119: Hope

3/4/2023

Well, this latest chapter turned out to be a lot harder to get going and get done than any of the others since I got back to work last month. This one, Chapter 52: Annan Banda, took two days just to get down a few paragraphs with Banda descending the tree from the jola’s fire circle. Finally got it wrapped up to where I thought it was done on 3/2/23, at 1,813 words and 6 pages long, finishing with Banda’s conversation with Wanyana.

I didn’t think it was a good idea to throw yet another ritual at the reader right on the heels of Guma’s ritual with Diallo. Nor did I want to fabricate another one so soon. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw that the next chapter when Luala visits Diallo in a dream needs a better setup. Simply implying that Banda would perform a spell for Wanyana was not enough. I needed to tie it directly to Diallo’s dream.

So, I went back and wrote a second scene for the chapter, which was about as long as the first, bringing the entire chapter to 3,540 words and 12 ¼ pages long.

I think I like it, but I won’t know for sure until I come back and reread it with fresh eyes. I’ll read the entire Ghost Frog part/story arc once I’m done. Another 5 chapters to go.

The only thing that worries me about this second scene is that there’s a lot of exposition in it detailing how magic works in the Batu world. In fact, I’m very conscious of the fact that all my recent new chapters have been loaded with exposition in a way I’ve always tried to avoid in the past. So much so that it may not even sound like the same writer. Part of the reason behind all this is because of the speed I’m trying to crank them out, but mostly I think it’s due to the way I prepared each chapter in advance by compiling details for each that might be needed. And when in a hurry it’s easier and safer to rely on my notes and simply reword research than to be creative and come up with material that’s completely new.

We’ll have to wait and see if it will suffice. For now, I’m moving on to the next chapter. I can always rewrite later. For now, I just want to get things down on paper as a foundation, if not as a finished work. Though I do hope it’s good as is.

We’ll see.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/21/2026

Hope springs eternal.

10 days left until my launch date.

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118: The Mid-Novel Slump

2/21/2023

Just finished Chapter 51: Appealing for Help. Still on schedule and getting the work done, though I’m uncertain about its quality. Maybe it’s simply because I’m knocking them out so fast. This latest chapter came in at just over 8 pages and 2,479 words, but it only took me about 10 hours between 2 days to write it. This has the tendency of leaving me with the taste of fast-food in my mouth. And it’s too soon for me to reread and judge with fresh eyes.

There’s also quite a bit more exposition in these latest chapters, which is another thing that’s leaving me uncertain. This is probably the worst place to put it as well, exasperating whatever mid-novel slump the reader might be experiencing even if there were no expository dumps by the author. My concern is tempered, however, knowing I can always rework it later down the line – preferably on a real computer when I’m doing my final draft transfer from my handwritten manuscript.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/20/2026

Funny how it feels like I’m going through a mid-novel slump right now as well, three years later.

Feeling bogged down by the weight of things.

I had to take the light-rail out of town to Northgate last night after work to get a new laptop. The keyboard was going out on my old one and I don’t have the time or patience for a repair shop. Several of the keys on my keyboard weren’t working, and none of the diagnostic tests or reinstalling drivers were working. Hardware issues are beyond my ability to deal with right now.

I have too many things on my plate to deal with, the laundry list of things to get done seeming to grow faster than I can cross them off.

11 days left until my launch date.

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117: Working Against the Grain

2/15/2023

So far so good. Finished Chapter 50: The Harvest Song today. Still on track. I’m a little worried about all the exposition I put into this one, and so little actually happening. But at 7 pages and 2,182 words, at least it’s not very long.

I liked the part where Wanyana works on Bulala’s song the best and having her relieve herself was an unusual choice. Lots of atypical choices went into this chapter, leaving me uncertain whether it will hold up when I come back to reread it later. But I think it’s good to go against my own grain sometimes, and work outside the box I’ve made for myself.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/19/2026

Feels like I’m constantly working outside the box I’ve made for myself these days. My boundaries are very permeable. Going against my own grain. An atypical lifestyle – not just within the bounds of my Batu work. Constantly learning new things, and as a result, feeling like a neophyte who doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s frustrating, and wears me down at times, but I keep picking myself back up and pushing forward.

12 more days until my book’s launch date, when Wings of Providence will finally take flight. Ready or not.

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116: Picking it Back Up

2/10/2023

I finally did it. I finally finished another chapter last night. A brand-new chapter from scratch. Chapter 49: Ombure & the Falls of Nagala-Nar, from Book One: Wings of Providence. It took me three days to write, consisting of 3 scenes and doing a scene a day. I spent from 6-8 hours a day writing each scene, the first one coming in at 989 words, the second at 900 even, and the third at 1,222 – for a grand total of 3,111 words and just over 10 handwritten pages. This is the 9th chapter in the story arc of Part Three: Ghost Frog and takes Diallo and Guma to the threshold of the marshlands.

This was the first of 19 chapters I have to get finished in order to call the first book done. So, now I still got 18 more… maybe 19 if I decide to add an epilogue of some type.

I’ve been playing with idea for years that each book should start with a birth, in the form of a Yara prologue, and end with a death. Book Two: Left Behind, for example, begins with the birth of Kembara, who will figure prominently in the narrative two or three books down the road when Diallo is a man and breaks away from Fon. And I can have the death of Wanyana take place at the end of that book as well, while climbing Mount Kunama in search of answers.

As much as I like the symmetry and the idea of beginning each book with birth and ending with death, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to trap myself in a structural box like this where I have to artificially invent people and situations to be born and die within the necessary time frames of launching and concluding each book. It’s nice in theory but may not be practical in execution.

Aside from that, I’m still considering adding a final chapter to this first book that’s still unconceived. I’m thinking it might be needed to bring the entire picture of the whole book into view – the normal world of act one, the adventure world of act two, the underworld of act three, and then finally the new normal of the story’s resolution.

Such a resolution chapter need not be very long, perhaps only a page or two. But it could prove very important in the way it brings Diallo’s transformation into context, demonstrating how he’s changed or grown due to what took place in the story. Though his world might not have changed very much, Diallo’s relationship with it has, and it’s this fact that must be underscored at the very end. He’s evolved his perspective, made his thematic choice of choosing his new friends over Alena’s ghost frog, and has implemented that choice by ritually bonding with his new friends.

A resolution chapter can also tie off any loose ends while indicating where characters might go from there. It fades the story out with a final resounding note that creates just the right emotional effect upon the reader. It creates a sense of cohesion and resonance in the overall effect of the novel.

