This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of my forgotten works: Inline Skating Made Easy. When people ask me to name my first book, I usually talk about Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, my memoir about covering and competing in the legendary Raid Gauloises adventure race. But Surviving wasn't the first. Actually, Inline wasn't either. That would be On the Edge, a Sports Illustrated for Kids collection of adventures written for a small but decent amount of money back when I wondered if I had the chops to write something longer than a 1500-word magazine piece. But Inline Skating Made Easy came next, bursting into the world a quarter-century ago, notable for the pictures of my wife and our two sons (the third wasn't born yet) as models for the various poses necessary to demonstrate proper skating technique (part of my contract was to provide all the photos).
Also notable was that my knowledge of inline skating was at a very beginner level. My sons could skate much better than me. But when you write to pay the mortgage and someone dangles $4,000 to cobble together a how-to about inline skating, "no" is the last word on your mind.
I had been a working writer for about six years; full-time less than three. It wasn't that many years ago, but when I started my freelance career there was no such thing as email — or even fax. I would actually write a story, print it out, then mail it to the magazine. This made it very easy to fudge a deadline by phoning the editor to say the story was in the mail.
Then came something mysterious called the modem, referred to by Hunter S. Thompson as the “mojo wire,” which still allowed a slight delay in delivery because the technology was haphazard.
But then came the fax machine, which promised immediate delivery.
Then email, which was even more instant. I remember pitching a story to Wired and having the editor ask if I had an email address. They were something from the future back in the early 90s. I told her I planned on getting one soon, which pretty much told her everything she needed to know about my ability to write for a cutting-edge magazine.
I didn't go to journalism school in college. I never worked on the staff of a major magazine or newspaper. I was the guy with big dreams who worked a dull corporate job, squeezing out freelance magazine stories on the side in the early, early morning before work. And sometimes at lunch. And sometimes in my cubicle at an hour not even close to lunch. But then I left the corporate world and made a go of being a full-time writer. The date was February 24, 1994. I will never forget it.
So it was that I blithely plunged into the world of full-time writing, with vague dreams of what success looked like. I wanted to be Thompson. I wanted to be Hemingway. But most of all, I just wanted to write for the rest of my life.
I did not know it at the time, but I squeezed into writing through a portal that no longer exists. There are few print magazines for a freelancer to turn a buck, let alone a place like the late great Competitor which let me fail in print three or four times an issue.
So, when SI for Kids asked me to write for children I saw it as climbing another rung on the ladder. A book seemed like a wonderful thing to have written. And then came Inline Skating Made Easy, which was not high literature but was certainly a second book. I was on my way.
I have since heard podcasts by authors who once wrote for hallowed magazines and newspapers, telling of the rules that guided their own writing journey. That's what happens when you write for a corporation: rules. But I didn't know any better.
I made my own rules: Never miss a deadline. Double check all facts. Keep regular office hours. Be a stickler for spelling and punctuation. Read each sentence aloud to make sure the words have rhythm.
I blundered from magazines into books as the boys got older and traveling two months out of the year became irresponsible. I got an agent, a wonderful young woman named Elise Proulx who is no longer in the business but made me a published author for the third time when she insisted I rewrite Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth to give it a happy ending. Then I began writing history, of all things — a forgotten childhood passion. You couldn't get me into the library when I was in college. Now you can't get me out.
My dumb luck continued. A season working on Survivor. Cold-calling the agent I have to this day, nervously sticking a quarter in a South Dakota pay phone while on a family vacation to pitch the vaunted New York professional, Eric Simonoff. Nobody does that. That call led to Into Africa, Chasing Lance, work with James Patterson, the Killing series as a co-author, and now my own Taking series.
But twenty-five years ago, as my most significant writing accomplishment was bs'ing Inline Skating Made Easy, and I punctuated my writing day by downloading Napster Springsteen bootlegs and my email address ended in aol.com, there was a day when all of this was just a fantasy. I remember Calene sitting down on my lap, wrapping her arms around my shoulders, and asking me to reassure her that our gamble on the writing life would pay off.
This wasn't idle curiosity. We had bills that seemed to fall due too early. A cramped two-bedroom condo, three boys, a golden retriever..
"I don't know how," I reassured her. "But I know in my gut that great things will happen."
It would have blown our minds if you'd told us back then of all the amazing adventures we would celebrate in the next twenty-five years. But that's the way of adventures: they reveal themselves one at a time, just like hopes and dreams. To know in advance takes away the magic.
So here's to Inline Skating Made Easy. And to paying dues.