139: Not Enough Hours in a Day

3/1/2025

I finished transcribing Siona’s Song last night at 11PM. So, the final metrics for that chapter are 15 pages, 4,443 words. Also, it takes a minimum of 25 minutes to read (using the tablet’s text to speech feature) and took 5 ½ hours to transcribe to paper by hand. I skipped my shower and dinner in order to get it done by 11PM. Because of my going to work three times a day for three shifts, I only have six hours and fifteen minutes of waking time at home to do any work from my tablet. The spare 45 minutes in my day yesterday was spent going to lunch, folding my laundry, eating an apple for dinner, and getting ready for work three times.

Not enough hours in a day. Four days to create the chapter, and one day to copy it to paper. Two more chapters to write and I’ll be officially done with the first book’s first draft.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/11/2026

I worked at a desk back then with a lot of free time to write even while on the job. This isn’t the case with my current job where I’m on my feet all day with no desk and constant movement. Good exercise but not a chance for getting any writing done. I just have my mornings and evenings at home. My mornings are barely enough to keep up with this author’s journal. My evenings allow for only a couple hours of administrative work – managing the endless deluge of self-publishing details.

I’m not complaining, just explaining.

My life is much better these days, but I also have less time and energy. I knew that would be the case back when I first wrote these journal entries, and that I had to make the most of it while I could. Which is how I got my first two books written.

My goal now is to have the best of both worlds – my current homelife combined with the free time I had back then. This can only be achieved through retirement from my day job to become a full-time writer. Which can only be achieved through the sales of my first book, Wings of Providence.

Transitioning now from publishing to marketing.

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138: Siona’s Song

2/28/2025

I finished Siona’s Song last night, though I put a few odd tweaks on it this morning for a half hour before coming to work. I’m at work now, so I don’t have my word count exactly at the moment, but it’s 4,300-something words, and about 14 pages long, which makes it over a thousand words longer than any other chapter in Part Four: The Fever.

And out of the 132 chapters I’ve written so far spanning the first two books, there’s only been three that were longer. Maybe four, depending on precise word count, because Chapter 47: Womb of Darkness in Book One is really close to the Siona’s Song word count.

At any rate, this one turned out MUCH longer than I thought, and even when I was halfway done, I thought it would be one of the shorter chapters. And I have yet to transfer it from my tablet to paper, which makes me nervous. I don’t feel safe until it’s on paper, because these tablets are notoriously unreliable. Like this morning when it shut off while I was in the middle of tweaking Siona’s Song, and I couldn’t get it to turn back on.

Did I just lose a week’s worth of work, and one of the largest chapters I’ve ever written? I had a copy of it backed up as a draft in my email, but that would do me no good if the entire tablet was dead. Luckily, when I got back from breakfast the tablet was up and running. Apparently the battery just drained, despite the fact that its power cord was plugged in. There must be a faulty connection with the cord.

Oh well. Close call, and freaking me out a bit, but part of me was confident it would work out. And it did.

I loved what I wrote for this chapter, and since I foolishly threw away all my paper drafts and notes for it last night when I finished getting it onto my tablet, I knew I’d never be able to recreate what I had the way I had it. Sure, maybe a second version might turn out even better, but aside from losing a week’s worth of labor, I find it difficult to believe it would. Because it would be a soul-sapping experience and my heart wouldn’t be in it. It might even have been enough to forego writing on it again for a year or more.

So yeah, I’m still a little nervous, and will remain so until I get it completely transferred to paper. Which I’d be doing right this second if I didn’t have to come to work. I’ll probably forego my shower today in order to maximize every single minute of copying it down on paper. Hopefully I’ll get it done tonight, but it may extend into tomorrow. We’ll see.

What I love about this chapter is that it fleshes out Siona so much more than ever before. I gave away a few of her secrets, though the casual reader might not notice. Like the fact that Guma is actually dead. And that Siona is not from Ephrathah. And that Luala, Diallo’s mother, is actually her sister. And that Mosai betrayed her in the past.

Just about every major secret is exposed in this chapter, for the discerning reader. Though none of it is brought out in detail or explained how these things could be possible. It’s just my way of throwing the pieces of the puzzle out there for people to see – or miss – and let them put them together for themselves. Or not, because it doesn’t really matter for the narrative I’m telling now. And when these things do matter to the story the details and explanations will be made more clear as well.

I like the nightmare sequences, though they probably could have been executed more creatively so it feels more dream-like. The environmental descriptions while Siona is climbing Overlook Hill are probably way overwritten and losing the reader, but it will stand for now. I like the sequence as an interlude before the ritual stuff.

The Kassan Hisana exposition dumps about divination were stolen straight from Frank Herbert’s Dune, where Liet Kynes was dying in the desert while talking to his dead father, who was lecturing him about the lessons of ecology Kynes already learned decades ago. That’s always been one of my favorite chapters in one of my favorite books, and I just couldn’t resist lifting Herbert’s device for dumping exposition in a somewhat palatable way.

Yeah, I can be a shameless thief. What else is new?

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Present-Day Reflection

10/10/2026

Siona’s Song remains one of my favorite chapters in Part Four: The Fever because it humanizes a character that could otherwise be stereotyped as merely the antagonist for the protagonist. For me, Siona is probably the character I have the most sympathy for. She deserves better than the hand she’s been dealt in life, and she does her best to keep things together and moving forward the best she can.

Though readers may not get this unless they’re paying attention.

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137: Creating a Sense of Verisimilitude

2/23/2025

This Chapter 69: Wanyana’s Song was an oddball chapter. It turned out to be only seven pages and 2,065 words, but I was working on it with every spare minute I had over the past six days, having just finished it last night at 11PM right before going to bed.

The ending snuck up on me as well, because I planned for the last beat of the chapter to have Kanunga appearing in Wanyana’s hut’s hatchway. His having just returned from the hunt was supposed to be a herald of Mosai’s eventual return, and the first reappearance of an adult male figure in Diallo’s immediate sphere of influence since Chapter 40, 246 pages ago. Though Kanunga returned ahead of Mosai, his sudden appearance was intended to make Wanyana believe it was in answer to her call for help via the kra-karanja ritual. Then when she learns Mosai still hasn’t returned, she says that by the time he does he won’t have a son to return to.

But I decided not to write any of that. By the time I finished Wanyana’s healing song to Damara last night, it felt like the perfect ending for the chapter, and the additional scene with Kanunga appearing would weigh the chapter down and throw it off balance, without conveying enough for the story to justify it.

