As I round up chapter 20 of the fourth draft of my PCT memoir today, I thought it might be fitting to take you back three and a half years to when I was halfway through my first draft in 2015.
I’ve been intermittently posting videos of my ‘artistic journey’ over the past couple of months, and even though I only have 38 followers on my Muk Muk YouTube Channel, I’m enjoying sharing the experience in the hope to help other struggling writers like myself realize they’re not alone on that unpredictable, emotional rollercoaster we ride every time we sit down in front of our laptops to say something.
I’ve also committed to taking more risks this year and to stop caring too much about what people think. I’ve realized there’s really nothing to lose, and that failing to fulfill my potential is more painful than trying and not succeeding. I’ve also committed to being more self-confident in 2019, so I’m urging you all to sign up to my YouTube channel because even if you’re not into writing, watching me struggle and succeed during the biggest single undertaking of my entire existence will hopefully teach you something, or at the very least be entertaining!
October 7, 2013 will always be a special date for me. It was the day I completed the hardest thing I’d ever attempted in my life. It was the day I faced snowstorms, lost snowshoes, slid down bus-sized washouts, found myself lost in a whiteout, and was saved by the trail gods when my GPS miraculously started working again – remember? If not you can relive the experience here.
I arrived at the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail alone after 176 days. I never knew if and how I would make it to the end, until those wooden posts came into view and I realised I’d actually arrived.
That was five years ago today, and it feels as though everything and nothing has changed since then. The PCT taught me what I was capable of, the power of nature, the beauty of simple living, and the importance of community. It taught me to trust in the universe, demonstrated the best of the human spirit, and showed me that anything is achievable, one step at a time.
Keeping my blog introduced me to my passion for writing, and when I finished the trail in 2013, many people urged me to write a book about my experience. I’m happy to report that I am, and am currently in the midst of draft four having started writing back in May of 2014.
Back then I realised I had to put pen to paper to make sense of it all, and my first drafts were more like therapy than articulate prose. But if I thought hiking the PCT was the hardest thing I’d ever done, writing a book about it knocks that out of the park. Imagine hiking a section of trail, and then going back to hike it again a hundred times over just to make sure you didn’t miss anything. I’ve continued to hike the PCT on paper over the past five years, and I find it amazing I still have the energy to keep going. The story never gets old, it’s just taken me years to refine my skills so I can give the characters and events the credit they deserve.
I’ve kept videos diaries of my writing process since the beginning, and am going to start posting them on my new Muk Muk YouTube channel (to which I have zero subscribers to be sure to sign up), in the hope that by the time I post the last one, I might have reached the end of draft four and be ready to send it to a publisher. I hope these videos will help other wanna-be-writers like me suffering through their own personal hell. Writing is just like hiking the trail, with moments of great beauty interspersed with pain, suffering and an insatiable hunger to be finished. I look forward to sharing the experience with you, and celebrating the moment I cross that border for the very last time.
Muk Muk
Writing a Memoir – Video 1 – The Beginning
Discovering what it means to be alive, one step at a time…
