Started something new yesterday. I want to follow up a commission to write several articles for a running magazine that has published my photos and my writing in the past. I am honored and slightly sheepish (read nervous) that I can submit an idea without a whole lot behind it and the editor says “Fine Michael, we’re in.” In my head I hear “don’t screw it up, jackass, you know like when… and then I shut my head off and try to figure out what’s next.

The idea is contained within the Grand Slam of Ultra Running, a four event series of 100 mile races. My idea is to cover the runners in words and photos as they set out to accomplish something that has been completed 266 times since 1980. In the same time period, 3500 people have summitted Everest. This is not easy for them nor will it be easy for me.

The built in difficulty is traveling to the events that I will cover. In a word, money. So after figuring out, with the editor, that sponsorship would compromise the integrity of the pieces, I came up with idea that maybe, in an expanded version, the articles were the foundation of a book. Books need publishers, authors need publishers for their book so that the publishers can spend money on travel for said author and like that.

Hmm.

Kickstarter, is a “crowd funding” entity that provides a means by which someone can make a proposal for investment money with the ultimate goal of getting something unique put together; something that traditional lenders are not allowed to touch. The payoff? I write a book and the the investors get a signed copy and photographic images from the book. Seems dead simple, except for the fact that while I was putting it together I kept on thinking, “who in their right mind wants to pay that kind of money to read something that I write?” “Shut up” says I to me. “Just keep writing.”

In truth I am nervous about this. It means stepping out from behind the lens in a community of extra ordinary athletes and working with them without the comfort zone of anonymity that a camera presents. Am I worthy of this? Will I make a fool of myself? Again? My legitimacy rests only on my work, no longer on my running times, my workouts, my medals; my long run time over distance is more about staying present and doing my work. “What, me worry?” Yup and it is only 8:00AM.

So here it is. Time to step up. Suit up and show up. My time.

Photo Credits

Photos are © Michael Lebowitz – All Rights Reserved