That’s the idea anyway. As I have it now, it ends with Diallo waking up to find his father there and discovering Alena’s bracelet on his wrist and his mother’s amulet around his neck. I like this ending because his recognition of the moth’s wings inside the amulet’s amber symbolizes the Wings of Providence title and sends the reader out of the story with a sense of mysticism and mystery.

But that whole scene with his father and the bracelet and amulet doesn’t in any way demonstrate the contrast between who he was at the beginning of the story with who he is now. It doesn’t provide a context to showcase Diallo’s failures or victories – that he can appreciate and interact with people now in a more positive way than he was in the first act.

Though many literary novels intentionally end abruptly with ambiguous resolutions, expecting readers to do the work of providing their own conclusions, genre literature works better if it at least provides a short scene to show character reactions, and to underscore what the protagonist has gained or lost by his choices throughout the story. To put a cap on the end of his recent transformation while setting the stage for potential changes yet to come in the sequel.

Anyway, I got plenty of time to figure that out. Though just in writing about it here it’s occurred to me I might move what I have planned for Chapter 60: Completing the Circle, to my resolution chapter at the very end. I’d planned to have this scene where the four boys ritualistically establish their friendships with one another as soon as they returned to the village, following the ghost frog quest and prior to the manifestation of Diallo’s fever symptoms. But now I’m thinking it might work just as well at the very end when he wakes from The Fever. This might provide the perfect context to review the major plot points of the story while simultaneously dramatizing how much Diallo has changed, what he’s gained, and what he’s lost through the course of the story.

This would also match up with Campbell’s hero journey, specifically the hero’s return where everything is brought full circle to where he was in the beginning, only now he’s able to share with others the benefits he gained from his adventures.

Things to think about.

I’m just glad I’m finally back into the groove of working on my main Batu narrative. It’s been 5 ½ years (August of 2017) since I finished Chapter 48: Sending Help. That’s a LONG break. And it wasn’t that hard to pick it back up and get into it either. It took a while for me to finally want to bad enough, but once I did it wasn’t nearly as hard to find my way as I thought it would be. Although, I should point out that I spent a few weeks prior to writing gathering/collating notes from my research archives for all 19 chapters yet to be written. In this way, I’ve spent a few weeks immersing myself back into the material while organizing the information I’ll need for all 19 chapters prior to actually writing. This is how I was able to write a whole chapter from scratch in just 3 days. And why the next 18 chapters should come just about as easily – because I’ve already collected all the information needed for each of those chapters. And also, because I have a clear image of what needs to be done with each… more or less. It’s all constantly percolating in my mind, so by the time I get to it the iron is already hot and ready to be struck.

I should also take a moment here before signing off to point out that I wasn’t doing nothing during my 5 ½ year hiatus from working on Batu stuff. I’ve written dozens of short stories ranging from sci-fi to historical fiction to fantasy, etc. But the main thing is that I wrote another novel – a fictionalized memoir, which I just finished a couple months ago. It came in at 96 chapters, and 1,072 pages. And believe me, there were a lot of rewrites, which took a lot of time.

That work was much more personal than my Batu work, of course, and the end result is deeply private and will never be published. Not unless it’s edited extensively and cut down to about half of what it is now. Which I currently have no intention of doing. I did it for me. It needed to be written. But it doesn’t need to be published or read by others.

My Batu work, however, is of an entirely different character, and it is also far more valuable to me. I love them both for entirely different reasons, but my Batu work is far more valuable precisely because it is so alien to me. Whereas a memoir – even a fictional one – is by definition a reflection of its author.

Batu, on the other hand, is not a reflection of me. It’s a projection of an ideal. It’s a story I wish someone else wrote, but nobody ever did so I have to do it myself. I’d rather read it than write it. Which is why I don’t consider myself a writer. Writers write for the sake of writing. They love writing more than anything. That’s not me. I like writing fine when I’m in the mood and I have a vision I want to record, but I’d rather paint a painting, read a good book, or watch a movie than write a novel.

And I don’t have a whole hell of a lot of faith in being financially reimbursed for all my efforts either – though I can certainly hope for commercial success via publishing. At the end of the day though, whether I become a published author or not, I’ll never see myself as a writer because I don’t love the process of writing. I love being done with writing. And when I’m done working on my Batu material, I’ll never publish again. I’m only trying to do it now because I had an idea for a series of books that nobody else was going to do. I want to read it when it’s done, and that’s the only reason that keeps me writing it.

But like I said, I wouldn’t mind if it earned me enough money so I could retire with a roof over my head as well.

All things being equal though, I’d rather be painting for a living. Not because I like paintings more than novels, but because if both are being done to the best of my ability, it’s far more fun painting than writing a novel. I love good novels but they’re much rarer and harder to find than good paintings. So, out of frustration and tired of playing the field – sampling 50 mediocre to horrible novels before finding a good one (and since it’s way too much to ask for a great one) – I decided to write my own. Which I wouldn’t have even attempted if I hadn’t first come up with an idea like Batu. An idea I could believe in 100%. The only question is, will anyone else like my idea as much as I do?

Time will tell. I just hope I’m around to see it.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/18/2026

Time will tell. And it’s about that time, the moment of truth. My book launch is just two weeks away.

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115: Resurrection

12/16/2022

Today was the first day in six years and three months that I actually contributed some new work to my Batu narrative. Albeit only 350 words, in the form of the Jabwe & Walumbi fable. But I also rewrote three chapters from The Fever, which came to 4,291 words. Within the next couple days, I hope to get done transcribing the edited and new versions for the rest of the chapters from The Fever, which is six more chapters, and about 10,000 more words. There will be eight more chapters left to do for The Fever after that, and none of those have been written at all, so I’ll be starting from scratch. Then there’s ten more chapters to do from scratch for the Ghost Frog before the entire first book can be called finished.

So, that’s 18 chapters to come up with from scratch, and I got two years and three months to do it. That’s 1 ½ months per chapter. Not sure if that should worry me or not.

On the plus side, by the end of this weekend I’ll have 59 chapters of the first book done. So, it’s not so much that I have 30% yet to do as it is that I got 70% of it done.

I spent the whole day yesterday reading all 114 journal entries that I’ve made up to this point, and it really got my juices going, which has inspired me to get back to work. And since I actually did work on Batu stuff all day today, I thought that earned me the right to finally make a new entry here.

So… Let’s get this ball rolling again.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/17/2026

It appears as though this Author’s Journal saved my entire Batu Saga, resurrecting all my hard work from the ashes. I don’t really remember what was going on inside my head back in December of 2022 that got me to sit back down to writing, so I’ll have to take my word for it that I was inspired by rereading all these old journal entries.

I actually appreciate the fact that I dispensed with the philosophizing about the possible reasons why I hadn’t been working, and just got down to business. Sometimes it’s okay to leave things alone in the dark basement of my subconscious. It’s enough to just be getting back to it.

