We’re never still. When we think we are at the very beginning of a journey, we may well be at the end. Or when we’re convinced we’re at the end, we’re really just getting started. -Willie Nelson

I wonder where I am now. Nearly two decades spent obsessing over a silly activity of rock climbing. Mostly on a single hunk of granite, El Capitan. It did crescendo into quite the fairytale ending. At least in the modern “look at me now generation.” The world watching as Kevin Jorgeson and I pulled over the top of the Dawn Wall after 19 days—or was it seven years, or maybe a lifetime.

We got a call from the president, 13-billion media impressions worldwide (as cited by Back Bone media). The absurdity of it still sits uneasy with me. Unexpected, possibly unwanted, I am not sure yet. The attention was a nice stroke of the ego, which for a clumsy and dyslexic late-bloomer like me has always been a good thing. Why do I feel so damn uneasy then? On TV It looked heroic.

Perhaps it comes down to an identity crisis. Climbing used to be a fantasy world, a barbarian cult, escapism from modern day society where money and power rule all. As climbers we had found a way to cheat the system: Live on fresh air and good views, avoid the stress. But as climbing became more mainstream it lost some of its counter-cultural appeal. Without intending to, the most dedicated climbers became professionals. For me, the recoil of climbing the Dawn Wall created real world opportunities I never could have imagined. Therein lies the dilemma. I have found myself caught at the inflection point of climbing’s identity crisis: escapism or conformity.

My ambition to write a book was supposed to be a search for truth. And I wanted a good adventure. After 30 years of being little more than a mindless monkey I figured it was about time I diversified my life and used my brain. If there is one thing that sets climbing apart from other sports, it’s the way it creates a powerful narrative. I read countless stories, even started to formulate my own.

To me it seemed ripe for a novel, starting with the way I entered the world: translucent skin, deflated lungs, three pounds. Then there was the whole hostage ordeal in the mountains of southwest Kyrgyzstan. Six surreal terrifying days of war and starvation. All leading to a single life-changing moment. I was looking into the eyes of the woman I loved, lit by the moon and wide with terror. That’s when I decided to take a life. That’s just the beginning.

The Dawn Wall was supposed to put a period on it, but of course it hasn’t. Life doesn’t just stop like that. And we all carry around ghosts and skeletons. Sooner or later, most of us will get caught in an avalanche. Whether we emerge on top or melt out in the spring depends mostly on luck, but hopefully just a little on how hard we fight. So maybe that’s what climbing, and now writing, have become for me. An attempt to learn to swim in the avalanche so that next time we just might emerge on top.

In a fateful and possibly misguided moment of blind optimism following my success on the Dawn Wall I believed that I could in fact write a book. So I wrote a proposal, baited the hook, and cast off into the foreign seas of the publishing world. Then I found myself on the 19th floor of the Chrysler Building in New York City with my literary agent. Over two days we met with 16 publishers. I must have done a decent job of faking it, because the book went to auction and a few weeks later I was under contract.

That was a little like starting up El Cap barefoot with nothing more than a single set of stoppers. My reaction at the time was something I had learned through climbing: Joyful Masochism. Jon Krakauer told me writing a book is like ditch digging. “You just gotta get in there and dig a few feet every day.” I am nothing if not a bull-headed hard worker.

Forty hours a week behind the computer for a year? Hell yeah, I was fired up. That’s when the agony began.

I think it came from my ambition to write well. Right off the bat I realized there was a big problem. Despite the positive feedback I received from readers of Alpinist and Rock and Ice, I did not know how to write. Luckily, climbing teaches us to rely on partnerships. Early on I made the lifesaving decision to enlist the help of my dear friend and great author, Kelly Cordes. He agreed to be my “writing doctor.” Without Kelly and the encouragement of many others I surely would have failed a long time ago.

That brought me to Banff Centre. Kelly had applied us for the Fleck fellowship scholarship. We would be spending the last two weeks before the due date of the first draft in a little cabin in the woods designed for creative thinking.