As a teenager and into my early twenties I was a connoisseur of adventure books. I was constantly reading about astonishing climbs, long and unpredictable journeys across tough climates and amazing feats of survival. A few that made a lasting impression were Shakleton’s ‘Endurance’ and a book by kiwi adventurers called ‘Unclaimed Coast’. Their book recorded their circumnavigation of South Georgia Island by sea kayak. They were the first to complete this journey and the book they produced was a window to that famed rescue by Shakleton and his men. It recorded not only their sea kayak journey but the place with all it’s intense moods in sharp, colourful focus through beautiful photography. I wanted to create something like this one day. And in fact my book ‘…the long way’ is the same shape and size as their book from which I drew much inspiration.
Funny that I had this thought, that I would produce a book when if you looked at me in school I was the least likely person to write anything. I loved calculus, physics and chemistry. And art of course. I once opted for a whole term of lunchtime detentions rather than complete one of the English assignments.
Not long after we finished our journey through the South Island I received an email from a very well established gallery in Christchurch wondering if I wanted to show my work there. I was astonished. Most of my attempts at securing a gallery up until that point had ended in brutal rejections. I walked in there to meet Denise who had contacted me and saw that the caliber of work was very high and to have mine hung in there was quite a compliment.
However I had big plans and youthful naivety so I told Denise that yes I’d like her to represent me however in a years time I would need a space to host a book launch and solo show about our journey. Amazingly she agreed. She had a few questions but I must have seemed confident because we booked it in. I don’t remember feeling concerned, stressed or worried at all about the fact that I only had a year, that I’d never written a book let alone been through the publishing process, didn’t have a publisher or money to self publish, not to mention that there was also a lot of artwork to produce.
It was May at that stage so Tyrell and I flew to Australia for our winter job. We were guiding multiday sea kayak trips in the Whitsundays. Tyrell worked full time and I was part time. It worked out to about one seven day trip a month. The rest of the time I lived in our flat (owned by our boss) in the rainforest. I painted and wrote from dawn until dusk while Tyrell was out on his trips.
We came back to New Zealand in October with a tube full of painted canvas, about half of my exhibition and I had started to write but was maybe only a quarter of the way in. And not in any particular order. I started with bullet points of the whole journey then when inspiration struck I would fill in a paragraph here and there. I thought I’d better start to think about how it would get published and discovered that there’s quite a long and formal process. I didn’t have the patience or time for submitting my manuscript and waiting and it wasn’t even close to finished. Instead I started emailing publishers; I know, how annoying. I cringe writing that. But I received a reply! Just one. But the right one.
Ian owned Aries Publishing and lived in Whitianga, 30 minutes away from where I live. He was curious so we decided to meet and discuss the project. I printed out what I had and over a coffee in town I told him about our journey, the artwork, my vision and the planned exhibition and book launch. I was still unconcerned that this was only 7 months away and unaware of the amount of work needed to be done by then. Neither did I consider that in December and through to April I would be sea kayak guiding full time, living in a flat with lots of other people and only get one day off a week during which I would be shattered from doing such a physical job.
Ian took what I had printed so he could read it and we met up a few more times before Christmas with me giving him more of the story each time and updates on the artwork. There was never a day that we agreed to go ahead. It just carried on to the point where we were both so invested it seemed inevitable that we would make it happen. I will always be so grateful to Ian for his curiosity and willingness to give me a chance.
Over the summer I was constantly having to choose my project. The guides’ flat was fun, loud, boisterous and we had parties whenever we could. If the weather didn’t allow us to work then there were waves to ride, parties to go to and lots of people around. Tyrell and I lived in the garage so I would close the curtains, put my headphones on loud, turn on lots of spot lights and do my best not to be distracted from painting. My flat mates knew a little about what I was working on but I mostly kept it to myself. For some reason I thought they would think it silly or lame.
Towards the end of summer Ian was feeling the time pressure and sent me the contact details for the editor even though I wasn’t finished writing. I emailed her directly and she said she only wanted the first chapter to start with. I sent that to her and a few days later received it back. She had notes in a column on the side explaining that red meant a spelling and grammar error, yellow was wording that the general public may not understand, blue meant that it could have been written better and green was repetitiveness. My chapter was a rainbow. I was devastated. I cried. I had thought I was doing so well.
Jenny also had examples in the side column to highlight her points. It was then my job to apply all the advice to not only that chapter but everything that followed on from it. She did not tolerate the same mistake twice. Boy did I hear about it when I did, she didn’t hold back on her criticism. So I sent my story chapter by chapter and each time I would edit the remainder of my story with the learning I received each time. When that last chapter came back with all the text in black and a simple ‘well done’ in the side column I cried again.
The biggest lesson I learnt during that process with Jenny (which was repeated a lot much to her disgust before it properly clicked) was not to tell the reader that something was scary or beautiful or hard. Instead I had to describe it. The reader will choose how they feel about it if they can imagine it.
With the story complete Ian then gave me the contact details of the designer he’d chosen. I organised my files in the way that seemed most logical and sent them to her. I had my main text, the captions for the photos and paintings and the side bits to the story telling of history, or about the flora and fauna of the area plus all my photo and painting files. The problem was I wasn’t sure how many photos I could use or what size and some captions were a word and others a page long. The designer had a few weeks before she moved overseas so after hearing from Ian what the job was she thought she’d be able to fit it in. After recieving my email and files she called quite distraught and angry. This was outrageous! How could we expect this to be done in a few months let alone weeks. She would need to come up with the format and overall design and then put it together page by page sending each through to me for approval. It was impossible. And the launch and exhibition date drew ever nearer.
I rung her and suggested I drive to Opotiki where she lived and do it with her. This wasn’t normal she told me but a good idea. I spent the week staying at my friend’s house in Tauranga and driving out to Opotiki each day. While I sat with watching her fingers fly across the keys and my dream book appear before us on the two computer screens above her desk my friends were busy editing. They were doing the final spelling edit. They were also making the cover and maps for me as wasn’t going to have time. It was a hectic but exciting week and we were able to press send to the printers a few days before was due to leave the country. Ian put no restrictions on the number of pages or amount of colour so I had been free to create the book I dreamed of.
The last of my jobs before the exhibition was to get all my paintings stretched. I had been painting on loose canvas so it was easily transportable. We drove them all to Christchurch and got ready for the big day. The books arrived into New Zealand just in time and Ian drove them down to Christchurch for the launch.
And so a year after I first stood in the Bryce Gallery to meet with Denise I stood there again surrounded by my work, friends and family and told the story of our adventure through my words, the book and paintings.
If you’d like to read the blurb and review for the book or purchase a copy click the link below.