‘Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyse you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.’ Bernice Johnson Reagan
Everybody has their own Mount Everest. I know an actor whose Mount Everest is memorising lines. An entrepreneur whose Mount Everest is time management. A lecturer whose Mount Everest is public speaking.
My Mount Everest
For a very long time, my Mount Everest has been writing. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but here was my problem: I loved thinking about writing, not actually doing it. As a teenager, I would tell myself that if only I had a computer and not have to rely on writing by hand, I would start writing. Then I got a computer, and I wrote precisely two short stories – both of them on the eve of school exams.
That was the odd thing: whenever I had something else to do, like a deadline for a school assignment, or an exam to prepare for the next day, I loved nothing better than to write. Other than at those times, writing was my Mount Everest.
This state of affairs continued while I was at university. Luckily I had lots of essays to write for my courses, so actually I got a fair bit of writing done; but only because I had to do it. During the holidays, months would pass with little or no writing.
Over the past few years, as I have become more and more interested in creating legacy, and started asking myself how I would like to create my legacy, I realised that the answer had been staring me in the face all along: writing. I could feel it in my bones. I had to climb my Mount Everest.
Academic work came to the rescue again: I was doing a PhD at the time, and eventually I had to start work on my doctoral thesis. I did everything I could to avoid it. I got a full-time job for a few months. Then I started a business. I became involved in politics. I became a member of 6 different committees, with 6 different organisations. I set up coffee meetings with friends. The list goes on. I kept eyeing up my Mount Everest, not daring to take the first step.
Eventually, things got serious. Time was passing at lightining speed, and I started to worry that if I didn’t have some draft chapters to show soon, I would get kicked out of my PhD programme. Time to start climbing.
Panic helped. I used my supervisor’s return from maternity leave as my personal deadline – and by the time we had our first meeting, only 8 weeks from when I started writing, I had a half-way decent first draft of about 60,000 words. Not bad.
Climbing takes much longer than you think
Ah, well. Then my supervisor read the draft. And suggested changes. Again. And again. And again. The draft that took me 8 weeks to write took me another 14 months to rewrite. This was three times the amount of time I had thought I needed to get the thesis finished. Very dark times indeed.
Yesterday, as I was reading through my thesis (I have to prepare for my viva, coming up in 2 weeks time), I was hit by a sudden realisation: since handing in my completed thesis mid-December, I haven’t really stopped writing. In fact, writing has been almost my full-time occupation since starting to write the thesis – and this didn’t change when I finished the thesis. After 16 months of having to write every day for my thesis, writing had become such a daily habit that I didn’t even think much about it. Even on really busy days, I still manage to get some writing done. Writing is no longer my Mount Everest.
There’s always another Mount Everest
Well, it’s not that simple. I may now have what I call the ‘writing habit’, but most of my writing tends to be non-fiction; this blog, for example. What I really want is to be able to write fiction as easily and habitually as I write non-fiction. Over the past few months, since handing in my thesis, this has been my new Mount Everest. I’m climbing it slowly – it’s important to pace yourself when climbing – but I’m trying to do a bit of climbing every day. Last week I’ve started an experiment that seems to be working better than anything I’ve tried before. I’ll keep you posted, and I’ll keep climbing.
What’s your story?
What is your Mount Everest? Have you started climbing it yet? Be brave, and share your experiences with the rest of us. We’d all love to hear your story.
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This is weirdly timely because I used Mt. Everest in a couple of writing references today. My mountains seem to be similar to yours: the biggest (the Kilimanjaro, if you will) is writing. I’m starting with a blog to teach myself discipline, and planning to work up.
Another, among many, is going back to school someday. But for now, I can only climb one at a time.
An interesting blog entry as always Alexa!
For me my Everest was visual art. I’ve always been a tormented artist. Way back when I was at school, I was heavily urged to take up GCSE Art as my Art teacher felt I had what it took to become a good artist but my problem was I couldn’t stand to look at my art.
For many years since then, I had always wanted to do something with my talent, but various attempts by hand and by computer always left me feeling the same way, I couldn’t stand to look at what I had created. I also had natural talent in programming, and enjoyed that, so that is what I pursued. As a talent it brings in the money nicely, but as a legacy, it is not a great profession. Software comes and goes, and even the big names of software in my past are very distant memories (does anyone outside of IT remember Netscape?).
Then an opportunity came around when I was living in the US to buy a reasonable digital camera. Suddenly, I found myself enjoying my art. I was taking pictures the way I saw them in my mind, and I was expressing that. But then came my climb. What was I going to do to pursue this hobby and make it into my legacy.
Once I had decided that my love of photography was not a passing fad (and I have been known to go through my fads, so I had to be really cautious with what could have been an expensive fad), I bit the bullet and bought a proper DSLR camera. Nothing too serious, but something that would really let me control what I wanted and that I would be able to learn the skills needed for my art. I had the equipment, now it was time to learn everything from composition of shots through, subject matter, to technical aspects of how a photograph is taken. I started to take photos of various subjects, and realised where I had a passion inside of Photography.
So for a couple of years, I camped up in Fort William to take photos of Mountain Bikers doing crazy things. The first year, my photos were poor on many fronts, but good on others. I learned what things were challenging my photos to be good, and learned that I was reaching the limits of what I could achieve with the tools I had. So I purchased more tools to assist in my photography.
The problem that kept scratching at the back of my head was that I was constantly learning (which is no bad thing), but I was still stuck at Base Camp on Everest… I was not doing anything with my photography. I still was not doing anything to create my own legacy. My shots were reaching a limited audience, and instead of being frustrated by my art, I was becoming frustrated that my art was not being appreciated by others.
Then events started to conspire in my favour, contacts that I had made early on were starting to push thoughts and “work” my way. Suddenly, things jumped into gear. My work was now gaining a larger audience, and I could start to see that my legacy was gaining it’s seeds. Again, a very weird twist of events happened in my life last year, and I was made redundant from my job. During the period of redundancy, I had been job searching daily, and then a job was posted for a Nightclub photographer. The money was not anywhere near suitable, but this was an opportunity I could work in my favour. Around the same time this job appeared, I secured a job with my now current employer, and I knew that taking a job as a Nightclub photographer would not be possible given the amount of hours the club needed. But I took the time to visit the nightclub, and sit down with the manager to understand what they needed a photographer for, and a lightbulb went on above my head. I would be able to work as a contractor for the club, and still work my day job. I could choose to work at the club when it was mutually suitable.
To help build a bond of trust, I worked Boxing Day and New Years Eve at the club completely gratis. If nothing else, this was a good learning experience (again, the shots from the first session were under par compared to shots since). Then the club decided they wanted to use me again, but paid this time. Suddenly it came as a realisation to me, that I was actually climbing up the Everest and making good progress. My legacy would be a photographic business. I could set this up now! The things I thought would be distant futures became a lot more in the present.
As the photos were published online, they were getting appreciation from the people in the shots, and from the people commissioning the photos. I was being told to my face the same thing I felt deep inside, that the photos were really good. My legacy was growing, and I was recommended to another nightclub in their chain, and I’ve now worked a couple of nights for that club with another night coming up, and I have a weekly gig at the original club. People in the clubs are recognising me not just because of the camera, but because they remember seeing themselves in the photos from previous weeks, and the quality of these photos are unlike what most clubs are putting out.
The icing on the cake for all of this came last week when I was speaking with the General Manager of the club, who told me that his Facebook account had over 8000 emails in a week. This was all being driven by my photos. This was the real wow moment. I opened my eyes and realised I had reached the summit of my Everest.
Dave
Trossachs Photography
Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!
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