Visitor put up by Sunnye Collins.
Sunnye’s been part of our Tadpole neighborhood for years. After a pal inspired her to contemplate writing contests, she went down a wormhole (as one does) and located our lit magazine and Group Write-Ins. Bolstered by our welcoming vibe, she entered our 100-word contest in November 2024 and landed on the shortlist. She saved studying our lit mags and signing up for our write-ins. And she or he saved sharing her work in our contests, most just lately incomes third place in April 2025.
I’m an lively gal. All the time have been. Since transferring to South Africa from Boston in 2013, I’ve found many pleased locations right here. One among them is a mountain. Any mountain actually. I’m not persnickety. I simply love a superb mountain.
On the Southern tip of the African continent sits the Western Cape. And right here within the small village of Greyton, we’re nestled within the sandstone embrace of the Riviersonderend Mountains, so there are many them to select from.
There’s one thing about working up and down and round mountains that feels very historic and elemental. I’ve heard some folks consult with Nature as church. For me it appears like I’m in a lifelong mentorship program. As a result of I’ve been writing since I may kind letters and rainbows on building paper, the mountain is each mentor and muse. And although I’m nonetheless simply an apprentice, I humbly share only a few nuggets this mentorship has taught me because it pertains to writing and placing it out on the earth.
Lesson #1: Cross the River
As I exit my driveway, I take precisely 165 steps to get to the sting of the river (additionally a mentor and muse). Often, I can get throughout the rocky riverbed with out getting moist or tweaking an ankle, however crossing the river is totally different each time. Typically it’s a breeze, typically it’s difficult. But when I don’t cross, I don’t get to the mountain.
This lesson, although fundamental, is a crucial one. I can’t anticipate to share and publish my work if I don’t … share and publish my work. Coming into the Tadpole Press 100-Phrase Writing Contest for the primary time in 2023 was my first try at crossing the river of excuses and self-doubt. And since then, I’ve crossed the Tadpole river 4 occasions!
Haruki Murukami wakes up at 4:00 within the morning to put in writing. Judy Blume sees the primary draft as “pure torture.” David Sedaris journals each day, it doesn’t matter what. Anne Lamott likened the clean web page to “an unassaulted ice floe.” When you ask path runners how they really feel about hills, most will take a look at you as if you happen to simply farted in a sauna. I typically make the identical face on the empty web page.
I’m within the means of rewiring my mind round hills and clean pages. I’m not combating them. I’m not dreading them. I’m leaning in. I’m hugging. I’m surrendering to, not retreating from them.
Lesson #3: Learn After Burning
The mountains listed below are bedazzled in pyrophilous floral robes stitched with 1000’s of fynbos species discovered nowhere else on the earth. And identical to Katniss Everdeen in Catching Fireplace, their frocks burn, reseed, and begin anew.
Final December, your entire mountain burned for five days. Many can’t bear to stroll in a just lately burned place as a result of it feels too wounding and uncooked. However I couldn’t keep away. I needed to see the moon-scaped mountain, gray and stubbly. I needed to learn the brand new tales and uncover a perspective I actually couldn’t see earlier than. I used to be capable of stroll in beforehand inaccessible spots. I watched the place the water gathered, the place the birds recalibrated, the place the seeds dispersed.
In my writing, I can get so caught on how I believe issues needs to be. So when that occurs, I think about it burning proper up off the web page. I open one other doc or flip the web page in my writing journal and begin one thing new. And infrequently, once I return to an previous caught story, I’m capable of see it in a totally totally different manner and forge a brand new path.
Lesson #4: Recover from Your self
This stays one of many hardest expertise for me to grasp. I’m a developmental editor and once I write, the compulsion to edit as I’m going is usually crippling. It’s like making an attempt to run on a freshly burned mountain path and stopping to wipe off the ash I kick up with each step. If I did this on a run, it will take me all day to do my 5K loop.
In my writing life, I’ve been sitting on a e book half written since 2020 as a result of my writing self has not but managed to recover from my modifying self. Moreover, I used to be honored to obtain third place within the April 2025 Tadpoler. My prize was a publishing package deal with Compassiviste. Have I submitted something but? No. Why? As a result of it isn’t excellent. I ponder if their award was a mistake. Self-sabotage, imposter syndrome, no matter you wish to name it, I’ve acquired it. As Johanna Craven at Compassiviste jogged my memory, the sensation may by no means go away.
So what I typically say to myself as an athlete is, “Be scared and do it anyway.” So right here I’m, as a author, being scared and doing it anyway … 100 phrases at a time … twice a yr. Anybody else care to hitch?
