Tag: Jake and the Dynamo

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!”

Writing Day for ‘Dead to Rites’

Today is a writing day for Dead to Rites. I am still making my way through ViVid Strike!, which I want to wrap up before I review anything else, simply because I’m afraid it will disappear from Amazon Prime. I’m not done with it yet (I have too much else to do), but I will say in advance that I so far think it is the most entertaining series in the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, even though it is also easily the shallowest and stupidest. Unfortunately, I am easily entertained by scenes of young girls beating the everloving snot out of each other, and that’s pretty much the show’s entire premise.

The rough draft of Dead to Rites, second volume of Jake and the Dynamo, is just about done. Tonight, I am working on the grand climax. There’s probably one to two chapters after that, and then it’s on to the editing and rewriting phase.

‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Now on Sale!

Get yours while supplies last.

Are you interested in a combination of uproarious humor and fast, bloody action featuring a bewildered teenage boy and a whole truckload of goofball girls? If you are, now’s the time to get you some, because the eBook version of Jake and the Dynamo: The Wattage of Justice is now on sale at Amazon for 99 cents.

Get it here.

The Children of the Night, What Sweet Nougat They Make

I am currently working on the sequence in the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo in which Jake assists Magical Girl Nunchuk Nun in a battle against vampire pastry chefs in the catacombs under the reconstructed Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome-in-Exile.

I’m not sure it’s coming out the way I want, but I think this is pretty funny:

Pushing off from the armrest, Jake regained his feet and found himself facing a black-robed figure with a bone-white face. This gaunt creature’s head was a pale dome, entirely without hair, but marked on the left side, just above the ear, by a peculiar, puss-filled boil that somehow put Jake in mind of a half-formed eye. The creature’s unusually long and knobby ears ended in flaccid points. Although the rest of his skin was pale like that of a corpse, his lips were a bright red—not quite like lipstick, but more like cold sores that had spread to entirely encompass his mouth.

With a snake-like hiss, the vampire stretched out one thin, bony hand. His long fingers, tipped with yellowing, claw-like nails, grasped a huge cupcake topped with a high, swirling mound of almond-colored frosting.

He glided toward Jake almost as if he had wheels on his feet, and his pustule-like lips slid back, revealing a set of countless crooked, needle-like fangs. Although most of the windows were dark, a single panel—an image of the Christ raising two fingers in solemn blessing—glowed with a funereal blue-white light, the color of the waning moon. That light cast a sepulchral pallor over the vampire’s corpse-like face and made his wet teeth glisten.

“Our mont-blancs are on special this week,” the vampire whispered coldly. “They’re half off. Get them while supplies last.”

A sweet hint of chestnut met Jake’s nose.

His throat was dry, but he swallowed painfully. “I’m … I’m allergic to nuts, actually,” he rasped.

The vampire hissed again, and then suddenly lunged.

My writing process often involves listening to a single song over and over again. For most of the first volume, it was “You’re Mine” by Disturbed. For the vampire scenes in the second volume, I’m mostly listening to this:

‘Jake and the Dynamo’ TVTropes Page Updated

Whoever is managing the page for Jake and the Dynamo on TVTropes has recently added updates. The cover art for the published version is now posted, and the description has been updated to describe its publication history.

The writer states, “Originally released episodically as a web serial novel, it was eventually published in e-book form.” (It’s also available as a paperback, but hey.)

I see also that the list of tropes has been updated. For example, the villain Chai Square, the tea-drinking statistical troll, is listed as a Pungeon Master, because of his habit of making statistical jokes. (Magical Girl Sword Seamstress could fit this trope also for her sewing puns.)

Funny story about Chai Square: I came up with that character while I was writing up a report on an archaeological project and was doing some of the statistical analysis. I have a bad habit of mispronouncing chi square, which is how I came up with Chai Square’s name. The whole thing evolved from there.

As an added note, I’m pleased to see that, according to TVTropes, the novel qualifies for the trope of “Mood Whiplash,” even if it does not rise to the level of “Cerebus Rollercoaster.” As I’ve explained before, that’s pretty much my storytelling philosophy.

Brief Update (and art by SushiyamaArt)

Featured image: “Miraculous Ladybug” by SushiyamaArt.

I was going to write the review for Made in Abyss this afternoon, but I instead volunteered to put up Christmas decorations at a church, which I thought would take an hour and instead took all day.

This morning, I was making good progress on Jake and the Dynamo, so I’m going to spend my evening going back to that instead of writing a review I wouldn’t get finished tonight anyway.

In other news, I notice the third season of Miraculous Ladybug has got started. I know the first episode has aired, but I’m not quite sure if it’s available in English yet.

I haven’t even seen season 2 yet. I feel like I’m really behind on the shows I want to watch and discuss—but then again, I’m trying to finish a second novel over here, so I can’t watch TV all the time.

By the way, my plan for publication goes like this: I want to get volume 2 of Jake and the Dynamo out, and my plan after that is to put out volume 1 of Rag & Muffin, which needs heavy editing but is entirely drafted. I haven’t thought ahead beyond that. I may or may not also have a short story in an anthology in the near future.

‘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 97% complete on the Writing phase. 16 Days remain until the deadline.

There are some matters about which I’d like to post, but I’ve been working on my book instead, which is not exactly time wasted.  I realized that I needed to go back and insert a new chapter into an earlier part in the novel, and I was having some trouble crafting it, but I figured out what was wrong with it, so tonight I’ve completed the draft of that particular section. Still needs a couple of corny jokes thrown in, though.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Writing
Due:5 years ago
96.7%