- Published in:
- Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine
- Publication date:
- June 2009
“Cold Trail Blazing” came together from two places. The first was my own experience of trekking in the Annapurna Sanctuary in 2003. Like Lydia, I spent several days hiking up to the base camp, and was struck by two things: the amazing beauty of the landscape, and the meditative state of mind you can get into as you trek.
When I thought about the journey as a frame for a story it fitted perfectly. Not only does the trek have a natural beginning, middle, and end, there’s also a nice progression of the environment as you climb–from a patchwork of fields at the start to a stark, snowy, winterland by the end. Surely there’s some thematic mileage in there I thought!
The second major element of the story came from the physical concept of entanglement (pairs of fundamental particles will influence each other even when separated non-locally). I just loved the parallel literary idea that we can never fully escape our pasts–that the people and events that crossed our paths not only influenced us at the time, but continue to influence us today. From there it was an easy step to encapsulate that idea as someone returning to a place and encountering echoes–or ghosts!
Making the entanglement between two lovers felt a natural choice because there are few relationships that we experience that are as powerful–and potentially painful–as this one. I guess, ultimately the story is about about moving on from a relationship that has gone past it’s sell-by date. Something most of us can relate to, I think. I know I certainly can. One last thing. I’d like to mention that the story went through the Critters workshop, from where I got a lot of helpful advice. I’d thoroughly recommend using the site if you’re a new writer who needs some feedback on a story.
