Hi! It’s me! The creator!

Well, Lily is in Japan and having a blast!  Truth be told, this is a really fun storyline to write – and a very hard one as well.  You’d be surprised at how much it’s both.

I really hadn’t planned an itinerary for Lily.  My entire plan was “Lily goes to Japan”.  Of course, I had planned for her to go to Akihabara, etc., but other than that, how was she going to fill two weeks?  Well, by traipsing all over Japan, of course!  So far she’s gone to Tokyo, Hiroshima, Osaka…  but there are other places to go too!  I hear there’s a “wan wan land” over in Tsukuba, and Hokkaido seems like an interesting place to visit, though I’m not sure how she’s going to fit that in.  But she has lots of company, and everyone’s having a good time showing her all over the country.  I mean, she could have gone by herself, but Emiko also wants to use the time to bond with her a bit too.  And it seems that she’s getting her wish – and an upcoming event will help to cement that.

Emiko isn’t going to take the place of Dave and Sabby – after all, they wanted her, and Emiko didn’t – but she is family, and she wants to make it right, so I think that’ll turn out okay.

It’s hard, though, because I’m kind of visiting Japan through Lily.  I’ve never been there.  So when I decide what Lily’s going to be doing from day to day, I open Google Maps, do a bit of homework on what’s available, and then she goes wherever strikes my fancy.  But that works out.  Everything’s about as accurate as I can make it – I’ve taken very few liberties so far, but by necessity it can’t be perfect.  But I’ve done what I can.  For example, I wanted to send her to cat island, and if I wanted to fudge reality just a bit, I of course could have made it happen.  But cat island was out of the way, and I didn’t want to make that compromise.  So she went to rabbit island instead, which I think is probably more fun anyway.  There’s a rail line down in kyushu (the nichinan line) which is really, really pretty, and I’d love to have her visit there, but again, it’s out of the way, so i decided against it.  Maybe next time.  Maybe before she goes to college, she’ll stay in Japan for a summer?  I don’t know, I literally just thought of that.

Anyway, the point is that in order to be realistic, I have to sacrifice something.  Oh well.  She’s still having a blast.

So what’s in store for Lily when she gets back?  Well, there are some storylines that still have to be fleshed out.  Will she go to a private school?  Or maybe even a community college?  What about Jack?  And I know I haven’t brought up Ai much, but she’s been tagging along and even leading some of the Japan excursions, so she needs to come to the US at some point too and visit Lily.  And then there’s Sabby’s business – what about the guy running the trust?  Seems a little fishy, right?  Well, she’s got a good lawyer…

And she gets her license soon too!!!

Anyway, I’ve been writing Lily for a year.  I started July 21, 2021.  I’m not entirely sure what motivated me to start writing her, but I find that while it can be a little discouraging, frustrating, and even traumatic at times, I really like writing her.  She’s a good girl, and a part of me, and not a part of me at the same time.  I like writing a sixteen year old girl.  It lets me express a part of myself that I can’t express any other way.  So, while no one really reads or anything, I’m going to keep writing until the story concludes.

I believe at the moment I know when the story will conclude and have a slight idea of how.  But that is at least a year away, and maybe more.  And then after that, well, I’ve built a world, and the sky’s the limit.