Wrote a chase scene today. Set it in Venice the way Bullit is set in San Francisco. Sure, I checked maps and street-level pictures and videos to find places where certain specific actions could plausibly happen. But I used them without regard for where they were in relation to each other. I also didn't name anything, so nobody is going to know.
I also gave up on getting the setting of the next chapter completely accurate. Half the point of this book was to use what I already know. So I'm borrowing the ferry I actually rode instead of trying to describe one unseen. I'm changing the names anyhow.
There's a fine line there and I don't know what or where it is. Books name institutions and public figures and commercial products all the time. Characters in books will buy at Sears, drink Coke, vote for Truman. And it gets more specific and more close to home. Parker named specific books by specific (living) authors, and actual businesses in the Boston area.
Well, I'm naming a few actual places as well. I've just made a point to be even-handed, and the smaller the entity (like a single bookstore in Venice) the more neutral-positive I want to be. Lufthansa I'm willing to criticize. A small tratoria I'd as soon just say, "the food was good" and leave it at that.
Last week I got to fly on a short-hop business airline. Private terminal, no TSA, no lines. Shoes stayed on. Different experience and an extremely positive one. Flew to Burbank, which is an experience all in itself. I managed to remain calm while shaking the hand of someone whose shoes probably cost more than I make in a year. What isn't making me calm is that my company is ordering tens of thousands of dollars of material based on MY measurements. No pressure!
And it has nothing to do with the "location" theme of this post, but messing around with the Yamaha Venova seems to have sharpened my trumpet chops. I'm pushing through the scales fast enough the cheap valves on my current trumpet are starting to hold me back. I'm also getting the first two or three pedal tones on a regular basis. Oddly enough the violin hasn't completely left me; I pulled it out and was able to get through a couple of tunes even without the shoulder rest.
My new neighbor really hates it when I practice at home, though. That's something I have no good solution for. Well, it can wait. A lot of things can wait. I'm walking again (after having dropped a battery-powered drill on my foot from high enough to drive the bit through my shoe), and hoping to steadily increase my exercise and decrease my waist.
And I'm past the mid-point on the novel with more and more of the foundation work already done. Blew through a 2,000 word chase scene in one writing session. I already have the bulk of two or three other scenes worked out in my head. The biggest thing I have to worry about going forward is whether I fall so short of my page count I have to add some new element to the mix.
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