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.
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?
