The joy both of my kids were feeling was palpable in the car afterwards as they babbled on and on about their runs. Both frantically asking, "Did you see me?" while waiting for me to confirm that I did and asking follow up questions as to why they had done something. My daughter, ever the mother hen, staying with he brother while obviously grasping the activity and reveling in telling me how she skied past the teacher while my son explained to me why he kept falling down. And that joy made me feel better, made me okay with having to give up something I loved so much.
I love skiing. Fell in love with it in 1987, when at the suggestion of my friends, I joined ski club my freshman year of high school. It was formative to me as a person. I was a pretty unexceptional high school student. I hadn't embraced my love of writing and was listless. I was a pisspoor athlete and, at best, an apathetic student. I was too wrapped up in some kind of social checklist that I couldn't possibly attain rather than trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to be. When I joined ski club, I found something that I just loved. I couldn't articulate it then and I'm not even sure I could now, I just knew there was something appealing about it. There is a version of me, in some parallel universe, that is living in a garage in Kazakhstan, following some endless winter around the world in some attempt to "earn my turns."
However, I exist in this universe, with this version of me, busted up as it is. So all I'm left is the memories. And they are great memories. Memories of glory and shame, humiliation and triumph. I met my first real girlfriend at ski club. I made life long friends skiing. I learned that I could learn how to do things I never thought I could. I realized there was a daring streak in me, willing to move outside my comfort zone. These memories still play in my head as little movies, snippets of what I loved so much and thirty years later they are getting a sequel in my kids. Maybe it's finally time to put words to paper, like I've always wanted to about that time in my life.
As if the fates were paying attention, when I got home that afternoon, one of the stations was playing a marathon of filmmaker Warren Miller's films and it nudged me towards writing even more. So I settled down at our kitchen peninsula and snuck some words in. Much of this was written during this marathon while I should've been painting one of our bathrooms. The words and memories nudged my closer to my "90s ski epic" I've been talking about writing for years.
It's the memories and a series of short online conversations with former fellow 315er and YA/MG author Aaron Starmer that led to the original story idea, called FRESH TRACKS. I want to write a YA story that takes place in the 90s, has a 90s teen comedy vibe to it but follows the rules of an epic fantasy. It might be too ambitious a project (a problem of mine if there ever was one) and it might be unsalable. But I want to write it. It's been back and front burnered multiple times over the last few years as I struggled with what it was and what I wanted it to be. There's a parallel to my life that I'm just realizing and I'm itching to write it. For now, I have to finish GIRL IN THE PICTURE first. I'm not the kind of writer than can work on more than one project at the same time. I realize that if I have any intention of making a career of this, that will have to change but for now, it'll do and I'll have to earn my turns any way I can.
I love skiing. Fell in love with it in 1987, when at the suggestion of my friends, I joined ski club my freshman year of high school. It was formative to me as a person. I was a pretty unexceptional high school student. I hadn't embraced my love of writing and was listless. I was a pisspoor athlete and, at best, an apathetic student. I was too wrapped up in some kind of social checklist that I couldn't possibly attain rather than trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to be. When I joined ski club, I found something that I just loved. I couldn't articulate it then and I'm not even sure I could now, I just knew there was something appealing about it. There is a version of me, in some parallel universe, that is living in a garage in Kazakhstan, following some endless winter around the world in some attempt to "earn my turns."
However, I exist in this universe, with this version of me, busted up as it is. So all I'm left is the memories. And they are great memories. Memories of glory and shame, humiliation and triumph. I met my first real girlfriend at ski club. I made life long friends skiing. I learned that I could learn how to do things I never thought I could. I realized there was a daring streak in me, willing to move outside my comfort zone. These memories still play in my head as little movies, snippets of what I loved so much and thirty years later they are getting a sequel in my kids. Maybe it's finally time to put words to paper, like I've always wanted to about that time in my life.
As if the fates were paying attention, when I got home that afternoon, one of the stations was playing a marathon of filmmaker Warren Miller's films and it nudged me towards writing even more. So I settled down at our kitchen peninsula and snuck some words in. Much of this was written during this marathon while I should've been painting one of our bathrooms. The words and memories nudged my closer to my "90s ski epic" I've been talking about writing for years.
It's the memories and a series of short online conversations with former fellow 315er and YA/MG author Aaron Starmer that led to the original story idea, called FRESH TRACKS. I want to write a YA story that takes place in the 90s, has a 90s teen comedy vibe to it but follows the rules of an epic fantasy. It might be too ambitious a project (a problem of mine if there ever was one) and it might be unsalable. But I want to write it. It's been back and front burnered multiple times over the last few years as I struggled with what it was and what I wanted it to be. There's a parallel to my life that I'm just realizing and I'm itching to write it. For now, I have to finish GIRL IN THE PICTURE first. I'm not the kind of writer than can work on more than one project at the same time. I realize that if I have any intention of making a career of this, that will have to change but for now, it'll do and I'll have to earn my turns any way I can.
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