You must get beyond divertissement, sketch, anecdote, the interesting moment. You must get to the mystery of human personality. What is the line of the story that leads us to a point where we see or intuit something we haven’t before?” John L’Heureux
I love this because it is the mysteries of life that intrigues most of us and to add the dimension of the mystery of the human personality makes for a good read. People often ask me, “Why did you buy a sailboat when you didn’t even know how to sail?” or “How did you find the courage to take off alone in the Pacific for all those years?” I always have trouble coming up with answers to these kinds of questions. It’s sort of like the question mountaineers get, like, “Why did you climb Mt. Everest?” There’s something in the human personality that encourages a person to live by or rather to thrive on the challenges that confront them. Speaking strictly for myself,sometimes, I have to create challenges so I won’t feel like I am half-dead. To feel real? to feel scared? to feel happy? to feel threatened? to feel amazed? Who knows the answer, but fitting into my writing a sneak-peak into a person’s raison d’etre sometimes provides a hint at what the questions might be but seldom the answers are there until the book is finished and sometimes not even then. I guess the climber would say, “Because Everest was there.” I guess I would say, “Because the Pacific was there.” I always like to say adventure is in my DNA…my father was an adventurer, my mother was one. And so I am one. My twin brother was one when he was young but then he spent time in Vietnam in charge of the little boats going up and down the Mekong Delta with supplies…I think that devoured most of his adventurous spirit. Every so often, when least expected, his old distinctive twinkle slips out, but now its mostly a “steak and mashed potatoes” life for him.