Saturday, February 23, 2008

Mountain Climbing

Science confirms it. The fastest way to climb a hill is to zigzag. Lately, that's how I seem to be writing. The bottom of the hill is the start; the top is the finish. In between, I'm going left and right with the story, writing, sitting on it, then editing, then going on to the next scene, and all the time trying to zig or zag the story in a surprising direction while still moving forward. Tough work. Expends a lot of energy and occasionally there are avalanches to watch out for, slippery slopes to navigate, and billy goats threatening to bump me off and destroy the story or bring me to my senses that this is too steep of a hill to climb and the gentle sloping hill over yonder looks easier...just not nearly as rewarding. The effort expend is worth the reward gained.

Sir Edmond Hillary climbed Everest, "...because it's there." I guess I write for the same reason, "...because the story's there."

Now, let's get out there and dull some pencils.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some years ago I took my sons to a Scout camp in Colorado, and one of the adventures was to backpack to the top of one of the big mountains there. It took our group most of the day to get to the camp near the summit, but the young guides (who do this hike twice a week all summer long) said that on the 4th of July they would go to the summit to watch the fireworks. I asked how they could get up there in time (given their Scout camp responsibilities) and they said they RAN the whole way up, getting to the top in two hours.

I suppose there are writers like that too.

Rick Bylina said...

I suppose you are correct. Some of those writers with 500, 600, or 800 novels probably sprint up the writing mountains.

There's a race could the Pike's Peak Marathon, which I believe is 28 miles up and down Pike's Peak. I worked with a guy who held the return (downhill) record. At 14,000+ feet, that's way too much uphill running for me.

Ruth L.~ said...

What do they say? It's the journey that's more important than the destination? Hmmm?