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114: A Spark in the Dark

12/18/2020

I feel a spark.

I’ve thumbed through my notes and reread some of my old Batu writing a few times since my last entry here, hoping to find inspiration to pick it back up. But this morning I woke up with images of Alena and Joyul being swarmed by a cloud of butterflies while bathing in the river, and the spark of interest was reignited.

Then I thought about Diallo and how real he feels to me as a character, and how I could almost hear his voice calling out in the darkness. Lost, and crying out to be saved. To be born. He’s calling for me, don’t let him die alone in the dark. His life and his spirit is worth saving. Worth the effort it would cost me to find him and bring him back to life.

In the end it won’t be my vanity, ego, my need for legacy, or desire for immortality as an artist that will compel me to bring my Batu work into fruition. It won’t be for any imagined future audience or some vague hope to give something back to the world. It will be for the sake of the work itself, for Diallo and Alena, and the tribe and its culture. Nothing else really matters beyond that.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/16/2026

Sometimes it only takes a spark, but in this case it just wasn’t enough. My life at the time of this entry was too full of its own drama to allow room for me to explore the Diallo’s or Alena’s drama. They would continue to haunt me, but only in the background. I simply had no space for them, my roommate and the circumstances of my life at the time taking up all my time and energy.

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113: Moments of Doubt

7/4/2020

Is my Batu dead?

I don’t know. It’s been over three years since I’ve touched it, so at the very least it’s in a coma. I rarely even think about it anymore. I’m always working on one writing project or another, so I’d like to think my craftsmanship is at least being exercised. Though most of it was fan fiction or fan-rewrites that I used simply to practice the mechanics of storytelling. All of it now deleted and gone forever.

Feels like a waste of time, but then so does all my Batu work at this point. Years and countless hours spent trying to give birth to something I could call my own. And now it’s looking like it will never happen, making it all a waste of time.

Problem is my lack of interest in finishing it is based on my feeling that it would be a waste of time to finish it as well. I’ve lost faith in it. It will be crap… I want to say, “no matter what I do,” but I don’t really believe that. I believe it IS salvageable. I just don’t know what it needs or how to do it.

My brain says that I’m missing a strong premise, which renders the work pointless. But my heart/gut says it’s more than that. I’m missing my audience. There’s not one person in this world that I know would appreciate my work, and deep down I don’t care what people I’ve never met think about it. And being my own audience doesn’t motivate me either, because my personal appetite for Batu has been satiated for a long time now. I’d be curious to read the finished work if I could wave a magic wand and have it done instantly, but to be honest, I suspect it would bore me and would be a struggle for even me to get through it.

Let alone having to write the damn thing.

That sounds to me that it’s dead. And yet, I still hold out a little hope that I’ll have an idea – or a series of ideas – that might bring it back to life and get it across the finish line.

I’d like to get it finished, but not simply for the sake of finishing – like some kind of masochistic work ethic, or my dad’s voice whispering in my ear that I never finish anything. I need to be motivated by a goal that actually matters. I need to have faith that the end result will be worth the effort. And right now, I have absolutely no faith in that at all.

So, I’m waiting.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/15/2026

Rereading this entry is depressing, even six years later when I know it’s all going to work out to be better than I ever thought it would. The first book, Wings of Providence, is finished and about to launch in a couple weeks. I feel really good about how it turned out. And my Author’s Website is far better than I ever imagined it would be.

All that being said, rereading the fourth of July entry from 2020 really unsettles me because I still have those same doubts and frustrations about where I’m at now. Because the physical edition is an epic 600-page volume, the Print-on-Demand costs are pushing it to $24.99 just to break even. While it's built to be a collector's item for the bookshelf, the $6.99 eBook is where the core reading experience lives.

There just aren’t enough hours in a day, and the administrative side of self-publishing is taking its toll on me, overwhelming me with a never-ending onslaught of things I need to do that I have no idea how to do. Having to learn as I go, researching every detail of the process. Setting deadlines for myself is a fool’s errand when I have no familiarity with the landscape ahead of me. Technical hurdles I’ve never heard of and could never have anticipated keep cropping up to block my every move.

I’m an idealist by nature, and my perfectionism is working against me. I can’t launch my book the way it should be. I simply don’t have the expertise or the time. I feel like if I don’t push to get it out now, I never will. So, I’m sticking with my October 1st deadline, no matter what.

Part of me doesn’t want to include this entry in my online author’s journal. It feels like bad marketing to admit that I’d given up on my own work for three years, and that even I wouldn’t want to read the finished product. But I’ve come to believe that transparency is key, and that if I can’t live authentically then there’s no point to living at all. Besides, I obviously don’t feel that way anymore about my work, having reread it over and over from beginning to end through the editing process, and am looking forward to reading it yet again when I get the print version on my bookshelf.

The primary purpose behind this entry is to encourage others who may have felt that they’ve hit similar creative walls. I’m hoping it serves as a reminder to keep pushing. October 1st is fast approaching – grab the eBook on launch day or join my newsletter to see where the rest of this journey will takes us.

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112: Guma

12/31/2016

I’ve been an absent and neglectful father to my Batu work in recent months. My change of environment and lifestyle here in Connel are not at all conducive to creative work at the level I require for my writing.

I have, of course, been thinking about my work daily. Specifically, lately I’ve been contemplating the notion of letting the reader in on the reality (or lack thereof) of Guma’s existence from the very beginning, instead of this elaborate process of deception I’ve been employing thus fare.

I have two primary reasons for considering this:

1. Such a prolonged and contrived gimmick is a bit too cheeky, insultingly manipulative of the reader, and even a bit too much of a cliché. The Twilight Zone punchline is too cutesy for an epic saga spanning so many years and books in the series.

2. I think there may be much more for the reader to enjoy if they’re in on the gag and are able to see even on the first reading how it’s pulled off. After all, it is a source of fascination for me (who knows all the secrets) to see how the concept is managed and to what ends. It is as source of great intrigue for me as I write that is totally absent for the oblivious reader. I am purposely misleading for a long-term shock value payoff WAY down the road. It could possibly enhance the first-time reader’s experience exponentially by letting them be aware of the mystery of Guma from the very first chapter Where Diallo meets him. The food for thought this would bring to even the initial reader could very well elevate its quality to a whole new level.

Considering this possibility for future rewrites of the first books has led me to think more consciously about Guma’s symbolic meaning, and his functions as a driving force for the plot. Guma does not exist within the objective reality of my main narrative, only within the bounds of Diallo-Mogai’s perceptions. Thus, he only appears in chapters written from Diallo-Mogai’s point of view.

