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.
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.
