When I’m in the field, I have several different notebooks, and one of them is just a little pocket-sized thing that I just write stuff down. I have another notebook for interviews that I conduct. And probably the most important is my field journal. And at the end of every day, instead of just sitting there writing a diary, what I do is I write a narrative. I write a story.
I write what this day taught me. What was kind of the theme of the day. And believe me, at the end of the day, it’s the last thing you feel like doing, you know. Because you just sprained your ankle, or you hurt your hand on a stick and you’re really tired ‘cause you walked 15 miles and your camel was in a bad mood, or whatever. But you make yourself do that. And a lot of my sentences and paragraphs are pulled almost directly from that field journal.
And so if there’s an immediacy and excitement to the books, it because it really came out of the field journal as it happened.
