116: Picking it Back Up
2/10/2023
I finally did it. I finally finished another chapter last night. A brand-new chapter from scratch. Chapter 49: Ombure & the Falls of Nagala-Nar, from Book One: Wings of Providence. It took me three days to write, consisting of 3 scenes and doing a scene a day. I spent from 6-8 hours a day writing each scene, the first one coming in at 989 words, the second at 900 even, and the third at 1,222 – for a grand total of 3,111 words and just over 10 handwritten pages. This is the 9th chapter in the story arc of Part Three: Ghost Frog and takes Diallo and Guma to the threshold of the marshlands.
This was the first of 19 chapters I have to get finished in order to call the first book done. So, now I still got 18 more… maybe 19 if I decide to add an epilogue of some type.
I’ve been playing with idea for years that each book should start with a birth, in the form of a Yara prologue, and end with a death. Book Two: Left Behind, for example, begins with the birth of Kembara, who will figure prominently in the narrative two or three books down the road when Diallo is a man and breaks away from Fon. And I can have the death of Wanyana take place at the end of that book as well, while climbing Mount Kunama in search of answers.
As much as I like the symmetry and the idea of beginning each book with birth and ending with death, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to trap myself in a structural box like this where I have to artificially invent people and situations to be born and die within the necessary time frames of launching and concluding each book. It’s nice in theory but may not be practical in execution.
Aside from that, I’m still considering adding a final chapter to this first book that’s still unconceived. I’m thinking it might be needed to bring the entire picture of the whole book into view – the normal world of act one, the adventure world of act two, the underworld of act three, and then finally the new normal of the story’s resolution.
Such a resolution chapter need not be very long, perhaps only a page or two. But it could prove very important in the way it brings Diallo’s transformation into context, demonstrating how he’s changed or grown due to what took place in the story. Though his world might not have changed very much, Diallo’s relationship with it has, and it’s this fact that must be underscored at the very end. He’s evolved his perspective, made his thematic choice of choosing his new friends over Alena’s ghost frog, and has implemented that choice by ritually bonding with his new friends.
A resolution chapter can also tie off any loose ends while indicating where characters might go from there. It fades the story out with a final resounding note that creates just the right emotional effect upon the reader. It creates a sense of cohesion and resonance in the overall effect of the novel.
That’s the idea anyway. As I have it now, it ends with Diallo waking up to find his father there and discovering Alena’s bracelet on his wrist and his mother’s amulet around his neck. I like this ending because his recognition of the moth’s wings inside the amulet’s amber symbolizes the Wings of Providence title and sends the reader out of the story with a sense of mysticism and mystery.
But that whole scene with his father and the bracelet and amulet doesn’t in any way demonstrate the contrast between who he was at the beginning of the story with who he is now. It doesn’t provide a context to showcase Diallo’s failures or victories – that he can appreciate and interact with people now in a more positive way than he was in the first act.
Though many literary novels intentionally end abruptly with ambiguous resolutions, expecting readers to do the work of providing their own conclusions, genre literature works better if it at least provides a short scene to show character reactions, and to underscore what the protagonist has gained or lost by his choices throughout the story. To put a cap on the end of his recent transformation while setting the stage for potential changes yet to come in the sequel.
Anyway, I got plenty of time to figure that out. Though just in writing about it here it’s occurred to me I might move what I have planned for Chapter 60: Completing the Circle, to my resolution chapter at the very end. I’d planned to have this scene where the four boys ritualistically establish their friendships with one another as soon as they returned to the village, following the ghost frog quest and prior to the manifestation of Diallo’s fever symptoms. But now I’m thinking it might work just as well at the very end when he wakes from The Fever. This might provide the perfect context to review the major plot points of the story while simultaneously dramatizing how much Diallo has changed, what he’s gained, and what he’s lost through the course of the story.
This would also match up with Campbell’s hero journey, specifically the hero’s return where everything is brought full circle to where he was in the beginning, only now he’s able to share with others the benefits he gained from his adventures.
Things to think about.
I’m just glad I’m finally back into the groove of working on my main Batu narrative. It’s been 5 ½ years (August of 2017) since I finished Chapter 48: Sending Help. That’s a LONG break. And it wasn’t that hard to pick it back up and get into it either. It took a while for me to finally want to bad enough, but once I did it wasn’t nearly as hard to find my way as I thought it would be. Although, I should point out that I spent a few weeks prior to writing gathering/collating notes from my research archives for all 19 chapters yet to be written. In this way, I’ve spent a few weeks immersing myself back into the material while organizing the information I’ll need for all 19 chapters prior to actually writing. This is how I was able to write a whole chapter from scratch in just 3 days. And why the next 18 chapters should come just about as easily – because I’ve already collected all the information needed for each of those chapters. And also, because I have a clear image of what needs to be done with each… more or less. It’s all constantly percolating in my mind, so by the time I get to it the iron is already hot and ready to be struck.
I should also take a moment here before signing off to point out that I wasn’t doing nothing during my 5 ½ year hiatus from working on Batu stuff. I’ve written dozens of short stories ranging from sci-fi to historical fiction to fantasy, etc. But the main thing is that I wrote another novel – a fictionalized memoir, which I just finished a couple months ago. It came in at 96 chapters, and 1,072 pages. And believe me, there were a lot of rewrites, which took a lot of time.
That work was much more personal than my Batu work, of course, and the end result is deeply private and will never be published. Not unless it’s edited extensively and cut down to about half of what it is now. Which I currently have no intention of doing. I did it for me. It needed to be written. But it doesn’t need to be published or read by others.
My Batu work, however, is of an entirely different character, and it is also far more valuable to me. I love them both for entirely different reasons, but my Batu work is far more valuable precisely because it is so alien to me. Whereas a memoir – even a fictional one – is by definition a reflection of its author.
Batu, on the other hand, is not a reflection of me. It’s a projection of an ideal. It’s a story I wish someone else wrote, but nobody ever did so I have to do it myself. I’d rather read it than write it. Which is why I don’t consider myself a writer. Writers write for the sake of writing. They love writing more than anything. That’s not me. I like writing fine when I’m in the mood and I have a vision I want to record, but I’d rather paint a painting, read a good book, or watch a movie than write a novel.
And I don’t have a whole hell of a lot of faith in being financially reimbursed for all my efforts either – though I can certainly hope for commercial success via publishing. At the end of the day though, whether I become a published author or not, I’ll never see myself as a writer because I don’t love the process of writing. I love being done with writing. And when I’m done working on my Batu material, I’ll never publish again. I’m only trying to do it now because I had an idea for a series of books that nobody else was going to do. I want to read it when it’s done, and that’s the only reason that keeps me writing it.
But like I said, I wouldn’t mind if it earned me enough money so I could retire with a roof over my head as well.
All things being equal though, I’d rather be painting for a living. Not because I like paintings more than novels, but because if both are being done to the best of my ability, it’s far more fun painting than writing a novel. I love good novels but they’re much rarer and harder to find than good paintings. So, out of frustration and tired of playing the field – sampling 50 mediocre to horrible novels before finding a good one (and since it’s way too much to ask for a great one) – I decided to write my own. Which I wouldn’t have even attempted if I hadn’t first come up with an idea like Batu. An idea I could believe in 100%. The only question is, will anyone else like my idea as much as I do?
Time will tell. I just hope I’m around to see it.
Present-Day Reflection
9/18/2026
Time will tell. And it’s about that time, the moment of truth. My book launch is just two weeks away.