It’s one of those things I can always change my mind about later, but for now it feels complete and better without it. The only reason this chapter took as long as it did, aside from all the distractions at work and here at home, was that I got completely caught up in developing the Kanar language for Wanyana’ spells. I spent days trying to work out the philology, orthography, grammar and basic linguistics, despite knowing full well that it will require a lot more tweaking down the road before it can go into print. Because as soon as it’s published, it’s written in stone, and any defects or inconsistencies will be forever locked into Batu canon.

As of now, what I got with my Kanar language is based primarily on Swahili, though there’s a lot of amalgamations and conflations from a hodge-podge of African languages drawn from all over the continent. Much as Swahili is. Swahili has a lot of Arabic, and even European languages mixed in. Not to mention English.

I want Kanar to be something of a proto language for all the other African languages to be stemming from, so I want there to be some similarities. But if I’m to do it right the similarities have to have a direction chronologically to the influence. Right now, the direction is backwards, where any expert in linguistics could immediately tell my language derives from pre-existing ones. There’s a natural evolution to such things, and what I have now is backwards.

Anyway, my anal obsessive-compulsive nature for such details got me lost down a rabbit hole of language, spending two or three days trying to formulate a passable approximation of the right words – which when it was all said and done totaled 75. Or more precisely, a couple dozen words that were arranged and repeated in sentences that totaled 75.

Not a waste of time, in my opinion, since at least it currently gives the right feel for what I eventually want – it feels organic and consistent, i.e. believable for the layman. So, it’s falling under the heading of good enough for now, with a strong emphasis of needing to update it sometime prior to publishing.

The oddball nature of this chapter wasn’t entirely due to linguistic issues, but to the tone and content as well. I may have even gone too far with the fire blowing out and reigniting all on its own, and the shaking hut and platform, the hearing of voices, etc. This doesn’t necessarily break my rule that there can’t be any supernatural phenomenon without also having a natural/rational explanation for it as well, but it comes close. I never prefaced any of this by mentioning Wanyana had taken some kind of hallucinogenic drug to explain her experience. All a rationalist can argue is that the intensity of the ritual itself induced the hallucinations. Or maybe consuming some sort of drug is part of every ritual of this kind and was simply not mentioned.

At any rate, I knew as I wrote it, I was flirting with maybe going too far, but I wanted to spice things up with the unexpected, and I figured I could easily take it out on later drafts without effecting any of the other elements around it.

All in all, I like this chapter. It turned out better than I thought it would – just as they all should and usually do. I hate to say that I particularly liked the healing song at the end, because there are so many elements in this chapter that stand out for me fondly. But yes, I am very happy with the song about Damara and how it spun the reader out of the chapter in the playfully witty way it did. The last stanza in particular made me think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Garden of Childhood Verses, in terms of its aroma of cleverness.

Now… On to the next chapter: Siona’s Song.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/9/2026

It’s always a fine line I dance along when it comes to whether I’m going too far or not, and I find it almost impossible to judge accurately on first drafts. The difficulty lies in how I want the entire series as a whole to feel like a sensational dramatic epic imbued with fantastical supernatural elements, while the page-by-page experience of the reader feels entirely organic, natural, and grounded.

It isn't just about holding the line on magic though – it’s about texture. Looking back at this entry, I see two distinct instincts at play: the urge to over-engineer as I spend three days on 75 words of Kanar, versus the urge to trust my scene's emotional truth by cutting Kanunga’s arrival because the song was the true ending.

The net effect I’m going for is that the most bizarre and grand aspects of the story work because the human moments underneath them are airtight. When Wanyana’s fire reignites or the hut shakes, the reader suspends disbelief not because I provide a drug explanation, but because Wanyana's emotional reality in that moment is unmistakable.

Fantasy elements thrive in the margins of ambiguity.

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136: On Writing Advice

2/14/2025

I finished Chapter 68: Banyoro Badru yesterday, and I’m in the middle of transcribing it to paper today. It totaled 3,194 words. By the way, it’s so nice not having to count every word now that I’ve got Office Suite on my tablet with basic word processing software.

I really loved how this latest chapter turned out – all the little surprises that turned up along the way. It was nicely done, even if I do say so myself. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, but it’s seasoned with so many interesting details that it feels more fleshed out than some of my other chapters. Like Chapter 66: Saying Goodbye, which didn’t have any new background material or detailed nuances to the scene. It felt very much like it was written off the cuff, because it was.

Banyoro Badru, however, feels real. The chapter feels lived in, where no expense is spared to build and enhance every action so that the reader comes away feeling like they experienced something.

I love the honeyguide and its symbiotic relationship with Badru. I love the Colobus Monkey, and how it ties into Diallo. I love the tambootie tree and the harvesting of the bee’s nest, and how it feels both real and romanticized at the same time. Badru singing the song of the bees, while also getting stung a couple times, and the disgusting idea of her eating bee larvae and wax with the honey.

The last bit with the five kids worked well as well, tilting my hat a little to Badru’s possible sixth sense, similar to Alena’s. Giving the kids all they need as a set up for their own A Friend’s Song chapter but not boring the reader by making them actually witness yet another ritual. Knowing what needs to be there, and what can be merely implied and left off stage is crucial. My best guide for that is, if I’m bored by the very idea of depicting something, then I assume the reader will be as well.

I also wrote this entire chapter in a way I rarely do, and all the books on the craft of fiction say I should. That is, I wrote the entire thing in one sitting with no thought for style or perfectionism. No corrections or rewrites on the fly. And only an occasional referral to my research notes. I did have the whole chapter mapped out by chapter beats though, where all the major elements were plotted out in advance.

Then, after this fast and sloppy first draft, I dug in deep with my research notes and crammed them into my first draft to make a very ugly and monstrous 2nd draft. Then I went through on the third draft to smooth it all out, beautify it, add in inspirational bits of whimsy on the fly, and to delete the clunky and unnecessary.

That’s about it.

I finished three days ahead of schedule for this chapter, so I’m thinking I might use the weekend to focus on a drawing I promised someone I’d do. Though I’m sure I’ll be tweaking on the setup for my next chapter as well – Wanyana’s Song.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/8/2026

It’s amazing how things come together better than usual when I actually follow the advice of those with more experience than me. Asking and looking for help doesn’t do much good when I don’t at least try what is suggested. This goes for every aspect of my life, well beyond the written page. I like to think I’m pretty good at asking for help and listening to advice from others. What I actually do with it is a whole different thing.

I’ve always preferred going against the grain as I walk my own path. Figuring things out the hard way. I’m not sure whether this is good for me or not on the whole, though it’s usually pretty obvious when it doesn’t work on a case by case basis. I’d like to think I’ve become more balanced in this regard as I’ve grown older. It’s hard to say.

