You may have noticed I have a new logo I’m using on all social media platforms. That’s because after a LONG time of trying to figure out something better than my ugly mug for an avatar, I finally came up with something I feel best represents me.
So far, I’m best known for my post-apocalyptic fiction. However, that’s really only a fraction of what I’ve written over the years. And truth be told, once the third book for In Times of Trouble is done, I’ll likely be backing away from the genre, if only for a little while. So using a gritty, post-apocalyptic image just never felt like a good fit, if only because it paints me into a corner.
As I said, I’d been thinking about it for a long time. And finally it came to me out of nowhere, in a roundabout way.
When I was in high school, I studied German for a language requirement. Now, Spanish would have been more practical for the first couple decades of my adult life, but I chose German because I already kinda knew it. When I was a kid, two of my aunts were taking German and I guess I picked it up along the way. So junior high school me though, “Well that should be an easy grade.” And it was, somewhat. The first year often felt like review.
( Incidentally, I actually ended up using German in the real world twice. Once on Ebay, and another when an old man had a stroke, for some reason reverted to his native tongue, and guess who was able to communicate with him? That’s another story though. )
Anyway, to this day when I’m bored I try to run through some German in my head. Just to see if I can I guess. And something I learned in class was that the German word for “scout” is “pfadfinder” which is used for “Boy Scout.” Or, if I remember correctly, the literal translation would be “path finder.”
If you know me, you know that Boy Scouts played a major part in my youth and early teens. At that age, I also had a habit of wandering in the woods. Just going wherever the next hill or whim took me, ending up miles from home, though never getting lost.
“Path finder.” Hmmmm… That felt like something that sums up not only journeys in the literal sense, but journeys of the imagination as well.
I started looking for images that represented that to me. It took some doing, there’s a lot of them out there in the pubic domain. Finally I found one, and with a little tweaking, it suited my needs.
However the background it originally appeared on just wouldn’t do. So instead our son worked a little Photoshop-fu and incorporate something else that has a special meaning to me, the Adirondack mountains.
My introduction to that region began with a backpacking trip up and over Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York. I fell in love with the High Peaks region and a piece of my heart resides there year round, even if I don’t. We’ve vacationed there several times over the years and in 2016 I took the family for an easy hike up Mount Jo. It’s not anything special really, but it was a good day overall, and so it’s special to me.
So we superimposed the logo over a picture showing the view from Mount Jo. Add a little labeling, and voila:
I couldn’t possibly be happier with the result. It immediately became my avatar on social media and hell, I may even have it put on my gravestone someday!