Bringing Nate Boniface to Life

It's a Trust Issue (Companion Essay)

Hi, reader! We’re opening THE MAILBAG again for extra fun content related to my serialized novel DANCING AT THE ORANGE PEEL. The Mailbag holds my unexpected discoveries while writing, research and history bits, travel updates and photos, and much more.

Today’s entry relates to Episode 5: From Kent Creek to the Eiffel Tower. (You don’t have to read the episode first to enjoy this piece!)

Just getting started? Explore The Novel’s Episode Guide | THE Full MAILBAG

Bringing Nate Boniface to Life: It’s a Trust Issue

I enjoy deep-diving into the cultural references peppered throughout my stories, such as games and toys, TV shows and movies, fashion and other trends (ref. “Hangman,” “Angelique,” and other articles I’ve shared recently). But Episode 5 has none of that. So when considering a topic for this essay, I kept coming up empty-handed, or in this case, empty-minded. So what to do?

I took my struggle to my writing bud

☕ KimBoo York

since we often act as idea engines for one another. Boy, did she oblige. As usual, she posed a quality question that led me down a deep rabbit hole. The character of Nate Boniface plays prominently in Episode 5, and she wanted to know why I decided to make him from Paris.

“I dunno,” I told her. “I was just . . . following my intuition?”

I shocked myself with this question-answer. Not that the idea of using intuition for writing is foreign to me, but that I had actually DONE IT, without realizing so. Wait. What?

The last few months, intuition has been a frequent topic of conversation between KimBoo and I while she’s been writing her book By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing; it includes a chapter on the subject. Moreover, for several years now, I’ve actively sought anything that would contribute to my understanding of intuition and how to tap into it, especially in my writing. Still, it has seemed out of reach for me, a fantastical superpower for only a few divinely gifted souls.

Like most writers, I was schooled in structure, outlining, and plotting, when I wanted nothing more than to have a party with my characters. But always the rule-follower, I persevered with my efforts at meticulous planning. After all—as I was taught—that is the “right” way.

Intimidated by the sneers that academics, workshop instructors, and publishing “professionals” bestow on “pantsers” and beyond-terrified by the concept of writing with no plan, I took solace in my chapter summaries, failing to see that they merely sketched the surface of what could happen and included none of the action, description, or dialogue that would make it all ‘story.’

Oh, I managed to write some good scenes that way. Even a decent short story or two got done. But, largely, using the “approved” methods, I lost my way. Time and time again. Hitting brick wall after brick wall, I have accumulated stacks of unfinished stories that I’ve analyzed and organized the life right out of.

My tactics wrung every bit of excitement and positive energy out of my stories, and out of me. And still yet, for decades, I haughtily declared myself a plotter, sticking to the plan.

So how, now, could I be openly admitting that intuition led me to develop this character?

Sometimes, I need a two-by-four upside my head (more than once) for me to realize certain things about myself. Am I alone in that? I think not. Anyway, KimBoo’s question about Nate hit me that way. It made me recognize that the character of Nate Boniface is the first significant story element borne fully from my intuition.

I accept my surreptitious creation as a testament to my subconscious working in my favor. For me, not against me.

I honestly don’t know why it took me so long to realize that my intuition has been quietly doing its work. After all, for the last few years, I have ingested and digested much about the topic—from KimBoo, from spiritual counselor Vickie Spray, from Becca Syme, Lauren Sapala, Dr. Eric Maisel, and many others. I can only attribute my blind eye to stubbornness and a lifelong diet of rational thinking and logic dished out by the patriarchal pedagogy.

I have leaned heavily on planning, sequencing, and order in every aspect of my life, including writing. Particularly writing. I had convinced myself that if my intuition took me down a path with no definitive destination, I would surely lose my way, when, in fact, the approach I was using already had me lost.

This leaves me now in a new state of learning and unlearning, being open to my intuition leading me. I still become anxious when there’s no foreseeable conclusion. But I remind myself to—for now—forget about “The End.” Just take the next step. Put down the next word. And then the next. Trust where it will take me.

It’s easy to make the assumption that using intuition and being a ‘pantser’ are the same. THEY ARE NOT. KimBoo’s book will straighten that out for you. It did for me, and I’m grateful and excited to be on this new path of experimenting, practicing, and playing with my intuition—my new superpower.

How have the conventional methods of planning/plotting helped or hindered you?

Do you consider yourself an intuitive writer?

Or are you like me and have trust issues (bwahahaha)?

Thanks for reading. See how this article relates to my novel DANCING AT THE ORANGE PEEL by checking out Episode 5: From Kent Creek to the Eiffel Tower.

More reading: The Novel’s Episode Guide | THE MAILBAG

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