My life is better than ever before though in virtually every way. So, that must count for something. Right?

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135: What I Don’t Know

2/9/2025

I finished Chapter 67: Asking For Help yesterday, though I transcribed it all to paper today. I wrote it both by hand on paper and digitally on my tablet. I can’t take my tablet to work though, so most of it was done longhand at work, while most of the editing was done on the tablet. It amounted to 11 pages, and 3,220 words, which is a lot longer than I imagined. But that’s okay, because it turned out far better than I imagined as well.

I scrapped almost everything of the original concept. Indeed, all I kept from the original was that it would be from Joyul’s POV, that Alena would be asking for Siona’s help with Diallo, and that they’d meet up with Bakar, Tamal, and Dougga at the end in order to connect with the next chapter – Banyoro Badru.

Originally though, the whole thing was to take place in a hut. First Siona’s, then reimagined for the Jola Hut. And it was to possibly involve some kind of divination ritual, but mostly it was conceived as Joyul overhearing through a hut’s thatched walls as Alena confronted her mother about Diallo.

That concept died of boredom.

I already described here all the new visual material in my last journal entry. The primary additions that were not preconceived that emerged from the actual writing of it were all the insights into Joyul’s perspectives. Her needs to be more proactive and not just following Alena’s lead. Her fear of being lost in Alena’s shadow.

I’m very happy with this chapter and how it turned out, not because it was better written than most – because it probably wasn’t from a craft-stylistic-writerly POV – but because it was visually engaging and expanded the scope of the Batu world in just the right ways for this stage in the story. It was surprising and unpredictable for me, which I can only hope will translate for future readers as well.

I finished right on schedule for my chapter-a-week goal, and now onto the next – Chapter 68: Banyoro Badru.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/7/2026

The characters in the fiction I create are just like the real people in my life in terms of how they’re always capable of revealing facets of themselves I never imagined existed. They’re always more complicated than I think, and not at all as I believed them to be. They not only reveal themselves gradually in fragments, but those fragments can change. So, what might be true about them one minute, may not be true the next. Let alone as the years pass.

This is so obvious with the real people in my life, it’s hardly worth mentioning. Yet when the same phenomenon is found in the fictional characters I thought I created – characters I should know inside and out – it seems peculiar. I think it all comes back to issues I’ve touched on in these journal entries repeatedly. Expectations, surprises, choices and free will, discovery and growth through the act of writing, allowing things to evolve organically, etc.

It’s all for the better that I’m unable to play god. At least not an omniscient one. What a dull and vapid undertaking this would be for me if it were so.

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134: Establishing the Imagery

1/23/2025

I’m having a slow time of getting these last six chapters done: 67-72. Asking For Help, Banyoro Badru, Wanyana’s Song, Siona’s Song, A Friend’s Song, and Bulala’s Song.

I almost gave up and decided not to do them at all, because they felt so flat and uninspiring conceptually. But having gone through my geography notes and researching for more material to flesh them out, I came upon several ideas I could visually incorporate. Placing the characters for each chapter in entirely different settings than I imagined helped tremendously.

The scenes being in each person’s hut and involving different rituals is obviously tedious as hell and not going to work. But by expanding the reader’s awareness of the complexity of the village and its resources I’m now beginning to breathe some life into them.

Asking For Help is now set on the eastern side of the Dula River, involving a huge tree with a hollowed-out tunnel in its trunk just before crossing the Dula along a double-decker suspension bridge supported by vines and aerial roots. And it will involve a waterfall and pool where Siona is bathing. Alena and Joyul split up, Joyul sees Badru, Alena finds her mom to ask her to help with Diallo. When Joyul catches up she can barely hear what’s being said, but that’s okay because all the reader needs to know is that Alena asked for her mother’s help. The visuals and choreography among the characters in this model is MUCH more interesting than simply repeating Joyul’s eavesdropping through a hut’s thatching like she did in Chapter 34: Siona’s Reading, back in Part Two: Twa Yal-Jukun.

Banyoro Badru is set then in this vicinity but now involves her using a honey-guide to harvest honeycombs from a bee’s nest. This occurs just before the two girls and three boys show up.

Wanyana’s Song will be the only one still in a hut. It needs to be since that’s where Diallo is. I’m adding that she holds Diallo’s head in her lap, asking questions where she can tell by the tension and weight of the head what the answers are. If the answer is yes, the head feels heavier. The spirits speak through the head.

Siona’s Song will be set at dusk, while she’s putting Guma’s skull to bed – thoughts of Diallo triggering those of Guma. Possibly set within a grotto along the Dula on her way back to the village where she performs her ritual that will help Bulala.

A Friend’s Song will now be set with all five kids using a harness with a counterweight to swing around the trunk of a tree. I’m not sure about this in terms of how it can be tied in with a ritual, or which tree they’re using, since they’re a mix of boys and girls. Maybe the amori emergent tree. I just love the visuals.

Bulala’s Song now has a colobus monkey that descends from the trees to take hold of her hand and walk with her. Again, I haven’t figured out how to connect that with her ben-ganga ritual that Siona helped her set up.

So, I’ve sort of been building them all at the same time, relocating and reimagining them. That helps, but I still need to figure out a lot of details, hopefully by simply doing the work of writing it.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/6/2026

My background is in art – drawing and painting – and a lot of my youth was also spent being obsessed with movies, so I’m very much a visual writer. If I don’t have a good cinematic grasp of a scene’s imagery, it just doesn’t come alive for me. Without a solid visual hook to inspire me, I can’t get a new chapter off the ground.

It doesn’t have to be a dramatically sensational or exhilarating image. It can be subdued and subtle. It just needs to carry an undercurrent of emotional resonance to it. It has to evoke a feeling in me. And it needs to be the right feeling - in the right place at the right time for the context of the story. In this way, I’m like a composer of a symphony. A symphony of emotional triggers, each executed in the service of the whole – while simultaneously providing its own particular rewards in the present moment. Each expressive movement should blend into the next as I ride the wave of images toward the distant shore of its conclusion.

That’s the goal anyway.

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133: There’s No Going Back Now

1/13/2025

Okay, I finally finished Chapter 66: Saying Goodbye. Or at least what I’m calling the first draft. Finished it yesterday, coming in at just over 4 pages and at 1,141 words.

I didn’t use any research notes whatsoever, the entire thing just off the cuff without references. It’s extremely straight forward and simple because I only had two objectives: give the three boys a reason to go to Badru for help and have Dougga take Diallo’s horn with him. And that’s pretty much all that happened. I can always build on it later and maybe make it more interesting somehow, but for now I’m content and moving on.

