Future plans for "The Second Childhood" series (Personal Literary Entry)

Future plans for the story (Book 1) :

• When Chapter 2 starts, his friends from preschool show up. Before Dad opens the door, Tanaka urges him to get nametags and label each and every one of them. (Because it would be awkward not to know ANY of their names!) He gives Dad the reason: "It'll look good on your video camera. We'll get to keep track of who everyone is when we watch the film! Sound good?" The door gets opened first, then Dad starts to look for the nametags. Tanaka thinks quick-on-his-feet, figuring up impromptu ways to buy time before the kids realize that Tanaka doesn't know who any of them are.

• A cake will be formed in the shape of a Pokémon (as Tanaka has been a Pokémon fan), and one of the games will be "Pin the Tail on the Skarmory."

• The kids will all be 4 & 5. Unfortunately, I haven't been around enough 4 & 5-year-olds lately to know how they're going to act. That's why I'm holding off on publishing Chapter 2. I may be going to need some ideas here.
  
  
• A pediatric psychologist administers an IQ test. If a college sophomore possesses a 5-year-old's body, what do you think his IQ score is going to be?

• He gets a free-ride scholarship to the most prestigious private Christian school in the area. The company/ies giving the scholarship reckon that his siblings may be as smart as Tanaka, so they all can opt to go there too.

• (I haven't decided) Should he get AP'ed up to higher grades in the private school? I plan for him to skip up one grade every two weeks in Elementary, then every three in middle school. (The semester ends when he graduates 8th grade.)

• He's starved for love, like any partying college sophomore would be, so he tries to make his babysitters his dating coaches, as a coaching session feels nearly every bit like a real date. (To get them to coach him in the first place, Tanaka "bribes" them by successfully helping them on their homework.) Dates will be kinda hard to come by for Tanaka for the next 5 or so years.

• At some point, he'll get found out about his needing diapers at night by friends. Maybe when his older brother's friends have a sleepover, they'll catch Tanaka while he changes into his pajamas, or spot the top of his bedwetter's underpants above his pajamas, then you can surmise what those friends will do to him.

• Weeks or months into the story, Tanaka will appear on local TV to be exhibited as a local child prodigy, what philanthropies he's participating in to help needy children, and etc. (His Mom works for a regional charity, so that helps him get to participate in some charity events.) 

• Tanaka enters the Spelling Bee, and makes it to the Nationals. (I doubt he wins there though.)

• Sometime in the summer, Tanaka will appear on a gameshow, if there are any gameshows around that allow 5-year-olds to be contestants. (I'll use a real kid's gameshow. If there is none that takes 5-year-olds, I'll put off on that 'til he's a bit older.)

• Also in the summer, he'll get sent to a special camp for kids with bedwetting and bladder issues, and make lots of friends. He'll even have a love interest (or two) there.

• Later in the summer, Tanaka will get to reunite with his original family from the prologue; from before he transferred bodies. Both families meet and have a great time with one another. 
• He'll also get to meet his original body, who is now possessed by the original Tanaka. (That is, a 5 y.o. in a 20 y.o.'s body.) As you'd expect, he'll live in an assisted-living facility, being retrained from Kindergarten onwards. (Fortunately, he'll learn at least as fast as he would have otherwise; there's no brain damage that limits his learning ability, though of course medical professionals swear there is some kind of lasting brain injury. In fact, he'll learn faster thanks to the specialized attention that the one-on-one tutoring gives him.) 

For Book 2 of the series:

• Book 1 will end when, sometime late in their summer vacation, the family boards a flight to Japan.

• They will stay for a little bit, and drop Tanaka off to live with his Dad's side of the family for a year. (Summer 2005 - Summer 2006) (Somewhere in the northern quarter of Honshu; likely Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture.)  

• He'll be an "average" kid again because his Japanese ability will be at par with kids his age. (Although mathematics and other "universal" subjects regardless of language will still be another matter.)

