Warmongers: Where are you going, where have you been?

This is a very very old missive from the past, the week of Apr 21, 2025, to be precise, because I was toying with the idea of writing more behind the scenes stuff. Feel free to step into the time capsule, and know that I am jogging along through a very different point in the narrative now, but having just as much fun (the ups and the downs of it, yes).

This week, I've been admittedly a bit busy. A lot of running around has kept me from getting as much on-the-page work as I would have liked. Friends in town, schedule changes, meetings, events. That's something for me to get a handle on, but I did try to get work done when and how I could. Part of that meant knowing what I needed to do so that I could come to the page with focus.

Last week, I had a lot of fun because I skipped ahead to write the first time our leads actually have sex, which may or may not have been under the influence of a prophetic hallucinogenic drug. Unfortunately, that left a gap and it wasn't a case of "writing the islands" where there's nothing in between that I'm enthusiastic about. I was--am?--very enthusiastic about what goes before the lesbian sex, I...just...didn't know what exactly it was.

In the end, I started my work day with the following list:

Basically, I tasked myself with finding the what, who, and where so that I could write the missing section.

As you can see, I have a check mark beneath where I note that I've done some character work for Kaz and Dyom, who are two of the side characters traveling with our MC, Díránghà.

After I did the character work, I had a better understanding of the who of the scene I needed to write, but still no sense of the what and I firmly hold that a sense of writing block is often a lack of knowledge. When I decided to jump ahead to the sex scene (*cough*), I left our quartet looking into the Hundaswat, a forest that I know is haunted, but have no real tangible grasp on the setting. Nothing sensual, nothing evocative. Nothing for the characters to physically relate and react to.

I also just finished reading Another Country by James Baldwin this week, which has so many long and lingering passages about its cities. I felt inspired. I thought spending time on setting, which is usually my last last phase before I ship a book to final, could open up more opportunities for the what. So instead of bashing my head against the what some more, I decided to look at the where.

Here's a little snippet from the notebook:

The Hunda [the creature the forest is named after] - not extinct, but none so large as the one that created the great ravines that litter the forest, snaking through. Makes the path winding, indirect to Nwesou. Occassional bridges cross the chasm where it's too large or would be incnvenient to go around.

The chasms are very deep, but they are clearly earthen, and the grooves made by long-time use. But now they are grown over by trees, huge trees, and these trees, we're seeing the tops of them because they sprouted so low.

So maybe the bridges are actually through the upper limbs of these trees! ... The whole thing isn't the steadiest. A great grumbling about it. Especially, let us say, Ngkiv, who does not, we learn, like heights. Kaz is taken by manly bravado to deny his fear or face it belligerently. He shows his temper.

From this point, I've started to see the plot taking shape and scribble notes down as quick as I can, and it's all because I took a bit of a step back to orient myself. Even though it was at the bottom of the list, the where ended up being the most important place for me to focus on to get a grasp on what to write next.

As of this moment (Apr 27), I've not actually written the scene--I try to take the weekends off--but I will this week, because now that I have the who and the where, the what is actually enticing. (I also did a little monster creation, but I'll save that for next week. 😏)

I'll finish with a favorite thing I wrote this week:

Let me know if you enjoyed this peek behind the curtain! (As of right now, I have written the scene with the ladder bridge thing. Just for curious minds.)

Until next time,

Stay sharp, my friends.

C. L.