Within the backstory Guma did in fact exist, but he died before Diallo ever met him. He was indeed considered the Fa Hawara from the prophecy of Mugasha. But he died as a child shortly before my main narrative begins, eaten alive by a swarm of ants. His death and removal as a candidate for the Fa Hawara prophecy created an internal controversy concerning the interpretation of the prophecy as to whether the Fa Hawara could be female or not. This, of course, is driven by Siona’s desire to place Alena as the likely candidate rather than Diallo-Mogai.

So, who is the Guma that Diallo meets in the first chapter, and why is he the only one who can see him? I choose not to answer this question definitively, though I may pose several possibilities that could be considered. The simplest, and therefore the least satisfying explanation may be that Diallo is insane. Perhaps schizophrenic. This view is certainly hinted at within the text.

But it may just as easily be that Diallo has a special innate ability of perception, which allows him to interact with spirits as if they were as real as the living. In this case, the Guma Diallo meets in the first chapter is a ghost who believes himself to still be alive. The problem with this is that it would not take long for Diallo to figure out that no one can see Guma but him, or that Guma only appears when they’re alone (except for animals like Tuk who can’t talk) and nobody ever talks to Diallo about Guma or refers to him as would be typical if her were alive.

That problem is neatly resolved, however, if you take Guma as a manifestation of Diallo’s dementia, his subconscious actively inhibiting his ability to put this together. Therefore, if Guma is a ghost from the first chapter on, it would be necessary that Diallo is also suffering some sort of dementia correlating with the paranormal explanations.

Another explanation is that Guma is a demon, or some such entity of mild malevolence. In this case, Guma knows precisely who and what he is from the beginning and is deliberately deceiving Diallo and influencing events for his own mysterious reasons.

I confess, I don’t like this interpretation much. It limits the psychological depths of Guma’s character and doesn’t fit the persona I have thus far depicted. In my mind the most satisfying view of Guma is one where he is a boy who is lost in the darkness, deluded about his own reality, and is determined to live his lie rather than recognize himself for what he is. Whether he be spirit or a construct of Diallo’s unconscious is left for the reader to determine for themselves. I endeavor to write for all of these possibilities, though I suppose it’s inevitable that some perspectives will compile more convincing evidence than others as I use Guma in different ways for different purposes.

Whatever his source may be, there are nonetheless obvious symbolic interpretations that appear to be reflections of Diallo’s subconscious. Guma is initially cast in the role of the good son that threatens to replace Diallo as Mosai’s son within the context of his nightmare in The Fever. Guma is strong, brave, obedient, and proud. He’s a winner and a torch-bearer of Batu traditions that would bring honor to any father in the tribe. His purpose in this aspect is to let Diallo know of his inferiority and how he doesn’t measure up. This stems from Diallo’s poor relationship with his father, his feelings of inadequacy, and his inability to enjoy the bond with his father that he wants more than anything else. Guma represents everything Diallo feels he is himself lacking. So, though they are ostensibly friends, Diallo on some level hates and resents Guma.

Another purpose that Guma serves is as a voice for Diallo’s subconscious. Guma’s persistent refrain, “Come on, follow me,” is a play on the Devil made me do it. In this scapegoat role, Guma is the trickster culture hero, the troublemaker who leads Diallo into situations Diallo knows is wrong or dangerous but uses Guma to disassociate himself from his own decisions. Nothing is fundamentally Diallo’s fault if it’s Guma who always instigates his troubles.

In Book One it was Guma who led Diallo up the tree along the Dula river to spy on the bathing girls, leading to Diallo’s humiliating confrontation with Alena. It was Guma who woke up Diallo shortly thereafter and pushed him to break the taboo of violating the women’s fire circle (spying again). In Book Two, it is Guma who took Mosai’s kulu from his hut and brough it to the village hub where it was then lost (intentionally?), which was the first step along the path leading to Mosai’s death.

But Guma is also used a wake-up call, pointing things out that Diallo already knows but doesn’t want to face. Guma is the voice of Diallo’s doubts, articulating his fears and providing him with someone to argue them with. And when Diallo went to run away again in The Wounded, Guma elevated their arguments to actual violence in order to keep Diallo from continuing on his current course. It makes it more interesting to view this scene as Diallo battling violently with himself, and that he didn’t really want to run away or face Pardos again, but at the same time would rather die than continue on in Ephrathah after losing his father and losing face with Alena.

Guma returns again in Dissolutions, this time more peacefully and as the good friend. Guma is now the voice of reason trying to help Diallo cope with losing Alena a letting her go, which of course Diallo won’t listen to.

Then in The Shadow Falls, Guma actually rapes Diallo. This may be viewed as a response to losing Alena. Diallo has not yet passed through his rite of passage into manhood and so there’s still the possibility that he may be like his uncle Kanunga and adopt the third gender of amori – neither male nor female. Diallo seems to be at least rebelling from females due to Alena’s betrayal; however, he can only allow himself to contemplate bisexuality or homosexuality if his is seduced initially by Guma and then raped. Within the role of a rape victim, he is provided the experience of exploration without the responsibility of having made a choice. Being a victim lets him off the hook so he can pursue certain ideas guilt free. It wasn’t him; it was Guma. Being the psychic scapegoat for Diallo is probably Guma’s predominant function.

When Guma is then killed (again) in The Shadow Falls, this can be interpreted in more than one way. First, it can be seen as Diallo trying to let go of this thing that keeps getting him into trouble. An attempt to destroy his id. But it can also be viewed as Diallo’s reaction to his forays into homosexuality where he in essence kills his homosexual lover so he can return to the world and become a man during his rite of passage. Also, his friendship with Guma was irrevocably tainted by the rape, and Guma’s death is a tidy way for him to wash away this human stain and get on with a normal life. The fall of Guma also represents yet another relationship failure and one more instance of rejected love for Diallo, though this time it is he who’s rejecting.

After living without Guma’s presence for a while he begins to come into his own. He becomes a man, a skilled hunter, a husband… but with Fon’s betrayal it all falls apart and Guma returns to him, now as a self-aware ghost. This is an odd twist if he were a ghost to begin with. In that case he would now be the ghost of a ghost. But if he were merely a product of some form of dementia withing Diallo’s brain, then this return of Guma is merely a coping mechanism for his conscious mind to overcome the handicaps of his own faulty wiring.

Either way, one thing achieved by having Guma die again only to come back as an acknowledged spirit is that Guma no longer has to disappear for others to share a scene with Diallo. Diallo is still the only one who can see Guma, but by having him acknowledged as a spirit now, Diallo’s subconscious has found a way to increase Guma’s presence and influence in his life. Diallo now knows consciously that nobody else can see him, and the complicated modes of subterfuge concerning Guma’s reality in the previous books are no longer necessary. The genie has been let out of his bottle and Guma can now appear in every scene Diallo is in, regardless of who else is in it.

