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The Come-to-Kali-the-Destroyer Moment
Sep. 3rd, 2025 12:21 pmFinished the first draft of Chapter 1 and stashed it in the usual online places so it won't disappear if my computer decides to self-destruct or if human civilization vanishes & sentient cockroaches need a Rosetta Stone.
Chapter 2 should be relatively easy to write since it will mostly be the Amazing Adventures of Grazia & Neal, lifted with a bit of embellishment from my copious diaries.
So, I am actually thinking more about Chapter 3, in which Neal has to save Grazia in some way.
Plus, one of the (unexpected) things that came out in Chapter 1 is that Grazia is religious in a weird way—this is a prime example of how characters sometimes run away with their own story arcs—so Chapter 3 will have to include Grazia's Come-to-Jesus or Come-to-Bodhisattva or Come-to-Kali-the-Destroyer moment, and optimally, it will involve some colorful locale far from Ulster County, New York, because the fourth part of the novel will be a third-person description of the three women, Grazia, Daria, & Flavia, scattering Neal's ashes in various colorful locations, and it would be good to foreshadow those locations.
Chapters 4, 5, & 6 will be first-person Daria's POV and will have to contain an analagous Neal-rescues-the-gurl scene—hey! this is chick lit, where politically correct empowerment plays second fiddle to romantic fantasy—as well as some colorful locale.
Chapters 7, 8, & 9 will be first-person Flavia POV—where in addition to above, we have to stage a Mimi suicide attempt. This will come about when Flavia evicts Mimi from Neal's cabin.
Chapters 10, 11, & 12 will be the road trip & I have no ideas what to write for that beyond a vague impulse to set part of it at Wall Drugs in South Dakota. Which would just be so wrong on so many levels.
###
Anyway.
I won't be writing any fiction today because today I must Remunerate.
I finally realized there is absolutely no way I can go back and forth between economic analyses and light fiction writing on the same day. The brain is bicameral for a reason!!!
So, I'm gonna try out an every-other-day schedule.
Chapter 2 should be relatively easy to write since it will mostly be the Amazing Adventures of Grazia & Neal, lifted with a bit of embellishment from my copious diaries.
So, I am actually thinking more about Chapter 3, in which Neal has to save Grazia in some way.
Plus, one of the (unexpected) things that came out in Chapter 1 is that Grazia is religious in a weird way—this is a prime example of how characters sometimes run away with their own story arcs—so Chapter 3 will have to include Grazia's Come-to-Jesus or Come-to-Bodhisattva or Come-to-Kali-the-Destroyer moment, and optimally, it will involve some colorful locale far from Ulster County, New York, because the fourth part of the novel will be a third-person description of the three women, Grazia, Daria, & Flavia, scattering Neal's ashes in various colorful locations, and it would be good to foreshadow those locations.
Chapters 4, 5, & 6 will be first-person Daria's POV and will have to contain an analagous Neal-rescues-the-gurl scene—hey! this is chick lit, where politically correct empowerment plays second fiddle to romantic fantasy—as well as some colorful locale.
Chapters 7, 8, & 9 will be first-person Flavia POV—where in addition to above, we have to stage a Mimi suicide attempt. This will come about when Flavia evicts Mimi from Neal's cabin.
Chapters 10, 11, & 12 will be the road trip & I have no ideas what to write for that beyond a vague impulse to set part of it at Wall Drugs in South Dakota. Which would just be so wrong on so many levels.
###
Anyway.
I won't be writing any fiction today because today I must Remunerate.
I finally realized there is absolutely no way I can go back and forth between economic analyses and light fiction writing on the same day. The brain is bicameral for a reason!!!
So, I'm gonna try out an every-other-day schedule.
