ADVENTURELAND

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.” – Winston Churchill

My husband never just goes fishing, hunting or camping. Instead, he goes on adventures. Somehow, a dry spell will turn into torrential rains. Docking the boat turns into a tug-of-war with high-speed winds. An unexpected late winter snow decides to fall during the night and the firewood is wet in the morning and Coleman stoves take over for cooking meals.

But his camp is the one other campers drift to, share a cup of his cowboy coffee and swap fish tales over a campfire late into the night. He may not come home with the biggest fish ever caught on record, deer meat for the winter, or even a Thanksgiving turkey, but he’ll have the best stories. Somehow, surviving the adventures are the things of which memories are made.

My husband tells of when he went elk hunting with his new friend from Kentucky. These four guys went on the three-week excursion every year in Montana, but one of the regulars couldn’t make it, so Rick was invited. The men were from all over the country and already had a history, but my man was there not only with payment of one fourth of the cost, but also with fresh stories. He told about our newest neighbor who hosted a garage sale every weekend until the police paid him a visit and said residential sections of the city weren’t to be used as a retail operation, especially one that didn’t pay taxes. The neighbor stopped the garage sales – for a while, then he was back in business with an unending supply of goods.

Once three bullet holes appeared in his garage door overnight. None of us had heard a thing. The neighbor never really said how they got there and I suppose it could have been him mishandling a gun while cleaning it, but the story was pretty lame by the time I heard it. The cops didn’t buy it either and for a while, our street was patrolled regularly.

So, here was Rick telling outlandish and comical stories about our wild neighbor, when one of the guys said, “You know, that sounds an awful lot like my uncle. His name isn’t Hubert, is it?” It was.

I go on adventures, too. Mine don’t include the neighbors, camping or fishing, but I enjoy enticing strangers to hear my tales.

“Nobody asks you to do this. The world out there is not panting after another novelist. We choose it.” – Paul Auster, quoted in an interview with his wife, novelist Siri Hustvedt

Probably one of the nicest things to happen to an author is when she is asked to write something. A popular author told me, “I was just sharing an idea with my agent and the next thing I knew, they were asking me to write three books. Now I have a deadline.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” I sang, probably a bit off-key.”

“And you can get it,” she said, laughing. “If you try.”

I think she’s off to a big adventure. I can’t wait for her to take me along for the ride as one of her readers.