I just finished a hike in the mountains above my house. It is January in Alaska, and we have almost no snow. Normally, the trails that Weatherby and I hike this time of year have a foot or two of packed snow. Our daily winter outing is usually on skis, but not this year. Today the hike required spiked boots to stay upright on trails covered in ice.
Cross country skiing is better exercise. You work legs, body and arms with every stride. The last winter I remember with almost no snow in Anchorage was three decades ago. Back then I would just go to the gym to work out, but as I note in this month’s Rodger Recommends, my lifelong love of the outdoors is now just behind only my love of family, country, and readers. So, I’m out there on glare ice, with spiked hiking boots, watching the eagles circling, foxes working the alder thickets, listening to the water running under the ice of streams that should be frozen solid. I’m right where I belong.
Alaska is a great place for a writer to contemplate, especially the theme for a book. My newest Team Walker book, The Dragon, the Eagle and the Jaguar (DEJ), takes the reader into the drug cartel crisis that is Mexico trying to cope with; criminal gangs that are falling under the thumb of the Chinese. Those same outlaw organizations not only push fentanyl across the border, but also traffic human beings, including thousands of military age Chinese men. The crisis now has a new American president and a new Mexican president, both challenged to halt the madness without losing the sovereignty of their own nation.
How do I top that as a theme for a thriller? I came up with the plotline for DEJ skiing a couple of years ago. My themes always begin with a question based on media reporting and personal research. Early this morning I was reading several papers on what it might take to get the world to unite. Yesterday, I was reading philosophers thoughts on what it will take to just get the United States reunited. From my research, one thought repeatedly popped out.
If the world finally had proof that there was intelligent life in the universe, life that had the ability to reach out to earth, that might be the catalyst to unite us. I was thinking about that as I tried to stay upright on our icy mountain trails. The beginning of a new plot began to take shape. Would first contact unite us or would it do the opposite? I think my fans will be able to read my thoughts, about this time next year. This one needs to be written.