Six more chapters to do in the next ten weeks.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/5/2026

I’ve used the notion of being able to build on a chapter later, or fix whatever ails it later, quite a lot in these journals. But now, that’s no longer true. At least, not for Wings of Providence. The print version for Wings of Providence is now published, and I even have 10 copies coming my way in the mail.

Now when I say I’m moving on, it’s definitive, and there will be no going back. Batu canon is locked in, as far as the material in Wings of Providence is concerned.

It feels good, obviously. But it’s also edged with a tinge of sadness – the moving on and leaving behind me the first book in my series. It’s a good thing to move forward though, and I’ll just have to learn to live with my mix of emotions.

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132: Winging It

1/7/2025

I finally broke the ice on getting back into writing on my main narrative starting on Chapter 66: Saying Goodbye. I got the first couple pages roughed with the three boys coming to say goodbye to Diallo… Though really, they’re more there to want to help somehow than to say goodbye. In fact, I just finished coming up with a roughed song sung by Tamal who was trying to call Diallo back to them.

I’m just playing it all by ear and seeing what happens, where the only thing I have mapped out is that Dougga snatches the horn and takes it with him as they leave to go talk to Badru about why her gifts to Diallo didn’t protect him.

I didn’t have Tamal’s song planned. That just popped up on its own as I moved the characters to where they should be logistically, and having them behave in accordance to who they are.

That brings me to a realization that got underscored as I was working on this chapter this morning, that all three boys – Bakar, Tamal, and Dougga – represent aspects of both myself and Diallo. Bakar represents my impulsive, emotional, adventurous, courageous, and physical persona. Tamal represents my rational, analytical, stoic, scholastic, and responsible persona. And Dougga represents my softer, effeminate, timid, passive-aggressive, hesitant, loving, sexual, sensually indulgent persona. Diallo has a mixture of all three, as do I.

This makes it easier to write for them, since knowing myself is to know them.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/4/2026

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that when I start playing it by ear with my writing, the characters start feeling like aspects of myself. Research, story plotting, and sticking close to an outline keeps the characters doing things I probably wouldn’t do. And behavior is a huge part of defining who someone is. Without the direction of an outline or the props of research though, the compass I use to guide them tends to be myself.

I do at times think of myself as a multitude. Multiple Sumners, each distinctly different from one another. Different values with different agendas. Almost schizophrenic. So, it comes easy for me to fragment these different version of myself when I need to put myself in my character’s shoes.

Not that any of them actually wear shoes.

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131: A Sense of Atmosphere

9/18/2024

I finished Chapter 61: The Jola yesterday. It came in at 9 pages and 2,554 words. I’m still too close to it to know for sure, but I think it’s probably not very good. The overall vision of it in my mind is good, but I suspect it’s written with way too much reliance on research, rendering it contrived and clunky. No freshness, no sense of wonder, and completely inorganic.

But… It’s good enough for now. Nothing a good rewrite can’t fix once I get ahold of a computer. The bones of what’s needed are there. Time to move on to Chapter 66: Saying Goodbye. For which I have no research notes whatsoever. We’ll see if this works out better.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/3/2026

Having reread Chapter 61: The Jola just a couple days ago – and it being two years since I wrote it – I think I can say now that it stands fairly well. Yes, it’s got a good deal of research propping it up, but I didn’t find it to be overly contrived and clunky this time. Though, it has been rewritten with quite a few deletions over the past two years.

Makoa and Banda – particularly in the opening sequence prior to the when the women arrived – left me with a wonderful sense of actually being there with them. Experiencing the morning vibe of starting a new day, yet in place and time that is totally alien to me. It felt timeless in its atmospheric portrayal of the scene.

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130: Playing With Choices

9/13/2024

I finally broke the ice two days ago, on 9/11, getting the first two pages of Chapter 61: The Jola written. This is the first of eight chapters I need to do before I can call the first book done. I may end up doing a ninth chapter in the form of an epilogue, where Diallo’s bonding with his three friends is underscored, but I’m still not sure if I want to do that or not.

The eight I am sure of are all within Part Four: The Fever, each of them designed to flesh out the ten chapters already done. They’re all to help make sense of why/how Diallo survives his fever, and to help illustrate how all the people whose lives were touched by Diallo in the story so far are now coming together to help him in his moment of ultimate life-or-death need.

This Jola chapter I’m working on now is feeling good so far and has several promising facets to it that can be really cool if I handle it properly. Like the metaphor of the bird trap Banda is weaving, like Ardra’s web of destiny, or even Makoa’s twine he’s braiding to use in snares – both mirroring the snares of the mind that Diallo is caught up in. Which also gets reflected nicely in the epigram for Part Four: Flesh is a trap confining life, mind is a snare of the soul. The fever of the mind is the suffering of the spirit caught within its snare. The Fever will break when we lose our minds. Only then will we be free.

And this chapter will end with Banda hanging the bird trap within the branches of the Jola Fire circle once their rituals are concluded. Diallo and the Wings of Providence ensnared. Music is also a strong element in this chapter, and I’m hoping that by the final draft my use of language and pacing will itself reflect a musical quality through meter and rhythm.

This chapter also gives me another opportunity to illustrate the four spiritual disciplines of the Jola and how they can come together and combine in their focus on a single goal, helping Diallo.

It feels good to be back to work on my book, and it’s really not as hard or tortuous as I always make first drafts out to be. It helps to come at it in the same way I do drawing or painting – having a standard procedure for getting started, a formula of prep work as I then slowly ease my way into the actual creative work.

I begin by establishing a short description of what needs to happen in the chapter and how it serves the larger story. Then I establish which character will get the POV. After that I go on a deep dive into all my research notes to find all the details that might possibly be applied to this chapter – geography, flora/fauna, technology, spirituality, rituals, etc. Then I do an outline/synopsis of the chapter – visualize the scene, focusing on graphic images that might bring it to life, making sure the scene has an interesting backdrop. It has to be cinematic. Then I decide how to open the scene – dialogue, action, or mood setting description, etc. I create a movie in my mind, and the diction I use to convey it also determines how it unfolds. Both images and words direct its course.

The hardest part about writing fiction is getting past the notion that it’s hard. So, invariably I have to adopt the mindset of play and that I’m just going to experiment and see what happens. This tends to be the best method for cracking open the nut of a new chapter and getting back into the story for me.

Occasionally, the experiment fails and I need to regroup and find a new approach. Maybe choose a different character for the POV, or a new local for the backdrop. But most of the time, like with this current one – Chapter 61: The Jola – the experiment that I’m just playing with takes off with a life of its own.

Success.

