My Novel's Journey: Neeta Lyffe II: My big, fat, twisted quandry

Location, location, location!

One thing I've enjoyed about Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator is that it takes place a few decades in the future in real cities. I had a lot of fun giving new twists to old locales and businesses (like when I called the state licensing division for some advice on how they would license a zombie exterminator. I'd like to think he still talks about that one.)

Of course, it also means I have some quandries keeping it real while fantastic. For Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator, I spent an entire day on Google Earth looking at a half-block empty lot trying to decide if it worked for my finale. This time, my problem is hotel accommodations.

Neeta and Ted are going to a conference, and Ted's mom, who's hoping to give them a little nudge in the romance arena, changes their hotel reservations to someplace luxurious and swanky. My brother-in-law suggested the W, which is great since Neeta was an arts major, and there are galleries all around it. Then we got to joking that by 2040, they may have changed letters. He suggested the X, but I thought it's be funny for them to stay at the Y. (The YMCA could be going back to its original model of a shelter after finding that just being a cheap family gym isn't working financially.)

Of course, the folks who own the W might not find it so funny.

Thus, my quandry: Do I call the W and see if I can use their hotel in an updated setting? Ted can mix up the letters if they don't want it bought out by the YMCA. Or do I find a nearby location and build a Y? I can burn down the Rochester Big and Tall. (Note to Homeland Security: Just for the book! I swear! We like Big & Tall. Really!) Then the Y could buy it out, put a gym on the ground floor, shelters and cheap accommodations like hostels on several floors, and have the top two floors just for luxury suites that pay for the rest. (Ted's mom is community-minded in her own way.)

Got to admit; I'm kind of liking the Y idea. I can have metal detectors as you walk in; a place to check in knives, extra security on the top floors. Neeta will be freaking out until they get to their suite. Then she can freak out for a whole different reason--

--but that would be a spoiler!