I AM OFTEN asked why it is I live where I live. Of all the places I could live - why. . . here?
The main photograph found on the home page of the web site should provide a measure of explanation.
But it may not, especially if you don't live where I live, and have not visited: The color picture on the main page of the web site - for those interested in such details - is of Longs Peak, which I took by way of 'the backyard'.
'The backyard' is thousands upon thousands of acres of nearly untouched land encompassing mountains, prairies, and almost everything else known - save an ocean or sea in between, and has less than four hundred miles of trails in total. (According to an unofficial study for every ten thousand acres of land in 'the backyard' there is barely one quarter of a mile of trail.)
I call 'the backyard' 'the backyard' because I can literally walk out the door of my home and, with a few steps, gain access to a trail that takes me to another trail, that takes me to another trail, that leads me to the summit of what some consider to be a mountain. (Around these parts a long-time local doesn't consider a mountain to be a mountain unless it has an above-sea-level elevation of at least ten thousand feet.)
I have not walked all the trails available to me in 'the backyard'. I know this to be fact: Some time ago, following a bout of puffery and bravado on my part meant to satisfy my otherwise nonexistent ego, I was given a handsome, leather-bound journal with one directive: Record the hikes I take, the mileage accomplished, and what I experienced in my journeys - eagles, mountain lions, snakes, bears, etc.
I dutifully do so. But such a record proves, through examination and subsequent revelation, at once humbling and somewhat depressing: Although I have accomplished much in the pursuit of this effort, a review of what I have done in relation to what can be done is undeniably discouraging: I will be very old at the journey's end, should I reach it.
Despite this exercise in deeping myself as a human being through humility I continue hiking because I find it serves a greater purpose: It is representational of Life itself - one foot in front of the other takes me where I want to be, with the occasion diversion allowed for guilty pleasures, self-serving indulgences, and the likes. It is an event unto itself that can only be experienced by me. And because it serves a purpose with regards to writing.
Yes: Hiking is connected to writing. Writing is like hiking in that it requires a specific sequence to realize an ultimate goal. With regards to writing you put forth one word at a time until you have reached the end of your intent, until you have reached your destination - the telling of a tale, specifically.
While you mull that notion over, and decide whether or not I've spent too much time in the wilderness or maybe I've had a sun stroke or am succumbing to delayed altitude sickness or I might actually have a valid point, allow me to continue:
On a regular basis people contact me to lament, complain, and generally whine about the state of writing nowadays, with many of these pissfests blaming the Internet for the state of things at hand.
While the Internet is to blame for some of the problems facing writing today I believe the majority of the problems facing writing today come from Writers themselves.
More than a few years ago the Writer Stephen King made a remark about the cult of personality, and how it was popular culture had gotten things wrong-way around: Instead of the work produced being of importance and significance it was the person who created it that was considered valuable.
Which, as King noted, was evidence something was seriously wrong in the world today.
Unfortunately, his remarks have proven more than just prophetic. The publishing industry at large, despite brief successes realized by J.K. Rowling and the likes, has taken a major hit in revenues over the past decade, and it is a concern complicated by the six- and seven-figure advances paid out to those whose writings - presumably - are bestselling efforts. Simply, when all is said and done, the publishing industry is awash in a sea of red and the overall quality of writing published has eroded dramatically.
Leading to an obvious question:
What do we do now? What can we do, what should we do to stem this rising red tide and the related ruin and waste associated with it?
Whenever I find myself in a less-than comfortable circumstance, and I need to do some heavy thinking, I go for a walk. A hike, really. The more serious the thinking required the longer and more physically demanding the hike.
Take note of the photograph on the home page of the web site, if you will, please. When you have do a search using the preferred search engine, looking for the recorded altitude of the summit of Longs Peak.
Now that's a mountain.
That's a mountain that involves some serious hiking, some serious thinking, and a willingness on one's part to risk life and limb to see what awaits at the top, the end of that particular journey.
Here's the thing: Of all the mountains in the State of Colorado Longs Peak is considered one of the lesser mountains because the highest mountain in the State of Colorado is Mt. Elbert, which has an recorded elevation of 14,433 feet above sea level.
I have hiked Longs Peak. I have hiked Mt. Elbert. At this point in my life I leave such pursuits to younger, tougher types whose fear and concern of death is muted by a belief of invincibility. At this point in my life I prefer hikes that are, relatively-speaking, much easier and safer.
But getting back to the concern, the question at hand: Writing and related affairs, and the state they are currently in, and what can be done to change the course they are on; a course of ruin and despair.
