Girls Play

 The project at work is taking way too long. Worked all weekend on it and still not where I want it to be. So that doesn't leave a lot of time for writing.

I'm at the up side of the swing right now; I have generally good feelings about the book. But then, I usually have positive feelings about a re-write when I'm in the middle of one. I am half way through Part II now. The problem spots left are going to be reworking the conversation with Ojiisan, changing the sushi scene with Ichiro to take into account all the previous changes I've made, and swapping in Natsumi where Beni was in the Ginkaku-ji scene. Plus seeing if I can borrow any of the stuff I did with her out of the deleted Kyoto Crux scene. And Penny's argument with Aki is re-timed and had to be tweaked anyhow.

And then I'll finally be back to the Shinjuku Park Hyatt and moving forward again. With luck, I won't have to do a top-to-tail rewrite again on this one.

I've turned up the heat slightly on back-burner where the Paris book sits. I think this may be a book without a strong inner conflict; for once, Penny is basically at peace with herself and with her new role. But it may not be entirely an external adventure. Maybe there will be another character who has an important character arc...

Over meals and those times during the long weekend when I had to take a break but couldn't think clearly enough to write (which came far too frequently) I found myself watching a whole bunch of (recorded) streams of young women playing the first Mass Effect game.

 I think it made an interesting sanity check. Obviously there are artificialities in the setting, but the approach and problem-solving was oddly similar between all the players. As one telling detail; Mass Effect has rich lore but is also very well constructed to tell you what you need to know just in the process of play. Even details such as how the combat system works are gently tutorialized through the kinds of encounters thrown at you in the early game. But all of these women were heavy manual readers, dipping into the in-game Codex whenever the opportunity arose. Plus of course there's that aspect of cooperative problem-solving where the viewers on the stream would make suggestions and hints.

I am glad that Penny is not too terribly different in her approach.