Whatever Lola Wants

 I look up too damn much.

It's my way of solving plot problems/blowing through a block. I've got a scene set in the New York Bar atop the Shinjuku Hyatt -- aka the Lost in Translation hotel. Of course I had to look up the opening hours first and, dammit, the scene needs to be in the adjoining grill and no the live music doesn't start until the evening.

(That's not actually the room -- I just thought it was cool there's some people who put together these architectural illustrations of famous movie hotel rooms. I have actual floor plans for Penny's room. Of course.)

I thought it might be cute to have a show tune playing, perhaps something semi-obscure, a Cole Porter say, that Penny could recognize. Well I'd seen that the bar and grill take that "New York" to aggressive levels. I saw a Yankees-inspired artwork in one of the photos. And that's when I flashed on the 1955 musical Damn Yankees. Which I always thought was obscure but I guess not really. Anyhow, the breakout song of that musical is "Whatever Lola Wants."

Cue a comparative listening session to Ella, Carmen, and Sarah Vaugn. Because I might need to know. And then when I wrote the scene it never came up. Well, isn't the writer supposed to know four times what they actually put in the book?

***

But does that mean I want to blow six-hundred bucks plus on a research trip? My up-front costs for a week in Crete were under a thousand (flight and hotel). It's over a hundred bucks to rent a snowmobile for a couple of hours, and the nearest snow that's snow enough for snowmobiles to be there too is a long enough drive I don't want to risk my car on it, meaning another couple hundred in rental. Then since I'm tired of forty-dollar motel rooms and it is sort of research (and sort of affordable luxury) something both nice and interesting to stay at.

Similar costs to get onto a go-kart, and it would be indoors, electric, closed track. Of course if you could rent one to go out on the city streets (there is one that does downtown SF) I'd be terrified to try it. I'm not much for driving in city traffic even in a real car. They are all about the racing and the idea of a check ride just isn't on. Pay for a year membership, then pay by the race, and you will be racing. I still might do it. If nothing else, it's a shorter drive.

This novel is taking forever and I don't feel comfortable about it. And, yes, this is the scene where I introduce the Takakarasienne, who I intend to be a striking and pivotal character...and I still haven't finished reading the book!

And this is going to need another round of revisions, and lots of pruning. Revisions because I don't think the conflict is visible enough or the stakes visibly high enough out of the gate. And pruning? In the current draft of the Shinkansen-to-Shinjuku hotel scenes, I've name-dropped or referenced Shakespeare, Metal Gear Solid, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Cinderella, Blade Runner, Chelsea FC and the League Cup final, Superman and the Daily Planet, 1984, and The Big Sleep.