Beru-Bara....bwaa?

 I still haven't zeroed in on my villain's villainous plan. Or even his villainous self. So much for plotting from the core out.

My model for this part of the writing process now looks like intermittent gears.

An idea comes. Then I have to sit on it for a day or two until I can accept it.

Anyhow. There are several bits of Japanese pop culture which are starting to both be elements that are going to be in the story and are defining what I'm trying to do with the story.

Ken Matsudaira, in the jidaigeki that would not die. Seriously, the man has to be immortal or something.

And I was going to put in pictures of two more elements, but the world is ahead of me; someone has already combined them:

Yes...that is a Takarazuka Revue production of...Lupin III !

So I'm getting more excited about the book. My intention at this point is to explain little, to touch only lightly with the smallest number of words on any of the history or religious philosophy or cultural foibles. In fact, to have a lot less dialog than the last book. 

Mostly, it is going to be description and action. A lot of five-senses stuff. Among other things, my protagonist is going to do some training up. And if I work the timing right, I'll be getting back into exercise myself (I am walking to work every day I can and I swear I can already feel it helping).

In other news, the second book hasn't done much in sales.

Warning Clowns

And now I've invented a religion.

No fear -- I prefer writing science fiction. Or history-adjacent adventure, at least at present.

I was this close to dumping the entire UFO cult angle from the next book, but then I got thinking about silver jumpsuits and monorails and I just couldn't resist. You only write once, I guess.

This morning I was thinking about depictions of scientific savior organizations from 70's TV, like Ark II or Genesis II and...oops, that's exactly the right idea. In a moment I had the basic philosophy, and it is continuing to unfold in my mind. At this point my cult leader could talk for a couple of pages on it. If I let him.

Basically we're talking scientific humanist. Plus aliens. It is a progressive uplift idea that weaves together UFOs, the Garden of Eden, King Arthur, and of course modern malaise. So there's plenty of hooks around for them to be talking about and collecting artifacts from the past, especially the "greatest hits" model (the secret conspiracy always backed Napoleon. Never Wellington, and certainly not Corporal Smith.)

And they don't have a volcano but they do have some fancy gigs that lean entirely too far in the Ken Adams direction.

And I'm sticking with Genpei War for the bit of history. Even if it is an era I don't know much about and aren't that interested in. It is really post-opening Japan that interests me most, from Perry's Black Ships to the bubble collapse, but particularly the post-war period. But with this and the Blitz I run the risk of making the series look like it is all about World War II and other relatively modern history.

Now my biggest problems are two. How to winnow down the material and focus it in. And how to come up with a baddie and an objective that are strong and immediate and important.

(That's the speech-to-text again. I was making a note about warring clans. In a paragraph that included "samurai" twice. But that's par. I had dictated something like "With the samurai came the samurai codes and beliefs..." and speech-to-text caught the first one fine but decided to replace the second with "Same as me." It is illuminating as to how it works. The first pass is a best-guess for words. The next is a frequency check where it replaces uncommon words with words that are more likely to have been said or meant. Then the last pass cleans up the grammar -- or tries to. So "Samurai" became "Same as I" became "Same as me.")

But I am still intrigued by the idea of a story set in the Warning Clowns period. Or maybe it is a single soothsayer. "Beware the Ides of March" doesn't have the same ring coming from under that red nose...

senseless signs of history

 Finally uploaded to the Kindle store!

So now I just have to wait for the third beta reader. Next book, I think I will pay for editing. Not like I'm making a profit on this.

And after I'd downloaded the free sample to my own Kindle, I discovered an edit I know I'd made somehow reverted itself. Do I really want to go back through and check if all the edits from that session are still there? Sigh.

And such a pretty nose, too.

 My second beta reader had a great note. I went through two days of depression and then I figured out how to do it.

And once again, it seems my instincts were leading me there already. I'd quoted the Twelfth Doctor, from his regeneration scene. And then I continued on to write the scene I'd originally designed. So now I have a version that gives me so much more to work with in the next stories.

Assuming there are next stories. I'm sort of settled on Japan next, then the Paris one, but after that...see if the series is selling.

So I worked up the basic plot for the Japan one. It would work. It's sort of a Ten Little Character Actors plot meets Heaven's Gate. The cult, not the movie that bombed so badly.

