Tuesday 2^nd June 2020

In some ways, The Climb is a writing challenge for me.

With a day job, writing and other projects ongoing, finding the time to write a blog post is difficult. Then there’s deciding what to write. I don’t have the luxury of having days to think. I have to come up with something fast and then write it.

There’s no outline and often I’m having to edit as I write, never quite sure where the blog post is going.

If I’m now an architect as a novel writer, then I’m very much a gardener as a blogger.

Some blog posts end up gold, others are trash.

But here’s something I learnt.

A few years back when I went storm chasing, I decided I wanted to do a daily vlog charting my adventures. This was a challenge. Not only did I not have the luxury of a desktop to edit on, but I had to get the video edited and uploaded after a long day of being on the road.

There was also the added embarrassment of talking to a camera.

I’m not going to lie. It was incredibly hard work. We stayed in motels where the internet was so slow I couldn’t upload; I had a memory card fail on me and lose half my day’s footage. I was often up until 3am editing before then being back on the road at 6am.

At the time it felt like a train wreck. I didn’t have the time to do fancy effects, my cuts were choppy. Some vlogs felt like they had nothing to them.

But you know what? Looking back several years later… I’m so glad I did them. Not only are they a great way to rekindle memories but they’re a lot better than I remember at the time.

And so it is with The Climb. I could tell you how some days I have nothing to write. How I have so little time that some edits consist of little more than a scan read. How I fake the daily image by doing a whole batch of them and not caring that I seem to be wearing the same shirt each day. Some days I don’t even do The Climb, having to back track then post back dated later in the week.

While waiting on some things I really struggle to know what to write, but the fact is that I am getting it done. It’s far from perfect but I’m OK with that.

I know that just like those vlogs I’m going to look back at these with fondness. Despite all the typos, they’re probably better than I think.