Climbing the Untersberg
“Which would you rather do” asks my friend the writer. “Climb a mountain or write a book.” I think about and tell him the latter.
“Wrong” he says sharply and grins. “Climbing a mountain is much better.”
He wipes the sweat off his forehead and squirts some water in his mouth. He turns and starts to walk again and says. “The thing I love about mountains, is that there is no doubt when your objective is achieved. Once you get to the top of a mountain, you have succeeded. None of that artistic doubt shit.”
The mountain slopes gently here, not like before. It is easier but we are tired.
“I mean, how could anyone write a book anyway. There is no doubt that a book could always be better. You could always tweek that one word to make a sentence truly spectacular, always can make it more spectacular. When we get to the top of this mountain, we will have accomplished something. Don’t you see how incredible that is? We will be at the top! There is no way we could climb higher!”
“There are always more mountains though,” I say but I don’t think he hears me.
Having both climbed mountains and written a book, I suppose I’d have to agree with your friend. It’s relatively easy to notice when you’ve reached the top of the peak – and if you keep on going, everything is obviously downhill from there. The book now – you could reach the pinnacle and be so caught up in details you don’t notice and follow the trajectory right back down into the earth, destroying everything you were trying to create without even knowing it…
But still I choose to write the books. Go figure. I like your blog – I’ll be back.