Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: writing (Page 11 of 23)

The Mountains Are Calling and I Must Go.

May 27, 2014 / / 4 Comments

Image courtesy of  http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/matthes/john_muir_glacial_theory.html

John Muir is one of my favorites. He was an amazing conservationist and lover of nature. He was also filled with quotes that resonate with me.  Probably my most favorite is the title of this post, “The Mountains are Calling and I Must go.”   Whatever it was he meant by this, it is part of me.  Much like the title to Irving Stones book “Men to Match My Mountains.”  The book is about westward expansion and an interesting read but the title is magical.

Just in case you couldn’t tell, I love the mountains.  I have posts about fishing and there will be more about the outdoors and being in them.  John Muir may be famous for the mountains of Yosemite in California but the Wasatch mountains here in Utah call to me.

I have been spending time in the mountains since I could walk.  I have grown up (partially) in tents and surrounded by trees.  There is a certain peace and awe that you can get in the mountains that you can get nowhere else.

In the most excellent and in my top 3 movies of all time is the film, “Jeremiah Johnson”.  It’s the story of a man who left civilization in the early 1800’s for the mountains.  He left to get away from the politics and city life and make his fortune as a trapper.  I have always wished it could be more of a tutorial than just a movie, but I like my computer too much.  One of the characters in the film has a line, “You can’t cheat the mountain.  Mountain’s got its own ways.”  I think of that every single time I am in the mountains and I am trying to manipulate my environment.  The mountain will make me conform, no matter what I throw at it, in the long run, the Mountain will prevail.

A long introduction to get to this, I can see the mountains from my front door, but they are 20 miles away.  If I think of my blog as a mountain, it is right here at my desk.  My Blog is calling and I must go.  I am sure my wife loves that.  “Not right now, I have to write” is not as eloquent a quote but nonetheless true.  There are obstacles to climb when getting a blog up and running.  There are ways that I want to do things but can’t; forced to conform with HTML code and PHP limitations.

As a blogger I am heading out into a mysterious and only partially explored territory.  Like the mountains in 1800 there is not much known to the general public about blogging.   The term is out there.  The basic idea is in most peoples heads, but few know the intricacies and the path to blogging success.

I am not interested in climbing mountains to reach the summit.  There are too few places to fish up there.  I am looking to get to the top of the blogging mountain though.  I have been running for 2 solid months now and the ever elusive 3rd month is dwindling fast.  That third month is not the summit though, it is just a plateau with a little shop that sells water and local flies.  Wait that is the real mountain, my plateau sells e-books.

My blog is calling and I must go should be on a t-shirt.  Nobody steal that there may be shirts at that plateau shop as well.  My blog is calling and I must go is kind of a mantra that has been in the back of my head while the Mountains are in the front.  My blog is a huge deal to me right now.  I am nurturing and growing it fairly well and I can only hope that it will grow and strengthen to a point where it is as solid and timeless as one of those mountians.

The Mountains are Calling and I must go.  I have Cabin Fever like crazy right now, If it wasn’t so snowy, I think I would be up there tomorrow.  What is really going to be interesting is what kind of posts I end up with from spending time in the mountains with only my digital recorder…

Later!

Do you eat the dirty cheese or just post it?

May 27, 2014 / / 4 Comments

The other day I was cooking hamburgers on the BBQ grill.  Nothing new, I do it all of the time.  I finally get to the end of the process, the time to add cheese.  Me being me, I fumbled one of the pieces of cheese.  I could only stand there and look at that Kraft Single lying there on the ground in front of the grill.  I bent down and picked up the cheese.  As I looked at it, and noticed the bits of dirt and rocks that were on the cheese I had an idea for a blog post.

It is pathetic but I thought “Is it better to just brush off the dirt or go back inside and get a new piece?”  And then, “Hey that would be a good blog post.”  Sad, but I guess it shows my commitment to my blog now.

It didn’t take me very long to toss that piece of cheese and get a new one, but if that was my last piece I would have brushed that sucker off and ate it.

With that mindset I started thinking about blog posts.  If you have a crappy post, do you brush it off and rewrite it or do you scrap it altogether and write a new one.  My thought is that it depends on the post.  I realize that is a cop out but I think there are posts that just need to be scrapped and those that can be resurrected with a good rewrite.

There are posts that all of us have in both categories.  I think that the hardest thing to do is to decide which posts need to be scrapped.  Almost any post can be rewritten and fixed.  I can only hope that any of the posts that I have published up to now are not in that need to be scrapped pile.

What do you all think?  Are there posts in your published file that need to be redone?  I have read many things that advocate revisiting posts that need rewriting, I know I have at least one.  Just don’t change your permalinks.

