My New Blog – The Beagle and the Courtesan

There are several questions you may have: What is this blog is about? What kinds of posts will you do? Why the name ‘The Beagle and the Courtesan’?  Before I get into all that, I want to tell you what happened to me and my old blog.  I will get to those questions, just bear with me.

According to WordPress I haven’t written a blog post for the purpose outside a class for university since August.  I am not sure how to explain it other than the loss of my long time muse – my pet beagle Gabriel – affected me more than anticipated.  You wouldn’t think the loss of a pet would affect me so much but it did.  In particular I never realized how much that dog really calmed me down and put me in the right frame to write.  It was so unconscious, I never noticed.  I would rub his head as he stood by my side and I would get ideas.  Call it what you want but in a sense it was truly my process to get in the right frame of mind to write.

That said my old blog All Things Rabyd had also  been degenerating into something I have found ends my blogs – a journal more than an expression of creativity. In some respects the death of my beloved Gabriel (Gabe for short) made me more aware of it, as things became more about how I was doing than creative expression.  The purpose for blogging in my world was an issue of expression of my soul and my blog was degenerating into simple journal entries where people could read directly what was going on in my head but like all journal blogs had gotten stale from a soul point of view.  Once I realized what was happening, I just shut down my writing altogether and took an unplanned hiatus.

I could offer up the excuse that I am busy with school, but truth is that I have had time to write, just not the desire. That has changed as I have a new need to express my soul on a number of levels to deal with my thoughts and processes of reasoning through creative expression. Mostly for me means in story in the form of allegory.   Those of you who are familiar with All Things Rabyd know of my running allegory The Theology Pub so you have some idea of what I am speaking.  For those of you that don’t know about the Theology Pub, briefly it was me giving various theological concepts life through personifying them in allegorical ways.  I will do some of that here and in a very familiar way but with significant changes.

So now to the questions:

What is this blog about?

Well, I have narrowed my focus on my writing.  In particular, I want to focus on creative writing here which I enjoy but I don’t think I excel at so I keep working on it.  I have thought of becoming a writer at times in my life but I don’t know if I actually do anything people would pay to read.  Mostly, my goal is to work on my writing skills by writing and offering commentary on how I think I am doing. I also plan on recording writing ideas and so forth.  I have decided this blog will be about writing and my creative writing in particular.  I might touch on what I am reading and how it is inspiring me as well, but who knows.  The main issue for many of you is that if your looking for my unique theological perspective, you might not find it directly although I might express it in my allegories from time to time.

What kind of posts will you do?

May kinds but hopefully they will all connect back to creative writing.  1) I will be doing fictional series in several genres although my centerpiece will be Tales of The Beagle and the Courtesan which is kind of a modern fantasy or urban fantasy like the Theology Pub posts with many of the same character but I am making a clean break with a whole new story line and some of the characters will be modified, redone or even dropped so I have a smaller cast.  In addition, I may engage in other series as they come to mind.  2) I will write follow up posts about my work where I explain some of the writing decisions I have made and open my  work up to suggestions if readers have them.  3) I may ask questions about what people like to read and why they like them.  It may become in a sense a writers forum at times. 4) I am part of a reading group these days so thoughts on those discussions might come up as well.

I plan on avoiding journal like posts or stuff that does not directly involve creative writing or books and reading.  I also will not be re-posting any of my old work.  My old work might provide some impetus or launching ideas but there will be no transfer from old blogs to this one.  I plan on all work here being new and fresh, although some of it might find its foundation in the old. If you want to see my old work, then go to All Things Rabyd and the vast majority of it is there.

Why the name ‘The Beagle and the Courtesan’?

Well most of my previous blogs have played on my last name heavily.  Raby is pronounced Ray-Bee so it comes as no surprise that I have over the years gotten a lot of mileage with rabies jokes.  The Rabyd Theologian 1.0  through 3.0 and All Things Rabyd are my best examples of this.  I wanted to get away from that with this blog.

Secondly, I have expanded my horizons a little.  I am still pastor and theologian but I also am in my second year of a Political Science degree and I have added two minors to that degree.  The first is in Economics and and the second is in International Business.  My life is starting to encompass more that my church, theology and and faith and that needs expression as well.  Something more allegorically expressive of my new thoughts on politics, economics and international trade becomes necessary.

Going back to my Theology Pub series I began think that a literary pub might be in order but what to call the pub this time?  I think based on what I have written so far “The Beagle” reference is obvious in a sense every time I come here it will be like stroking Gabe’s ears and getting to work.  Well, at least that is the hope and it is a connection to my past work as Pint the pocket beagle will be making a reappearance here as well.

“The Courtesan” is a little more difficult to explain.  It is simply in my mind became the best allegorical way to express the jumble of thoughts on new subjects.  The Beagle might represent my old things of theology, philosophy and the foundation of all my previous writing.  The Courtesan is more representative of the new.  A courtesan is often conceived as merely a prostitute but they are more than that because they often have political connections (politics), are high priced becasue they are beautiful or specially skilled (economics), and engage in trade (international business).  Some historical courtesans were powerful figures but in this case, it also is me expressing me pushing the edge as always.  Besides it makes for a great pub name and a launching point for my primary series of stories on this blog.

The name as a whole also neutralizes things from my name, my theology and biblical studies and turns my attention to everything I am thinking about and offers a more interesting dualism to think about as well.  I will enjoy exploring it.  Other things about the name will become more clear as the central story on this blog gets written.  I hope you will enjoy it.

Blessings and Cheers!!!