James Preller's Blog

–

I’m working on the second book in an upcoming middle-grade adventure series, “The Survival Code.” The heavy lifting for the first book, Wildfire Escape, is largely behind me.

I should be writing the second one even as, temporarily distracted, I blog this post. The truth is, I am “writing” the book, though I’m not, well, exactly writing-writing. This current phase is a combo platter of research and thinking and brainstorming. It’s impossible to separate them into their own distinct stages. 

For this kind of book, the writing — defined here as words on a page — can’t happen until I figure out details of the plot. In this case, a wilderness adventure set in remote Alaska, I have a lot to learn. There are five characters in a car that careens off an isolated road into a heavy snow bank. The driver, the father, is badly injured. The weather is ominous. And there are four kids, ages 11-13, fighting for his life and their own.

I have the general idea sorted out. Two stay with the father, a medical emergency in a forbidding climate, while the other two go off for help, or shelter, or something. I’m still working that out. But parallel adventures.

Yesterday, I finished reading an incredible book, Where You’ll Find Me, by Ty Gagne. A work of nonfiction, it’s subtitled: Risk, Decisions, and the Last Climb of Kate Matrosova. I’m underlining passages, writing notes in the margins, and reimagining the story that I’m supposed to be, you know, writing. I might as well be scribbling: Eureka!

I stand here before you to defend my honor: This is writing.

The thinking is the writing.

One thing that surprised me about the first book, and once again fascinates me with this second story, is that my focus is not where I expected it to be. It not what I thought I’d be thinking about. You see, from the outset I wanted these kids to be adept at bushcraft. They were experienced in the outdoors life, able to build shelters, start fires, accomplish tasks in natural environments. That’s what I thought I needed to research. And those elements are still there in these stories, but to a lesser extent than I orginally imagined. Because through my reading, I keep returning to the realization that so much of survival is about attitude. I’m fascinated by the traits that help people endure critical situations, and the vulnerabilities that can lead them to potentially fatal mistakes.

One book that greatly informed Wildfire Escape had nothing to do with wildfires. Or, I guess, it had everything to do with surviving wildfires, without specifically being about one. Wait, let me back up: I thought I’d be researching wildfires in a really deep way. And I did. But it was not nearly enough. Because I had to write about characters who made decisions, who acted or failed to act. I kept wanting to know more about that mindset. To that end, the book that helped unlock their inner lives was The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why, written by Amanda Ripley.

So why am I sharing this? Because most of the time, across the past 30 years for sure, I continually find that the book I set out to write . . . is not the book I ultimately write. I learn things as I move forward. My focus shifts. The research leads me in new, unexpected directions. The result is a different book entirely.

This happened with my latest middle-grade book, Shaken. I thought it was going to be about concussions. A 7th-grade soccer player suffers from a severe concussion. I’d have to learn all about that medical condition. And that was true. I talked to doctors, read up on things. But what I realized was the story was about a girl, Kristy, who has to pivot, and struggle, and reinvent herself on the fly. The concussion — like the wildfire, like the car accident, like the winter snowstorm — was merely the inciting event. The heart of the story was everything that happens after. 

The research is thrilling. One of the best parts of the writing life, in my opinion. The process fills me up and keeps it new. My brain goes a little haywire with sparks going off all hours of the day and night. I take a shower and wish to reach for pen and paper rather than soap and shampoo. I now have a new insight into Arlo, one of the book’s main characters. I now get how Naomi feels. The book is, I discover, about — in part — the relationship between Arlo and Naomi during a life-threatening crisis. Can they dig out an ice cave? Can they fashion snow shoes out of car mats? Sure, that stuff will be in there. But the real story is what drives them, the mistakes they make, and why, and how together, and at odds, they work to survive. Or not!

You ask if I am writing?

Um, do you mean words on a blank page?

Not yet. Or a little bit. 

But I’m doing something more important than that.

I’m thinking about it!

SHAKEN will be available in paperback on March 17th, 2026. Both books in the SURVIVAL CODE series will be out in May, 2027. Thanks for asking!