Taking Stock

I'm thinking of trying out a new cover. A more "stock" genre cover, using stock pictures (all the advice says; unless you are a well-known author, don't get creative with your covers).

ShutterStock already turned up a hero pic, from a model that has enough of a series in that costume I could do a long run of books off it. I'm tempted to do it just for the fun and challenge. Of course dropping a hundred bucks on ShutterStock, on top of everything else I spent this month...

But then I didn't really write a "stock" book, either. Although searching through top sales in categories, there are some similar things. What I was aiming for was the generic "go to exotic places, have adventures." I did a little too much "go to" and a little too little "adventure," though.

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So the London adventure is turning into a zig-zag plot. Not one big arc, but more like a bunch of reversals. Rather pulp-ish, now that I think of it. I also think of it as a Tribble plot, in that there are things building slowly in the background that suddenly become a foreground problem.

So I'm still on for detectorists, dai-london binbo seikatsu manual (err..Down and Out in London), Romans, coin collectors, Panto, a bit of tourism, Doggerland, urban spelunking, train spotters, archaeological methods, the life of a shovel bum, and of course Underground London.

Just read an introductory book on Panto. I'm a little early for page counting, but it feels to me that I won't be getting more than 10-20K out of it, without it turning into filler. Plus might not be the right season for it (the big Panto season is the winter holidays. Do you know The Hoff played a villain several seasons running? He apparently does a great Captain Hook.) Anyhow I might set it in April; "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote..."

I'm still lacking for villain. I mean, to really connect him to the themes and the plots. And what I'm calling the God Game is still way in the background. Anything supernatural is still entirely deniable, and also doesn't tie in any way to apparent entities of the last book.

(To lay it out baldly...in the last book there's a strange-acting little girl on the Acropolis, someone gives Penny a Medusa amulet, the ship that rescued her was called Hermes, she had a moment of power, competence, and rage in the big fight that the text is careful to place closely to a mention of the aristeia, but the only difficult-to-negotiate moment is that the Art Squad detective tells Penny he heard and saw her give a rousing speech -- in flawless Greek.)

So I can't use whatever the Immortals might be up to as a way to fill plot holes. Whatever happens, happens for clearly human reasons. Penny is going to wonder if there is more going on than meets the eye, especially in regards to the Whisperer in Tunnels, but there isn't going to be anything inexplicable in this book.

What there is, is much to develop in the relationship between Penny and the character she plays. I knew there was going to be. But I thought I'd be further along. This book is still in the figuring-out-how-it-works for her, and I've still yet to come to grips with the problem of pseudo-archaeology. And the way an Indiana Jones ripoff character tacitly supports it.

Well, this may be the book where I reverse a previous statement. I think Tomb Raider (that is, the games and movies and books) exists in her world, and this is possibly the best book to admit to it and start coming to grips with that.