Tag: Dead to Rites

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites Progress Update


Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Editing
41.1%

 

I’m spending the day working on the editing phase of Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites. It’s coming along smoothly, if slowly. I hope to be about half done by the end of the day, and my goal is to have it out to both my illustrator and my editor by the end of the month.

In other news, I’m working my way through Little Witch Academia, and will review when I’m done. I’m also hoping to finally get through the two series of Glitter Force by the end of the month, but I’ve picked a bad month for it, since I’m also trying to finish my book.

There’s a lot of other things going on in the world of YA and anime, much of it rancorous. I’m mostly keeping my nose out of it, but might have a few comments later.

Update on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites

I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far I’m 15% complete on the Editing phase.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Editing
14.9%

I don’t talk in specifics about my day job on my blog, but I’ll go so far as to say that I work at a university, and that the university was closed today on account of an ice storm. Thus, I am spending the day sipping bourbon and working on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites. I am now in the editing phase, making the first pass in preparation to send it to my illustrator.

I’ve mentioned before that my drafts expand as I edit, even though the convention is that a final should be considerably shorter than a rough. There are, however, good reasons for this. First, I tend to write dialogue in staccato fashion, often without attribution. As I make my second pass, I notice when a reader might not know who’s talking, and then I add in attribution along with description of what characters are doing.

Also, in action scenes, my first draft is usually technical description. Only in later drafts do I add things like what characters are thinking and feeling and so forth. My perceptive editor rightly noted, on receiving my submission draft of The Wattage of Justice, that Jake disappeared during action sequences, so I added in a lot more detail about his thoughts and behaviors, which naturally upped the word count. The most dramatic example of this is in Pretty Dynamo’s climactic battle with the demoniac: Originally, this was told as a single paragraph outlining her spear technique, but in the final version, the paragraph was broken into single-sentence paragraphs interspersed with Jake’s reactions, consisting mostly of his indignant ruminations on how little girls have to be humanity’s defenders.

So that’s why my word counts increase in later drafts. I do of course cut out rabbit trails and needless discursions, but those are usually smaller than the added material. Thus, the working draft currently stands at 140,016 words, and will probably be much larger when I’m done (I previously said it was 140,000, but that was rounded up).

Changing subjects—on the review side of things, I’m currently indulging in yet another free month of Netflix (a service I refuse to pay for), which is why I reviewed the second season of Miraculous Ladybug. For my next trick, I will most likely review Little Witch Academia, which I’ve been eager to see for some time. Then I will probably (finally!) get around to the two series of Glitter Force, the execrable localication/butchering of Pretty Cure. Aside from those, Netflix contains little or nothing I give a fig about—which is why I don’t pay for it.

‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Volume 2 Complete

Featured image: “Sailor Moon as Pretty Cure 5” by williukea.

Sort of.

Not happy with the progress I was making, I decided to stay off the blog for a while until I completed the first draft of Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites, which is of course the sequel to .

That draft is now done. Much of it is still rough, of course, but I hope to have the first pass finished in a few days, after which it will go to my illustrator. After the second pass, it will go to my editor.

The draft is about 140,000 words, which makes it almost half as long again as the previous volume.

Writing Day

I know I’ve got a few promised reviews in the queue, but today I’m spending on Dead to Rites. This book keeps getting longer and longer … but at least I can see the light. I am on the last action scene! And then it’s pretty much just the denouement and the first draft is done.

I haven’t had many update posts lately because I sort of screwed up the app I was using to record my progress, and I’m not sure how to fix it. Oh well. I expect the book will get even longer on my second pass, as for me, a second pass usually means adding detail as opposed to cutting out extraneous stuff.

Rock on with ‘Dead to Rites’

I am working on Dead to Rites, the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo, which is much longer than I’d expected it to be, but I have finally reached the rock concert, a scene I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

Amidst the roars of the crowd, the keyboardist started in, and the other instruments soon followed. After several opening licks, Vanessa, with a voice rough and raw and passionate, started singing.

The crowd jumped and shouted and waved. Jake couldn’t make out most of the words, but when Vanessa reached the refrain, she roared out:

“Beaten, battered, bruised, and torn, and stabbed with a million knives! But we’re still alive!”

All around the stadium, people, Dana included, pumped their fists in the air and shouted, “We’re still alive! We’re still alive! We’re still alive!”

“Let me hear you, Urbanopolis!” Vanessa called. “We’ve had a hard couple of weeks, haven’t we? But they can’t keep us down! All the forces of evil in the whole darn universe can’t keep us down! Shout it loud! Shout it proud! Shout it so the Moon Princess can hear you! Let her know that her children are still alive!”

“We’re still alive!” the crowd cried. “We’re still alive!”

The lead guitarist stopped playing and tossed his guitar into the air. With a high leap, Vanessa caught it, landed back on the stage, and moved into a squealing guitar solo. “Keep it going!” she shouted.

“We’re still alive!” the audience chanted. “We’re still alive!”

In spite of himself, Jake swayed back and forth to the deafening, punishing music. Dana had her feet on the lowest rung of the railing and was leaning precariously over the side, pumping a fist and banging her head. Her wild, unkempt red hair flew about her face like raging flames. Overhead, the moon shone brightly, and a few stars twinkled.

Then Jake understood. Slowly, he raised a fist. The humans had been through some tough battles in the last few days, and it was true that everything in the cosmos and beyond was out to kill them—but they kept going. They suffered, and they bled, but they always gave better than they got: Innumerable alien races had set upon the Earth to wipe the humans out, but most of those races were now dead, and humanity lived on. They survived. And tonight, in the music of Metal Huntress Vanessa Van Halensing, humanity was letting it be known: They were cutting loose with a rebel yell and lifting a middle finger to the universe.

“We’re still alive!” Jake shouted. “We’re still alive!”

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Progress Update

I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far I’m 92% complete on the Writing phase. 21 Days remain until the deadline.

I’ve upped the projected word count from 90,000 to 100,000, though realistically I expect it to overrun that. I’m currently inserting a chapter into an earlier part of the book, a chapter I just realized needs to go there. Once I’m done with that, I’m on to writing the the scene with the fight against vampires in the torch-lit catacombs.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:6 years ago
92%

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites Progress Update

I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far I’m 92% complete on the Writing phase. 8 Weeks remain until the deadline.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:6 years ago
91.9%

Kind of a “small” update, because this was a second pass on a 65-page section for a writer’s group. Took me longer than it should have to craft this, largely because both an action sequence and a deliberately awkward love scene were giving me difficulties.

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Progress Update

Managed to squeeze in some slight advancement on the book in between other things tonight.

So far I’m 88% complete on the Writing phase. 11 Weeks remain until the deadline.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:6 years ago
87.8%

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Progress Update

I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far I’m 87% complete on the Writing phase. 11 Weeks remain until the deadline.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:6 years ago
87.4%

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Progress Update

I have this new book progress widget in the sidebar, and it allows me to generate progress posts automatically.

I have arbitrarily set the novel’s “goal” length at 90,000 words, with a deadline in three months. There’s actually no hard deadline from my publisher, and I have freedom on the book’s length.

But in any case, the novel now stands at 77,385 words, which is where I’m stopping for the day, because I have other things to get done. I managed, at last, to unite together some chapters I had written separately, so everything currently in the draft is continuous from one end to the next. I’ve little doubt that everything I wrote today requires substantial editing, but such is life.

I just made progress on Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites! So far I’m 84% complete on the Writing phase. 11 Weeks remain until the deadline.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:6 years ago
84.1%