But I don't like it. Basically, it isn't organic to the setting. There's a bunch of ideas I've been playing with and several I want to keep that are basically a tourist-level, high-living, view of Japan; shopping in the Ginza, not pounding mochi at a village festival. But I do want to engage with the culture both in general terms and with certain specifics (particularly the Takarazuka).

So back to the brainstorming.

Zwei Fuchse

 Rewrites done, two days of running it all through ProWritingAid again to check for any newly created grammatical errors, and uploaded.

Just before I pressed the "publish" button I heard from a beta reader who is almost finished and will have notes for me. Sigh.

Well, I still have to finish the revisions on the cover. But then it will be published and I'll finally be able to move on.

***

The stack of books for Japan has been growing. I've been reading Underground, which is a series of interviews by Haruki Murakami (yeah, that Haruki Murakami) of survivors of the Aum Shinrikyo attacks.

Found Contemporary Japan and a Lonely Planet guide to Tokyo at one of the book hutches I pass on my walks around the neighborhood. A History of Modern Japan (I heard an interview with the author via the BBC) and Gender Gymnastics have both arrived. Plus I intend to dip into Inside the Robot Kingdom, Behind the Mask, Japanese Mythology, and other books I have already on my shelves.

Plus I bought Come and Sleep (on the folklore of the kitsune) and have been reading Heaven's Gate on Kindle.

There's a growing list of topics which would be interesting to explore, but I still don't have a plot.

And another thing. A problem I've always had is that I like to create boxes. That is, a set of definitions or formats that will then be applied to a set of related creative works. There are things I would like to have in each Athena Fox story -- but I am working hard to let go of the idea that I must include them in each story.

So I'm trying to make it less a checklist and more a Chinese menu:

An archaeological concern. That is, some aspect of the intersections between science, preservation, and the rest of the world. In the last book, it was Development and the role of CRM. I'm not sure what this is in the Japan book.

A question about the character. The series is always dancing on the conflict between Penny and the role she plays, and the inherent contradictions in that role. This one I've got covered.

A historical question, particularly, one that has some controversy attached. The last book sort of missed that one; it was all about the London Blitz, but there wasn't much in the way of false history and there were certainly no UFOs. For Japan, I want to do the UFOs, but I don't know how to connect that back to actual (and interesting) history.

A place, particularly one I've been. There's always going to be a bit of travel exotica here, and it includes experiences -- urban exploration or Viking crafts or whatever.

And a couple things that seem to be showing up consistently:

Cosplay, or rather, a chance to dress up in period clothing. This one is not going to be period so much as kimono...very possibly an entire geisha do-up, as offered to tourists in Kyoto.

Social consciousness. I didn't really intend it, but Penny seems to have a habit of noticing urban poor and systemic racism and falling in with people who are on the fringe of their societies.

The deep dive. I didn't want to do this for the Japan book. I wanted to keep it out with tourist locations and hanging with the well-to-do, because hanging out with students or doing budget travel in Tokyo or worse yet getting out into the countryside is more work. Well...I'll see.

***

I'm set on the UFO cult as being central to this story, as well as the (overly) suave government man she romances and the takaresienne who delivers a much-needed sanity-check. I've even totally lost the notes on a real cult who collected (probably trafficked) antiquities and had a famous-architect museum that reads like a James Bond villain lair. But that doesn't matter because as much as I'm willing to name-check real organizations whatever is at the center of this plot is going to be entirely fictional.

I know it can let me talk about society and issues in contemporary Japan, and about the intersections of pop culture and conspiracy theories and mainstream science. But it doesn't seem really archaeological. Or historical. That might end up being the actual theme of the book; that the history is all Disney-fied and re-purposed, the castles poured concrete and the temples torn down every ten years, and all Penny gets to do is wear the hat and act like Indiana Jones without a legitimate excavation in sight.

But I'd really love to reverse that in the third half of the book (sorry, Bob and Ray) and have some actual archaeology going down. And that's what's giving me trouble,

High Noon at Highgate

 I am finally over my discomfort and writing again.

Or, rather, revising. I just got done with revising the scene at Highgate Cemetery. That wasn't one of the big three, though. Just a bit I wanted to do better with.

Like a lot of notes, this has come not so much out of beta readers or even out of re-reading but out of being away from the book and thinking about random things and that ends up taking me back towards a moment in the book that no longer works for me.

