On the Trail 1: Travel led to writing.

“There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind… aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores.” 

Matsuo Basho (Japanese Poet-Pilgrim)
The Art of Pilgrimage
By Phil Cousineau (c. 1998)

Looking back to 1999 and a broken relationship, I escaped with only one desire. To travel. So whether I got one day off work, one week or one month, I jumped in a car, on a plane or bus and left town. Traveling alone, I found myself reading and writing constantly. A backpack with books and journals were my closest friends. They became my confidant, my sounding board, my support system. I even developed an emotional attachment to them.  

Somewhere around 2003 I ran into a guy at a local coffee shop in Dallas who was writing a book… and he was a talker. Since I was a listener, I would sit with him out on the patio for hours early on Saturday mornings. 

Out of those impromptu meetings the seeds of a book formed in my mind. The constant travel stimulated the ideas for characters and stories and locations. 

I scribbled these ideas down on every conceivable writing papyrus I had close by: match book covers, trashed paper on the ground, pieces of a coffee cup or napkin. I saved these hieroglyphics and boxed them away.

Finally, after harsh prodding from my coffee shop author-friend: “Mark, you’ve been talking about this for years… Write the *#@!-- $@%!* BOOK!” So I sat down and began the PROCESS of writing. 

That was September 2017. Three years later, I had a completed… edited… illustrated book:  Drifter on the Texas Trail (c. 2020).