So, this second death of Guma in The Shadow Falls can be viewed as the sacrifice of a prototype that served the needs of a child but was becoming obsolete as Diallo came to the cusp of adulthood. Then, as a Christ-figure, Guma leaves the world and Diallo to himself for a time only to rise from the ashes like a phoenix and return in a more powerful, pervading, and influential force than he could ever have been while Diallo believed him alive.

Now Guma can be ever-present as a whisper in his ear, even as other characters are there interacting with Diallo. If Guma were the product of dementia, it has now been magnified exponentially. If he was always a spirit, he is now a vastly stronger one.

As for Guma’s title and status in Diallo’s mind as the Fa Hawara, this seems to symbolize Guma’s attainment of their family throne, both figuratively and literally. Thus, Guma is more than a rival, when Guma appears to be removed, and Diallo transforms into Mogai and mates with Fon, the Freudian hero requirements for ascending the family throne should ostensibly be fulfilled. But because Mogai’s heart remains on the troubled path of incest in his feelings for Alena as a mother figure, and the ghostly return of Guma as a father figure, all his achievements in adulthood are fundamentally empty and doomed for failure. Even when he assumes his father’s mantle of the Fa Hawara, his failure with Fon as he clings to his child-self reflects his total failure toward the Freudian independence his society demands of him.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/14/2026

As it turned out, I didn’t actually spoon-feed it to the reader in Chapter One: Diallo that Guma isn’t really there. I provided more clues and evidence of this being the case, but I left it more or less concealed so that most readers are not likely to guess the truth about him.

• It was a gray, misty morning like any other when the ghost came to him from out of the morning fog. (The first line in Chapter 1: Diallo. But it goes on to describe a heron emerging from the fog, which misdirects the first line away from Guma’s eventual appearance.)

• What, am I chasing a ghost now? (Diallo’s thought when not finding anybody after hearing something under the log bridge.)

• The ghostly figure stood eclipsing the sun, a corona of golden light streaming all about him. The apparition… (The repetition of the ghost motif now being applied to Guma.)

• Diallo didn’t recognize him… there shouldn’t be anybody he couldn’t at least recognize… there was no word in the Batu tongue of Kanar for stranger. (Explaining to the reader the oddity of Diallo not recognizing Guma)

• “You’re not Guma… I’ve heard of you, but… I heard… How come I’ve never seen you around before?” (Diallo’s response after Guma introduces himself by name. Diallo stops just short of saying “I heard you died.”)

All of this is too subtle, I think, for readers to pick up on what’s really going on. And this is how I left it. I like the way Dickens opens his Christmas Carol by making sure the reader knows very well that Jacob Marley was dead, as dead as a door-nail. Because without establishing that fact up front …nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Well, I’m hoping that isn’t the case with my story.

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111: The Balance of Writing & Rewriting

4/20/2016

It’s been a long while since I sat down to update this journal. I had another change of address on September 6th to Connel, where I am now. Only now is it beginning to be conducive for writing (a lot of roommate drama). But I’ve been busy rewriting Book Two: Left Behind, which I just finished doing on December 27th.

As it is now, Left Behind has 43 chapters and 279 pages. The rewrite was extensive diction adjustments and deletions, with only a couple minor content changes for story and character consistency. My friend Brandon read the entire thing with each chapter as I rewrote it, which helped me stay on task and get it done reasonably fast.

I have outlines for twelve additional chapters for Left Behind as well, though they’re all for the larger story as a series and secondary character development: Wanyana’s last scene on Mount Kunama, the death of Tamal’s 2nd brother, etc. None of which is absolutely necessary for the Left Behind story by itself. But they would flesh it out thematically quite a bit.

I’m daunted by the work of writing those twelve chapters though and am tempted by how easy it would be to just call it all done as is right now. At any rate, the bulk of the work is done, and I’ll be mailing what I have to Uncle Paul to archive for me. Just as soon as I compile my notes from it.

Rather than keeping a word for word copy of all the books I write, I decided it would be more economical and practical to keep detailed notes of every chapter, listing all the essential information I might possibly need for future writing. This cuts my paperwork here dramatically. It’s also easier to sift through and keep a clear memory of it all.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do this with the first two Parts of Book One: Wings of Providence, which I already mailed to Paul to archive. So, there’s a lot of details in that I will no doubt need down the road. But I’ll deal with that later.

I still haven’t done a damn thing on Wings of Providence since I last wrote in my journal here eight months ago. I still have 20 chapters yet to create and eight to rewrite in that first book before I can call it done. A lot of work yet to do.

I’m in a decent spot right now to get work done. Not ideal, but good enough. No excuses beyond laziness now for getting to work. We’ll see what happens. Updating this journal was my first step.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/13/2026

Looking back on this entry ten years later, I’m struck by how easily we fall into the trap of measuring productivity solely by raw output. I tend to get down on myself for doing little more than rewriting without creating new material, but they’re both equally valuable. I just need to make sure they have their time and place in equal measure. The equal measure part is the difficult part to manage. It’s hard to maintain a proper perspective and balance when you’re in the midst of juggling things. It’s much easier to gauge in hindsight.

Allowing myself to take breaks in order to recharge and actually live a life outside of work is also difficult to balance and is easier to judge in hindsight. If the goal is to minimize regrets when looking back on my life – not wasting time or opportunities – I think I’ve done fairly well for myself. Because, though my Batu work is at the top of my priority list, it’s not the only thing on the list. The rest of the list matters, too.

A writer who doesn’t live has nothing to write about. And to keep the material relevant and alive even as I create it, I can’t draw entirely on the past – rewriting about issues and themes that are no longer present in my life. So, I have to keep one foot in the present as well, continuing to live and write about current issues.

Writing and rewriting both have their place.

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110: A Room of One’s Own

4/20/2016

I finished Womb of Darkness (renamed from Into the Dark) last night. It really turned into a monster. I meant for it to be short and easy, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring it to the preconceived conclusion naturally without all these unplanned things cropping up.

Introducing the Hira in this chapter wasn’t planned, but once there it seemed obvious and natural for it to be born within the womb of darkness. Then Diallo having to dig his way through the jungle wall’s birth canal, and wrapping up Guma’s riddle… All of it just dragged on and on.

I think it turned out well, but good or not it’s too long. I’m going to have to be conscious about making chapters short down the road to compensate for these long ones.

