Brian Kindall's Blog, page 5

Outfoxing the Enemy

  As a boy, I read THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME by Richard Connell. This is a little thriller written in the 1920s. The villain is a big game hunter who has reached a point in his bloody career where he no longer finds regular animals satisfying prey. As a result, he has taken to hunting the most cunning animal he can find – Man. The hero of the story is the hunted. His job throughout the story is to outfox the villain.             I was thinking about Connell’s story this morning as I was putting

Burps and Yawps

  Here is a photo of where I work. Every morning I sit in that chair before that computer and write for four hours. I try to keep my workspace tidy. I’m not one of those writers needing a bunch of props and prompts hanging around. I don’t need little aphorisms pinned to my wall to remind me of what I am up to. A cluttered desk is a cluttered mind, I tell myself, and a cluttered mind is death to any writer who wants to write clearly. At least that’s how I feel about it. I’m sure there are plenty

Grotto Dreams

  Years ago I snapped this photo from the deck of a ferry traveling between the Greek islands of Folégandros and Sikonos. These two little Islands have surely been looked upon by countless sailors over the centuries. And yet, I doubt very many people have ever bothered to stop to see what these nameless islets have to offer. Maybe there are ancient secrets hidden in their rocks. Maybe there are artifacts – an old statue perhaps. Maybe sirens have called it home. Perhaps Poseidon himself has

Where the novel meets the sky...

 Below is a quote from the book NEIGE ET ROC (SNOW AND ROC). It was published in 1959 by the French alpinist Gaston Rébufatt. Rébufatt was as passionate as anyone could ever be about climbing mountains. His books are written poetically, from the heart of a man who is truly in love with the natural world. Years ago, when I was trying to learn French, I came across NEIGE ET ROC. I was already enamored of mountains, but when I found Rébufatt, I felt a deep connection. Here was a friend who felt the

The Day I Became A Writer

     When I was seven years old I rode my bike into the path of an oncoming car. Up until that moment, I would have said I was about as happy as a boy could be. It was a summer afternoon and the air – I recall it clearly – was filled with the scent of freshly mown grass and the pleasant stink of irrigation water. The oncoming rigors of school were a looming nightmare that could be ignored for at least another month. My friends and I had been collecting caterpillars and putting them in jars