The Mountain

After 10 days of heavily marketing ‘The Things We Did To Kill A…’ it was time for a break.
The family and I went for a few days holiday in Wales. The big plan was to do a walk-up Snowdon. As always when planning these things you can’t predict the weather. We knew for several days that the day we had chosen was going to be rainy, but just how bad would it be on the mountain?
Really bad!
But that just made it more of a challenge.
We got up alright, though the path was more of a waterfall at times. We made it to the summit, even though the wind was blowing at 40mph and gusting even harder and the rain was whipped into any exposed flesh so hard it stung. The highpoint itself was something of a challenge as the wind was so strong you had to crawl up the steps and cling onto the marker for fear of being blown away, but we made it up. Getting back down that was the hard bit, tired, wet and cold. Pack full of food that you didn’t want to stop and eat, so exhaustion set in. Even Sully the dog looked like he never wanted to go for a walk again. 
But we made it. We had a sense of achievement that even in the worst of weather, never able to see any of the magnificent views ( or more than about 50m ) we had helped each other to the top and back down.
Now I am writing these words it seems the perfect analogy for writing a novel. You start out with no idea if you will make it, along the way you hope it is going well and try not to get lost or lose momentum, you finish your first draft but then the editing grinds on for much longer than you think it should until finally you are safe and home, able to look back at what you have achieved and be proud.