I had a roommate move in yesterday as well. He doesn’t read and is a talker, which is going to greatly inhibit my writing productivity. We’ll see. I just have to do what I can.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/12/2026

This happens all the time. Or, I should say, it used to happen all the time – living with someone who completely disrupts and distracts me from any meaningful work. It’s happened so many times, I’ve currently committed myself to never living with anybody ever again. I don’t care how attracted I may be to someone, or how much I love them, I will NEVER live with anybody ever again.

It’s all I can do to negotiate my time and space with Diallo – my cat. She needs more affection and attention than any cat I’ve ever known, but she’s still a cat. She’s more self-contained than any dog would be. Or a lover.

I still have my day job where I’m interacting with dozens of friends and hundreds of strangers every day. That’s much more than enough socializing to keep me connected with life. When I come home, I just want to be left alone. And Diallo is more than enough as well.

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109: Lost In Translation

4/13/2016

I finished Chapter 46: Conscience. It was Alena’s purification ritual and the realization that she needs to do something to help Diallo. I also got the fable, The Weakening, done earlier this month – having renamed it from The Wild Man, and reimagining it for Tapu. I wanted to keep all the fables in this first book geared towards children, with anthropomorphic animals as protagonists, since all my main characters are still children. And it helps to lay a foundation for Tapu and The Napatawalata. I like how The Weakening turned out and ended up adding more relevance to Part Three’s theme, too.

The Conscience chapter came in much longer than I envisioned. What with the purification ritual and the scenery backdrops I wanted to bring out, it sort of got away from me. That said, it was MUCH better in my head during the writing of it than it was upon rereading it. It had been a living burning and fascinating vision during the creative process but came off flat and as a pale reflection of that on the reread.

Some of that is due to my seeing a dozen word choice changes I’d want to make on every page if I had a computer. But I really don’t feel like rewriting ten-plus pages just to pretty it up right now. I’ll save the polish for the computer drafts, which will hopefully bring it to life the way I envisioned it in my mind.

But it’s there on the page for the most part. So, onward to Diallo’s chapter, Into the Dark.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/11/2026

This happens a lot, where the intensity of the experience while writing gets lost in translation when I go back to reread it. Not always though. Sometimes it translates fairly precisely, and sometimes it’s even better than I thought upon the reread. Now that I have the aid of a computer, Microsoft Word’s Read Aloud feature to read it back to me is also a nice tool for making sure things are translating nicely.

Indeed, I just now used the Read Aloud feature on this journal entry, which led me to adjust some of its punctuation. Having written the original draft of all these journal entries by hand in a single-bound Composition Book, there was no editing or rewrites of any kind possible. So, what you get here is the raw and ugly truth concerning the flow of my thoughts about things.

Though these Present-Day Reflections are all composed on the computer, and I utilize all the resources of modern technology available to me so that they’ll translate as I intend them to.

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108: The Necessity of Naïve Optimism

4/1/2016

I was up until 4AM this morning, finishing Chapter 44: Menarche. This is the first work I’ve done on the main narrative in four months. I did rewrite the Wings of Providence fable on March 1st, but that’s all I’ve written this year so far. I also did some drawings in my Batu sketchbook but have been mainly reading a lot of fiction and avoiding working on my own at all costs.

I finally broke the ice yesterday, however, and put in about 12 hours’ work to knock out this Menarche chapter. I think it turned out well, and I’m happy with it. Serves its purpose while also fleshing a few other things out. Diallo is now under way on his quest.

Not entirely sure why I abandoned my work for four months. Burned out maybe. Also, not inspired. It was all too clear what I had to create in the Ghost Frog quest, and the lack of surprises to explore left me uninterested. This whole quest sequence is so formulaic – intentionally following Campbell’s hero journey so precisely – that the dozens of chapters left to write with (seemingly) no big surprises left me unmotivated.

There are probably other reasons as well. In the end though, I just started to really feel the desire to get it done. Hopefully by the end of June. That’s my target, which would mean this first book will be finished on the seventh anniversary of its conception.

Next up is the rewriting of The Wild Man fable for the next chapter, which will be short and easy. Fun enough to ensure that I keep the ball rolling at least that far. I’m going to do whatever I can to try and maintain momentum until it’s all done.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/10/2026

Once again, I display my naivety by so severely underestimating the true scale of what lies ahead of me. It’s partly intentional though. Sometimes being overly optimistic is the only thing that keeps me going. I still do it today, like setting my book launch for October 1st of this year. I still haven’t even begun any marketing or reaching out to find my audience yet.

There’s just so many details involved in formatting the EPUB, PDF, and Print-On-Demand paperback versions of my book. Not to mention all the administrative headaches of setting things up with online platforms like PayHip, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), IngramSpark, Amazon Author Central, Mailerlite (for my newsletter), and my website.

Then there’s applying for my business licenses – needing one from the state of Washington and another from the city of Seattle. Also, getting my ISBNs for all four versions of my book (eBook, paperback, hardcover, and Audiobook). Setting up the automated delivery system through BookFunnel and Payhip for when customers purchase my eBook. Registering my book with the Library of Congress to get its LCCN and to certify its copyright. Setting up PayPal and Stripe accounts for handling the financials. Setting up author platforms on social media – Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Etsy.

And let’s not forget this Author’s Journal, requiring a minimum of an hour every day with a new posted entry. Which I usually do each morning before going to work my day job at 8:30AM, not getting home until 6PM. Today (the last day of my weekend) I’m reworking my paperback version since KDP and IngramSpark keeps finding formatting errors.

It’s a lot to manage, and my evenings and weekends are not enough time to handle it all. Which is why things like reaching out to my future readers keeps slipping through the cracks. And I only have 21 days left before my launch date to let people know I even exist.

Anyway, this is why my naive optimism feels necessary. It’s the only thing I have to cling to.

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107: Finishing is Good Enough

12/5/2015

I just finished the first draft of Chapter 43: Counsel. It turned out longish – 12 pages, but I think it’s good. I’m content.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/9/2026

I just finished the cover design for the paperback version of my first novel: Wings of Providence. The interior text turned out to be longish – 581 pages, but I think it’s good.

Due to it’s length and the cuts for wholesalers and Print-On-Demand costs through IngramSpark, I’ll be receiving just under a dollar for every book sold at $24.99. I’m content though, looking upon this first launch of a print version as being mostly about marketing – getting me out into the physical world. The majority of my revenues will come from eBook sales.

I’m just glad the print version distraction is over, more or less, so I can now focus on reaching out to my audience and letting them know my work exists. I’m a week behind schedule, but I’m content.

