A Portrait in the Interior

Self-portrait, originally uploaded by Ben Saunders.

Where can you place him - among natural species?
There are precisely none in the hinterland
away from the qualified society of the littoral
- the stink of guano, the litter of penguin feathers,
whole colonies of raucous innocents massacred
or protected at will, flapping their impotent rage
at the skuas' tricks and thievery. You come to
a high plateau, the sink and mirror of Antarctica,
existential terrain - photograph him here.
Each day he grows heavier with the ice,
his breath cracking out and freezing,
a ruff of accumulating crystals around his neck.
His dry-shod fathers approve the struggle
- that company of prim-mouthed adventurers
who watch him now and for old times' sake
avert eyes and memory from natural deeds
that spring upon him like small jealousies:
the faeces he shakes frozen from his trousers,
the liquid in him resisting its natural flow.
How savage his face grows, tanned to leather
by wind and sun: the stinging glare off the ice
will not melt his carapace or loosen
the frosted helmet encompassing him
like a model hemisphere and pole.
His goggles have ghosted a pale moonscape
around his eyes; aqueous humour
admits the passage of light, marks out
the planetary stillness at his centre.
Picture him at the moment of temptation:
there's nothing to draw him back - no memory
served or inflamed by a temperate scene,
no water moving, no shrub to cast its shadow.
He gazes on the linear imperialism
traipsed by sledges and his own layered feet
across the plateau. A scraggy reckoning
is spun out by the pinioned wheel behind;
the summary horizon draws him on,
neutral, mineral, into his own terrrain.

- Chris Orsman

The difficulties of writing

Mantis on a leaf, originally uploaded by www.alastairhumphreys.com.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday helping a friend edit the book he is writing. It reminded me how exasperatingly difficult writing a book can be at times.
Reading my friend's latest chapter I had the sense that something was not quite right. However it was difficult to put my finger on exactly what the problem was. I felt, in the end, that it was simply a little bit flat. My friend had begun to just write down everything that happened, rather than writing only what adds value to the story.
Then last night I came across these words from TS Eliot, and they seemed to sum up what I had been trying to say:

...every phrase
And sentence is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

Easier said than done!

The Call of the Wild: Robert Service

canoeing down the yukon, originally uploaded by www.alastairhumphreys.com.

Have you gazed on naked grandeur
where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert’s little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills,
have you galloped o'er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa?
Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the Wild -- it’s calling you.
Have you known the Great White Silence,
not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies).
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map’s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is,
can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild -- it’s wanting you.
Have you suffered, starved and triumphed,
groveled down, yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
"Done things" just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendors,
heard the text that nature renders?
(You'll never hear it in the family pew).
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things --
Then listen to the Wild -- it’s calling you.
They have cradled you in custom,
they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching --
But can't you hear the Wild? -- it’s calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There’s a whisper on the night-wind,
there’s a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling. . .let us go.

Desert Island books

Virgin Solo Row, originally uploaded by Virgin Global Row - Olly Hicks.

Imagine you were stuck on a desert island for 18 months...
What books would you take?
This is the sort of delicious quandry I can daydream indecisively about for ages.
But a friend of mine, Olly Hicks, is departing in a few weeks to row round Antarctica. This lunatic, courageous, epic solo expedition will take about 18 months to complete. A while ago I promised I'd help out with his on-board 'library' (makes it sound like a relaxing cruise!). And so, in a bit of a rush last week, I delved into Amazon and ordered these books:

- The Penguin History of the World: JM Roberts
- Withnail and I; the screenplay (Andy's choice as this kept him entertained as he walked from London to Istanbul)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemingway
- The Unequalled Self: Samuel Pepys (Ben's choice)
- Blackadder, the whole damn dynasty
- East of Eden: John Steinbeck

I wanted books with substance, to keep Olly entertained and curious for those long, lonely months. What would you have chosen?

Anything is possible in this world.

P1000314.JPG, originally uploaded by averylongwalk.

I receive quite a few emails about my books, journeys and so on. Occasionally I receive one that makes me realise that the whole thing has been worthwhile, if only to pass on the spark to somebody else. "You can't start a fire without a spark." This was a wonderful email to receive:

Having recently purchased a bike to get about town with (I detest the London Underground, constantly being herded around like cattle) and having some problems with the chain I headed to Waterstones to find a book on fixing ones bike. There, I stumbled upon 'Moods of Future Joys'...and it has left me in limbo! As soon as I finished it I of course purchased the sequel, struggled to put it down, and now having completed the two I am left unsure of what to do...
Well I know what I want to do. I want to wander back to Australia my way...slowly be it by bike or whatever. Your books have re inspired me. For the last year since I left Sydney I have been working in London. Hospitality really doesn't excite me. Nor does a desk job. The only thing that makes me smile is photography...and wandering where I want when I want to. I watch people and listen to what they say. I am scared of one day waking up and being boring. No longer having anything left to talk about...nothing exciting me.

