Camping

Camping season is close upon us.  Yes I know that there are still inches, if not feet of snow in some parts, but the little signs are starting pop up.  The occasional Robin, brave Crocus, and a certain feel to the air - when it is not frozen.

I thought I would share an essay - it is part of a larger work of essays about outdoor adventure:  Blackflies in Heaven and Mosquitoes in Paradise.  The essay that carries that title is in the Short Story and Essay link.

A Small Post

I have gotten some good feed back on the artwork.  It seems like Blackpowder Woodsman" (first version) is a common choice.  Thanks to those that have let me know.

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Cover Art

I have looked into the licensing for the cover art by Randy Steele and it is very reasonable.  I have found a couple more that would make good covers.  They are both of the same person, but different versions.  I would love to have input from you as to which one you like most.  

Number one is "Blackpowder Woodsman":





Here is the second version:



Click on the above images for larger views.

Nice Woodsmen Art

While working on ideas for covers, both for print and electronic versions of John: The making of a LongHunter, I was trying to use some pictures I took several years ago in the Cumberland Gap area.  One I wanted to use was is the one to the left. It made a nice cover except it was taken with a fairly early digital camera that only could do 200 dpi.  Well the lowest anyone will take for cover art is 300 dpt so I was at square one.  I surfed a bit and found Randy Steele who advertises himself as a digital artists.  His work has some very good representations of the woodsmen and hunters of the era.  Nicely he provides links to embed in blogs and such, so here are a few that struck my eye.

The first is one that I am considering trying to get rights to so I can use it as the cover of the first John book. I think it gives a nice setting to the whole series.



 The second print that struck my eye was the very image of Ruben, John's hunting partner in John: FromLonghunter to Longknife




 And finally a portrait that would be a fine way to think of John himself.



If you would like to see more of his work go to Randy Steele.  I am going to email him to see how much it would cost to get permissions.  Wish me luck

You are What Your Were When

Dr. Morris Massey describes the times in our lives that had an impact on who we became.  He has published a series of materials on You are What You Were When.  Massey calls certain periods in a child's life as "self-programming periods" during which young people develop their values systems.  He lists three periods:

1. The Imprint Period, which occurs from birth until age 7.
2. The Modelling Period which occurs from age 8 until 13; and
3. The Socializing Period from ages 14 to 21.

 One of the seminal times in my life revolved around a very short time during which my family lived on a large ranch in Eastern Oregon. It is the ranch that author William Kittredge wrote about in Owning it All.  In fact Kittredge's family lived in the house next to ours.   I was in first and second grade, falling at the transition between Imprint and Modelling in Massey's scheme of things. In many ways the ranch was an echo of the late 1800's with cowboys taking the cattle out on the vast range, the open untamed nature of the land, and, to a seven-year-old the definition of beauty.

I have put a short story titled Mother's Day in the page devoted to sample short stories here in the blog.  It is somewhat dark, but reflects the setting and some of the innate savagery that existed in the ranch environment of the times.  The story is from a collection inspired by my memories from those short years and will eventually be compiled with the tentative title - what else - You Are What Your Were When.

I know I am going to have to find a better way to handle the posting of shorts stories and excerpts.  Otherwise folks will have to scroll down the page until the find what I'm posting.  The secondary pages do not index well, if at all.  So, I will work on that problem... later.

Tea in Colonial America

The project that has my attention is set in pre-revolutionary Colonial America.  I am planning a trilogy focusing on the life of an ordinary man of the times from Maryland.  The first novel is -  John: the making of a Longhunter.  In that story we follow John from a child until he about 23, going through the coming of age, danger, love, conflict, success and failure.  As the title implies he goes through experiences and develops the skills to become one of the legendary Longhunters that opened up the western frontier of the times.

During the telling of his story, I often write that he stopped to rest and brewed tea.  He had tea at supper and for breakfast as well.  What is it with all this tea drinking?  Tea was a very popular and essential drink in Colonial America. In the late 1600's tea was very expensive in the colonies but be the mid 1700's is was the predominant drink.  Chocolate and coffee were popular with the French Americans, but tea was the drink of choice.  By 1768 the colonials were consuming about two million pounds of tea per year. Tea drinking fell off dramatically after the Boston Tea Party and the anger that the colonists felt toward King George and his tax.  Coffee started to become the replacement drink and, as one source put it that the "rebellion is undoubtedly responsible for America becoming a nation of coffee drinkers instead of tea drinkers."