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106: It’s Totally Worth It

12/3/2015

Well, I tried and succeeded today. Got my rough draft done for Chapter 43: Counsel. Seven pages of scribbles on scratch paper, which will most likely translate to ten pages when I finalize the first draft of it. The writing is really rough, but the essence of it is there. I had a nice surprise with the hollowed tree trunk as a setting for the ritual. I hadn’t envisioned that until Badru and Diallo led me there. Nice imagery and sense of place. I’m very happy with it.

There’s still a lot of work to do to clean and shape it though. I’ll be very lucky to get it done tomorrow in one day. It’s a longish chapter with a lot of rough spots to smooth out. But whether I finish in one day or not, it will be easy to get going and to stay on task because the essence of the entire thing is already there and strong. There won’t be any dithering as I wonder what to do next.

But actually, it’s more complicated than that. Creative decisions are easy for me, and it’s not wondering what to do next that makes rough drafts so hard. It’s logistics. Moving the characters through the scenes and getting them from A to B while at the same time incorporating all the essential elements. I’ve never been to Africa. I’ve never handled, or in many cases even seen, the props and physical elements they interact with. I don’t know anything about the details of daily life in an African setting, except what I’ve read or have seen in movies. And a lot of the invented environment of Ephrathah, nobody has ever seen.

How do I move Badru from the village promenade to its substructure? Then how do I move her through that substructure? What’s it look like, feel like, smell like? Where does she step, and what obstacles are in her way? Then, what’s her hut look like? How is it constructed? How do I describe it as she moves through it? And I can’t forget pacing – what words do I choose to convey action at a pace and rhythm that’s appropriate? Short sentences, or long? Am I describing too much? Too little? Do things make sense?

It’s not wondering what to do next that keeps me from writing for weeks on end, it’s the how to write it. I’m not even talking about the diction or style that people think of when they think of good writing. I’m just talking about simple mechanics and laying everything out as I move the characters properly through a scene.

That is torture for me. Smoothing out the language and gilding the phrasing is easy by comparison (though time-consuming). If the chapter were a house, I’d already know in advance what the house will look like, but figuring out the mechanics of actually building it to that shape is torturous and frustrating. The decorative fine tuning is potentially endless, but relatively easy.

I doubt being aware of this will help me in the future either. We’ll see.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/8/2026

Nobody told me it would be easy, but nobody told me it would be this hard either. Not that I’m complaining, because the challenge is one of the things that makes it so rewarding. Not the main thing, but one of the things.

Counsel in its final form is now Chapter 40, the third chapter in Part Two: Ghost Frog. And it is one of my favorites. All the Badru chapters are among my favorites, but this one stands out for more than her usual charm. It stands out for me because of the very things I was discussing in this journal entry eleven years ago – the sense of place that got built out of thin air. It not only feels real and lived in but is also so evocative in its imagery. The sense of timeless majesty, all while detailing the unseen basement beneath the village. The dark corners tucked out of sight. Nothing in this world is ordinary or uninteresting to me.

It’s a kind of magic, and totally worth it.

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105: The Folly of Waiting for Better Seasons

12/2/2015

Wow. I totally blew off my November schedule, and now the nothingness is spreading into December. I finished only two chapters in all of November – Chapter 42: The Terms, on November 11th, then Chapter 41: The Sleeping Hut on the 16th. I just blew off the whole month. No excuses. I wasn’t even having fun or doing anything else remotely interesting. I just worked hard at not working. I hated it, and felt shitty about it, of course, but the idea of working on the book was even more unappealing.

So, what do you do with that? It’s December now and when I tried forcing things I got a third of my rough draft for chapter 43: Counsel, then I drifted away again. Today I did nothing.

I want this book done badly, but obviously not enough. Not as much as I want to avoid working on it. I’m just waiting for my fire to flare up, but it doesn’t work. I know, I spent all of November waiting for that. Forcing myself doesn’t work either, unless I can find the strength to force myself every day and for every hour of work… It’s just not happening. I’m not happy when I’m not working. I’m not happy when I am working. So, what do you do with that?

Try again tomorrow, I guess. Try to try?

Yoda would slap me.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/7/2026

Sometimes words fail me because there are too many voices shouting in my head at the same time. This is where meditation, a good night’s sleep, and exercise helps a lot. Stillness and quiet are often all I need to hear my own inner voice. And it’s from there that my best writing comes.

But that has more to do with finding the right words and speaking with my own voice. For content issues, the problem often lies in availability and waiting for the right season. Timing is everything in such cases. Writing is relatively easy when I have nothing very specific I’m trying to achieve, as with journaling or writing letters to friends and family. But when I’m looking for an exact type of fruit for my novels, I often find I have to wait for the right season. And if there’s nothing in bloom that works for what I need, I’m simply out of luck.

This is the trouble with forcing things. Such as forcing a specific type of content in accordance with a pre-existing outline. Adding the pressure of a deadline on top of that doesn’t help either.

I can’t force the seasons, but I can choose what I want to work on. Luckily, something as massive as the Batu Saga has a lot of different facets – a lot of different types of things that need to be worked on at any given time. And there’s always several things that are in bloom to choose from.

It just doesn’t pay to demand a specific harvest before its season.

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104: Finding My Way Home

11/7/2015

I haven’t written at all for seven days now. I decided not to stress about it this time though. I’m being more permissive, allowing myself to relax, recharge, regroup – though keeping in mind that the clock is still ticking.

What I have done, however, is come up with the outline for each chapter in Part Three: Ghost Frog. I even got the titles figured out for those 20 chapters yet to be written. This creation of an outline is a huge thing and crucial for me before I can begin, but it only took me a couple days. The rest of the work has been…

I actually have no idea what I’ve been doing. I drew a sketch of The Great Mother (baobab tree) and caught up on my correspondences. But beyond that I haven’t even been reading, so I’m not sure.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/6/2026

This permissiveness was actually more of surrender than anything. Or at the very least, a strategic retreat from an overwhelming enemy force – the phantom menace of the unknown. And of course, fatigue – exhausted from the constant battle being waged against unforeseen obstacles as I blindly forge my way through the dark.

This sense of surrender, or retreat, is always temporary though. It has nothing to do with giving up or quitting. Even though the break sometimes takes on the form of an indefinite sabbatical of months, or even years. I always find my way back home and pick up where I left off.

I have a lot of other interests that fulfill me – things that I’m passionate about and could spend a lifetime pursuing. But I only have the one life and I’ve long since resigned myself to this marriage with my Batu work. So, no matter how appealing my other interests may be, I always find my way home again.

Eventually.

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103: Risky Business

10/31/2015

I did it. By some miracle, I actually finished Twa Yal-Jukun by my deadline today. Just in time, too. I wasted two days this week thinking about Chapter 27: Sisters, but with no luck. So, I jumped to the last two chapters and did both Chapter 37: The Krabado, and 38: Wounds of the Trail one day, then Chapter 39: A Dangerous Bridge, and 40: Together Under the Moon yesterday. Then pulling a miracle out of my hat, I finally did Sisters today in one day.

