Writer Monster

I've become a big fan of the show, River Monsters. I haven't fished in my adult life, but I would love to follow the path of English adventurer Jeremy Wade as he paddles up some dangerous river to catch some freshwater Moby Dick. Who knows, maybe my next novel will be about an adventure somewhere.\

One of my favorite books in High School was Heart of Darkness--essentially Marlow goes up the river to meet Kurtz and finds evil. I named a character Marlow after the character in the book. There was also a Judge Kurtz. I loved the film, Apocalypse Now, which was the tale turned sideways.

In the first lines of my non-fiction book, Amarillo in August, I talked about writing a rain forest thriller. I have never been to a rain forest unfortunately.

My own adventures have been rather tame of course. I once lived in Crested Butte for the summer and used to take two hour runs at altitude. I have skied the ridge at Taos, but not from the top. I did do a  rafting trip or two with my family. As for danger, I once got lost in White Sands without water, and had to rough it for a good solid sixteen minutes.

I hear the call of the wild every day. Albuquerque is on the Pan American highway which goes all the way down to Tierra del Fuego, I once had an idea of writing about a journey from the tip of South America to Central Avenue in Albuquerque. That dream was put to rest after seeing an episode of "Locked up Abroad" where someone tried to cross the dangerous Darien Gap in Panama and was kidnapped. The Darien Gap was a gap too wide for me.

Still, I'm not content to sit on my couch the rest of my life. I need a quest. I need my own great white whale to kill. Somebody get Jeremy Wade's people on the phone.