The "bum" conversation is probably getting fixed, too. Funny. The big note I got was about what might be called objectifying the character, and I'd already been moving that way through round of revision. Threw out the original "pants" scene, gutted the second photo shoot scene, re-did the conversation after the Aladdin rehearsal. 

Which means really I have only a few bits and random lines to tweak. Plus reworking the pants scene in a completely different direction I just thought of last week that not only is stronger for this book, but sets up stuff that will pay off in the next book! But that means going through every single scene Graham is in and tweaking and adjusting.

Plus the same thing for every scene in which Geordie dialect shows up. Again funny; my latest version is that Geordie is friendly. When Tony is being insulting, he's not in dialect. When he is in dialect is when he is being nice. And that's pretty much how most of the lines were working out anyhow.

Sometimes writing -- especially revising -- is all about being smart enough to realize when you'd been making the right choices already, and just focusing in on those.

Still, considering how much (how little) I normally get done during the work week, I don't expect to get through the big revisions in less than a week. And I'm chomping to get this uploaded and in the store.

***

Finished Alien Isolation. Still really nice game, good design, incredibly respectful (but in a good way) towards the original material. There's a section where Marlowe, captain of the ship that found the Nostromo's flight recorder and decided to back-track it to LV 426, narrates to Ripley's daughter Amanda -- and you switch POV to play through their landing. Meaning you get to walk out into the crazy landscape, climb into the derelict, and check out the Space Jockey yourself. That POV doesn't have a close encounter with an egg, but no worries -- Amanda can and will get killed by face-huggers multiple times before you complete the game.

Anyhow, this is true fan service. And very playable. Although the stealth sort of went out the window in later parts when so much is happening, the settings are either too open or too constricted, and the Alien is stalking you full time, there's really no point in trying to use all those wonderful sneak mechanics. Just go straight for the objective and hope you don't get killed before the save point.

I had three minor bugs, none of them fatal. There are sometimes weapons left drifting in the air after an encounter. There is an annoying sloshing sound that happens when you save with the flamethrower equipped (the easy fix is just to reload the weapon). And I stumbled into open flames near the very end and my hands were visibly on fire even after I got into a space suit. Made it hard to read the motion tracker but other than that...

There's a few things I don't know whether to call poor design or sadistically clever design, though. I watched a play-through and it really brought home for me how the game misleads you into things that seem sensible, might even be sensible in the early game, but actually hamper you later.

Lockers. There are lockers all over that give you that "action possible on this object" glow when you are near them. You are meant to hide in them. Which works, but... getting in is noisy, getting out is worse, you can't craft or reload or even change load-out when inside them, you can't see what is going on very well...and you can still get found.

What does not glow or otherwise alert you is hiding under desks or surgical cots. Where you can do everything...including prepping a noise-maker to distract the Alien so you can escape, or preparing your flame thrower in case he looks the wrong way.

Second is the motion tracker. It is cool and all, but it takes up part of the screen and blurs the rest slightly. Meaning your attention is on the motion tracker -- which doesn't tell you if it is an Alien or a friendly or a Working Joe, if the Alien is on the ground or up in the vents, and doesn't show anything if the enemy is sitting still (which both the Alien and the Joes love to do).

Plus enemies can hear it.

Thing is? Once you've picked up the motion tracker, you get a beep when something is moving near you. Several beeps, in fact. You can't get direction, but you can certainly get a nice alert just by listening.

And listening is really the thing. The Alien makes different noises depending on if it is in the vents or on the ground. It makes distinctive sounds when transitioning. The Joes also make enough noise you can usually hear them coming. So you can get a pretty good sense of what is coming up on you and from where just by using your ears.

Related to both the others; crouching is cool because it automatically puts you under things if you can duck under them. It makes you less visible and there are several sections where there are counters or whatever and you can pretty much waltz through in a crouch position.

But it slows you down. It restricts your vision as much as it breaks the enemy sight lines. And it even blocks you from seeing pick-ups and other useful things that are on top of tables. It really is more sensible to play the game at a walk most of the time and crouch only when you are actively hiding from something nearby.

The instinct the game leads you to is to crouch all the time and hide in lockers frequently and hide behind the motion tracker until you figure out the Alien can hear it and is homing in on the sound. And I can't decide if this is a design flaw or sadistically good game design. It could even be argued that this is an immersive ludonarrative connect to Amanda starting out wary and over the course of events becoming daring and heroic.

