At least that’s the case with lyrics. And the untold story of the first draft is that it may have very well been preceded with an audio dictation. Really, writing is about getting your thoughts down, and refining. You know a draft is really coming to shape when the words on the paper talk back to you and tell you what to change, or what needs to be added, shortened or otherwise rearranged. People often mistake writing as a product. And just to be clear it is most definitely that, but more even more so and most of all it’s a process. Some may even say an art.
That’s right: the internet and smart phone conquered everything in its sights — toppling towering institutions great and small and causing previous untouchable traditions to go extinct (e.g. “paper” newspaper reading, the yellow pages, books, handwritten letters, and too many hobbies to count), to the point it has us all scratching our heads on how we managed without the internet and smart phone at all — with the exception of one giant category that to this day the Tech Titans cannot touch: The sense of smell!
And thank God. Smell is doing as good as ever and maybe better than ever before thanks to its inability to be digitally recreated or imitated or faked. Until now: Find out from Nose (above) about his plan to capture his fair share of the internet pie.
“Nobody knows you’re a dog on the internet” – Peter Steiner from The New Yorker, 1993
Side note: Do you remember the old Peter Steiner’s cartoon in the New Yorker, which if you can believe it dates back to 1993. Well, the corollary is this: If dogs actually invented the internet, it would be smell (not sight) based. Just a theory.
Let’s just say one thing led to another, led to another, led to another until we were too deep in to turn around. By we, I mean Rudi and me. The year was 2014. We were around a campfire celebrating the 40th birthday of Big Cypress National Preserve. Looking back, that was the original campfire, our original campfire, and from which everything that came after took root. First our campfire talks where we went “old school” and ditched the Power Point that Ranger Rudi would have otherwise used had I not suggested we collaborate, just him, me and my guitar and a script that kept the audience guessing at every turn. The occasion was the 100th birthday of America’s national parks, rapidly approaching in 2016. Twelve campfire talks later, we’d done our job — with the caveat we wanted to do more. And so the idea for a book was born.
Eight months into writing the novel, which we tentatively entitled The Legend of Campfire Charlie, I informed Rudi that we had too much material, and that the only solution was to turn it into a trilogy. Thus, what started as a half-hour campfire talk turned into a 6-year writing odyssey. Not that I didn’t enjoy the process, I did. In fact, it was a diversion that kept my mind spinning, and helped me refine and expand my writing process. The first book we published in 2016 in time for the 100th birthday, if also not to much fanfare. Not that I cared. There were still two more books to write. By 2020 the trilogy was done, with a twist: the books needed a home. And so the idea for the Campfire Park website was born. Rudi and I were less interested in hawking the books than continuing the conversation around the campfire, just like the “original campfire” where the entire project came to life.
Spoiler alert: The trilogy is great, and I recommend all three books. But an abridged version of all three books is on the way. At the end of the day, even if it takes decade, I’d like to think and always want to be remembered as a finisher — somebody who set out to on a great journey and got to the finishing point.
Oh, and about the roll out of the soon-to-be-released abridged book. It should be just in time for the 50th Anniversary of Big Cypress National Preserve in November 2024. Actually, the abridged version should be out before then.