A few days ago - as I write this - I decided to go for a hike on a favorite trail. Because of demands on my time by way of deadlines and contractual obligations a shortcut of sorts was required: Instead of hiking to the trailhead I drove to a drive-out where I parked and then started my hike. The shortcut and the drive-out - a legal pursuit, incidentially - adds about a mile to the overall hike. But given the time constraints I had on me I decided I had to do what I did, and I wanted to get some serious thinking about the matter at hand done so I could focus on my responsibilities and reduce the burden of stress I often find myself under of late.
Over the years since I started hiking with a certain regularity I have developed something of a reputation: I'm the person you probably don't want to go hiking with. You probably don't want to take a journey with me in the form of a hike because I have a tendency to take my time. I stop now and then, make notes, take pictures, take a drink of water, make more notes, take more pictures, and let Nature embrace me in the form of deer, elk, bobcat, mountain lions, rabbits, coyotes, bears, and a snake or two. More than once, as I pause in my journey, I have become so still and quiet that deer, elk, bobcats, mountain lions, rabbits, coyotes, bears, and a snake or two have passed within a few feet of me - so close I can smell them and touch them, were I so inclinded to do so; and the only reason they become aware of me is because I have attempted to take their picture, and the soft click of the camera's lens opening and closing startles them into seeing me for what I am.
So I set off on my journey to do some thinking about writing because, as a Writer, I have a vested in the well-being of writing and publishing, and all things related, and I needed to do some serious thinking about what I needed to do as a Writer to change the course writing and publishing find themselves on presently.
The first two miles of this particular trail are what a tenderfoot would call 'ball-breaking': An elevation climb of more than two thousand feet over slippery rock faces and talon slopes by way of too many switchbacks to be enjoyable for most. Facts that may go to explain why so few people pursue this particular trail to its end, and why I like it: I can be alone with myself and my thoughts, and think clearly about what I need to think about.
After several stops to make notes and take pictures and catch my breath and consume half my water supply, I was to the. . . one-quarter mark. Barely. After two hours of putting one foot in front of the other I had managed to cover less than two miles of trail. As I sat down heavily on a granite upthrust brightened by a streak of rose-colored quartz a mountain blue bird landed on the branch of a nearby pine tree and chattered at me, at my intrusion into its world.
I watched it quietly as a river of salty sweat ran down my forehead, followed my eyebrow, and plunged downward, barely striking my chin before splattering on the front of my shirt. The blue bird gave no notice to this. It chattered at me once more, then fell silent, its attention turned to the fleas and mites it had.
I sighed, startling the bird into flight, and looked at my surroundings. About ten years ago the area was ravaged by a massive fire started because a moron illegally camping failed to put his illegal fire out, which, when aroused by a breeze, re-ignited. The fire was fierce and brutal and quick. Many of the trees torched were consumed so quickly by flame they did not completely burn through and the blackened corpses remained standing in the wake of the destruction, like damned souls forever condemned to existence on the earth. The uplift I sat on showed of damage as well. The heat of the fire actually melted some of the rock, especially where sand deposits once occurred. There are shards of what appear to be glass embedded between the granite and the quartz. Glass not pretty or beautiful in its creation, but ugly formations born of rage and fury, anger and madness.
Opposite the rock is more evidence of this insanity, this deliberate ruin and destruction: As the sand was heated by the fire and fused the heat, transferred to the granite rock surface, climbed, causing the newly minted glass to heat again and explode. A superficial glance to this apparent litter would lead to one believe this was a glass container thrown against the rock uplift, that had shattered and scattered in response. But an examination of the resulting debris proved this not to be true. There is no indication in the glass of a human presence. The glass has never been affected by the human touch.
Further consideration of the broken glass finds there is far too much of it to have been a glass container. It is everywhere where sand deposits once existed.
On a ridge less than a hundred yards from where I sat there stands a grove of trees, mostly pines, that had escaped the fire's sadistic actions. Curious as to how they could survive when all around them were killed and left to rot I left the designated trail and made my way to them.
The answer was not immediately apparent, but a bit of detective work on my part revealed the secret of their survival.
Time ago, when the ridge was formed through exposure and uplifts, unrelenting wind, rain, and probably a fire or two, soil deposits resulted between one rock face and another. Over time the soil deposits deepened, seed for grasses and plants collected, and a landscape of sorts was established. Over time the grasses and plants grew and died, making compost that added to the soil deposits, deepening them further. Seeds for trees, specifically pines, were dropped, brought by birds and winds, and the trees grew. But like the grasses and seeds, the trees grew and died, and added to the soil deposits ever growing in depth and richness.
