The Leanpub website now shows that Psychic Dawn, my second work of fiction, is 100% complete, which means that it now has a beginning, a middle, and an end, sandwiched between a Foreword and an Afterword.
What remains is constant reading and re-reading, the never-ending task of finding typographical mistakes, repetitions, and the occasional goof.
Unlike Psychic Awakening, which grew from a vivid mental image of the first scene in the book, Psychic Dawn grew from a vivid mental image that forms the last paragraph of Chapter 6. From this static point, the story grew in two directions: forwards and backwards.
This complication, and the greater one of writing a story set in modern Japan, were the reasons I was hesitant to accept the challenge and procrastinated for several years.
Now that the story is complete, I wonder how much sense it will make to readers unfamiliar with Japan and Japanese culture.
Leaving aside the fictional element, the setting and background of Psychic Dawn are, I believe, accurate and authentic, my only reservation being the element of Japanese police procedure, of which I have no personal experience.
I could have prevailed upon a friend who is a retired MPD official to check my descriptions of Detectives Matsumoto and Washizu but, as with Psychic Awakening, a fear of blocking the creative flow with plodding background research held me back. I suspect that the scenes featuring Emi Washizu would be far more monotonous if I forced them into the straightjacket of realism.
Reading the final draft, I was tempted — very briefly — to use footnotes to clarify references that might be unclear to readers unfamiliar with Japanese current affairs. I resisted the temptation and decided I could use this blog to fulfil the same purpose.
As this blog will now cover the material of two, possibly more, novels, I have added one letter to the title, which is now Psychic Awakenings. This will probably result in a week or two of search engine confusion, but will more accurately reflect the content of the blog.