90 scenes 90

90 scenes 90.

Six chapters left at roughly 15,000 per and averaging not that I’ve done the math but this is a gut-check one thousand words a scene that’s, well. 90 scenes left and we’re done, out. Finished.

Deliverance; Dazzle; Moon; Sun; Gallowglas; Maiestie.

That’s it.

—What? I’m fairly certain I’ve mentioned the thing about how there’s 22 episodes before. The underlying structural metaphor has always been a bog-standard Yankee genre TV show; the average number of episodes per season for such is 22; the fact that the Major Arcana has 22 cards should in no way be seen as anything other than a coincidence, honest, for true. (I know I must’ve made that joke before. Mustn’t I?)

Can I show you something?

The outline.

That well-worn piece of paper is about six years old, I’d say. Sometimes. Other times, I’d say it’s seven, or five. —Ever since whenever it was I scratched it out, it’s been somewhere around my writing station, wherever that might be. Currently it’s hanging square above my monitor from a gooseneck clamp. It’s pretty much what passes for an outline, hereabouts. —You don’t see it? Each hashmark is an episode, see? I’m plotting out the act breaks over the course of the megilla, seeing how much room I had here and there and where I had to start thinking about the MOWs, the Monsters of the Week, and if I got the first act break wrong (the knighthood and the duel happened in no. 9, not no. 7), well, I damn well nailed nos. 14 and 15, didn’t I, from oh so long ago. (Of course everything after 15’s a bit off or worse: I mean, “shoots Orlando,” well, that happened in no. 8, for fuck’s sake, and as for the rest—but that would be telling.)

Three acts, then, of (roughly) seven episodes each, with an extra at the end for the big finish. That’s one way to break it down and look it over—but whichever way you do it: 22’s the number.

Six left, then: