Fog & Writing Goals
My Writing Journey Part 10
A foggy Saturday at the local soccer fields.
I have an annual job to photograph junior teams for a local soccer club.
Over several Saturday mornings in the middle of winter you’ll find me at their grounds. Organizing players into height order for the team photos and then taking individual pictures before their home games.
All four of my kids played soccer at some point. There were early morning starts and then… relief when they were older and playing later in the day.
A Foggy Saturday…
One recent Saturday, it was a foggy start to the morning. Not good when you need to take photographs. From where I was standing near the main field of play, it was hard to see the goal at the other end of the pitch.
I knew where it should be, but the conditions made it difficult to see the end goal. The hard-working volunteers were busy putting out markers and corner flags, barely visible.
Can you see the faint outline of the goal net on the right hand side of the photo about a third of the way from the bottom?
My photo location is usually down behind one of the the goal posts. But at that hour of the morning it wasn’t feasible to take pictures there so I had to find alternative. I walked across the field. Once I was in the fog, it wasn’t as thick as it seemed from my earlier vantage point. The mist seemed to recede from around me and the end goal became easier to see.
By kick off time, for the first game, the fog had lifted. It turned out to be a glorious winter’s day here in Brisbane.
Writing Journey Comparisons…
Later I got to thinking it was a lot like my writing journey. I had a vague idea that I’d like to write a book. But once I got started, it seemed like the goal I was heading to, had disappeared into a thick fog somewhere. I couldn’t see it from where I was. And I wasn’t sure how to find my way there. Every so often I’d find a marker left by someone else. But in the end I realized I had to get into the fog and figure out for myself how find the goal at the other end. It can be disorientating at times not knowing which way to go.
Sometimes it gets overwhelming but I just need to focus on the here and now. Right in front of me where the fog has dissipated a little. Sometime life and circumstances, like the fog, obscures the writing directions I take. But I need to take heart that the fog will eventually lift.