Jake's Dream Comes True

Writing Journal: Just finished The Adjusters #45. It was weird. All about the secondary characters. Not entirely sure how I feel about it. But it moves the plot along. I'm having a love/hate relationship with Book IV. Hopefully working on #46 will help out—back to Jenn's perspective.

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It's been a busy month of August, split between work and family. But I'm here, and I read all the emails, and I read all the comments, even if I'm slow on the response and even slower on the postings.

Fact is, that's pretty much my problem these days. Since life is so busy, a lot of stuff gets put on the shelf where it grows and grows, and when I get a bit of time to do something about it, I look at the overflowing shelf and don't quite know where to start attacking it. Not an original problem, I know. I just haven't found a satisfactory solution that works for me.

The story this week is a little saga that just finished posting on the EMCSA (although I think I read it over at Storiesonline), and which many of you have probably already seen, but if not, let me present Jake's Dream Comes True, by Billy_Ray77: “After being pummelled by a pair of bullies, Jake’s mental powers manifest themselves.”

Now, the description doesn't really do the story justice, as the author himself points out in a post over at MCForum. And I admit that the first time I tried reading the story, back when it was only two or three chapters long, it didn't grab me. But there's an actual story there, one that goes way beyond the somewhat succinct description above that misleadingly suggests a Guy Gets Powers And Fucks Everything That Moves story line, a story about how Jake deals with his powers, and how they affect the people that he loves. It's a nice and sweet story, with less pathos that I would have expected—sadly, in my hands, that story would have had a few of the nice girls in there somewhat used and abused and I can tell you exactly where that use and abuse would have occurred!—but still plenty of twists and turns. It reminds me a lot of a couple of classic mind-control stories of years past, one of which I can remember the details of but not the title. I'm going to have to find it and link to it one day.

Primevil Vignettes Series, Book 2

Writing Journal: The Adjusters #43 seems to have been well received, which I'm happy about. Next month's #44 is the final setting up of dominos for Book IV, after which I kick them and we see where things land. While the pace of #41–44 was a bit on the slow side, the rest of Book IV should be more snappy. I started on #45 this week, which looks like it will be an easy one to write (as opposed to #43–44, which were painful, with #44 still in pretty rough shape).

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Quick question for the folks out there: if you bookmark stories, what do you use for bookmarking? I've been using Delicious because I started with it and inertia is pretty strong with me for stuff like that, but it's not ideal when you've accumulated a lot of bookmarks. Maybe I just haven't found the right way to tag things—I hate tagging—but I'm happy to take recommendations. I would like my bookmarks to live online, though, since I want to access them from different machines. (Although presumably I could store them in a dropbox-synchronized folder.)

The story for today is Book 2 of Velvetglove's Primevil Vignettes series, Rooting for the Underdog: “Multi-part, multi-character, non-consensual saga set in an imaginary country ruled by a dictatorship.” I've talked about Book 1 before, which I enjoyed a lot, and this one is a direct continuation, in exactly the same style—except for the scenes being somewhat shorter. Still a great idea, and I love the cruel little twists here and there. (Note to self: short sex scenes—maybe try that one day. Ah! Who am I kidding?...)

New Story: The Adjusters #43

Here is August's installment of The Adjusters, “Sanderson's Initiation”, wherein Sanderson learns about an entrepreneurial venture of Gutierrez.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


The Adjusters #43 - Sanderson's Initiation

Sanderson worked three Saturdays and two Sundays every month. Not that it bothered him that much—he was still getting his bearings in the city, and did not have much of a social life. Like many people upon graduating and moving to a new area of the country where they knew no one, he was having difficulties creating a social circle. Making new friends from scratch was painful, especially without the socially-oriented college culture he had relied on for the previous half-decade. Everyone he knew worked at the Institute, and he did not feel close enough to his colleagues to hang out with them outside of work beyond the odd outing for drinks after work on Fridays. He had not asked Beatrice out either; their schedules did not match, and except for meeting up for lunch in the Institute’s cafeteria twice a month when their shifts overlapped in just the right way, he hardly saw her.

Not that he had much time to ponder his social and love life. He was kept busy, with most his time split between learning the rhythm of both the Institute and Blue Ward and getting to know the patients.

For the Blue Ward patients were unlike any he had ever encountered throughout his studies; they required individual attention to a degree that rivaled the schizophrenics with whom he had trained. He had never run across patients quite like them in case studies or the literature either. The nurses on the ward had confirmed what Doctor Dante had told him—and what his own cursory medical literature exploration had underlined—that these cases in Blue Ward were unique.


Continue reading...


Next month: “Awash”.