Dance magic dance

Got the results from the CT scan back. Never have I seen the word "opacity" repeated so often. The pain is still with me but the minutes I forget it are coming more often now.

Deep in the parkour training scene on Sometimes a Fox. Tired and unfocused and that leads too easily to running down more of those tantalizing tidbits Paris is so full of. Watching Fred Astaire now. Before that another dance on film, this one a 1908 from Edison featuring the Bowery equivalent of an Apache Dance.

That's an Apache there. You can tell by the cap and cravat. Pronounced "A-pasch" in French. It is odd just how much the dance attributed to them gets around. But an oddly appropriate side quest for me to go on, given how often Penny goes on about being a dancer.

Sometime during the week I was watching a video about the spiral pattern of the arrondissements over a late dinner, and discovered I'd completely screwed up a mention I'd made of the tax gates. At least that bit of narrative was a quick rewrite, but it made me conscious again of how much I don't know and how much I don't even realize I'm missing. So I've been trying to cram in a little more about the architecture and history of Paris, the layout and how you use the current metro, and, oh right, a few things about how the "southern accent" (US, this time) is changing.

And of course this isn't a training montage scene. I am actually not against Penny picking up some useful skill in far too short a time -- my main reluctance is having her become a skilled fighter whether this way, or more honestly. But this isn't going to end with Penny being a skilled traceur. The beat in the scene is her starting to accept the way she's mangled her flight-or-fight response into a place where, when she is frightened, it makes her charge right in. And this isn't a smart way to proceed.

But there will be one parkour payoff. One upcoming moment when she actually gets a parkour stunt right. That being the "Apaches" scene.

And the parkour scene is done. Minus inevitable edits. This brings me to the end of the detailed outline, which means I've got a bit of work organizing the remaining 20K of material to finish out the novel. I'm really wanting to build up the Steampunk Garden Party at Parc des Butte-Chaumont into a whole Agatha Christie of revealing conversations. No idea if I can pull it off. But aside from knowing I've got a "you and I are much alike" conversation with the rival treasure-hunter, a meeting with some cataphiles, Amelia gushing about her artist lover and Penny finally admitting that she might, sometimes, be a badass, I don't know how the stuff between finishing parkour and landing at the garden party plays out.