Earning Coupons

 I've got the material back from the Japanese translator. We had a good back-and-forth conversation. She was wonderful; understood the literary purpose intended in having a certain phrase there and was willing to bend on idiomatic phrasing when that suited story needs better. But also deeply informed on idiom, especially regarding culture. "Oh, older people say Honto ni, younger people say Daijobou." Including Kansai-ben, Yakuza slang, etc.

Anyhow.

Plugging through, getting her corrections in (some of which propagate, meaning changes to multiple following scenes), doing various minor repairs...and trying to get my "earning the plot coupons" plotting in there.

So especially the first part of the book, taking Penny even further from following the rails because the plot says she should, and giving her not just reasons, but actual goals she is pursuing, and plot-important information she is earning by completing them.

I'm finally, after two weeks of it, closing in on the end of Part I. I hope the rest of the book is easier. I do have some fairly severe re-work happening around the climax, so that may take a bit.

But the scene I've been struggling with for over a week now turned out to be an almost complete rewrite. I've finally managed to sketch in something I always intended for that sequence but wasn't able to carry off in the previous draft.

Penny is at the replica Edo-era film set in the west of Kyoto, in gorgeous period costume, and has realized a mysterious man is following her. So for a brief sequence this becomes the chase scene through exotic locale, with very careful word choices to make it seem for the moment that she actually is an Edo-era character in the streets of that city.

Anyhow, I hope it goes faster. I've all but given up getting the Paris book out before the new year -- especially since I may actually hire a proofreader this time, in addition to I think I need professional help with the French language (there is very, very little of it in the Paris book. I've learned that lesson. But half of what there is, is the slangy, street-smart Bastien with his exremely idiomatic speech patterns. The less of it I have to actually quote, the better!)

And then perhaps I can write something new. Maybe a good space opera.