Archive for the writing process

Robert Duvall Passes, Boo Radley Recalled, An Idea Stolen: CELEBRATING 40 YEARS AS A PUBLISHED AUTHOR, PT. 2

February 17, 2026 / / 2 comments

–

–

The great actor Robert Duvall passed on February 15th at the most excellent age of 95. He left behind a remarkable legacy, including key roles in films such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Tender Mercies (Oscar for Best Actor), The Conversation, and many more. He is also well remembered for his role in the CBS miniseries, Lonesome Dove. 

But my mind went right back to Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. 

–

–

That’s a book and a movie that has had an outsized impact on my imagination and appreciation of excellence in storytelling. I just love it and often return to passages and scenes.

Thinking of Boo yesterday, I remembered that I stole a little device from that story and used it in Jigsaw Jones: The Case of the Haunted Scarecrow. As you may recall, Boo first communicated with Jem and Scout by leaving small totems, or gifts, in the knothole of an oak tree. The gifts themselves are worth recalling: chewing gum, two pennies, twine, soap dolls, a spelling bee medal, a pocket watch. Boo is isolated and alone, longing for connection. 

Boo’s father, Nathan, to our horror, ends up filling the hole with cement — once again isolating Boo from any hope of friendship. Poor Boo, the book’s mockingbird, gentle and misunderstood. 

–

–

But it’s just the knothole that I borrowed, a simple idea that I took for my own purposes for the 15th Jigsaw Jones book, The Case of the Haunted Scarecrow. I’ll share that scene now because, I don’t know, I like it? I’m proud of those Jigsaw Jones books. So many are now out of print and no longer read, except for those in libraries and dusty bins in second-grade classrooms. Thank you so much, teachers, for that.

Here, Dear Reader, is Chapter Five: The Scarecrow.

–

“They want you to deliver the money,” Kim said.

And that was that. In one swoop, I went from detective to delivery boy. I was supposed to go to a tree, put three dollars in a hole, and leave. The voice said he’d return the necklace after I made the drop off.

“I don’t get it,” Mila complained. “Why Jigsaw? How did they know he was here?”

“They must be watching the house,” I concluded. “It doubt it’s a one-man job. You heard giggles on the phone, remember.”

Mila remembered.

Kim shivered — and not because the house was drafty. She ran her fingers across the front of her neck. It was a habit. She was feeling for a necklace that wasn’t there.

“Let’s do it,” I declared.

Kim went to her room. She returned with four dollars. One for me. Three for the ransom. “You better hurry,” she said. “They want you there right away.”

I didn’t like it. But I didn’t have to like it. It was a job. Like raking leaves or delivering newspapers. So off I went, into the dusky night. Mila stayed behind to keep Kim company. 

I walked down Abbey Road. The evening chill nibbled on my ears like a pet parakeet. I turned right onto Penny Lane. The night was brisk and gloomy. I noticed that someone had ripped down one of my brothers’ leaf-raking signs. 

I came to the leaning oak tree. Its long branches reached out over the sidewalk. I shoved my hands into my pockets. There was no one in sight. But I had a perfect view of the Rigby place across the street. 

A black cat slinked across the lawn.

There was one lonely light on in the old house. I may have glimpsed a shadow drift behind a curtain, then disappear. In that gloom, even the trees seemed more menacing. Their leafless branches looked like twisted arms, the twigs like crippled fingers. I flicked up the collar of my jacket. 

A-ooooo. A-ooooo.

A dog howled. I looked into the night sky. There was no moon. Just the pale yellow of distant stars. Well, it was time to finish the job. I soon found a small hollow in the tree. The kind of hole where a chipmunk or snake might hide. On a hunch, I reached in my hand.

And there it was.

The necklace. 

I pulled the three dollars from my pocket. I hesitated, the money still in my hand. It made no sense. Why should I pay the robbers when I already had the necklace?

And why was the necklace here?

I didn’t have time to answer my own questions.

Maybe I heard a noise. Maybe it was a faint whisper, or the scraping of a shoe on cement. Maybe a flashlight flickered, then died. For whatever reason, I looked toward the Rigby place.

[Editorial note: We learn that the old woman who lives there is named Eleanor, and she’s lonely, too.]

What I saw made my heart stop.