Any thoughts?  Please comment below!  Also I have started a newsletter!  Please sign up here if you are interested!

Fiction Saturday tomorrow!  Have a great weekend!

Justin

PS the cheeseburgers were fantastic….

Poetry Tuesday: My Orchard

May 27, 2014 / / 6 Comments

I know I teased one of my Grandfathers poems last week but I couldn’t find one…Until now!  It took me a while.  That opening sentence sounds like one of those squeeze pages I have been reading so many of lately.  But this poem is free.

My Grandfather was a dairy farmer and he liked to compose poems while milking his cows.  Most of his poems are about the things in his life and they were an influence on me.  He was a good man who worked hard and I figured if he could write poetry then I could as well.

My Orchard

By: J. Emerson Staples

I love to sit out in the Orchard just at the close of day,

And watch the sun as it slowly sinks behind those hills so far away.

The shadows they have come and gone,

Stretching from tree to tree,

Then I know that darkness is coming,

And will soon come and cover me.

Then the moon comes peeking through those trees

Lighting up the Orchard so its beauty I can see.

The fragrance of those blossoms

Is whisked to me upon the gentle canyon breeze.

And I know that on the morrow

Each blossom will be visited by those busy buzzing bees.

Then I look into the future, what a glorious sight to see,

Those trees loaded with sweet, juicy apples

Just waiting there for you and me.

I am thankful God created orchards

Even if it’s only one for me,

So I can sit out there and ponder

And thank him for the many, many blessings that he has given me.

Until next week, Have a great one and thanks for reading.

-Justin

Maybe You Should Just Give Up and Write!

May 27, 2014 / / 4 Comments

First of all, Happy St. Patricks Day!  This is a great holiday for people to enjoy some good music and some fun, all dressed in green.  If you need a soundtrack, head on over to my buddy Marc Gunn’s site at www.marcgunn.com.  He has tons and tons of great Irish and Celtic music as well as podcasts and free MP3’s!  I have enjoyed his stuff for years now.  And if you see him, tell him Happy Birthday, it is today as well!

Now for a blog post:

If you are a blogger your main objective is to write.  Or rather it Should be your main objective.  When we get wrapped up in site design and monetization schemes we have to focus on the writing.

I had a thought that maybe there is cause to give up even on the computer and write.  I mean actual pen to paper writing.  And not necessarily blog posts either.  How about some bad poetry, or a short story about a leprechaun with a bad attitude and blister on his foot.

I don’t write on paper as much anymore, typing it in has taken over.  And who wants to transcribe all of that???  Sometimes I think it can be a great exercise.  I do tend to take it one step further though.

My dad is the artist, I didn’t inherit anything in that realm.  He was always into Calligraphy as well as drawing and painting.  I tried in vain to do any calligraphy and it was beyond me.  I did however gain an unhealthy fascination with the tools that people used to write with.

I have mentioned before how I would love to head back to 1800 and become a mountain man.  I love that whole era.  I have made some of my own clothes based on “patterns” (you have to make up the actual pattern) from that era.  I also love the pens that were beginning to be manufactured then.  Not the quill pens, those are hard to use, but the steel nibbed ones.  They are so much fun to write with.  You just have to be careful not to spill a bottle of ink on the carpet.  It doesn’t come out and you will be grounded for weeks.

Anyway, Old style dip pens are great fun otherwise.  There are different styles and types that look different when you write with them.  Those types of pens can be impractical for everyday use.  Thank goodness someone figured out how to put ink reservoirs into a pen and came up with fountain pens.

Fountain pens are way cool.  They are classic reminders of the early 20th century for me.  They have a certain charm and mystique because people just dont use them as much any more.

Now this is not for a slightly older generation, as fountain pens were still very popular in the 60’s.  As for my generation, I started writing around 1980 and the only pens I ever knew growing up were Bic ball points.

Why use a fountain pen?  Besides it is cool and will make people jealous of the level of cool you have acheived (very close to that of Steve McQueen), they are easy to write with and leave letters full of thick and thin lines that are almost art in themselves; just from the nature of the mechanism.  A ballpoint is always the same.

There are some very cheap fountain pens out there now so you could pick one up and try it for yourself.  Grab one and write a note to your sweetheart.  If you are really cool, seal it with sealing wax.  That is another post.  Go out and DO something a bit different, write like your grandfather did.

Any thoughts?  That comment section below is waiting for you!  Also, please don’t for get to sign up for my newsletter! First edition goes out when the Leprechauns are finished with it this afternoon!

Justin

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