I don't like the materialism of the world I live in, how people pride themselves on having the biggest 'everything', the most expensive 'everything'. I doesn't feel real. It all feels so...fake.
I hate that being 22 I am expected to want to party all the time...drink myself into oblivion constantly. I did that when I was 18. Young and dumb partying in Sydney, chain smoking, trying new 'exciting' substances, sleeping with as many people as possible. I grew so tired of it! I left and discovered London is very much the same.
I'm rattling shit I know. Your books have just got me to thinking again. About how much happier and content I feel when I am wandering, carefree...existing rather than just living. Doing what I want, not what is expected.
Thank you. I am sure this is one of thousands of e-mails you have received but thank you. Anything is possible in this world.
Mark

The Worst Journey in the World

Rus_me icebogeys1.jpg, originally uploaded by www.alastairhumphreys.com.

'The Worst Journey in the World' is accepted as the greatest polar book of all time. Now the wonder that is Radio 4 have produced it as a play. It's fantastic and you can listen to Episode 1, for the next week, here.

Some day, if you are lucky, you'll return from a thunderous Journey

Dawn on Snowdon, originally uploaded by www.alastairhumphreys.com.

Some day, if you are lucky,
you’ll return from a thunderous journey
trailing snake scales, wing fragments
and the musk of Earth and moon.

Eyes will examine you for signs
of damage, or change
and you, too, will wonder
if your skin shows traces

of fur, or leaves,
if thrushes have built a nest
of your hair, if Andromeda
burns from your eyes.

Do not be surprised by prickly questions
from those who barely inhabit
their own fleeting lives, who barely taste
their own possibility, who barely dream.

If your hands are empty, treasureless,
if your toes have not grown claws,
if your obedient voice has not
become a wild cry, a howl,

you will reassure them. We warned you,
they might declare, there is nothing else,
no point, no meaning, no mystery at all,
just this frantic waiting to die.

And yet, they tremble, mute,
afraid you’ve returned without sweet
elixir for unspeakable thirst, without
a fluent dance or holy language

to teach them, without a compass
bearing to a forgotten border where
no one crosses without weeping
for the terrible beauty of galaxies

and granite and bone. They tremble,
hoping your lips hold a secret,
that the song your body now sings
will redeem them, yet they fear

your secret is dangerous, shattering,
and once it flies from your astonished
mouth, they–like you–must disintegrate
before unfolding tremulous wings.
(Geneen Marie Haugen)

Most of what I know about writing...

Most of what I know about writing -says Haruki Murakami- I've learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate - and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn't become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have been vastly different.

The essence of adventure

I write occasional articles about travel, adventure and expeditions. This piece, that I wrote for the classy Traveller magazine, is one of my favourite pieces. It's short and sweet and makes me want to get out on the road. You can read it online here.

Eric Newby, Laurie Lee, Patrick Leigh Fermor

Benedict Allen recently presented a fantastic 3-part series on three of the greatest travel writers of the 20th Century. Patrick Leigh Fermor, Laurie Lee and Eric Newby were all fascinating characters, great travellers and superb writers. Here's a few tributes:
Eric Newby's Times obituary
Laurie Lee's obituary in the Independent
A BBC piece on Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor

Free books! Why give them away?

I have been asked a few times why I give my books away for free. For me there is no question of the benefits of doing this. I make little money from writing and am more focussed on the potential benefits of getting my books out to as wide an audience as possible. If a million people read my book for free online I would be delighted. I would not make any money from it but, if those people liked the book, they might buy a real copy for friends and family as presents. More people will learn about Hope and Homes for Children, more people will learn about my expeditions. Sponsorship opportunities may arise, helping me take on future expeditions.
I'm not the only person who sees benefits in giving stuff away for free. This is an interesting article on the subject. Another one here, focused more on the Web 2.0 angles.

The Bright Field - RS Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

A prayer

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following
your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope tat I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I knew that if I do this you will lead me through the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me
To fact my peril alone
-Thomas Merton

Laurie Lee, Eric Newby, Patrick Fermor...