The only thing to fear is fear itself, and once I trick myself into not taking it so seriously by just playing with experiments, I’m good to go.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/2/2026

Perspective is everything – for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Hamlet thought of Denmark as a prison, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern thought otherwise. What was left out of Hamlet’s remark though was the possibility of having a choice.

I realize I’m encroaching now on a philosophical debate regarding free will by assuming we have a choice at all. But I choose to believe in choice, because it is only through that perspective that I’m able to feel good about anything. I can enjoy feeling bad on occasion, but I usually prefer feeling good over feeling bad. Nothing is good or bad, but my choice of thinking so.

The things I choose to feel bad about: the loss of a friend, the death of a loved one, not meeting my expectations concerning my creative work. Feeling bad can be useful in keeping me true to my values. And my values are a choice as well.

Or so I choose to believe.

I’m good with being unhappy now and again, I simply want happiness to be the prominent of the two. And believing in choice and playing with perspectives is the best way I know of for tipping the scale in that direction.

So, what kind of person do you want to be?

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129: Launch Day – Whispering in the Wind

11/19/2023

It has to be kept to just four books. That’s the only way it’s going to get done, and the only way to sustain its sense of structural cohesion.

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Present-Day Reflection

10/1/2026

My sentiment in that journal entry from 3 years ago is still correct today. I must keep my scope limited to a manageable scale, or it will never get done. But I also have to let go of my idealized expectations for how it will get done, how it will be received, and be flexible about the timeframe that’s needed for a quality product.

Today’s the launch date for the paperback version of Wings of Providence through IngramSpark and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. It’s come as a whisper without fanfare, and it’s not even done. I still have the last 1/3 of the final edits to finish and upload. No pressure, seeing how nobody is waiting for it but me.

I just never had the time needed to market it correctly. Other than dropping a notice on Reddit and asking for reviews from a few influential online readers, which I got no response from, I haven’t done a single thing to promote it. I’ll have my final edits done and uploaded in a couple days, at which time I’ll be switching gears to 100% marketing.

None of this is how I wanted it to happen, but at least it’s happening.

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128: Being Good Enough

4/26/2023

I reread the entire Part Three: The Ghost Frog yesterday. Timed with the stopwatch function on my tablet, and it took 5 hours and 43 minutes to read 183 pages; 54,737 words. I was glad to see that my latest 12 chapters that I’ve just written this year were better than the 8 I had done already years ago. That means I’m getting better.

The bad news is it still sucked. Where I thought I was 95% done with only 5% left to do down the road by polishing with rewrites, it turns out I’m closer to being only 75% done with a LOT of rewriting yet to do.

Not just editing out redundancies, fixing plot holes, and minimizing excess expository baggage – but just the basic diction of line editing is clunky, amateurish crap.

Very disappointing. Turns out all my work so far has come to nothing more than figuring out what happens. The bare bones skeleton for the story. Everything else is in serious need of a major rewriting campaign.

Talk about demoralizing.

I’ve gotten better as a writer, but I still suck.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/30/2026

I’m just starting my vacation from my day job, so I finally have some free time (nine days) to catch up on everything that’s been slipping through the cracks. Today I’m going to try and finish the final edits for Wings of Providence. I failed to meet my deadline for the print on demand submissions, but Amazon’s KDP will let me update the final edits once my book launch date has passed – October 1st.

I vastly underestimated how long it would take to reread and make the final touches to my manuscript. In fact, I only got as far as Chapter 42: Conscience, which is right at the beginning of the Ghost Frog story arc. So, what this journal entry from April 26th 3 ½ years ago was referring to, I’m just going back over now. It will take me longer than 5 hours and 43 minutes though since I will be fine tuning this time.

If I remember correctly, I already did most of the major rewriting of all this back in 2024 and early 2025. But this sort of thing is never truly done. As with all forms of art, creative writing is never really finished, it’s simply abandoned. Eventually you just have to say enough is enough and move on. And for me that will be when I upload my final submission to Amazon’s KDP for the book’s print version.

1 day left until my launch date.

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127: Managing the Load

4/24/2023

Where to begin?

Nothing went according to plan. First of all, I had to take a week off to focus on something else. This was the first week I haven’t got a chapter done since I got back to working on this Batu stuff last February.

I more than made up for that though this week as I began tackling the final chapter for Part Three, only to have it blow up on me into a monster that became two chapters. The last half of this became my actual final chapter, and the largest chapter I’ve ever written for any of the Batu books. So, I accidentally wrote two chapters in one week, the first – Chapter 59: Naked & Afraid – coming in at 3,427 words (10 pages); and the second and last – Chapter 60: The Temple of Mugasha – coming in at 5,614 words (19 pages).

That’s 1,292 words every day. More than that if you only count the days of new work and not the 3 days spent copying it all to paper. So really, it was 2,260 words a day for 4 days. That’s a lot of work when you consider how many rewrites every page went through.

That being said, there’s still a lot of work to be done with Chapter 60: The Temple of Mugasha. Though that will have to wait until I come back to it in two years when I’m on a real computer. While transcribing my final draft to paper I became aware of a lot of plot holes and things needing to be fixed I hadn’t noticed before. But it’s good enough for now and I’ll move on.

In fact, I’m toying with splitting The Temple of Mugasha into two chapters and having the new final chapter be of Diallo rescuing Dougga, but from Diallo’s POV instead of Dougga’s.

That would be a lot of work I’m simply not up for right now though. Part of the reason for splitting it into two chapters this is that The Temple of Mugasha is simply too long. Only 3 other chapters I’ve written come close to being that long – only 3 out of 133 chapters total. Chapter 14: The Search for Bakar – coming in at 4,556 words, Chapter 47: Womb of Darkness – at 4,357 words, and Chapter 54 in Book Two, The Wedding Challenge – with 4,973 words.

Another reason for splitting The Temple of Mugasha and creating a new last chapter for the Ghost Frog story-arc is that what I got right now is leaving me feeling shortchanged emotionally. I’m thinking it should be wrapped up from Diallo’s POV, not Dougga’s. It might be better if I end things by tying up Diallo’s emotional journey – primarily the sacrifice he makes and his choice of friendship over romance, etc. – rather than simply the culmination of plotting elements.

Anyway, like I said – those are problems for another day. For now, I’m just happy with what I got and ready to move on.

Incorporating The Temple of Mugasha like I did with the climax of The Ghost Frog was a total surprise and completely a last-minute decision. It’s the perfect over-the-top image-intensive story element to drive home Part Three as an adventure story. It fleshes out the Batu world and adds a punctuation mark at the perfect point there at the climax. It’s one of the best examples I have to date where the act of writing has produced major story elements that never would have existed just by daydreaming.

