This past September was a very exciting month for me. It was the first month I made enough to pay my bills and eat SOLELY from writing. I was pretty proud since it had only been a year since I quit my job to pursue this so called writing life and I honestly thought it would take a heck of a lot longer if at all. October followed suit and how do I celebrate? I take a 40-hour a week office job.

Last Monday I returned to a desk just a few doors down from the office I left 14 months ago. It all happened so fast I’ve barely had a chance to process it. The truth is, the last month or so I’ve had quite a bit of trouble writing, thinking, and sleeping. My savings had dwindled to a serious low and the stress about my lack of health insurance (I am ineligible for comprehensive coverage because of a stupid pre-existing condition that isn’t even a big deal) had me applying at Starbucks.

I sent an email to my old boss to tell her I was using her as a reference for my Starbucks application and a few days later I got a job offer and it wasn’t from a coffee shop.

They would pay me my old salary and then some, give me full benefits, and I only needed to commit through July of next year. I would be helping to get a new grant off the ground and once data collection gets started early summer I would be once again set free.

I didn’t even hesitate. I took the job and started 6 days later.

I was for sure I would have some serious meltdown this past week, but the opposite has happened. I’ve had so much energy. Maybe it is the relief of knowing when my next paycheck is coming and the thrill of knowing that I’ve been living off a fifth of what’s going to be coming in. Hopefully all the excess will go right into the bank so I can take one big ass trip come next July. And health insurance – that feels soooo good.

Going back to the cube doesn’t mean I’ve failed (like I thought at first); it really is an incredible opportunity. I love my co-workers, I like that I get to work on a project that directly impacts people’s lives, I get to ride the train everyday (which I love), and I do enjoy a wee bit of stability. I love that my window looks out over the entire Salt Lake Valley and that a major earthquake support beam sits right behind my desk so I will be in the safest place when the big one finally hits Salt Lake.

Funny thing is I think I will be more productive with writing now that I have a 40-hour a week job. I was pretty poor at my time management and productivity (or lack thereof) habits even though I’ve read the Power of Less twice. I’ve always been more organized and productive the busier that I am.

I am really psyched to let go of a few of my horribly paying writing jobs and focus on the jobs I am stoked about. I took a few crap jobs to help me ease my money worries and they have been seriously sucking my soul.

I see this as a time to refocus.  I am going to read lots, write about topics of interest to me, dream big, drink lots of coffee, focus on my blogs, and run a ton (since I am running another 50K in February eek) all while working the 9 to 5. Oh and I celebrated my new job by buying a TBEX ticket since now I know I am going to be able to afford to go – yay!

The Moab, Arches & Canyonlands iPhone App I’ve been working on all summer was finally released on iTunes yesterday. Now that I am looking back, it was actually a pretty fun project. I learned a bit more about the history of the area and explored some areas I wouldn’t have otherwise.

In the Moab, Arches & Canyonlands iPhone Guide you will fine the ins and outs of both Arches and Canyonlands National Park including hiking trails, scenic viewpoints, and visitor center information as well as where to dine, shop, hike, and mountain bike outside the parks. All entries are categorized by region like “Dead Horse Point”, “Canyonlands” or “Colorado River” and are searchable with tags like “Family Friendly”, “Must-See” and “Free Wi-Fi.”

Writing the guide made me realize how rigid I am when I travel.  I always go to the same coffee shop in Moab – always to the Brewery after a big day on the trail for some Veggie Chile, Jalapeño Cornbread, and a Black Raven Stout.  Doing the research for the guide made me get a bit out of my travel box and I discovered that Dave’s market has a vending machine outside their store for bike tubes, the Love Muffin Cafe has a muffin with bacon in it, and the Wake & Bake has some super yummy Fish Tacos.

If you are planning a trip to the Moab area in the future, check out the guide and let me know what you think! Also check out The Best of Moab, a photo essay of my favorite spots in Moab.

