106: It’s Totally Worth It
12/3/2015
Well, I tried and succeeded today. Got my rough draft done for Chapter 43: Counsel. Seven pages of scribbles on scratch paper, which will most likely translate to ten pages when I finalize the first draft of it. The writing is really rough, but the essence of it is there. I had a nice surprise with the hollowed tree trunk as a setting for the ritual. I hadn’t envisioned that until Badru and Diallo led me there. Nice imagery and sense of place. I’m very happy with it.
There’s still a lot of work to do to clean and shape it though. I’ll be very lucky to get it done tomorrow in one day. It’s a longish chapter with a lot of rough spots to smooth out. But whether I finish in one day or not, it will be easy to get going and to stay on task because the essence of the entire thing is already there and strong. There won’t be any dithering as I wonder what to do next.
But actually, it’s more complicated than that. Creative decisions are easy for me, and it’s not wondering what to do next that makes rough drafts so hard. It’s logistics. Moving the characters through the scenes and getting them from A to B while at the same time incorporating all the essential elements. I’ve never been to Africa. I’ve never handled, or in many cases even seen, the props and physical elements they interact with. I don’t know anything about the details of daily life in an African setting, except what I’ve read or have seen in movies. And a lot of the invented environment of Ephrathah, nobody has ever seen.
How do I move Badru from the village promenade to its substructure? Then how do I move her through that substructure? What’s it look like, feel like, smell like? Where does she step, and what obstacles are in her way? Then, what’s her hut look like? How is it constructed? How do I describe it as she moves through it? And I can’t forget pacing – what words do I choose to convey action at a pace and rhythm that’s appropriate? Short sentences, or long? Am I describing too much? Too little? Do things make sense?
It’s not wondering what to do next that keeps me from writing for weeks on end, it’s the how to write it. I’m not even talking about the diction or style that people think of when they think of good writing. I’m just talking about simple mechanics and laying everything out as I move the characters properly through a scene.
That is torture for me. Smoothing out the language and gilding the phrasing is easy by comparison (though time-consuming). If the chapter were a house, I’d already know in advance what the house will look like, but figuring out the mechanics of actually building it to that shape is torturous and frustrating. The decorative fine tuning is potentially endless, but relatively easy.
I doubt being aware of this will help me in the future either. We’ll see.
Present-Day Reflection
9/8/2026
Nobody told me it would be easy, but nobody told me it would be this hard either. Not that I’m complaining, because the challenge is one of the things that makes it so rewarding. Not the main thing, but one of the things.
Counsel in its final form is now Chapter 40, the third chapter in Part Two: Ghost Frog. And it is one of my favorites. All the Badru chapters are among my favorites, but this one stands out for more than her usual charm. It stands out for me because of the very things I was discussing in this journal entry eleven years ago – the sense of place that got built out of thin air. It not only feels real and lived in but is also so evocative in its imagery. The sense of timeless majesty, all while detailing the unseen basement beneath the village. The dark corners tucked out of sight. Nothing in this world is ordinary or uninteresting to me.
It’s a kind of magic, and totally worth it.
