Western Longings - Hemingway, ALO, and the West on Paper.

Maybe it was all that Hugo that read, maybe it was the snow-laiden streets of Bloomington, or maybe it was just the passage of time, but I've been trapped in this feeling of longing for the West all week. All this industrial haze must get on the individual's nerves after awhile. I've managed to turn the longing into some positive work, but aside the novella for a couple of weeks to crank out some workshop short fiction. Oh, Bozeman how will you fare in the workshop environs of the midwest?

I always use music to drive my craft and as such I've turned to the appropriate "jam" pieces that really highlighted my western migration. My most recent piece, set along Bozeman's mainstreet, is being design with the rhythms of the Grateful Dead and Animal Liberation Orchestra. That smooth gliding funk of certain songs really help to conjure up the way light plays off the mountains of Montana. You don't work at a ski hill (I stray from the term resort of a reason) and not become at least partially inspired by the beauty you see every day. Hence the title "Light upon the Bridgers."

I've been readng Larry Philips collection "Ernest Hemingway on Writing," and it has been at least somewhat enlightening. There is a comment that Ernie wrote to someone in his family about the secret of fiction being poetry. The greatest distiller of the language of prose fiction clearly sees the merging point of the two genres. Creativity is creativity, and without the beauty of concrete metaphors and similies what is writing but threadbare newsprint? I'll leave that yo journalists.

All things being what they are, I'll leave this posting with a little Animal Liberation Orchestra. May all your western dreams burn brightly and winter recede quickly under spring's growing fingers.