Tag: blogs

An Interview (and Some Other Business)

Fiona of the blog Author Interviews graciously interviewed me, and you can go read the results.

Here’s a snippet:

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I am wary of messages in fiction. Many years ago, I was tangentially involved with several authors in the Christian Booksellers’ Association; there are some talented storytellers in that set, but I got a sense that they tended to elevate message over entertainment, often to the detriment of their work. I drifted away from them, I think, because of a difference in artistic vision. In the broader publishing industry, we are now seeing something similar to what I saw in CBA, what with the heavy emphasis on social justice or inclusiveness or whatever you want to call it, where message is emphasized to the point that craftsmanship gets neglected.

The reader is free to find any message or none in Jake and the Dynamo. I am sure some of my opinions crept into the text, and anyone who wants to try to tease them out may do so. But the only messages I had firmly in mind were along the lines of, “magical girls are awesome,” and “being a teenager sucks sometimes.”

In regards to other business, I am soon leaving to join Family for a Christmas vacation. I’ll be taking my computer, of course, but my plan is to spend as much of my spare time writing as possible. I am ambitiously hoping to have a complete rough of the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo by the time my Christmas break is over.

While I am at it, I’d also like to do some maintenance on the blog. I habitually use an ad blocker, and it shows an embarrassingly high amount of blocked content on my own site, for reasons I know not. I’m going to try uninstalling and reinstalling the plugins and then deciding which ones I can remove, to see if I can cut down on this blog’s code, which is much heavier than it has a right to be.

I’ve also been gradually learning about HTML and CSS, mostly for my job, and I’d like to try my hand at possibly adding some schema.org markup, which I know Google search likes. There are plugins for that, of course—but they probably stand a good chance of adding yet more trackers.

I’d like the code on this blog to be better than it is, but the WYSIWYG editor doesn’t do everything I’d like, and adding the code by hand takes so dang much time.

Senpai Noticed Me!

Kai Wai Cheah, author of the military dungeonpunk extravaganza No Gods, Only Daimons, who happens to be in my writers’ group, was kind enough to point out that deus ex magical girl has been featured on the Hugo-nominated Castalia House Blog, which is the official organ of an indie publishing house that has become an eclectic haven for talented authors who’ve run afoul of the sf genre’s current political climate.

Blogger Rawle Nyanzi, author of “The Teenage Girl’s Robot Army,” gives your humble host a glowing review:

The Deus Ex Magical Girl blog goes in depth with the series it analyzes, teasing out major themes in what appear to be saccharine children’s entertainment. For example, take a look at this review of Shugo Chara — it’s a thing of beauty and the very post that made me see that this blogger knew his stuff. However, that is not the only good content he has; he also does a masterful job pointing out major problems with another series called Cardcaptor Sakura — according to him, the show is popular with lolicons even though it has no sexualized content.

Not content to criticize from the sidelines, the blogger has also written a magical girl novel called Jake and the Dynamo, which can be read here as of this posting. I haven’t read past the first chapter since it’s not my cup of tea, but I’m sure someone else might like it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Nyanzi has caught me at a bad time. I’m currently trying to acquire a master’s degree at twice the normal pace while simultaneously holding down a job, so my blogging endeavors (as well as my magical girl anime-watching) are temporarily stalled out.

However, I was toying with the idea of begging the Castalia House Blog to let me write a guest post, and it also crossed my mind to submit Jake and the Dynamo for possible publication. I had shied away from these ideas mostly because I assumed my particular interests would not appeal to Castalia House’s core demographic. As Mr. Nyanzi notes, he could only get through my first chapter.

Still, it might be worth a shot.

Curse This Schedule

Tomorrow I may have time to write the post I’ve been meaning to get to, but in the last few remaining minutes of my evening today, I’m going to work on Jake and the Dynamo. I’m still sorting out my new schedule, so posting will be more spotty even than my usual for now.

The image above is a mascot character I rescued (?) from a site called Kimiko Anime, a review blog that was apparently quite active for a while, but is now presumably defunct as it has not been updated since 2010. Shame to let that magical girl mascot go to waste, though.

I take no responsibility for other people’s content, but be aware that Kimiko Anime, if you choose to visit, has a note up top that it may not be suitable for minors.