I’ve been an outdoorsman all my life, and camping has always been an integral part of those experiences. I’ve slept on the ground with nothing but a blanket over me and an ocean of stars stretching from horizon to horizon. I was sick that frosty night in South Dakota, and full of fever, which limited movement to only my eyeballs. Everything else hurt. Propped up against a fallen log, I could do nothing but watch the Milky Way.
I think it healed me in a way no drugs could have touched.
I’ve slept in the back of a pickup truck, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and in a canvas tent so hot the July humidity drove me out onto a concrete picnic table that felt better than any five star hotel bed. One night beside a gurgling stream, I retreated to save my life, chased there by a million mosquitoes determined so suck every drop of blood from my body. As the sun settled below the pine treetops, I peeked out the door flap and realized it wasn’t as dark as I thought. The yellow nylon was so thick with those little winged vampires, the sunset in reality was a living horde of insects.
As the years passed, we owned pop-up trailers, small campers, Class C campers, bumper pull campers, and 36-foot fifty-wheel that was larger than my first apartment. They’ve all been a learning experience, and the memories we’ve shared in those shelters still come up in pleasant recollections.
The Bride and I have pulled off into national forest campgrounds and spent both hot and cold nights in the back of our conversion van. We’ve cooked over hardwood fires, charcoal, small pump-up backpacking stoves, Coleman stoves, and even over the heat of a homemade stove made from a tin can.
It’s been so cold, that our water froze in the tent with us, so humid the breeze from a passing hummingbird felt good, and so hot we couldn’t rest. There was one sultry night in East Texas where we lay in pools of sweat, laughing at the symphony of tiny frogs that sang until an agreed-upon moment when they paused for a buffalo-size bullfrog to croke one deep bass note, and then the music continued.
So why are you telling us all this on a writer’s blog?
Because writing is much the same. You’ve found what you like doing, and that’s creating worlds that either don’t exist, or are based on a character you developed from firing synapses.
Many writers search for that magic formula to help them get words on paper and create the Great American Novel. It’s the same as what I described above, experiments and experiences that finally solidify into your own personal recipe. We all have, or had, our idea of what a writer’s life might be like, and it usually isn’t what we’ve seen on television or in the movies.
On Thursday night, the Bride and I attended a wine tasting fundraiser for my old alma mater, and I was introduced to a former Texas senator who has donated a gamebird research facility to determine while bobwhite quail numbers have dropped to alarming numbers in the past thirty or forty years. They’re working hard to bring them back to our state, and as I discussed my recent visit to the Lyon Center for Gamebird Research, he asked about being an author.
“Do you get up and write every morning?”
How many times have we heard that? “I try to write at least five pages every day. It sometimes comes early, at noon, or whenever I can find the right time to sit down and work.”
I didn’t tell him it was because I found what works for me, and what I enjoy.
A few months ago I had a long talk with a fellow bestselling author who hit the market like dynamite with her first novel. As our conversation meandered down unfamiliar trails or the same old paths authors follow when they get together, we discussed how far our manuscripts progressed in a single day. She was awed by my output, see above, and shook her head.
“I do good to write a single paragraph in a day. Sometimes I lock up on a single word and it takes forever to find the right one.”
Fine, then. That’s her working day, but like the camping discussion above (see, here’s that page a day thing), everyone is different. The only truth is that we all aspects of this world in different ways, and in terms of writing, we all have different goals. Just be inspired.
I’ve written newspaper columns on a yellow legal pad in front of a tent as lightning moved across the valley below. My best day of writing so far was one day in a 36’ fifth-wheel as rain thundered on the roof and it was impossible to go outside. It’s not where or how I produced my books, it’s the fact that I found a comfort zone somewhere that spoke to me.
There are hundreds of books on how to be a successful author out there. Read them if you want, but find the process speaks to you and follow that unexplored road, just the way the Bride and I experimented with camping, be it good or bad.
Find your comfortable place and get that first draft finished. At least put down page a day, but even that’s not for everyone. Then agonize over the post production, if you want or need to, in a figurative four-star hotel somewhere.
Quit talking about it, and over-thinking the process, and write.