The Temple of Mugasha never would have come about if I hadn’t gone to the trouble of putting it down to paper… or on my tablet. Usually, it’s primarily the subtle nuances that surprise me by the way they breathe in depth I’d never have considered if I hadn’t written it out word by word. Every now and then, however, it’s a HUGE story-changing element that reshapes the entire series. And it always emerges all on its own through the grind of working out the story word by word.

Going over my stats sheet where I keep track of all my finished work, I see that Part Three: The Ghose Frog is the largest of all the 8 parts I’ve written so far – coming in at 54,737 words, 20 chapters, and 183 handwritten pages. The second largest is Part One: Children of Batu – comes in at 43,547 words, 21 chapters, and 132 pages.

I’ve also restructured things so that The Shadow Falls is now Part Four in Book Two, instead of Part One in Book Three. And I also renamed Book Two to Tears of Stone, instead of Left Behind. Lost in the Darkness is no longer its own part in Book Two but has been incorporated into Part One: The Kulu.

The reason for all this is that it renders the first two books mostly done (with just a few additional chapters yet to write in fleshing them out). It also renders them both equivalent in my mind in terms of scope and quality. The second one becomes darker and more tragic, but that is also appropriate for a second act.

Anyway, my totals thus far come to 275,903 words, 892 pages, 133 chapters, and 8 Parts – all of which comprising my first two books.

As of now, Book One is 156,563 words, 512 pages, and 74 chapters. Book two is 119,340 words, 380 pages, and 59 chapters.

I’ll probably take the next week off now that Ghost Frog is put to bed. I’ll move on to flesh out Part Four: The Fever in a week or so.

We’ll see.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/29/2026

Wow. That journal entry covers a lot. A lot of structural shifting and rewriting ideas. I could also feel the clunky diction and frazzled narrative voice in the entry, which I believe stems from The Temple of Mugasha having overwhelmed me with an overabundance of elements to juggle. I was no doubt fatigued and on the edge of burn-out.

I’m still having to manage that these days as well, albeit from the administrative side of the self-publishing process. Having way too many things to keep track of. Things that are totally alien to me that I’m just learning about as I go. Deadlines being blown to hell. Pivoting strategies. Things constantly slipping through the cracks and never having enough hours in a day.

And don’t even get me started on how this affects my life outside of my Batu work.

I wouldn’t have it any other way though. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning, even as it robs me of my sleep. I do my best to give myself down-time, and to allow myself to not meet expectations. It will all be okay. Just take a deep breath, rest, then get back to it.

2 days left until my launch date.

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126: A Writer Plans & the Gods Laugh

4/6/2023

Things are not going as planned.

This Chapter 58: Denouement is not only difficult to pull together, but it’s now becoming clear that it won’t be the last chapter in Part Three like I thought. I just finished transcribing what I’ve got done with it so far and it’s already eight pages and 2,658 words long, yet I haven’t got a single element completed that I needed for this chapter. Basically, all I’ve got done is Diallo’s trail of trials – his hardships navigating the Nagala-Nar marshlands. And because it’s just him with no Guma, there’s no dialogue.

The next thing I need to do is have Diallo find the Ghost Frog, then I’m thinking he’ll blow his horn in his excitement, followed by the discovery of some ancient ruins. But I’m not sure how exactly I’m going to pull any of that off, only that I want to do it as succinctly as possible to wrap this chapter.

Which means there will be an extra chapter after this that will be the REAL final chapter for Part Three. Which will have to be written from Dougga’s or Tamal’s POV. Probably opening with them hearing Diallo’s horn calling.

I’m not sure what problems this might create since it will be a POV that’s not Diallo’s. Who knows, it may not be a problem at all but rather a solution to a lot of problems I was having trying to imagine how all the pieces will fit together.

We’ll see.

But I’ve been trying to get to the library all week to get some crucial research information on quicksand or mud pits, which I’ve decided will be how Diallo Saves Dougga’s life and sacrificing the ghost frog prize. And unable to get to the library, and unable to imagine how all the pieces fit together, I’ve been focusing all week on those things I DO know that leads up to the final parts.

Spent Monday writing 829 words describing Diallo’s state of mind as he first embarks on his own and comes upon a group of kudus.

Didn’t write any new material on Tuesday but merely copied to paper what I wrote on my tablet Monday.

On Wednesday I compiled pretty much all the material of Diallo’s struggles journeying to the mangroves, and the spider’s web scene, and spent all of today – Thursday – editing and fine tuning that before copying it by hand to paper.

And I still have a couple pages to create and transcribe to paper before I can call this chapter done. None of this is how I typically construct and write a chapter but then maybe there is no typical method. Like with drawing or painting, it’s all about problem solving, and doing what’s necessary rather than working from formulas or past methods.

Follow my gut. Be creative.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/28/2026

It feels like nothing ever goes as planned. Indeed, it feels like if I want something to go a certain way, it seems like my best bet would be to plan on it not going that way. That may be the only way to get things to go the way I want them to. Though that subterfuge in itself would be a plan to get a particular outcome, which would fail because it was planned. Planning to fail in order to succeed is still a plan for success.

I can’t cheat the system. The system being that I never get what I want. Or at least, not what I imagined I wanted. After all, it’s not that fate has it in for me, it’s more that fate refuses every time to play her hand in accordance to my preconceptions. Sometimes I get lucky and it turns out better than I imagined. Sometimes just as good as I imagined, though in a completely different way. And, of course, sometimes it turns out worse.

The only thing I can count on is that it won’t go according to my plan.

3 days left until my launch date.

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125: Surprises & Expectations

3/30/2023

Well, what ended up happening was precisely what I said I didn’t want to do. I finished Chapter 56: Visions last night, at a couple lines over 7 pages and 2,260 words, but I ended up writing out Alena’s vision followed by a scene with her and Joyul helping Kiza and Anaka build their hut. No new village scenery, and no evocative imagery except in Alena’s vision, which I wasn’t even supposed to write.

Problem was, no ideas came to me over the weekend. Then after writing the scene of Alena’s vision on Monday, I set it aside for two days while reorganizing and editing my memoir again, and no new ideas occurred to me so that by Thursday – yesterday -  I simply wrote the rest of the chapter with what I had.

I got in all the key elements I wanted, but aside from organizing them and placing them within the context of the 4 girls building a hut, nothing new emerged as a surprise for me.

I’m glad I got it done on schedule, and it will at least serve as a solid foundation for future rewrites should any fresh ideas come to me, but for now it feels kind of flat and undeveloped. Though that may be because I only spent 2 days writing it, in addition to not getting any big surprises from it.

