Racing towards...Part IV

 Been a weird couple of weeks. New drugs to try, family tragedy, all that good stuff. Also standing in a scissor lift trying to bolt a subwoofer to the ceiling (sometimes my job is like that.)

But I've been slugging my way through chapters and they are happening, bit by bit. Part III is the Tokyo sequence; the catchphrase is "Robots and Neon" (after a remark Penny made) but it is also Lost in Translation.

So there's the Shinkansen to Tokyo. I revised that several times, including deleting an entire Tokyo Station scene. One of the weird voices is the English announcements are read by the same Australian voice actress who was the voice in the headset on one of the Metal Gear Solid games.

Then check-in to Shinjuku Park Hyatt -- which is not named, although I did name the New York Grill (and bar). I got stuck for a very long time on that scene, and before I'd finished with it, I'd added a telephone conversation with Mei University, where Yuji Yamada is more-or-less the faculty you go to if you want a Degree in Ninja.

There's a bit of the Ginza, a rehearsal studio out towards the Imperial Park (in the neighborhood where Tokyo Takarazuka is), stuff about kitsune and a few acting exercises. Including one that almost forced me to put in a Firefox joke that even the narrator is sure nobody is going to get...

But at least things were starting to move along.

The Robot Restaurant scene (with a bit of background on Kabuki-cho and the Golden Gai) went faster than I'd expected. This also name-drops the final battle of the Genpai War, plus bits of Grass-cutter and Yoshitsune lore. And I was left with things that needed to be advanced and added a new scene back at the New York Grill.

There's a bit more Takarazuka stuff with my takarasienne (who tells Penny she is an otokoyaku but never explained what it meant). Then to the carts, which also proved simpler than I thought, and a brand-new micro-scene to resolve what I was setting up with Scorpion (a ninja from Mortal Combat) and the following scene.

Then to Odaiba, in Tokyo Bay. The sports facility is completely invented; the climbing wall is like nothing I've ever been on, one part a few fancy gyms I found pictures of, one part American Ninja, and one part sheer imagination, all the way up to foam rubber spikes because this is totally a Tomb Raider climbing exercise.

And now I'm back in Shinjuku, once again at the mercy of geography as I'm forcing Penny to wander aimlessly so she can manage to stumble upon the next scene I want her in. There's four scenes to go and then I'll be at the end of part 3 of 4 and on track to finish the book in another month or so.

First is the fight with "Sukeban Deka." The last ninja fight of the story, and not even a ninja, despite the Bruce Lee/The Bride yellow jumpsuit call-back. 

Then the insanity of the Akihabara, when the otoku and the hikikomori come out to play on the late-night streets. I suspect this will be fast, even though I've got a character who is going to talk Penny's ear off about being a young person in modern Japan.

Then the pay-off of her Takarazuka training and the delights of a Little Black Dress as Penny fully engages with the cult figures she was hired to stop, at a fancy black-tie event the evening of the 25th.

One thing I still have to decide is if Aki-on-headset has been replaced with Fake Aki -- or even if I'm going to do that bit after all.

Then we finish off the Tokyo arc with the "scars" scene -- a romantic dinner in a most unexpected form.

Then it will be on to Part IV and all I'll have to do is show off the Ken Adam style cult headquarters (yes, they even have a monorail), some pseudo-archaeological/ancient alien ramblings, one or two "Hello Clarice" scenes with the charismatic cult leader, a bit more on religion in Japan, a day trip to a French Restaurant situated in a garden drawn straight out of a Monet...and then the end-game, with chimpira and snowmobiles and a Black Star pistol, culminating in yuki-onna, yamabushi, an abandoned village, multiple verses of "Yuki no shingun" and Christmas Cake.

And then all I'll have to do is edit, beta read if I have patience, do the blurb, format to Amazon's latest change in what software and formats are acceptable, do the cover, re-do ALL the covers, and do a big advertising push.

With three books I might be just on the edge where it starts to pick up sales. I've been collecting notes for the Paris book and am hoping to hit the ground running on that one...and not take QUITE so long at it!