My camping life has been a lot like yours, from sleeping on the open porch of the Round House in Virginia being lulled to sleep by the dark whispers of New River while a child, to coming close to freezing in a pup tent in the Tetons. Because camping is cheap (most of the time) we were able to travel across the whole country and show our children that there was a big world out there, a wonderful world, and they didn’t have to settle for the small town life they grew up in. In the same manner, I introduced them to the books that had shown me how people in other countries lived, so different from my life, instilling the wanderlust that has sent me all over the world. Camping was a great education for backpacking across Europe and sleeping on trains, and for huddling on a dirt floor in a hut in Africa. Lots of fodder for writing. But when we spent the winter in our RV in Arizona, while my husband disappeared for hours on the ATV to give me plenty of uninterrupted time to write? Nothing. Not one word. I fired up the laptop every morning and tried to get inspired, but it didn’t work. We went across Canada in a camper, and although I took lots of pictures and filled notebooks with details, I couldn’t write to save my life. It’s like my brain shuts down the creative process when I leave my office at home. That’s my writing place.
No matter who camps, or how they do it, in a pup tent or a rolling house, it’s all about the experience and joy of the outdoors. We’re talking about getting back to the basics this winter and pitching a tent somewhere we haven’t been before.
Oh, and I have thousands of photos from past travels. It’s always fun to look back and remember those wonderful days.
Rev, your camping experiences sound like what a friend calls Type 2 fun—horrible when it’s happening but fun to tell stories about later. Type 1 is fun at the time and fun to reminisce about. Type 3 fun is What the eff was I thinking? If I survive this, I’ll never do anything this stupid again.
Thanks for reminding me how much I appreciate window screens, A/C, and indoor plumbing.
“Quit talking about it and write.” I’ve often wanted to say that to wannabes who never quite get around to producing words.
I’ve frozen and roasted, and everything in between, and have loved it all. We’re already talking about our next trip!
“Quit talking about it, and over-thinking the process, and write.”
Writers write. Which is what I am going to be doing today, since I have the house to myself and no commitments to be anywhere. I’m at 76K words and I just want to hit ‘the end’ so I can start fixing the manuscript.
Of course, I write on busy days, too, but it’s nice to have that rare “I don’t have to do anything else” day.
That downhill slide to THE END is the best. You have all the dominos lined up, and for me, everything falls into place. I love the third act!
Quit overthinking the process – that nails it right there.
Sometimes it’s as simple as that.
Love this post! As I tap this response, I’m ‘glamping’ in my 37′ Class A on a mountain top in Colorado. Hubbs and I sold everything and went full time in our motor home. After years of tent camping and van camping, we now experience life on the road with a comfy bed to sink into every night. This lifestyle isn’t for the faint of heart, but it gives me lots of time to write, meet new people, and experience life at ground level.
Thanks so much! I wish I was up there with you. I hear the aspens are already turning in the high country. Nothing like fresh, pine scrubbed air and the scent of woodsmoke to make a morning or evening.
I love this blog so much. Thanks for sharing your experiences. My husband’s idea of roughing it is a hotel without good water pressure in the shower so I haven’t done any camping in 37 years. As a former journalist, I can write just about anywhere, but I prefer the quiet of my office. I know when I sit down in my chair and put my fingers on the keyboard I’m in my happy place and it’s time to work–even if I don’t feel all that happy on any particular day. Just write!
There’s an old song about blooming where you’re planted, Write away!
Thanks, Rev…
Quit talking about it, and over-thinking the process, and write.
I can’t hear or read that statement enough!
🙂
No one can, but it always bears repeating. I’ll be teaching a class at my old university in November, and I’m gonna make the students write it down.
👍👍
I’ve said that if you want to be a writer, you have to write.
How hard is that to understand?
You can think all you want. Make notes. Plan. Do sheet upon sheets about your character. But until you actually start writing the book, you aren’t writing.
And everyone’s process is different. I’ve had friends who did 80 page outline before writing one word on the actual book. Others (like me) come up with an idea and sit down and write a whole book. Needs tons of editing, but the story is written.
So yes, if you want to be a writer–then sit down and write.