Time passed. The ridge endured, as did the enviromental system between one rock face and another. Trees, plants, bushes, flowers, and grasses came and went. Some returned year after year while others existed once, never to be seen again.
Through time the ridge existed. The landscape on it existed. Then came the fire of almost a decade ago that threatened the ridge and the landscape on it. But just when it seemed the world on that ridge would destroyed something happened.
It wasn't destroyed. It remained. It survived. It continues to be.
How it accomplished this comes from the following: The ridge is a curious looking thing. It isn't a ridge in the tradition sense - it doesn't exist on a straight line axis: North to South, East to West, Northwest to Southeast. It isn't a line. It is more like a tower on a battlement, designed and constructed by Salvadore Dali, after a less-than enjoyable encounter with peapod wine. The only reason it could be considered a ridge is the perspective on it: Looked at from a lower elevation it appears to be a ridge. But this perception amounts to an illusion. Stand on it as I did and see what it actually is: An asymetical cup with a bowl, deep on one side, shallow on the other, with a broken lip that almost reaches from the top of the bowl to the bottom by way of a crack made where two rock faces fail to join the other. The crack is on the southwest side of the bowl, where the wind rarely comes, and because of this the growth within was able to establish and endure. Because of the positioning of the crack and the bowl the growth was protected from the fire almost a decade ago.
Simply this growth, this environment exists because it was determined to exist. It exists because it was stubborn and it refuses to succumb and submit to whatever Nature inflicted upon it in the form of earth, air, fire, and water.
Don't misunderstand: I am not suggesting a form of environmental Darwinism here. Such an explanation, a convenient human construct that comes of our flawed and insufficient understanding of the world around us, is an easy but likely inaccurate and incomplete rationale. But environmental Darwinism - the survival of the fittest - allows a glipse into the world as it actually is, and how we might apply that to our existence.
Specifically, as it relates to writing and publishing.
Writing and publishing find themselves in a place they should not be, and should have never been: Between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
It is an unpleasant position, but one that can be changed.
And should be changed.
And must be changed.
But to do so requires the one resource no one seems ready and willing to commit to nowadays: Time.
Look at the color photograph on the main page of the web site again. Every day when I get up and open the curtains I see that, and, in a moment, in less than a nanosecond, I know my place in the world, the comsos, and I understand far more than I might.
I am often asked why it is I live where I live. Of all the places I could live - why. . . here?
Because of that mountain and those that surround it. Because of that ridge I sought, saw, and climbed. Because of what they represent, on a scale and in a context almost beyond human comprehension.
Mountains, according to Freud, in their physical existence, tend to give rise to what he called an "oceanic" feeling - the sense that one is confronted with something vaster than vast, not bound by human scale, and quite possibly alive, if not sentient.
Each day, as I sit in my office, I can and do look out the window and see, in 'the backyard' Longs Peak, existence and evidence of the "oceanic" feeling. I can and do, watch the moods of the mountains change hour by hour, minute by minute, and understand my place, my role, my purpose in the world.
As it relates to writing and publishing.
A number of years ago, when the idea of writing for public consumption was nothing more than a romantic notion for me, I read an interview with an award-winning and acclaimed Writer now dead, in which he was asked what made for great writing.
I won't repeat what he said because I can't remember all of it accurately and because his use of colorful metaphoric phrases was such that he made Al Pacino's lines in Scarface look Shakespearean in comparison. Instead, a simple paraphrase: I don't know what great writing is. But I do know what makes for good writing: The willingness on the part of the Writer to supress himself - his ego - to the benefit of the writing resulting, the willingess without exception to dedicate himself to consistently producing good writing without expectation of praise and recognition, and the willingness to dedicate himself to a pursuit that may not be recognize in his lifetime.
To which I add: The willingness on the part of the Writer to undertake a journey without end, a journey that may lead to fulfillment and realization or a journey filled with suffering and pain, or both, because to do otherwise is not do what must be done to assure the creation of writing that will endure Time itself and transcend existence as we know it.
If you want to create good writing you know that what is said here is true. If you want to create good writing you will not accept an invitation to produce good writing. You will consider it a challenge before all others and respond accordingly: One word at a time, until the end is realized, protecting and sheltering as you go.
Accept this as true and you understand why I live where I do. Because here is where good writing comes from.