I am not here to tell you how to become a better writer; I am really just soliciting advice.  I don’t know how to use commas, I have a tendency to write in the passive voice, and I am not sure if I should have used a semi-colon in the first sentence or if I should have just reworded the sentence so I didn’t have to worry about it being wrong in the first place.

Being informally trained in writing, I constantly worry about my writing style (if I have one yet) and am still freaked out that people are actually reading what I write although I am quickly getting over it.  I’ve had several articles published in both print and online publications now, but have gotten very little in terms of feedback on my writing and I am craving some.

All of my writing experience up until a year ago was of a technical nature.  I can whip up a methods section for a research study just like that, but when it comes to narrative, I am lost.  A couple of years ago I signed up for a community narrative writing class, but I was so fearful of criticism and having anyone read my work that I bailed after only one class.

Lately I’ve taken to rereading some of my favorite books and copying the most memorable passages into a notebook.  I am trying to read like a writer and figure out what it is about their way with words that keeps me reading.  I’ve also thought about signing up for that same writing class again – it seemed like it was going to be a good one.

For years I have thought about attending the Confluence Literary Festival in Moab and this year I finally signed up. I am attending a writer’s workshop with adventure travel writer, Craig Childs and can hardly contain my excitement.  I have never attended a writing workshop and have no idea what to expect, but hell I can’t think of a better way to throw myself out there.

What do you do to become a better writer? All suggestions and ideas appreciated.

[Photo courtesy of Nic McPhee]

I have been working on launching a new travel blog – HoopTrekTravel – and it has finally gone live!  I wanted a place where I could focus solely on ADVENTURE and TRAVEL and HoopTrekTravel is it.

I will keep updating Dirtbag Writer with posts on writing and whatever else I feel like talking about so if you are more interested the travel stuff you are going to want to head over there.

So head on over to HoopTrekTravel and let me know what you think!

I can’t believe it has been just over 10 months since I quit the full-time job to pursue this crazy so-called writing life.  What I can’t believe more than that is that I am almost making it.

Almost is the keyword there though.  I am really hoping to not have to get another part time job to make ends meet and am able to seriously focus on my writing.  But a whole month of travels and with very little work has left my savings in some sad shape.

But on the plus side a month of travels and very little work and Internet time has left me utterly stoked and totally refreshed.

I had planned on launching my new travel blog a month ago but I couldn’t for the life of me come up with the perfect name for it.  I was seriously obsessed with the name – it was driving me freaking mad.  And then I was writing this post and it just came to me – just like that.  Oh the stokage flowath forward!

Domain name available – sweet!  And then when I didn’t think things could get any better I glanced at my e-mail and a new message caught my eye.  An editor of a local mag approaching me with a story idea – for serious?

The world is conspiring with me tonight and I hope so for y’all too!

Truth be told, I am not a planner.   I am like the anti-planner.  I plan to not plan but then think that I am planning so I scrap the plan and go with no plan.  You follow?

Well a few days ago I committed to creating an iPhone guide for a few of Utah’s lovely National Parks.  Super excited for a project like this but totally screwed since I am getting ready to take off for nearly the entire summer.  I am heading to the Midwest for half of May and then I return to Salt Lake City for a week before heading off to Hawaii for a month via a weekend in Portland.

Long story short, I need to either learn to plan or drown.

Tomorrow or the next day I need to speed down south and hike every single trail in two national parks.  Well not every single trail… I already know these places well.  I’ve got a list of sights I need to photograph, restaurants I need to visit, and facts I need to check.  Can I do everything I need to do in 2 or 3 days without falling behind in my other projects?

This is the life that I wanted but sheesh it feels crazy to already be here and is it going to be worth it? I am soon to find out.

I think I might actually be able to start telling people that I am a writer now…  When people ask me what I do I usually just shrug my shoulders and say nothing really.

Now as it stands I have two blog posts a week to write for an area business – the Front Utah.  I have a ton of content to write for my new project with BootsnAll – TravelGearBlog, a couple posts a week to write on my Salt Lake City blog with NileGuide blog and an iPhone App due ASAP.  I was also planning on launching a new blog June 1 but I guess we will see about that.  Oh yeah and there are those 20 hours of contract work a week with the University of Utah thankfully ending June 1 and a bunch of other mini projects.