A mouthwatering prospect: traveller extraordinaire Benedict Allen, has put together a TV series on three of my very favourite travel writers. I shall certainly be watching BBC 4 this week*. Here's what it's about:

This is a look at three outstanding British travel writers – from three very different traditions. Eric Newby, that very British thing the amateur traveller - someone who packs his bags and sets off (with little or no preparation) for the sheer hell of it. Preparation, he feels, rather spoils the fun. You might remember that Newby prepared for his attempt on a remote, unclimbed 20,000 foot peak in Nuristan by nipping down to Snowdonia (a hilly area in Wales) for a weekend, and was assisted by a waitress.(The adventure was immortalised in a self-deprecating book, A Short Walk In the Hindu Kush. Secondly, there’s the poet Laurie Lee – someone who meandered along playing his violin, in the tradition of a troubadour or wandering minstrel. He set out from home, walking off down the lane, and just kept walking – two years later ending his journey in Southern Spain. Better remembered for Cider with Rosie, his tale of growing up in the English countryside, this other classic account, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is my personal favourite. Finally, Patrick Lee Fermor, a man of action and also intellect. Once described as a mixture between Graham Greene and James Bond, he walked right across pre-war Europe, sometimes sleeping in haystacks, sometimes in castles; from time to time reciting from his copy of Hamlet (in German!). He recorded his experiences in two fine works of literature A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. These three characters travelled during the golden age of travel - between the golden age of exploration and the present age of mass tourism, and mass exposure of the planet on TV. The world was now safe enough for a novice to set out alone – and he or she still might find exotic experience right on the doorstep. In Travellers Century, I examine the lives of these three characters, wondering what makes the British such inveterate travellers – is this a tradition left from the Empire Days? Or is it that we’re from an overcrowded, fairly suburban place that we need to escape? Perhaps we’re just a small island race and need to understand our more powerful neighbours!

* actually I won't be watching. I'm off to the

Scott Polar Research Institute

to be impressed by

Martin Hartley's

photography that leaves me yearning to get

SOUTH

off the ground. But I'll watch the repeat!

The Bicycle Diaries

My books began life as raw, spontaneous blog entries. In many ways I think they are better than my finished books. If you are interested you can browse them, unedited, here:

The Bicycle Diaries

Who am I? What do I want?

My publisher has asked me, prior to the official launch of Thunder and Sunshine in mid-June, to write a little bit about myself that will show journalists exactly who I am.
I have been cringing about this and procrastinating for ages. But he pinned me down today, so here goes:

"My route to making a career from arduous physical challenges began when I was small and weak and could not get into any sports teams at school. I found my niche in the outdoor clubs, sailing, fell-running and completing the National 3 Peaks in 24 hours when I was 13. At 18 I taught in Africa for a year. This opened my eyes to the beauty of the world, that the world is crazier and there's more of it than we think. I tasted adventure, camped beneath southern stars and I wanted more.
Throughout university I read books of epic journeys*, dreamed of being a writer and an adventurer and I set about taking the steps to make it happen. I saved up for summer exploits and the more I saw the greedier I became. Back home I ran in the hills and realised that simply refusing to stop is a good way to ensure you reach the end. My self confidence rose and, with it, my ambition.
Freed at last from the shackles of formal education I headed for the world to start learning. My journey round the world by bike was intended as a journey not a structured expedition. I would wander where the fancy took me, I would travel slow, and cheap, and with wide open, curious eyes. If I could also help to promote 'Hope and Homes for Children' by succeeding that would be a further boon. There was focus to it all as well: I wanted to make it right round the world to come home with sufficient material to begin learning to be a writer. I enjoy writing and I would love to make my life as a writer.
Home at last I tried hard to bury my wanderlust. I have had normal jobs and I have written two books. But it has not succeeded, and I'm now preparing for the next adventure. I have been at my most excited when hunched over a map and dreaming of more, or when eulogising to children at my talks about the thrill of freedom, the privilege of opportunity, the satisfaction of self-reliance and my gratitude that, for whatever reason, I snatched at my dream and I acted upon it. If my journeys can convince children (or anyone) to out-stare the fear of failure and insecurity and to take a risk upon their ambition then I shall be well-pleased. If I can also share my new appreciation of how good the people of the world actually are, as well as my experiences of the great imbalance and injustice in our world, and my corresponding scorn of the apathy and "affluenza" in our own society then so much the better.
My next big journey is different. It has nothing to do with the fun and excitement of foreign cultures. It is a complicated, high-budget, technologically challenging expedition. But I am still thrilled by it because it is different, it is difficult and because it will take me to more new places. New places physically, certainly, but new places in my mind and spirit as well. I will learn more about how hard I can push myself, about how much I can endure. It will hammer home how important the important things are in life, and how trivial most of our concerns are. If the expedition also convinces some children of the potential in their lives I will be proud. If the expedition produces a book and helps me to eke a career from doing what I love I will be grateful.
The lifelong memories will be sweet. But most of all the adventure itself will be glorious: forcing my heart and nerve and sinew to keep going through some of the most desolate, unvisited, majestic landscapes on Earth, the opportunity to explore what I am capable of, to make the most of my too-fleet three score years and ten, to share it all with a good friend, to try to achieve a goal many believe to impossibl. And all this away from the rushing madness of the world. To seek, to strive, to find, and not to yield: that's what I want."

*Ranulph Fiennes, Laurie Lee, Fitzroy Maclean, Eric Newby, Patrick Fermor, Simon Murray, Cherry Garrard et al.