Anyway, since Tapu Steals the Sun was already finished back in 2016, I only have one more chapter to write to finish off this Ghost Frog section. This one has to have surprises for me, because though I know what will happen, I still have no idea how it will happen.

And now I have another weekend to figure it out by Monday.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/27/2026

Surprises are inevitable, it’s just a matter of whether they’re good surprises or not, and to what degree. The biggest, and best surprise in the writing of the Ghost Frog story arc is yet to come. The Temple of Mugasha chapter is probably the furthest I’ve ever strayed from the expectations of my outline.

I think the thing I value most in the Visions chapter this journal entry is referencing is the relationship between Alena and Joyul. It just feels so real and authentic – the loving antagonism they have for one another. And the way this chapter flirts with the boundaries of what they have. They’re perfect for each other as they are, and it will be interesting to see how that changes over time.

I have a pretty good idea about this, having had similar relationships in my life, but I am not Alena or Joyul. Nor has my life ever resembled anything like theirs. So really, there’s no telling. Just like everything to do with this adventure of writing an epic saga, I’ll have to wait and see what happens. Just like my readers.

If I ever have any readers.

4 days left until my launch date.

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124: Alena’s Vision

3/24/2023

I’m not sure what to do with this next chapter with Alena. I’ve got lots of ideas, but none of them are screaming YES! The original idea was to illustrate Alena having a vision of Diallo; with some of the elements of his quest and some things yet to come – with him meeting Mabolo, the goddess of death. And I still want to include that in the chapter, but I no longer feel the timing is right for yet another surreal dream sequence. So, I was thinking about not actually showing the vision to the reader, but only Alena’s reactions to it upon waking. Her describing it to someone. Also, since it’s the middle of the day – all these last few chapters of The Ghost Frog story arc are taking place during the same day – I can’t title the chapter Night Terrors like I planned to. Her vision came to her during the day, perhaps while taking a nap, so it will probably just be called Visions. Though I suppose since she’s merely recalling the vision through dialogue to someone else, the actual vision could have taken place during the night.

Doesn’t matter. Still can’t use Night Terrors if the whole chapter takes place during the light of day.

I would also like to have some foreshadowing in this chapter for the fable that follows it, Tapu Steals the Sun. I got some ideas for that, tying it into Alena’s vision and having it reflect Alena’s own situation, not wanting to be somebody’s treasure to be captured and hidden away in a pot like the sun in the fable. I’d also like to underscore how the wasps, the mouse, and the hawk in the fable represent Bakar, Dougga, and Tamal. Not sure how to pull that off though.

I also want to include Joyul, Kiza, and Anaka in the chapter. All three of them need to be seen again, and I thought I could use Kiza and Anaka to illustrate a little more the concept of the amori as a third gender. Maybe have Alena only half-jokingly suggest she’d be better off if she chose the path of the amori. I’m also considering having all four of these girls building a hut together – Kizaa’s and Anaka’s marital hut – as a framework for Alena’s conversation with them.

This all sounds fine, and it seems to work well for bringing together all the elements I want in this chapter. Except… it’s just not screaming YES! to me. It feels okay, but not exciting. What I’m really craving for this scene is new, fresh, and truly evocative imagery of a setting within the village that is unlike anything we’ve yet seen. Like what I did with Badru and her home within the substructures and the giant hollowed out tree where she performed Diallo’s ritual of protection.

I brainstormed a list of ideas for a new village setting with evocative imagery that excites my imagination, but none of them seem to be appropriate for the elements I want to explore in this chapter. I really like the hut-building motif, I just can’t seem to figure out how to place that within an imagery-intensive backdrop.

I got today (Friday) and the whole weekend to figure it out though. Technically, I don’t begin writing this chapter until Monday. I was just hoping to get a head start on it, which I have in terms of collating ideas for it.

We’ll see what happens.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/26/2026

Having recently reread the Visions chapter, I have to admit that I feel more or less the same about it now as I did 3 ½ years ago when I wrote it. It’s competent, doing the work I wanted it to do, but the only visually engaging material takes place within Alena’s vision. The only part of the chapter I said I didn’t want to write but ended up writing anyway.

I’m content with the chapter, and that will have to be enough. I can’t expect to have every chapter be my favorite. It’s enough that I enjoy rereading it and that it doesn’t bore me even after having read it a dozen times.

5 days left until my launch date.

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123: Happy Surprises

3/23/2023

I figured it out. More or less. Finished Chapter 55: Bad Air last night. Wrote the last section where Diallo and Guma fight, and copied the whole chapter to paper in one day. Wrote the cave and Hira sequence the day before that. The first day’s work of getting Diallo and Guma down the escarpment and that whole jumble of geographical details is still rough and in need of future polishing, but it’s good enough for now.

Took three days to write the whole thing, which seems to be the pattern lately for getting a chapter done. This one was slightly longer though than the previous one, and longer than I thought it was before laying down my last draft. Turned out to be ten pages, 3,379 words. Which only makes it the 4th longest chapter out of the 15 I got done in Part Three so far.

Only two more chapters left to write for Part Three: The Ghost Frog. The next one is Alena’s vision sequence, and the last one is the climax of this story arc, where Diallo chooses friendship over Alena’s ghost frog. The fable, Tapu Steals the Sun, has already been finished for years. Just waiting for me to get off my butt and write the surrounding chapters.

Almost there.

I feel really good about what I got so far. Every chapter I write has significant elements in them that weren’t planned ahead of time and came as pleasant surprises through the act of writing. Elements that grew organically all on their own from the material.

In this latest chapter those surprise elements were the Hira emerging once more in the darkness of the cave; Diallo and Guma almost getting crushed by a giant boulder – ala Raiders of the Lost Ark; and the two boys getting into an actual fist fight over whether to go on without a breathing mask or not. I knew Guma would refuse to go on into the bad air, but that was it. And I only had a vague idea of Diallo exploring a cave at some point in my plans. And in hindsight, I can see that everything at all worthwhile that came out of this chapter were those surprise elements that weren’t planned for.

This seems to be yet another pattern lately in all my Chapter.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/25/2026

I can’t imagine how dull, and how much harder, the writing process would be if there were no surprises that came from it. If there was no discovery within the actual writing so that I was simply taking dictation, I’m not sure I would be able to do this.

6 days left until my launch date.

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122: Stuck in the Middle of U

3/20/2023

I don’t remember having ever felt this bad about my writing as I do this morning. I just spent 2 ½ hours starting Chapter 55: Bad Air – Diallo’s and Guma’s descent from the ridge to the marsh below. And it’s left my guts in a twist, feeling ten times worse than I did before I sat down to write. The work is a total mess, a jumble of confused images and ideas that don’t work together. The prose are crap as well. I’m not even sure if it’s at all necessary.

