I’m in a smaller room than I was before. You can see somewhat how things are progressing in some of the images at the end of this post. It’s not perfect, but it will certainly do, and at least I have DSL, a roof, TV, my beautiful animals, and my schooling to look forward to!So given that, it’s been a rather stressful couple of weeks. Now for an update on, well, stuff. I’m reading Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret for SQT’s blog. It’s a wonderful book and if anyone hasn’t read the first you should. I also got a laptop, which I’ll get a picture of eventually. I need it of course, because I’ll be on campus quite a lot during the week. Now, for the darker news. My blog has been getting a few comments from people from TeenageWriters, a website I was a part of. Well, I am no longer a part of the website due to issues that I don’t think need to be repeated in full detail, but I will give the gist of why this happened. I was the debate mod at TW. Recent happenings were causing the upper mods to begin breaking apart and I got dragged into the fray. Certain members proved to be incapable of trying to find a compromise, some members were trying to understand what was going on, and others were trying to explain it. Ultimately what happened was that all the upper mods were split right down the middle because of immaturity and selfishness. Everyone was bickering, everyone was arguing, and when someone tried to bring the argument to a close and resume finding solutions, the same people would continue bickering. So, nothing got done. Then a few members came back who had left before, some things were said behind my back, and I realized pretty quick with the beginning of ‘mod elections’ that things were going from bad to extremely horrible at TW. So, I made the decision to leave so as not to have to deal with the worsening condition of the site and the idiocy of holding ‘mod elections’, which proved actually to bring things even further down. I have left, several other members have left, and people who were very important to the site are now considering leaving permanently. So, that’s that. The Anthology for the website is basically dead. I’ve pulled all my material off the blog and intend to place it elsewhere, and it’s just a very bad experience. There will be more about this later, but for now, that’s that. Now for some changes. I have a new email. If you click the “Contact Me” link on the left there it will have you send to the new email. For now it is a yahoo.com account. That may change again, but because my sbcglobal.net account will be going away I have to switch up. I have to start forwarding about 300 emails too. I also recently had a short story reviewed by Zen Pen and at some point soon I’ll have to put a summary of what was said. The short version is that it was good stuff, but with some things that really got me thinking. Now for my writing. I’ve got a few projects in the works now. I’m still working on my short stories. I am hoping to get several stories in final working order so I can start sending them out to magazines. I think I’ll end up with about 4 or 5 good stories all going out at once. The Spellweaver of Dern is still in the plotting stage. I’m a bit stuck on it, but at some point I’ll have to sit down and work out the entire plotline. I’ve taken an old unfinished story and have started turning it into a novel. It’s a cross genre piece taking a lot of elements from both science fiction and horror, and there are little bits of fantasy in there, in some ways. I’m not sure how it will work but I have two storylines working right now and I am really enjoying writing it That pretty much completes that. Now for pictures! All the ones of the bay and nature and what not are actually from the UC Santa Cruz campus. Hope you enjoy them. All the pictures of a room are ones of my new room. Those are the early unpacking photos. Things are a bit different now of course. Enjoy!

World in the Satin Bag

Update On Me

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I just wanted to give everyone an update on what is going on. There haven’t been any posts on here for several days and here is why: I have moved! Yes, I have officially moved to Santa Cruz, CA. Well, technically I’m in La Selva Beach, CA, but it’s right next to Santa Cruz and since I’ll be attending UC Santa Cruz to get my BA, I figure it’s easier just to say I’m in SC.So, I moved Sunday, and the last few days have been rather hectic trying to get things unpacked and organize all of my stuff in storage. I’ll have some pictures in a week or so to give a visual idea of what is going on.So that’s the reason for my absence. Things will resume eventually. I have a lot of news to bring up and the like. Thanks for your patience!(Don’t click the read more, there is no more after this)

World in the Satin Bag

Amazon Bestsellers in Scifi & Fantasy

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So, here are your top ten bestsellers on Amazon as of tonight. It’s an interesting bunch I think. 10. The Children of Hurin by J. R. R. Tolkien9. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger8. Confessor by Terry Goodkind7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury6. Spook Country by William Gibson5. Dark Possession by Christine Feehan4. The Elves of Cintra by Terry Brooks3. Making Money by Terry Pratchett2. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy See what I said about being an interesting bunch? Some oldies, some new stuff, and some fantastic works in there. If you want to see beyond 10, go to the link here. Enjoy!(Don’t click the read more, there is no more)

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