Over Ten Years with the Jazzy Island of Dinosaurs

Good morning!

It is about 9:30 a.m. CDT, and it's a nice and sunny day. Hopefully, this is promising. While I am on my laptop, I am working on my marketing research project for school. I only have a week and a hlaf left of my junior year of college, and I am very sad about that!

This has been an amazing year for me! 

Anyway, to go on a note about my novels, I told you about the life of Rockybado yesterday morning. And now, I will explain how The Jazzy Island of Dinosaurs came to be. Both plots are very similar, but they are both so different. It's kind of hard to explain.

I started writing since I can remember. So, probably about six or seven years old. And I will be 22 in about three months, so I have been writing for about sixteen years. And, from what I remember, The Land of Dinosaurs (what it was called back then) was one of the first books I had written. Back then, my dad supplied me with a lot of 11 x 17 paper so I could write short stories as much as I basically wanted to.

The Land of Dinosaurs has gone through so many phases and changes; even I can't remember all of them! I think I started my first version when I was eight years old (that is just an estimate). At first, from what I can remember, the first version was exclusively about dinosaurs. They lived on an island, and they had to defend themselves from the "bad guys." Very, very simple plot.

And then, I remember adding four siblings who lived in Kenya, and they went on an adventure to visit the dinosaurs. Similar to Peter Pan (one of my characters' names was Wendy), but in a much different setting. I think I wrote that version when I was nine years old.

I put (what was) The Land of Dinosaurs aside for a little over ten years, and then I briefly returned to it in late June 2012. I was thinking about having my characters living in Evanston (a place just north of Chicago), but I never gave them any names. I put the idea aside again until a little after my sophomore year in college started.

September or October of 2012 was when I started getting serious about re-writing (what is now) The Jazzy Island of Dinosaurs. But I did not actually start writing until a year and four months ago.

The Jazzy Island of Dinosaurs is the title of my novel (not that I really wanted to change my title in the first place) because I thought that The Land of Dinosaurs might have sounded a little too much like some titles that I already know exist. So, I decided to go with The Jazzy Island of Dinosaurs. It would make sense anyway because the dinosaurs play some musical instrument, and so does everyone else.

Dacston is a T-Rex, and he plays a saxophone. Valpatic is a velociraptor. Jokie is a brachiosaurus. And Sammy is a stegosaurus. They are all in a band called The Fiesta.

Andrew, Caleb, Adam, Cameron, and Alyssa Grzedek are all siblings, and Andrew and Caleb play guitars. However, Andrew primarily plays acoustic guitar while Caleb plays electric bass. And, on a side note, these kids live in St. John, Indiana. Not Kenya.

Caleb is in a band with his friends, Alessandra Marbanks, Kathryn Ashley, Mark Davis, and Tad Beruve. They are struggling with a good enough name for their band.

While those kids are trying to come up with a name for the band, Dacston needs help in returning the saxophones to everyone who actually lives in Galavanti Island; as his cousin, Selfish Arnie, and Selfish Arnie's henchmen, Spike, Bronco, and Steve, have taken all of them and put them in a case.

Still, a relatively simplistic idea turned into a story full of interesting adventures.

I explained how The Jazzy Island of Dinosaurs came to be this morning. Next Saturday, I will explain how The Magic Video Game evolved.

And I hope everyone has a splendid day!

B. Levi