On the Line Sneak Preview

After eight months of baby-go-slow, where getting even a few hours of meaningful work done was a miracle, this week has finally seen me back to work, which means back to my top rope soloing book ‘On the Line’. With all the text done and quite a lot of diagrams, I’m now laying it out and adding the necessary illustrations as I go. I hope to get it off to the printers (well, print-on-demanders) within the next month or so, ideally before some new device appears on the market that requires amendments.

Laying out a book is always exciting, as it tricks you into thinking all the drudgery is over, the writing and editing and drawing, even though it’s not. I always joke that when you say you’re 90% there, the project is really only 10% done, not that any book project is ever finished. Book projects are like Freddie Kruger; just when you think you’ve finally killed them, they come back.

Like my book Down, this is a deep dive into a subject that generally only ever gets a passing mention, and like Down, in writing it, I hope to establish it as a subject in its own right. I also hope to save a few broken bones, and a life or two.

Although you’d imagine this a pretty dry subject, I found writing it highlighted a lot of things climbers should know, even if they don’t do top rope soloing, as the subject of rope grabs, and how they work or don’t, has some deep implications for rope climbing types. In fact, if I could have somehow found the bandwidth, this book would have become ‘Up’, a book about climbing ropes - but it didn’t, and this will just have to do for now.

I’ve included a bunch of screen grabs of the first few pages of the book below in order to get a sense of what On the Line is about. The book will be available on Amazon, and in shops, but I might kick it off with a Kickstarter thing first (even though it’s finished), just as it’s a good way to get the word out, not that I’m sure there’s even market for such book!