I feel that this video conveys how I feel:

Jorge Luis Borges - The Instants

If I could I would live my life over.
This time I would try to make more mistakes.
I would try not to be so perfect,
I would laugh more.

I would be so much sillier than I have been 
that I would take few things seriously.

I would be less hygienic.

I would risk more, take more trips, contemplate more sunsets, 
climb more mountains, ford more streams.

I would go to more places I have never been.

I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans.

I would have more real problems and fewer imaginary ones.

I was one of those people who lived every minute of life sensibly and productively.

Of course I had moments of delight.

But if I were able to go back it would be for good moments only.

Because, if you don't know it, that's what life's made of: moments.

Do not waste even this one.

I was a guy who never went anywhere without
 a thermometer, a hot water bottle, an umbrella, and a poncho.

If I could live my life again I would travel more lightly.

If I could live again I would start going barefoot
 when spring comes and not stop till fall's long gone.

I would walk down more side streets, contemplate more dawns,
 and play with more children, if I had my life ahead of me again.

But, come now.
I am 85 years old.
I know I am dying.

Pause

Pause

For 10 seconds to take a deep breath.
For 1 minute to take in the view.
For a couple of minutes to brew a cuppa.
For 10 minutes to clear your head.
For 20 minutes to call your mum.
For half an hour to excercise your body.
For a couple of hours to read a good book.
For a day to find some fun.
For a weekend under the the stars.
For a fortnight to recharge your batteries.
For a month to learn something new.
For a summer to be a kid again.
For a year to see the world.
For a lifetime to work out what it all means.
Or for five minutes to do absolutely nothing.

Riding to Write. Or Writing to Ride?

Immediately after graduating from university I climbed on my bike to try to cycle round the world. Four years later I arrived back home and sat down to write a book about my experiences. I soon discovered that the riding was the easy part and that the writing was, in fact, the true arduous endurance challenge!

I climbed off my bike, sharpened my pencil, and began writing. I felt that I had prepared well for my new beginning as a writer for on the road I had read books for a couple of hours every single evening in my tent. I thought I knew what was good writing and what was not. I was ready to begin.

Words came fairly easily and, after a couple of months, my book began taking shape. Excited, I sent my synopsis and sample chapters off to agent after agent and sat back to wait for the royalties to roll in.

Reality hit hard. I did not receive rejections. Worse, I was met with a wall of indifference. Few agencies even replied. Those that did tended to use a generic rejection letter with little hint that anyone, not even the work experience tea boy, had considered my manuscript. Others replied only to say that they were not even considering new authors. The travel writing market seemed saturated. Cash cows and celebrity tales dominate. I am not whinging: it’s a competitive world!

But for a young, not famous, beginning writer the outlook was bleak. I did not give in as I believed that I had an interesting tale to tell and that I could become a good writer as well. However, after nine demoralising months I had to face reality. My book was not going to get published.

Perhaps it was stupidity to ignore the massed expertise of the entire publishing industry, perhaps it is important to be determined and to back yourself. But, whatever the reasons or the motive I decided to self publish a book about my experiences cycling the length of Africa. I knew of the stigma of self publishing, vanity publishing, of thousands of unsold, poorly produced books piled in the corner of your living room for year after year. But I also learned about the modern technology of Print on Demand where stylish looking books are instantly available on Amazon with very little financial output required. So I decided to trust myself, and to go for it.

Self publishing would give me the freedom to succeed or fail on the merits of my own writing and the opinions of those reading the book rather than on the whims of over-subscribed agents with no time to do anything but glance at a page or two. Self publishing promised to give me a new challenge. I had cycled round the world, I had written a book, now I just had to publish it, distribute it, market it and sell it as well. And, by no means least, if those who read my book actually enjoyed reading my book I felt it would be a welcome ‘up yours’ to a publishing industry where everything seemed set up to make life difficult for young people striving to become writers.

A year later I had sold over 4000 books. JK Rowling and Steven King may not be looking anxiously over their shoulder at me, but given that most bookshops are reluctant to even stock self published books I was pleased with this figure.

Even more pleasing is that, following on from my first book, my second book has been taken on by a traditional publisher, Eye Books. They are also re-releasing my first book which now gives it a chance to be sold in shops and to potentially reach a wider audience than when it was simply self-published.

With a new, bold, expedition in the pipeline for the end of 2008 and a book to follow that the future is slowly beginning to resemble one in which I may have a chance to make my living from expeditions and from books. The pleasing thing about expeditions is that your success or failure rests mainly in your own hands. Writing is not like that. But perhaps that just adds to the satisfaction of the challenge. I am just enormously relieved that I did not give up on my book when nobody in the publishing world wanted it. Self publishing my first book was extremely rewarding and a good way for would-be authors to determine whether or not their book is actually any good.

Quote of the Day

I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.
Paul Harvey