The Homicidal Goats Go Bowling

A spectacular place to fail: Me on Mt. Church, one of Idaho's 12,000 foot peaks. Photo: Gary Davis 

At 3:00am while dodging bowling-ball-sized rocks that mountain goats knocked down on us from above, I thought to myself, “Seriously, why does Gary bother to hang out with me? Is he really that hard up for friends?” I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to dodge falling rocks while crossing a steep, slippery snowfield in running shoes in the dark, but it’s not particularly fun. Real friends don’t usually lead you to a premature death by mountain goat. Anyone might question their judgment in friends in a situation like this. I was pretty sure that this would be my last climb with my best friend and climbing partner of the last 20 years. And the goats weren’t even the worst of it.

I’m not sure Gary was all that interested in this ridiculous idea of mine in the first place. He was mostly just there to support me. Not that, as a general rule, he didn’t enjoy this sort of thing. Long “runs” in the mountains were right up his alley, but this one was different. My idea was to break the current speed record for climbing all nine peaks in Idaho over 12,000 feet. Climbers refer to them as the “Idaho 12ers”. At the time Gary and I were fleeing homicidal goats, the record was 38 hours and 50 minutes. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find someone willing to go 38 hours straight climbing nine big, hostile, remote peaks. So you can see why Gary might not have been overly excited about it, but he was at least willing to try.

Three peaks later, we pulled the plug. After bushwhacking, snow field climbing, goat dodging, and miles of traversing loose, sharp rock, we gave up. It also didn’t help that it was starting to rain and we were both feeling sick and unable to consume enough calories to keep our bodies going (high altitude and lack of sleep will do that to you). The project that I had been working toward for over a year ended in failure.

This is Gary thinking, "I really hate Dave, I really hate Dave, I really hate Dave."
Mount Idaho is in the background. 

My first novel, The Spiral, also ended in failure. After four years of on and off again effort, I finished it. I sent out query after query to agents only to get rejection after rejection. Two years ago, I decided to enter it in the League of Utah Writers annual writing contest. It came back with a terrible score and a scorching critique. Ouch. It was time to for me to realize that The Spiral was not going to be published.

So what do you do after failures like these? Do you have to just accept that all that time and effort was for nothing? That you wasted your time?

A few weeks after Gary and I bailed in the middle of our Idaho 12ers record attempt, Gary met another runner/climber named Jared Campbell. Jared mentioned that he and Luke Nelson were planning to attempt the 12ers record in a few weeks and Gary volunteered us to “crew” for them. That meant that we would drive the car and make sure they had all the food and gear that they needed ready to go. It also meant that we could share the knowledge and experience we gained from our aborted attempt to help them to do better.

Jared Campbell descending Mount Idaho. Photo: Luke Nelson

To make a long story short, Jared and Luke beat the old record by ten hours! It was such a privilege to play a small part in that record. I think it will stand for a very long time. You can read Jared's write up on it here, and Luke's write up here.

Later that same summer, I used the fitness and skills I had gained training for the Idaho 12ers to run my first 50 mile race, The Skyline Fifty (which Gary won), and my first 100 mile race, The Bear 100. The most rewarding thing, however, was all the hours of running and climbing I did in the beautiful Wasatch Mountains right in my back yard.

This is me "running" in some fine weather 90 miles into the Bear 100.

Hmmm. Maybe my Idaho 12ers attempt wasn’t such a failure. It turned out Gary didn’t quit hanging out with me (thanks, Gary!), I was able to make new friends and support them in achieving a new record, I was able to comfortably run the longest races I’ve ever done, and I got to spend endless hours in beautiful places. That doesn’t sound like a failure at all. In fact, that sounds like the best summer of my life.

But what about The Spiral? It sits in my filing cabinet along with a pile of rejection letters doing nothing. That has to be a failure, right?

Wrong.

The Spiral started out as a short story. The short story kept growing and growing and one day, when it got old enough to speak (they do that, you know), it said to me, “Ahem, uh, author dude. You know I’m supposed to grow up to be a novel, right?” And I was like, “No way. I write poetry and short stories. You’re going to stay a short story whether you like it or not. Now shut up.” (I can be pretty grouchy with my stories sometimes). Then the short story, all snotty and conceited, said, “Whatevs.” I fought with the story for over a year, but it was like arguing with a teenager, you just can’t win.

Finally, I very grudgingly admitted defeat. A frightening and vital paradigm shift happened in my mind when I gave myself permission to write a novel. I was nothing short of terrified when I approached the story and said, “Hey, um, story? You know how you said you wanted to be a novel? Is that still what you want to do?” and the story said, “Uh, yeah, I already told you that like a year ago.” (Stories can be so snobby sometimes).

I decided it was time to take myself seriously as a writer. I wasn’t just fooling around anymore, I was a writer and I needed to start acting like it.

I learned more about writing and revising while working on that book than in all my prior years of writing combined. I joined a critique group, started learning about the publishing industry, and entered contests. I learned how to accept rejection and criticism and move on. I learned grit, determination, and so much more. I was able to use everything I was learning to better teach my Creative Writing and Language Arts students. I learned how to, as Samuel Beckett put it, “fail better”, so that, in the end, it wasn’t a failure at all.