Working, with Aggravations

Here I am in a hotel in Japan, again, trying to write. Chapter 17 is under way, though there’s not a whole lot done yet. For now, a lot of it is notes for scenes or plot elements that I want to work in, somehow. They’re pretty eclectic and I won’t be surprised if some of them don’t make it, but we’ll see.

Right now I’m trying to write the big reconnection scene that the end of Chapter 16 leads into. (Naming no names, because I don’t want to spoil anything if you haven’t read the chapter already.) It’s rough going for me because the discussion is really very dark and, frankly, no fun to write at all. But I plod on.

(Meanwhile, outside my hotel room, Tokyo is apparently about to get hit by a typhoon. That’ll be interesting…I’m sure.)

I’ve noticed yet another inconsistency in earlier chapters, dammit. In both chapters 13 and 14, “Emma” was first described as middle-aged, but thereafter referred to as an “old woman”.  In chapter 16, she was described only as an “old woman”. I think I’m going to tweak chapters 13 and 14 and remove any mention of her being middle-aged.

Progress update: 5255 words.

Chapter 16 Released

That's all.  Chapter 16 is released today.  Enjoy.

Today's Second Update

It's finished.  I just kept writing, most of today.  Chapter 16 is done.

It's not posted yet.  First I need to re-read it and do, well, probably quite a lot of editing. It would be nice to have somebody else look at it, too, but all my beta readers (or "pre-readers" as we used to call them) have been out of contact for many years. (Chapter 15 was eventually posted without beta reading.) I'll do some thinking about that.

(If you'd like to be a beta reader, and I mean if you genuinely think you can add value to a story through commentary, then drop me a line. By email, not by a comment on this blog post. Comments with offers to be beta readers will be rejected. If you have to ask what my email address is, you probably shouldn't be a beta reader.)

Final first-draft word count: 34,394 words.

On to chapter 17…

Today's Update

I've made a few typo corrections to some of the early chapters: removing unwanted spaces from the middle of phrases like "dark- brown hair".

The prelude has been updated to correct the inconsistency I mentioned in my previous post.

And I've updated appendices 1 and 4, adding a new name to the Who’s Who. It's for a character who first appears by name in chapter 16, so this is a tiny bit premature…but as spoilers go it's pretty negligible.

As regards progress on Chapter 16…I'm so, so close to the end now. A tiny bit of wrap-up work left to do on the big battle scene (in which I have finally written the climax of a plot-line that's been building literally since chapter one), and one more short scene after that.

Progress update: 32,226 words.

But wait, there's more. Last Wednesday night, I had quite a vivid dream of a scene from Chapter 17, a story development that I've been planning for quite a while, but which—in my dream—didn't go anything like I'd been expecting. But I love it so much that I started writing it. So, long story short, there's about 1600 words of Chapter 17 written now, too. Spoiler hint: Sailor Uranus goes on a spirit-journey to the planet Uranus, and meets the ruler of that world. Why? She's looking for the Space Sword.

As part of researching this bit, I had a long dialog with ChatGPT, trying to decide on a title that Uranus should use to address the ruler of Uranus.  We came up with 蒼穹大王陛下—Sōkyū Daiō Heika, Great King of the Firmament. (I didn't just take the AI's word for it, I've also discussed this with a native Japanese speaker, who saw no problem with it.) If you're a Japanese speaker, and see any problems, do let me know!

An Inconsistency Found

This is quite annoying. Way back in the Prelude, I see that Artemis remarks to Bendis that she should have been able to recognise a member of the Serenity Council because “The uniform should have been a big hint.” And immediately after writing that, I simply forgot that Serries wear uniforms.

Well, I have a couple of choices here.  I can start putting uniforms on Serries when they appear. (My initial thought is something with an embroidered rationale worn around the neck…but maybe that's over-fancy.) However, if I do that then I really ought to tweak some earlier chapters to show that uniforms are being worn, even if I don't describe them fully.

The other choice is to tweak the Prelude and remove the reference to a uniform. A lot simpler and probably the more sensible option because, in a Japanese environment—even a pseudo-futuristic one—sharp business suits seem a lot more likely.

I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts, though.

Progress update: 28,769 words.

The work proceeds

Sometimes I hit one scene that tries to take over the chapter. But the big Senshi Meeting is nearly over, and I've managed to work a lot of thread-tying into it. Some new twists have emerged, in ways that surprised but also delighted me. Fairly pleased with how it's looking.

Progress update: 26,080 words.

Still making progress

I'm flying to Japan again on Friday, to visit my mother-in-law. She's 92 and a bit cranky, and she speaks as little English as I do Japanese…but she seems to approve of me, and I have to admit I'm fond of her too. My wife and I go to Japan as often as we can, just lately, to see as much of her as we can, while we can.

Meanwhile writing continues. I've slowed down a bit because I was having trouble finding the "voice" of the big scene I'm working on. But it's moving at last.

Progress update: 18,385 words.

Progress Update

I've been stuck for a while because there are two major scenes (or perhaps I should say "set pieces") left to write in the new chapter, and both of them need to tie together a lot of threads.  So I've been trying to plot them out so that everything works together, and it just hasn't been jelling.

Well, I think I have one of them sorted, at least.  The other one is still a bother: I need certain characters connecting in certain ways, at a certain location, all tying into other stuff in the chapter that's already written.  I keep on coming up with story fragments that tie into earlier scenes, but which don't quite intersect properly with other stuff. I'll work it out eventually, but for now it's a pain in the ass.

This chapter is going to tie up a number of plot threads that have been building, some of them for a very long time.

Progress update: 16487 words.