I know there are plenty of y’all out there that do ten times as much work and have children, live out of your suitcase, or have full-time jobs.  Now I am figuring out that the busy you are the more you actually accomplish and the better you manage your time.  Onward and stokeward – let’s go kick some ass!

For any of you following DirtbagWriter I have obviously abandoned my publication schedule during this last week and have well… decided to abandon it completely.  My gears have been churning and many new opportunities have risen from the dust so I’ve decided to make some big changes here.

Have you ever felt like starting over?  Well I am (sort of).  I am taking everything I’ve learned from the blogging world, Matador U, and all the peeps I’ve met over the last year and launching a whole new site dedicated to traveling the “Dirtbag” way.  I think I’ve finally narrowed in on that oh so elusive niche and am totally stoked to start a new site as well as several new projects that I will be announcing soon.

I will keep DirtbagWriter as my personal site and update it with news and updates on my writing aspirations as well as random thoughts or anything else I feel like sharing.

Stay tuned for the new site launch on June 1.

I was extremely weary after a long day of driving and sightseeing in the desert and found myself in Tonopah, Nevada – still six-hours away from my home in Salt Lake City.  I found a parking spot in town to crash in back of Roo.  It was only 7pm, but I was wiped.  I tried to sleep but I just didn’t feel safe.  The parking lot said free parking for truckers and RVs but I felt totally sketched.

I got back into the driver seat to look for a better option.  I thought about continuing on and finding some place to crash along the way but I was just too damn tired and then I saw a sign for an Economy Inn.

The View Outside My Motel Room - Tonopah, NV

I asked to see the room and it looked alright so I paid in cash – $30.  The room I had been given a key for looked nothing like the room I had been shown.  The deadbolt didn’t lock and the windows opened from the outside.  I checked under the bed for dead hookers and took a quick shower while scenes from Psycho played through my head.  Footsteps outside my room at 3am made my heart rate soar and I was out of there by 5:30.

I would have been better off crashing in my car.

Not to long ago I left my comfortable existence for a magazine internship in super expensive Colorado mountain town.  To save money, I planned on dirtbagging it and camping as long as I could manage.  After only a few nights, rain, lightening, and marble sized hail balls chased me inside and into the Glenwood Springs Hostel.

The Lazy Lizard Hostel - Moab, UT

Why are hostels so damn creepy in the US, but so freaking cool everywhere else?  Is it because I am usually too enamored with the fact that I am in a foreign country and oblivious to comfort and basic hygiene?  Rather I was thinking about my cozy bed a mere six-hour drive away and wondering what the hell I had been thinking to give up all that.

“Oh dude what is that?” I listened as the hostel employees tried to identify the matchbox car sized bug that made its way across the carpet before I crawled into bed with the hostel supplied linens (you weren’t allowed to use your own sleeping bag or blankets for fear of bed bugs, lice, and the like).  I began to itch as I drifted off to sleep as the transient in the bunk next to mine mumbled about the devil and fought out loud with the demons in her mind.

Why hadn’t I just spent one more night in the car?

Speaking of matchbox car sized bugs; last night as I tried to fall asleep I heard some strange sounds coming from Frank’s cage.  She’s been super high energy lately so I thought maybe she was just being her annoying self and playing in her food.  I turned on the light and saw her peering with fright at the bottom of her cage.

Roaches.  Big F-ing roaches everywhere.  Horror movie roaches.  I screamed.

The bugs were literally crawling out of the woodwork.  Chris raged the war as Frank and I huddled together frozen with fear.  One more roach and we were out of there.  Chris grabbed his pants off the floor, put them on, and a roach crawled out.  I shook out the bedding, grabbed some pillows, put Frank safely in the kitchen, and we made a run for the Volkswagen parked out in the street.

