Localized Flurries and Major Intersection

Chapters 24 and 25 are up. I am currently sitting at a total of just over 53,000 words published to Inkitt. A little more than halfway through the whole book.

A reader commented on the previous chapter (Big Magic) that they loved the “calm before the storm” vibe of it, which was absolutely bang on, and I’m glad that an experienced reader/writer picked up on that, even if it was kind of obvious. Well, the storm hasn’t hit yet, but the weather is starting to get mildly inclement, I guess you could say.

Localized Flurries

Maybe the chapter title is a little too on the nose, but it serves a dual purpose, because yes, metaphorically, the storm is coming, but also because this chapter contains the snow globe’s origin story (localized flurries, get it?) It makes it’s first appearance since the prologue. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Cara is working feverishly on both the music project and the writing project, trying to keep on top of both of them, although she’s definitely focused a little more on one than the other. With the writing project being “more hers” as Styles pointed out, she’s definitely hyperfocusing on it, which is of course great for the project, but not so great for other areas of her life.

She’s missing studio appointments with River, and he is miraculously calm and undeterred by it. And she’s getting home late, with Griffin waiting up for her. He drops a bombshell on her, perhaps without realizing it would have that effect – that he is feeling like their relationship has taken a back seat to her creative projects with two successful men, one of them being his musical idol, and the other being someone he doesn’t particularly like, but tolerates for Cara’s sake.

I think Griffin really thought he’d be spending more time with River, that they’d become closer friends, and I’m sure he’s jealous of the time Cara is spending with him, as well as of the time she’s spending with Styles, for completely different reasons. But he is also clearly aware that he pushed her to accept River’s invitation in the first place.

The Snow Globe

So as I mentioned above, the snow globe finally makes its way into the story. Styles gives it to Cara as a gift, a token to keep her inspired as they work on the web series project. Cara describes what it symbolizes for her in the story, so I’m not going to repeat it here. But I do want to talk about the whole snow globe concept.

It’s an idea I had for some time. The idea of snow globe moments in life, or core memories that you keep with you. The idea went through a couple different iterations. First it was going to be a series of short stories that were tied together thematically by the snow globe concept.

They could be big stories, or small stories, but each one of them would have a snow globe in them as a way of capturing a core memory. Not necessarily a vacation to a place where you would buy a souvenir. It could be something as small as skipping work to accompany your best friend to her final cancer treatment appointment and watch her ring the bell, followed by an emotional group hug in the street and a champagne brunch in the city. (Okay, so this actually happened, and I remember sitting at the brunch table with my friend and her sister and saying out loud that it was a snow globe moment. That’s kind of where the whole idea came from).

As I was conceptualizing the short story outlines, one of them emerged as a main story. This main story would bleed into the other short stories, like things that happened in the main story would affect what happened in the other stories. So, the main story was about a woman who goes as a plus-one on her friend’s work trip during a depression after a divorce and not having much else to do, and is on her own exploring a European city where she doesn’t speak the language, while her friend is working.

There, she meets a man who is taking a solo trip after a big breakup, and the two of them explore the city together and form a bond. But they’re from different places, and both have baggage preventing them from forming a real relationship, so the trip ends with him buying a snow globe from a souvenir shop and leaving it for her at the front desk of her hotel.

The story didn’t end there though. She goes home, snow globe in tow, but when she unpacks her suitcase, it’s broken. And it turns out that what was supposed to be an isolated and contained adventure away from home is now bleeding into her home life. The man she met in Europe is now pulling away from his responsibilities to try and connect with her. The specific details on what happens after that I never plotted, but ultimately, the breaking of the snow globe causes a volatile situation between the man and his partner/friend as a result of a relationship forming between the two who met in Europe.

Now, there was going to be a magical aspect to this story as well, where the two men are not necessarily of this world, and the rift that forms between them starts affecting our world in unexpected ways, and it’s up to the FMC to find a way to reunite them and put everything back the way it’s supposed to be to save the world, even if it means she has to sacrifice her perfectly valid feelings for the man she met in Europe. Yeah, a little kooky, and that’s probably why I didn’t end up going ahead with it.

But I think that’s where the seeds for Cara, Styles and River were planted, even if it would be months before they had names and before the plotline for Maladaptive would form.

Anyway, whew. I didn’t really mean to go that deep into the snow globe origin, but here you have it.

Major Intersection

Moving on, the next chapter opens with a big win – Cara and Styles pitch their web series to a network and they get a greenlight for a pilot. Cara comes right out calls it a snow globe moment for her, a core memory. It’s a happy scene with a lot of celebration, and a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings that she can no longer deny for Styles.

Which is problematic, of course. As the chapter progresses, Willow invites herself and Styles over to Cara and Griffin’s house for a dinner party, and Cara realizes that she’s facing a big choice: continue on the path where allowing her connection with Styles to fuel the project (and possibly her new career/identity) or throttle the feelings to remain faithful to Griffin, with the project and her new career/identity possibly suffering.

A phone call from Hannah and her new age wisdom helps her decide what to do. While Cara is trying hard to keep it all together and do the right thing, she’s starting to not be so sure what exactly the right thing to do is. The tension that has started to form over the past few chapters is definitely ramping up.

A final note on this chapter - the chapter title is doing double duty here, too – the crossroads that Cara is at regarding how she proceeds with the project and her creative partnership with Styles, and also the green light from the network on the web series pilot.