Hello to all! Did you have a fun holiday weekend? Did you
have a holiday weekend at all? I know that assumes a location and lifestyle
that may not be true. Nevertheless, Arizona and I did just have a four-day
weekend, and as I managed to turn in my manuscript the day before (yay!), we
got to kick back together and enjoy some truly excellent July hot-and-humid.
(Oops, just typo’d that as ‘hot-and-human,’ which really isn’t what I’m going
for here, though us humans got plenty hot at times.) And during this
mini-vacation, we hooked up YellowBoat and went fishing.
YellowBoat is a small aluminum craft that Arizona’s parents
bought in the 80s. Registered at various points in Arizona, the Carolinas, New
York and now Connecticut, I suspect he could tell some tales. However, although
we have been the current custodians of YellowBoat for three summers now, we
haven’t done much with him … until yesterday when, freshly power washed and
wearing his new CT registration stickers on his bow, he took to the seas once
more for some near-shore action.
And, as we tried various methods to entice the too-smart
fish, from trolling to dragging to casting with a variety of lures ranging from
“I would totally wear that as an earring” to “ewugh, what is that supposed to be?” and Arizona took
to commenting, “That’s why we call it ‘fishing’ and not ‘catching,’” I got to
thinking that it all felt very familiar.
Casting a rubbery green minnow toward the bank, reeling it
in, and throwing it out again … That’s totally like sending a proposal to my
editor. Will she like this one more than the others on her desk? Will she snap
this one up, or will it be the next, or the one after that?
Dropping a weighted fake shrimpy-thing over the side and
leaving it on the bottom while the boat drifts … that’s like writing the book.
Will it work today, or will the words come slowly or not at all, stuck
somewhere on a mental lobster pot deep below the surface?
Trolling with a bright green spoon that twirls and shimmies
at the surface far behind YellowBoat … That’s like sending a new book out into
the world—will I hook the readers? Will they buy up the copies or lie in wait
to see if someone else tries it first?
The life of an author, rather like fishing, is a whole lot
of prep-and-execution time interspersed with highs (fish on!) and lows (did I
mention I caught a boat? oops. sorry about that lure you’ve had since high
school). But if there’s one thing I can take home from fishing with Arizona,
it’s that when there’s little guarantee of huge success on a given day, you
just gotta enjoy the process.
So how about you? Do you prefer a hobby (or career!) where
the harder you work the better you get, or do you like something that also has
an element of lightning-strike luck to it, too?
My luck fishing ended when my grandfather gave me a spinning rod and reel as a gift. My absolutely favorite lure was the Hula Popper. I loved flinging that baby out into the lake, reeling it back in and giving it a jerk from time to time to hear the "pop!" A splendid time was had by all, including the fish who had the good sense to hear the manic popping and swim off elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteLOL! That's a great memory, Rhonda :) One of my favorites was catching the world's smallest trout using a fly I had tied from my mother's feather duster. High tech, that!
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