• His aunt and uncle will deal with Tanaka's bedwetting and urgent bladder in a different way, and decide to keep him in diapers 24/7, whereas he was in-and-out of diapers back in America.

• The English teacher at his school, a charming young lady from the UK, will be his "counselor" (as she's the only one he can adequately talk to about any life issues of the day). She'll make him her personal "teacher aide" for the classes she teaches since he's the only student at the school who speaks English natively. (And remember, at the level of a college student.)

• I haven't decided whether he'll attempt to run away from home, but he'll be tempted to as his uncle is kinda strict.

• During times of distress, he'll make international calls to the 700 Club via Skype. (However, if Skype wasn't around in the above time-period, I guess I'll have to omit that.) 

• He'll regularly blog like before, and email his parents and siblings back home.

• He'll have fun in ways he couldn't back in America, and in more intense ways too. (Japan is more childhood-friendly than America is. I studied abroad there one semester so I know firsthand.)

• I haven't yet decided on who his Japanese cousins will be, what their personalities will be like, and how many he'll have.

• Toward the end of Book 2, his family from America will visit again for a little while, and take Tanaka on a flight to Korea.

For Book 3 of the series:

• Book 3 starts on the flight to Korea, where they eventually visit his Mom's side of the family.

• They will drop off Tanaka there, where he'll live for another year (Summer 2006 - Summer 2007) (In either Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, or Gwangju.)

• His aunt and uncle here will decide that Tanaka must be diaper-free under all circumstances, and will get him out of diapers for the last time in his life. 

• They will practically move heaven-and-earth to solve his bedwetting & bladder issues. One of the ways will be by getting him a high-tech bedsheet with a bedwetting sensor alarm. 

• On road trips, they will pull off the road to get him to use the rest room whenever he needs to. If there's no rest area close by, he'll just urinate in the ditch.

• His Korean Aunt & Uncle will be pretty kind folks, at least as kind as Tanaka's parents back in New York, if not kinder.

• Cellphones get popular with kids in Korea at around this time, so Tanaka eventually gets his first cellphone. He even gets to take it back home to America and put it on one of our networks.

• I haven't yet decided on who his Korean cousins will be, what their personalities will be like, and how many he'll have.

• (I haven't yet firmly decided on this, but...) He may have a girlfriend from 6th grade. (Any objections? If so, then she'll just be a dating coach.)

• His family arrives there again in the Summer of 2007, stays for a little while, then takes him back to New York. The story ends when they board the flight.

Book 4 and Beyond:

• Tanaka appears on more game shows.

• Tanaka AP's into the high school of the same private school's system he was in just 2 1/2 years prior.

• He starts in honors-level courses, and advances one high school grade every 9 weeks.

• Even though Tanaka no longer needs diapers himself, he seeks out girls somewhat older than him who still have bedwetting problems and/or urinary incontinence, as he considers that "cute."

• Of course, he'll still seek out high school girls/babysitters for "dating coaching sessions."

• After he graduates high school with high honors, a 3.9-4.1 GPA range, and full-ride scholarships in June 2008, he starts his 4 years of undergrad at SUNY Albany.
• (That means this semester, he's in his second semester of his sophomore year there.)
• I haven't yet decided what his major will be.

• (I suppose that as soon as he turns 11, the book will start being called "The Second Adolescence.")

• After he graduates in May 2012, he goes on to Grad School at MIT, through another full-ride scholarship.

• I haven't yet decided where his direction will be from there, but his future shines ever so brilliantly.

Anywhere in the Series:

• Tanaka (really, I) will start a novel on a child visited by an angel in 1910, who casts a spell on him to stop aging at 10 years old for the next 90 years. (After, he ages 1 year for every 10 years that pass. That means he will look 11 this year, and be old enough to drive, a hovercar.) (I will use Tanaka's name as my "pen name.") I haven't yet decided when Tanaka will start on this novel, but it will be published by him in the story, and by me in the real world.