142: Distance & Objectivity
3/13/2025
Those who are strongly oriented to the demands of society lose the gift of delving into their own inner space. Cultural maturation suppresses the intuitive dream world of a child. Knowledge and beliefs supplant the imagination; the will supplants emotions.
With Diallo in his fevered dream state, reality is minimized in favor of dreams and visions. In these realms he may be able to connect with a collective experience and a store of wisdom that spans time.
As Siona might say, The Fever might help him see things from a different perspective than his ego-self, which is itself the source of his real problems.
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I finished Chapter 72: Bulala’s Song today. It took me four days to write it and transcribe it to paper, and though that sounds fast in hindsight, the density of the material was so daunting I thought it was going to take forever. So many details to synthesize in order to bring this chapter together, and though I ended up cutting a huge chunk of Bulala’s vison quest where I was going to have her transform into an owl and take flight over Ephrathah, it still had a lot of elements for me to juggle.
I haven’t read it yet in its entirety from beginning to end, so I’m not sure how it came out as a collective. From the writing POV though, I think I like it. I like getting into the gritty detail of experiencing an environment. And this chapter had a lot of that with Bulala in the mud along the Dula, then her handling of the frog, and the details of the log bridge, then the vision quest. But I think the descriptions were well balanced with the dialogue and offsets all the exposition I inserted.
I’m thinking the most problematic section for exposition will be the drumming sequence. I tried pairing it down on the rewrite, but it still might be too long and irrelevant.
I really like the feel of the chapter conceptually, the way I visualize and feel it in hindsight.
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Okay, I just got done reading it from beginning to end. Oddly enough, I’m less sure than ever about its quality. I’m still way too close to it to see it fresh. I’ll have to revisit it months from now to get an accurate reading.
I reread Chapter 73: Alena’s Gift right after, it being only 3 ½ pages and knowing it needed some rewrites. With this chapter I’m much more certain. It’s total crap and needs some serious fixing above and beyond adding in Diallo’s horn and her wrist bracelet. How could I have ever thought this chapter was acceptable? So, I’m not as finished with this first book as I thought. But I’ll have this lame chapter fixed up in better shape by the end of this weekend.
Present-Day Reflection
10/14/2026
I ended up deleting most of the drumming expositions in Bulala’s Song a couple weeks ago during my final edits before publication. It helps that I’m less precious now about the hard work I went through of writing the initial draft, the years since then giving me the distance required to kill my darlings without remorse.
I still have the same love for this chapter that I had back then, but without the misgivings and insecurities. Give it what it needs for strength, remove what weakens it. Couldn’t be more simple.
