Dearest Friend,

I hope you’re well today. I have a special update for you among other things…

So…firstly, I’m excited to announce that I’ve decided to launch the book on 10/17/18. It’s called The Trail Provides: A Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hiking Memoir, and it’ll be filled with stories, pictures, and lessons learned along the way. If you haven’t already signed up to be notified of the launch, you can do so by either subscribing to the blog (first to be notified of any new content) or joining the book launch list (one email on book launch day only).

It’s taken me seemingly forever to write this book (2+ years) and it’s been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. I truly didn’t realize how poor of a writer I once was… and there’s still so much room to grow, but I’m always improving. 🙂 Here’s a funny story…

I was talking to a writer friend of mine here in Austin and he says to me: “Everyone knows they can’t be Jimmy Hendrix because not everyone plays the guitar. But everyone writes. So everyone thinks they can be the next J.K Rowling.”

…Yeah, so that was me. Going into this book, I believed I was going to write a best-seller to rival Wild and A Walk in the Woods. It was naive, but I’m so glad I had that mindset or else I’d given up months/years ago.

In the beginning, I didn’t even know how to start or what I was going for… Is this a fiction book? Is it a collection of short stories and poems? If I write a non-fiction book, isn’t that egotistical? And “you’re way too young to write a memoir, you won’t even know the significance of what you experienced until years later,” so said some peeps.

And maybe they were right… in the beginning, because the first drafts were absolutely terrible.

I remember my friend Jake first reading it and telling me to re-write the whole thing. I was heartbroken, not at him, but with myself. I was hiking down a trail with no maps and clue where I was going. I was lost. But for some reason, I kept moving. I can’t tell you how many people (tens) have guided me on this path, sacrificed hours of their life to read this book, send me emails, hop on the phone with me, give me advice, re-read the book again…(this process x100) and each time it forced me to go back to the drawing board, rethink what it was I was doing, and go just a little bit deeper.

Eventually, I learned what I was going to write about. My experience on the trail. It’s what I knew and it’s the story I had to tell. After months/years of writing, I finally began to learn a few things. I learned the importance of writing descriptively (yeah, it’s way different than blog writing). I learned how to write natural dialogue that doesn’t sound wooden. I learned about pacing, plotting, and killing your darlings. I watched many hours of YouTube videos and reached out to lots of writers. I learned how to story tell.

So here I am today, a hundred re-writes later, and I’ve finally reached a point where the words in this book are no longer for me. To me, the words are old and stale. I’m a new person now, and I’m ready to move on from these old stories about the old me. Nope… these words are for you. For you, they’ll be fresh and new. Maybe you’ll find something special in them… I think you just might.

As I think back on why I wrote this book, I believe a part of it was helping me to move on from the trail. The PCT was such an important experience in my life and leaving it was incredibly difficult. Shortly after arriving home, I entered into a “post-trail depression”, a common experience felt by many thru-hikers. Now, I don’t think I was actually depressed/sad, but rather that the trail is just so different a life experience. The physical body’s biology and senses become so adapted to the novelty of passing wildlife, exposure to the elements, hiking long distances, and the mental fortitude required on the trail that urban life simply cannot fulfill. The world of old, upon returning, seemed even more grey and dreary than how I had left it.

This only drew out more questions from inside me. So I had to reflect. I had to know… why did I just do that? What did I get out of it? What did I find that was of use for my present/future self and possibly for others too? I’m glad I wrote because although much of it will remain a mystery, I found answers that have made me more than ever ready to move onto the next thing.

Setting a launch day (10/17/18) is a big step for me. For the longest time, I avoided doing so because it “wasn’t ready yet”. Looking back, I’m glad I delayed. But there comes a certain point in time when the artist knows it’s time. Not that it’s ready, but that it’s time. No one else can possibly know this or understand the reason for such delays.

So when you set a date, you surrender. You surrender knowing it’ll never be perfect. Podcasting is teaching me about surrender because once you record a podcast, it’s done. That’s it. Very few edits if any and it’s off to the public. Books and writing on the other hand require re-write after re-write until you become so sick of the pursuit of perfection that eventually you realize that you just need to give yourself the gift of done. The launch date’s also of personal significance… it’s three years from the day we finished the trail.

As excited as I am, in fleeting moments, I sometimes wonder if I’ve written the wrong book. As I look back on my direct experience, it’s so clear how the trail, albeit an important step, was just a small first step in my life. I have so many other stories that have become of special importance to me lately. But because this book is what happened, I know that it’s because that’s what should have happened. And it helps me to know that life’s not just about me, that maybe we’re all taking these small steps together, shedding old layers of ourselves to get to the new ones, and that maybe the book will help others take those steps with us too.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy it and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. I don’t have any specific plans yet, but I just wanted to tell you about the finalized date. If you’d like to help with this in any way, I’d love to hear from you. Sending my best.

Love,
David