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.
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.
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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
