I was doing some research on where a certain criminal character might live in Kofu, Japan, for book three of The Ghost and the Mask series. Although I have spent time there, I don’t live in Japan, so I randomly picked a neighborhood in Google maps and dropped the little yellow man into street view. The neighborhood looked promising, a little old, a little run down.
And then I noticed someone squatting down in front of this building, and zoomed in. What do you know? A police officer with white gloves on, collecting evidence! This was the neighborhood!
I love these little fantastic bits of serendipity when researching and writing.
So far, I’ve got about 35,000 words written on book three. And it feels like the story is just beginning. This might be another one to rival the length of No Promises Large Enough. Although I was hoping it might be a little shorter. We’ll see what happens.
Have you ever had any crazy serendipitous Google Maps finds? I’ve had a few. One was pretty mind-blowing and also has to do with this series, but I’ll share that another time.
Tristram Lowe 