We found solace in a car.

For those concerned, I don’t live in a shit hole. Roach problem is now hopefully under control. Some pipe work had been done and they sprayed for bugs, which made them flee the walls.  Attracted by birdseed, the roaches found haven in Frank’s cage.

I was listening to this podcast the other day while road tripping through the desert and found myself both saddened and furious.  In Stuff You Should Know’s Will the moon save humanity?, Josh and Chuck are pondering the end of the world and discussing projects that may save humanity.

In the intro they discuss projects such as Norway’s “Doomsday” Seed Vault and the British DNA depository which supposedly can rebuild an entire ecosystem from plant, animal, and human DNA stores. They wonder, “Which ecosystem?” do we have the power to rebuild.  “Is it a desert? Cuz who really wants to rebuild that?”  Nobody, they agree.

Views From the Hidden Valley Trail - Moab, Utah

Well I would! Begin sadness…

I know this whole desert as wasteland belief is widely held but I really don’t understand how the desert got such a bum rap.  Most people that have actually been to the desert find themselves totally awestruck and surprised by both its simplicity and beauty.  The tough part seems to get people there in the first place…

Cholla Cactus and Joshua Trees in the Mojave National Preserve

I have to admit the beauty of the desert didn’t immediately take me over but more slowly captured my spirit.

I’ve since devoured the words of Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, and Katie Lee.  I longed for their gift of story telling – their ability to move people into action.  Their words have made desert virgins chuck everything to experience Desert Solitaire from the eyes of Ed.  They have inspired others to devote their being to protecting unnamed canyons and relics of cultures that came before us and moved some to risk their own freedom trying to stop quasi-legal oil and gas leases.

I tried to explain how places with names like Onion Creek, Elephant Canyon, Hatch Wash made me feel – what they stirred inside of me.  On paper I was wordless, but in spirit I was spewing flawless prose.

And so I’ve decided to giveaway the words of others. I want to share the stories that have so moved me with the hopes of changing just one person’s belief of the desert as barren and meaningless.

I will start with Edward Abbey’s classic, Desert Solitaire.  This is Abbey’s memoir of his years as a ranger at Arches National Monument (now National Park) outside of Moab, Utah.  It is a great intro to environmentalism and the growing threats of mining, the auto industry, and tourism on our fragile wilderness.  Both thought-provoking and rebel-rousing, Desert Solitaire has moved pacifists to grab the nearest monkey wrench and raise some hell.

Balanced Rock at Arches National Park

Like all free things there is a catch.  After reading the book you must either give the book to someone else and/or let me know (in just a few sentences) what you got out of the book.  Did you gain any new insights?  Did the book inspire you in anyway or do you still strongly advocate strip mining? You will then be featured in the blog and receive much fame and link love-age.

To enter simply leave a comment (perhaps some desert thoughts) before April 20, 2010 and the winner will be chosen randomly and announced April, 21, 2010.

Hiking Through Chesler Park - Needles District, Canyonlands National Park

To conclude, here are some words from Ed in Desert Solitaire:

“Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

Flowering Cactus in Joshua Tree National Park

My desert road tripping travels and dirt road obsession has gotten me into a lot of almost troubles. After a serious close one the other day (#1) I’ve decided to step up my desert travel safety measures. Here are 10 things I wouldn’t recommend doing when road trippin’ through desert land.

1. Enter unfamiliar desert territory with a quarter tank of gas.

2. Fail to adequately cork the only bottle of wine on super rocky dirt road.

3. Assume that just because the map says that there is a town there that there is an actual town there.

4. Rely solely on your google map directions print out and leave the map at home.

5. Rely solely on your memory and leave the map at home.

6. Put off fixing that slow leak on your front right tire.

7. Forget to lock your Space Cadet.

8. Carry beer as your only means of hydration.

9. Believe that the sign “Roads may be impassable due to storms” must not pertain to this road.

10. Believe that there has to be services somewhere 50-miles after passing a sign declaring “No Services next 98 miles.”