Tim Cahill on Writing with Obstacles and Interviews

 Life's a Wild Trip by Tim Cahill via Outside
http://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/africa/south-africa/Here--Sharky--Sharky.html


Via http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2005/03/wild-life-interview-tim-cahill

Tim Cahill

"I see many people trying to write well about the wilderness, and essentially failing. To me there are basically two aspects of a failed outdoor story. One is the phony epiphany on the mountain top. Listen, I've got 30 years in this – you don't have an epiphany on the mountain top. You might have it five days later when your down the hill and you're in some third world hotel room with the ceiling fan wobbling around over your head, but probably not. Sometimes you figure out what it all meant when you sit down and write it – often that's the way.

The second thing is that many people go into the wilderness to experience it, and if they experience it in comfort, there's very little in a literary sense for them to write about. Remember, my concept of drama requires obstacles, and there's no obstacles in comfort. So they get all spiritual about it. Sometimes I read somebody's spiritual reflections on their wilderness experience and I think to myself, "Hey! Nothing Happened!"

The way one approaches a wilderness story is to fashion a quest – find something that you are truly interested in finding or discovering. That works pretty well because either you find it, and that's nice, or you don't – and failure often makes just as good a story. So in the context of the quest, this provides a literary element of suspense – it’s a page turning device, and you can slip in those ideas of spiritual renewal or the like in the context I guess."

Check out more interviews with Tim Cahill at the following links:

http://www.amygigialexander.com/conversations/2014/10/14/in-conversation-with-tim-cahill

http://www.mercurynews.com/travel/ci_15213240

http://www.outsidebozeman.com/community/people/tim-cahill-mishap-maestro