Director's Cut: Chapter Four

What I ate for three days in the Alaskan wilderness (it involves worms), and why campfire cuddles aren't sexy

📹 This is the Director’s Cut for Chapter Four of MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA: the most unhinged thing I did for book research. You can watch the video or read the written version below.

🌊 Chapter 4 went out last Saturday. Read it (or listen to the audio version 🔊) now if you haven’t yet!

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It is time for the Director’s Cut for Chapter Four.

Away we go!

Here’s one sentence from the chapter that’s gonna lead into a very long story:

“Everything we eat comes from this lagoon. Without it, we’ll starve.”

The most unhinged thing I did for book research

I’m gonna start with what is probably the most unhinged thing I did for this book’s research.

Which is not the free diving course or the spear diving course or going to the Maldives. Because those are all just things I wanted to do. Which, truthfully, this is also something I just wanted to do…

This is not a spoiler, because it is part of the premise that Easla has to venture into the forbidden ocean in search of the sea gods to save her starving village. Well, my friends, if we’re gonna write about a starving village, what do we need to know?

Starvation.

How can I describe hunger if I have never been hungry? And let’s be real, when have you ever actually been truly hungry?

So to answer this question, my boo thing and I did a three-day survival course in Alaska, where the only thing you could bring was a knife, an empty water bottle, and the clothes on your back.

So we go to this course. We actually had to meet up in the city, but they had this really strict rule: if you brought anything that wasn’t allowed, it was contraband. So the group of people we met up with all basically just walked without their phones, without GPS. They looked up how to get there, and we all just showed up with a knife, a water bottle, and the clothes on our backs.

It was already a good start, that we had to learn navigation in order to meet up with our group. Then we went into the forest somewhere, and we ventured off to find a campsite.

What I ate for three days

I’m gonna tell you what I ate for three days, because the guide was nice enough to tell me what was edible.

I ate rose hips. There’s this tiny round part that you can eat. It tastes like starchy carbs, not very much.

And this thing called fireweed that grows by the river, and you can eat the flowers. They’re a little spicy.

So as we’re hiking to find a campsite by the river, we’re gathering flowers, we’re putting them in our pockets, and we’re eating them. It’s not gonna do much.

And when we get to the campsite, the first thing you need to do is make a fire, because you can’t drink the water from the stream until you boil it. So there’s all these steps of: okay, first we need to make a fire, then we need to go fill up our waters, then we need to boil the water, then you need to let it cool off before you can drink it.

So you’re thinking hours in advance before you’re gonna get water. Only once the fire and the water are secure and boiling, then you make your shelter.

So then we’re dragging sticks around, and leaves. You wanna cover the ground because it’s cold. Even though it’s the summer in Alaska, it gets very cold at night, and I followed the rules and didn’t bring any other layers, but someone else brought layers, hmph, and I was cold.

And we built these lean-tos. Keep in mind, you’re not foraging, because you have to get your other priorities in order: having somewhere to sleep, having fire, having water.

You go to bed. Alaska summer, the sun doesn’t set, so it’s very odd, because the sun is up all night.

Over the next two days, we go fishing in the glacier river. No one catches anything. In my defense, I could see in the perfectly clear water there were no fish. And we even set traps. We had to learn how to whittle traps to make a cartoon-character box that would fall on a rodent. I would’ve eaten that rodent, but we didn’t catch one.

The maggoty mushroom

So the only things I found to eat were mushrooms.

I would forage around and I’d find mushrooms, and I’d bring them back to the guide, and half of the mushrooms he’s like, “I’m not sure if these are safe to eat.” So I didn’t risk eating a poison mushroom. I set those aside.

And the mushroom he did know we could eat… I’m gonna tell you something gross, but you’re here, so.

The mushroom had bugs in it. I’m not gonna call them maggots. They were a little skinnier. Like cute, tiny worms. Full of protein, one might say.

And I ate it.

I heated up the mushroom, cooked the worms. I picked some of them out, but there were so many worms, you couldn’t really de-worm it fully, and I ate it.

I ate a maggoty mushroom. I was really hungry.

And what was interesting is other people on the course didn’t wanna eat it. They were treating it more like a cleanse, “Oh, I’m gonna eat in a few days, I’m good.” And I’m like,

“Yo, this is a survival course.

You have to expect that there’s not food, that this doesn’t end in three days.”

So it was very important that I ate the maggoty mushroom.

Too hungry to fight

These feelings, physical and emotional, that I felt during three days went into the book.

But I think the most important takeaway was: you’re so tired, and you’re cranky, and I’d sit there with David to build our fire, or just go get water, and you’re like, “Well, he’s equally tired and hungry, and if he doesn’t do it, if I don’t do it, then we’re not gonna eat.” And so you just gotta do it.

And that was really interesting. Forces some teamwork. No point yelling at each other, even though you want to, because you’re both hungry.

So yes, all I ate for three days were fireweed, rose hips, and a maggoty mushroom.

Campfires are not sexy

Now, may I diatribe here? Oh, yes, I am the editor. I may diatribe here.

I want to talk about the romanticism behind fires. This doesn’t play into my book, but I need you to know.

In fantasy novels, fire tending overnight is always portrayed as so sexy. “Oh, I’m gonna spoon up next to my man by the fire and fall asleep under the stars.”

No, it is not sexy! Let me tell you what really happened.

Upgrade to In the Cave to keep reading:

• Why cutesy falling asleep by the campfire is the biggest lie in fantasy novels

• Do authors actually plan their symbols? My honest answer

• What early drafts of Easla got wrong

• What I did to my hands for one sentence in this chapter

• The thing my dad kept telling me to cut loose, and why I refused

Plus the full video.