100: Caught In the Trap of Cliche
10/18/2015
I’m not liking this at all. I’m stuck in the middle of the third page of Chapter 25: Palm Sap. This is my fourth day now on this. Why are these opening chapters of Twa Yal-Jukun being such a pain in the ass? It’s not my normal writer’s block because I’ve had no trouble sitting down with it every day for hours as I try to figure out how to make it work. But I’m coming up with nothing useful.
The problem in this chapter only arose once I got Dougga down from the tree with palm sap and across the stream. Then all of a sudden, I found I had no desire to write about a group of boys picking on him so Bakar could come and save him, reaffirming their friendship. That was my original idea, but when it came to writing it, I found I’d rather gouge my own eyes out. It’s such a cliché scene, just the idea of it makes me want to vomit. It’s too predictable and has been done too many times.
So, what to do then? It took me a day or two just to realize my problem was the cliché. So, then I thought I’d have Dougga be a dick and start the fight so he’s not just a victim, and I’ll have Bakar get his ass kicked and lose a tooth to distance it from cliché. But that still didn’t satisfy me. So, I tried getting rid of the group of boys to make it Diallo returning from talking to Joyul, and… nothing. Nothing that was workable with what was coming in the following chapters.
Which leaves me where I am now, with no clue as to how to proceed. It burns my ass when I finish one problematic chapter, thinking I can get things moving now, only to find the next one is a royal pain in the tukuss, too. When do I get to the easy part? This one is killing my desire to do this at all.
I hate writing. It’s just one problem after another. Nothing comes naturally or as it should. And I’m only on Chapter 25 with 60 more to go. My end of the year deadline is getting shot to hell over these latest four chapters. I’m two weeks behind schedule with no hope in sight of getting back on track.
Maybe I should just write the damn cliché and say to hell with it. Better to have garbage than nothing.
Present-Day Reflection
9/2/2026
I just skimmed over Dougga’s Palm Sap chapter this afternoon while applying the final formatting touches to the paperback version of Wings of Providence. I had no memory of that chapter being such a pain in the ass. Today it was just one more of the 71 chapters I had to format.
At this stage, where I’m locking everything into Batu canon with a tidy bow, the pain of giving birth to it all has been completely forgotten. Even rereading it now, I can’t say I remember it the way I recorded it in this journal. I tend to touch up and reformat my memories until the past looks better than the present.
I was actually becoming numb this afternoon from the tedium of working through all 71 chapters over and over again, fine-tuning in meticulous detail each one into a consistent whole. I even found myself longing for the good old days when I was actually engaged in the process of creation. This dry technical administrative side of self-publishing is soul-sucking. I sometimes wonder if I’m losing my mind, spending so much time and energy on the minutia of formatting day in and day out. It’s hard to imagine other authors being so obsessed and doing it all by themselves, and yet… It has to be done, and nobody is going to do it for me.
It brings a wry smirk to my face though to reread this centenary entry from 2015, being reminded that the birthing process was no more glamorous than what I’m going through now. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It appears that even my angst these days has become just another cliché.
