132: Winging It
1/7/2025
I finally broke the ice on getting back into writing on my main narrative starting on Chapter 66: Saying Goodbye. I got the first couple pages roughed with the three boys coming to say goodbye to Diallo… Though really, they’re more there to want to help somehow than to say goodbye. In fact, I just finished coming up with a roughed song sung by Tamal who was trying to call Diallo back to them.
I’m just playing it all by ear and seeing what happens, where the only thing I have mapped out is that Dougga snatches the horn and takes it with him as they leave to go talk to Badru about why her gifts to Diallo didn’t protect him.
I didn’t have Tamal’s song planned. That just popped up on its own as I moved the characters to where they should be logistically, and having them behave in accordance to who they are.
That brings me to a realization that got underscored as I was working on this chapter this morning, that all three boys – Bakar, Tamal, and Dougga – represent aspects of both myself and Diallo. Bakar represents my impulsive, emotional, adventurous, courageous, and physical persona. Tamal represents my rational, analytical, stoic, scholastic, and responsible persona. And Dougga represents my softer, effeminate, timid, passive-aggressive, hesitant, loving, sexual, sensually indulgent persona. Diallo has a mixture of all three, as do I.
This makes it easier to write for them, since knowing myself is to know them.
Present-Day Reflection
10/4/2026
I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that when I start playing it by ear with my writing, the characters start feeling like aspects of myself. Research, story plotting, and sticking close to an outline keeps the characters doing things I probably wouldn’t do. And behavior is a huge part of defining who someone is. Without the direction of an outline or the props of research though, the compass I use to guide them tends to be myself.
I do at times think of myself as a multitude. Multiple Sumners, each distinctly different from one another. Different values with different agendas. Almost schizophrenic. So, it comes easy for me to fragment these different version of myself when I need to put myself in my character’s shoes.
Not that any of them actually wear shoes.