But it’s only Monday, and I have all week to figure it out.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/24/2026

Before I start any chapter, I almost always feel good about its potential. Any ideas I might have feel inspired. I enter into it riding this wave of inspiration, full of confidence and excitement about how it could be. While gathering research material, things begin to click into place. Everything seems to be exactly as it should, and all is well.

Then I begin the actual writing and things immediately become less and less certain. I gradually plunge down into the unknown until I reach the bottom of the creative curve—the messy-middle where motivation completely collapses. The initial adrenaline has worn off and the finish line is still so far away. My brain has lost its reference points. I’m too far from the starting line to feel the thrill of its beginning, and too far from the end to taste its completion. This is where despair sets in, where I start to think my work is crap and that I have no idea what I'm doing. The temptation to scrap the whole thing or pivot to a shiny new idea is at its greatest.

To get out of this, I give up on trying to make things perfect. I focus instead on simply finishing. I do whatever it takes to claw my way back to a point where I feel good about the work again. I stitch the broken pieces together and eventually I start seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. As the final structure solidifies, confidence returns – not naive excitement as in the beginning, but as a hard-earned satisfaction. I find that the chapter actually holds together, and my pride in its execution takes over.

It always feels like a personal failure when I’m stuck there at the bottom of the U in this kind of Creative Curve – that point where the entire Batu saga feels doomed. It helps though to remember that this low point isn’t a detour from the creative process, it is the process.

7 days left until my launch date.

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121: Doing What’s in Our Nature

3/17/2023

I didn’t think I was going to get another chapter written this week because I got side-tracked by reworking a new plotline for my fictional memoir that might be publishable. Got deep into that over the weekend and it ended up spilling over into Monday, so I didn’t get back to my Batu work until Tuesday. What’s worse, I didn’t really have a good feeling for how I wanted to enter this chapter, what all would be in it or how I was going to pull it off.

But I did it. And I did it the same way I always do, by just sitting down and writing something. See where it goes and if it has any potential. Any surprises. So, I looked through my research notes for this chapter and got an image of flamingos in my head. I just sat with that for a while, adding in an image of Bakar, Tamal, Dougga, and the two dogs Nip and Pip – all crowded into a pirogue rowing down the Anwar River while passing a flock of flamingos… Bingo. There’s my entrance into this chapter.

After that, the dialogue takes on a life of its own to create the meaning and purpose for the chapter. The scenes that they had to pass through on their hunt for Diallo had already been preordained, but the details of those environments and how and why the characters interact with it and each other grew organically in a cause-and-effect sequence of events.

Dougga does and says only what Dougga would do or say in a very specific situation. All of them must be true to who they are, and there’s no way for me to predict what the chapter will feel like until the characters show me in the moment, step by step.

It’s interesting, because if I had no memory of what I just wrote for this chapter, and opened a page at random, and read a line of dialogue, I could tell you who was speaking even without any attribution attached to it. Because even when they’re all in the exact same situation, feeling the exact same way about something, they each have their ways of saying things. There may be many ways Bakar might say the same thing, but none of those ways will be the same as the ways Dougga or Tamal would say the same thing. The words they choose to express themselves stem from a particular psychology.

Anyway, I’m glad I got another chapter done – 54: Diallo’s Spoor, and it only took 3 days to write, coming in at 9 pages (plus 2 lines on page 10), and 2,874 words. And if you knew the conditions I was working under – constant interruptions, interpersonal drama, writing while on the toilet, while on an exercise bike, while in the middle of a crowded room with noise all around me, ping-pong balls being hit at me, etc. – it would seem more impressive than if you were picturing me at a desk in solitude with space and privacy to allow the creative process to flow freely.

I think this chapter turned out well, though there might be an excess of information embedded in it that the reader doesn’t need. I like to bring in precise details to make it more real, but it’s a fine line between that and boring the reader with irrelevancies. Only time and future readings will let me know down the road.

It feels pretty darn good right now though.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/23/2026

I’m about to start reading Wings of Providence one last time to make any last-minute edits before submitting it as the final version for print. The most difficult part will be staying on task for the next two days of my weekend when I have a laundry list of other things needing to be done as well.

Speaking of which, I have to go transfer my laundry from the washer to the dryer.

◇    ◇    ◇    ◇

Okay, I’m back.

My cat hates the elevator ride in our building down to the laundry room, but she otherwise loves exploring spaces she rarely gets to go. Also, the exercise of running from one end of our apartment to the other as I chase after her once we get back. My life is rich with metaphors that can be linked to the writing process – fear, loathing, curiosity, and desire all wrapped into one; the thrill of the chase while pretending the impulse to do so isn’t completely imagined.

I have lots of things I tell myself to rationalize why I do what I do, but in the end, I think it simply comes down to this: it’s what life does.

8 days left until my launch date

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120: The Inner Light

3/7/2023

Well, Chapter 53: The Inner Light came out of me in just the opposite way than the previous one had. It turned out to be much shorter than I thought it would be and only took two days to write. I also wrote the first draft in one sitting, drawing upon no notes from research whatsoever. In fact, I only had two paragraphs of notes prepared in advance but found them completely useless and threw them away before sitting down to write.

This was a dream chapter, so it allowed me to work without a net – not having to worry about the accuracy of particulars. I also wanted to avoid any exposition in this one, so the only things I added to later drafts were dialogue inserts. Primarily for Luala. And if this chapter has a fatal flaw, it will probably be in the heavy-handed pontificating I put into Luala’s mouth. But, as with all my fatal flaws, it’s nothing that can’t be easily fixed in future rewrites.

Oddly enough, my favorite part of this chapter was a short 4-line song I added there at the very end. I just slapped it together at the last second as a song Wanyana used to sing for Diallo when he woke in the night like he did here, and it turned out to be remarkably effective. I just got lucky with it.

All in all, I’m happy for now. Moving on.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/22/2026

I borrowed the title, The Inner Light, from one of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. I believe in paying homage to other people’s creative works that inspire me. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could (paying homage now to The Sound of Music).

I’ve noticed while rereading these journal entries that I make a lot of references to how I might fix whatever ails my writing in future rewrites. Well, those opportunities are almost all gone. I have five more days to make any last-minute edits before submitting my final version of Wings of Providence to IngramSpark and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. After that, the print version will be locked-in.

I will be rereading the entire manuscript from beginning to end over my weekend (which for me starts tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday). Last chance to set things right.

9 days left until my launch date.

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