I'm going for sadistic, though. Late in the game, it delivered the schematics for the EMP generator version 3.0  Which is the great tool for taking out (preferably groups of) Working Joes. (The biggest groups you find, alas, are either in the server room or the reactor core, and both of those are wearing electrostatic suits.)

Of course I didn't meet a single Working Joe for the rest of the game. Oh, no wait. I did meet one. Who was wearing the EMP-proof coveralls. Thanks, game. What I could have really used was more flame. Nothing else seemed fast enough to stop those damned face-huggers.

I am tempted to play again. Well, part way through. Just to finally use the Pipe Bomb and the EMP bomb properly. Dealing with the Reactor Joes was really damned annoying when I hadn't been prepared for them.

***

I'm more and more convinced Japan is too deep to do simply. I mean, I think I can write a book that looks simpler to the reader. But it is going to take six months at the least to write. 

Alienation

 

(image from Gamasutra article)

I'm doing better at the game than I am at the novel. Either of them.

It seems like a joke. 2020 has been such a rough year, I'm relaxing by playing a game where you run around an exploding space station chased by an un-killable monster.

(Really, Fallout 4 made more sense. Rather like Skyrim, where you can purchase a pre-made home, the ability to craft a nice player house in Fallout 4 means the best part of the game is, after a long hard day, relaxing at home playing a character who is relaxing at home.)

Anyhow. Alien Isolation has been good at addressing a fault I have in playing. I tend to want to play meticulous, planning the optimal way to go and reducing risks. Well, the Alien itself is randomized. It can -- and it will -- pop out with no warning and kill you on the spot. You can hide, and you can throw noisemakers to distract it, but it learns; if you throw too many distractions it will learn to ignore them. And it will figure out there's someone around throwing them. And it will look for you and if you stay in the same hiding place too long it will find you.

So it is actually a better plan to keep moving, take chances, and deal with failure and having to go back from the last save point. I had a much easier time with that once Ripley found the flamethrower, though. Up until then, if the Alien spotted me, I was dead. After that, I was willing to all but walk up right behind it. Because as long as I had a few squirts of fuel left, there was at least a chance I could frighten it off long enough for me to escape.

(The most satisfying moment I had in the game was actually before I found that flamethrower. I managed to pop a molotov cocktail right in the thing's face. Got killed by Working Joes a few minutes later but boy did it feel good to watch the Alien shriek in dismay and run away.)

***

I won't get notes from my other potential beta readers for weeks. So I'm trying to do the edits this weekend and make the book purchasable by Monday. 

Every time I sit down, though, I have a "who am I to be trying to do this?" moment. Weird. I think it is the character. Or maybe the real-world setting. I never had this kind of reaction when I was writing science fiction. But this series, every time I try and work, I get hit by Imposter Syndrome.

When I'm in the groove, I am Penny. I just write in her voice, and write her thoughts. But it is never easy getting back into that character when I've been away from it.

***

I went and got another book on Japan. I caught a podcast interviewing the author and it sounded so interesting...

I may have to give up the idea of pushing the Japan novel out in four months. I've been at it for two months (well, I've been revising the last one all month) and I still don't have the plot.

Armies always plan for the last war. This book is in reaction to the last book. I want a big, obvious plot with known stakes that shows up on page one. No more slow burn. I also want an antagonist that is visible and known and that the reader can hate and want to see defeated.

At this point I haven't even decided if this "external" plot needs to be linked in any way -- physical, thematic, allusion, whatever -- to the "internal" plot. Which at least is looking fairly solid. This may be another thing I need to unlearn. I've gotten too used to plotting from the inside and it doesn't lead to big flashy "world saving" plots. 

Maybe I need an Alien to chase me. Some sort of editor-alien, looking more than a little like Brandon Sanderson I imagine and screaming about "show don't tell." (Or possibly it is a Queen Alien and the repeated cry is, "But, Jenna...!")

Anyhow.

I had one Kindle page read a couple days ago. I mean one page. That's as far as they got. That's...not helping.

So. I need to fix some things. There are places that I thought were in character but my beta thought was objectifying, and I don't have to agree with that to agree that they don't benefit the book sufficiently to be worth struggling to keep.

So I need to go into the "shot in the bum" sequence and...

...I can't do this.

Turning off the editor now. I'm going back to getting killed by an Alien.