The Longhunter story takes place between 1745 and 1768 placing it at the height of tea consumption. The Longhunters often carried tea as their drink of choice, although many also consumed a coffee made from chicory root and the"black drink" of the Indians made from the Yaupon Holly leaves.  

Two important varieties of tea were used during the time-frame of the books: Gunpowder Tea, a green tea where the leaves are rolled into little balls that resemble course black powder, and Bohea Tea (pronounced boo-hee) which was the most popular.  It was made of the scrap tea, broken orange pekoe, pekoe, and souchong dumped In a pile and then sifted.  

John drinks mostly Gunpowder tea which you can still buy to this day. Brew yourself a pot and taste what John had on the trail. Don't forget a good tea strainer since those little balls unroll when it is brewed!

Flash Literature

One very interesting genre of writing is Flash Literature.  It is minimalist composition that incorporates the necessary components of the particular piece written - fiction, essay, poetry, and so forth.  Part of the story might be implied so that the reader "fills in" the background, history, and setting.  Probably the most famous Flash Story is Hemingway's six word story:

"For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."

 ( here if you would like to read further discussion about Hemingway's story and interpretation)

Definitions of Flash Literature abound on the net.  In fact there are entire sites devoted to the subject such as FlashFiction.net.  Another writer who has a good explanation is Adam Maxwell.  I will not try to duplicate their explanations or discussions, but merely describe how and why I write in the area of Flash Literature.

Probably the first reason I write in the genre is the challenge of putting an entire concept in a small space.  In the age of Twitter, there is a niche of writing named appropriately Twitter Fiction, limited to the 120 characters available.  So far that is a bit short for me, but I do try to break the 500 word mark.

The second reason is related - it is a good form of writing discipline.  The process makes the writer aware of any superfluous words (in my case WAY to many of the articles).  Finally, they are fun to write.

I put some examples of my Flash Essays on the Flash Literature page.

I got the short story The Trouble with Orthography put on the Short Story page.  It is a short humorous blurb that was a hoot to write.  I will occasionally put bits up for folks to read. Hope you enjoy.

Today has been a day of figuring out the way to have the blog and Facebook work together.  I was just going to do a couple of things and then get to writin'.  So much for that - but I did get a feeling for how to do this blog and start to do some promotional stuff.  

With the blossoming of independent authors and publishing, the author must spend time hawking his or her wares.  In reading about the process, many of the authors have said that they spend several hours a week on promotion.  There is a inherent struggle with wanting to sit and write and the need to make sure people know that you have tales to tell, and convincing them that they can not make it through a day without gathering your golden prose about them.  So each day becomes a balancing act.

Along with that is the necessity to get out and do some blacksmithing and iron work to make some here-and-now money.  Sleep may become an optional activity (except, of course for the 3PM nap).

Adding my voice to the multitude of writing blogs provides an opportunity to express my feelings and insights while I work on completing my writing projects.  You have heard it all before - the solitary nature of the process, setting daily and long-term writing goals, and dealing with those days when one stares blankly at the wall, brain empty of all except the distracting negative thoughts.  Those days prompted the title of my blog.  

When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back.  

The blog posts will contain my thoughts and impressions on all of my writing projects as I work on them.  The pages listed on the right are devoted to the different projects.  At present I am working on the "John" series.  The first novel in the series John: the making of a Longhunter begins the story of a young man who   proceeds through the coming of age years in Colonial America.  We follow this process through triumph and tragedy, joy and sorrow, love and hate, alienation and reconciliation to his emergence as one of the legendary Longhunters who explored and exploited the frontier of the times.  That novel is essentially finished and I plan to have it available at all available e-books sources by July 2013.  

Currently I am working on two projecst simultaneously:  John: Longhunter to Longknife, the second novel in the John series and Education as Spiritual Initiative.  ESI is a compilation of essays dealing with the assertion that education is a spiritual or transcendent activity.  The book incorporates revisions of the previously published Education as Spiritual Enterprise expanded with to nearly three times the original length.  So I am working on novel-length fiction and essay-length non-fiction at the same time - well not exactly at the same time, but you know what I mean.

This blog will be fluid, changing in shape and perhaps purpose as I go along.  I hope you will join in the process and provide your own insights.