Zenshu

Had to write a new scene with new research, too. Spent a while watching videos on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, NM. Annoying how many would show me the token board but not which room it was in. I won't say I worked out the geography of the place, but I came up with a geography which was plausible enough to write the scene.

I think that's the last one of those. I do have one more almost completely new scene to write, but it is all geometry and random; I need to actually detail Penny climbing out of the missile silo, only this time with a hurt arm.

As far as I can tell, although there are a lot of words getting changed from where I am to the end of the book, they are mostly simple changed. What was killing me over the past couple of weeks was scenes where major plot threads were being obscured, or didn't work in the first place.

There's two of those spots left, and before I even get out of Part III. The sequence as she flees to Albuquerque after getting run off the road is another almost complete re-write, and I have to revisit understanding of the plot, and her reactions and intentions. And then again at the bottom of the missile site, with her talking herself back down from the wave of paranoia that sent her to the War Zone.

I really wish I was writing something else.

Even another Penny story.

I'm still juggling the parts for Blue. I'm simultaneously finding the genre I want to be in, and deciding what kind of things dominate the story (right now, it is leaning towards the space opera side with a lot of hand-to-hand -- or at least close-quarters -- action). And coming back from those with how to make an overall plot that hits the right places, and that in turn influences some basic premises of the world and her personal story in it...and that comes back around to feed into what the genre is.

So that's not quite where I can start pushing prose. I'm more than a little tempted to just start typing on the New Orleans story -- because the game there is that Penny doesn't know what actually happened or even what the town looks like, having to reconstruct from notes and news articles. Meaning the framing story could, potentially, excuse a lot of errors and omissions. 

***

Started a scene in my mind. Was thinking POV for Blue and had the idea for an introductory chapter with the scientists that developed the experimental mental implant thing. And almost immediately my brain went into that particular cadence of Military SF, with all the backgrounding. Not quite How David Weber Orders a Pizza -- but not far off, either.

Might be better than the Jeffries Tube scene I've got now.