I’m nervous about A Dangerous Bridge, and how I let things go way off course with Alena. I left things open to implications, but it’s still really risky. Implying that she was going to be molested or raped by Wamba and his friends was not at all what I had in mind. I only intended for the chapter to end with her losing her virginity. But the way the circumstances unfolded – Joyul not being there, all of Wamba’s friends being there, a girl alone with a bunch of boys in the middle of the wilderness, and all of this following her Flirting chapter – things just started to point in a dark direction. And since I knew Wamba was going to ruin her reputation in Part Three: Ghost Frog, this only jumped the gun on that. But still…

I think I mainly allowed it because, A) It’s an easy fix if I change my mind later, and B) I tend to lean towards upsetting the reader’s expectations. As for how this alters character development and the future of the series… For now, I’m willing to see how it plays out. Like I said, it’s an easy fix if I change my mind.

Tonight’s chapter, Sisters, was another sexually audacious move, making Kiza a lesbian and giving her a sex scene (the first one so far, aside from Mosai and Lual’s vignette in The Yara). I knew this chapter was going to be sexually charged no matter how I tackled it, which is why I had such a hard time figuring out how to orchestrate it.

Does Dougga witness a sister bathing? Some such scene was needed so Dougga’s mother could catch him and humiliate him, to illustrate the ongoing emasculation of her son. Yet, as it turns out, Sisters was less discomfiting in the end than Alena’s chapter was. Further proof that I really don’t know what my book will be until the words hit the page.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/5/2026

As it turns out, I never did seriously consider “fixing” A Dangerous Bridge. I simply moved on and more or less forgot about looking into whether I wanted to alter it or not. I also decided that it plays more into Alena’s character that she would downplay the event, rewriting her own role in it so she wouldn’t view herself as a victim. This would be her way of rendering it less traumatic than it otherwise would be, while also protecting her sense of pride and personal agency. The long-term effects on her for choosing this perspective, however, will be shown further down the road.

Sisters assumes a similar function in terms of planting seeds with long term consequences in the development of character. Dougga is one of the more fascinating characters for me in how and why he ends up developing the way he does. He doesn’t grow into the man one might expect, given the characteristics he demonstrates in his youth. One of my beta-readers even confirmed this expectation by asking if Dougga was going to end up being gay, which within Batu sociology might render him as one of the amori.

Dougga is not so simple, however. But then, nothing ever is.

In the end, the characters themselves choose their own paths. As their narrator, I really can’t say for sure what their story will be until the words hit the page.

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102: Riding the Pendulum

10/24/2015

Well, I finished Siona’s Reading; Guma’s Tree; and Departure – fixing Kanunga and Tuk in their place, which made me rethink Face Painting. And in rethinking that, I got my hook on how to write Brothers, which I did today.

This is pretty damn good work for two days, and the quality on all of it is top-notch. I’m very happy now. So, I only have seven chapters left in Twa Yal-Jukun, and I know I’ll be getting two done tomorrow – Face Painting and The Figs. I thought for sure I had blown my deadline for this month, but I’m kicking ass now, and if I keep it going, I’ll be done with Part Two BEFORE the end of the month!

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Present-Day Reflection

9/4/2026

This is the way it goes it seems, swinging from one extreme to another. Stuck in the mud one minute, on top of the world the next, then repeat. Is this really necessary though?

I’ve read that the purpose of emotions is to bring nuance to our reactions, so we’re not so binary and always at one extreme or the other. Running away in blind terror from every noise that startles us and running at full speed toward everything that seems a little good, isn’t at all practical. Unlike insects, our energy requirements require a much more conservative strategy.

And yet, when I’m in love – or obsessed with a passion project that completely absorbs me – I have the tendency of feeling in a very binary fashion. All is hopeless, or I’m kicking ass and unstoppable.

The real illusion though is the feeling that I’m jumping from one extreme state to the other, when in fact I experience the full range of the spectrum. I tend to only focus on memories involving extremes, and seem to be more motivated to record them in this journal. I oscillate from one to the other, but I’m not strongly compelled to act while the pendulum swings through the middling mix of milder emotions.

Is this necessary? I’m not sure, but with experience comes awareness, which helps me enjoy the ride when there’s nothing I can do about it. Or nothing I’d want to do about it.

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101: This Above All Else

10/22/2015

I went ahead and finished Chapter 25: Palm Sap, that night on the 18th. Then I knocked out the next one, The Message, the following day. With Palm Sap, I just removed the fight sequence and had a simple conversation between Dougga and Bakar. Not much drama, beyond Dougga spilling his mother’s palm sap. But it might even be for the best to have a nondramatic chapter once in a while.

Chapter 26: The Message, turned out better. It was already well conceived though and worked out in my mind in advance, so it came much easier. I think the hard chapters to write are just the ones I haven’t thought about enough to explore all the hooks and angles, and to get their themes clear in my head. Quite simply, they’re not ready to be written yet.

With that in mind, I skipped over the next four chapters and went straight to Chapter 31: Badru and rewrote that. Then I wrote the fable that follows that, The Herald of Jukun. This morning I rewrote A Meeting in the Dark, and tonight I’m going to work on Chapter 34: Siona’s reading. So, things are moving naturally now as they should, though it’s only rewriting with a few additional segments to fit in with the new context.

But I’m going to have to go back in a few days to tackle the four chapters I skipped. Ready or not. Hopefully, I’ll have a good feel for them by then, but… not likely. It takes time, and my time is running out on my deadline.

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Present-Day Reflection

9/3/2026

Sometimes it’s best to take the path of least resistance instead of banging your head against a brick wall that just won’t give.

Today, I finally finished the formatting of the paperback version for Wings of Providence. I knew the pagination and header material was going to be a nightmare and have been putting it off for as long as I could – until the very end. Once I cracked the nut of how the formatting worked, it was just a matter of putting in the hours of drudgery. But getting to that point of understanding was frustrating as hell.

Formatting the hardbound version will be much easier, now that I’ve got the basic template for the whole thing worked out. It just feels really good right now to have this first book done and ready to go. A huge weight has been removed from my shoulders, and it’s not lost on me how I am the one that makes it so heavy by how I choose to perceive the work that lies ahead of me.

Knowing the difference between avoiding something difficult or procrastinating and giving things time to percolate until the timing is just right, is a tricky judgement call. It takes a good degree of objective introspection to be that honest about your motives. Lie to the whole world, if you feel you need to, but never lie to yourself.

As the master put it, to thine own self be true.

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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.

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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.

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