The scarecrow on Mrs. Rigby’s lawn was standing. Staring straight at me. It was . . . alive. 

–


–

I pressed myself against the tree. If I breathed, it was by accident. The scarecrow moved stiffly, as if waking from a long sleep. First one step, then another. Like a mummy. Or a living zombie. 

Coming toward me.

I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to shut away the fear. But when I opened them, the creature was coming closer. Ever closer.

I clutched Kim’s necklace in my hand.

And ran.

–

—

The illustration is by Jamie Smith, the warm, sensitive artist from England who did the interiors to many titles in the series. 

THIS POST IS PT. 2 OF A YEAR-LONG SERIES, CELEBRATING MY 40 YEARS AS A PUBLISHED AUTHOR. AS ALWAYS, THANKS FOR STOPPING BY. OTHERWISE IT WOULD BE A LONELY CELEBRATION. HELLO? ANYONE? BUELLER?

–

—

Share Share Tweet Follow Share Print Email
Category: Interviews & Appreciations, Jigsaw Jones, the writing process / Tags: , , , , , , ,

WRITING PROCESS: “Writing Is Structure.” — Vince Gilligan

February 12, 2026 / / No comments

–

“The cherry on top

does not support

the ice cream sundae.”

— Vince Gilligan, creator of BREAKING BAD.

–

Last week I posted about my writing process for a book I was working on, the second in my “Survival Code” series (May, 2027). The deadline was on my mind, a clear line in the sand. A friend asked me how the writing was going and it stumped me. 

Was I even writing yet?

I knew I was working, circling the story, reading and thinking a lot, but I wasn’t actually writing. At least, not in the sense we commonly know it, that whole unpleasant business with words on a page. 

Yet I knew this was essential to the final product. Possibly the most important stage. 

If you are curious, you can click here to find it.

The very next day, I came across this 30-second clip featuring a snippet of Vince Gilligan’s thoughts on writing. He powerfully and simply verbalized something I was dithering about. 

I even transcribed it. But first, to be clear, Gilligan is at first talking about writing for the screen, which is why he begins by discussing dialogue, whereas a writer of novels might describe it differently:

–

“Oddly enough, people think of writing as dialogue, and to me writing is structure. Dialogue is the cherry on top. The cherry on top does not support the ice cream sundae. It’s a delicious little added thing, but the real storytelling, the real structuring, which is often something in TV we do, all the writers together in a room, working and not actually typing anything, but just talking. Just verbalizing. That to me is the hard part of writing: the structuring, the building of the scaffolding, the skeleton of the story, if you will.” — Vince Gilligan, creator of BREAKING BAD.

 

 

 

Share Share Tweet Follow Share Print Email
Category: The Survival Code, the writing process / Tags: , , , , ,

WRITING PROCESS: The Research Feeds the Story — Going Beyond the Inciting Event

February 4, 2026 / / No comments

–

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!

 

 

 

Share Share Tweet Follow Share Print Email
Category: The Survival Code, the writing process / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Remembering 40 Years As a Published Author, Pt. 1: The NBA Postcard Book!

January 26, 2026 / / One comment

–

I decided that this year I’d occasionally take a look back at my long & inglorious career as a children’s book author. Readers ask me how many books I’ve written and I honestly don’t know the answer. Lately I’ve been guessing, with my voice rising at the end, “About ninety?”

I published my first book in 1986, at age 25, a picture book titled Maxx Trax: Avalanche Rescue! Long out of print, I will still get the odd piece of fan mail about it. And since then, I’ve more or less hung in there and . . . survived. Often barely. That’s really my greatest accomplishment. That I’m still standing.

Just last week, in partnership with author Audrey Vernick, we handed in the 3rd title in our upcoming graphic novel series, Bigfoot and Dodo. We can’t wait to see it, but we’ll have to: The books won’t be out until sometime in 2027. There are other books afoot. A new lower middle-grade adventure series, The Survival Code (two titles coming, also in 2027), and a 3rd title in my “And a Moose!” series of easy readers, Two Astronauts and a Moose! Coming in, yes, I’m afraid so, 2027. 

Anyway, welcome to The Ultimate NBA Postcard Book!

–

–

This book came out in 1997, copyright held by NBA Properties, Inc. I was a freelance writer, hungry for work: a hired gun. Around that time I was consulting with Alan Boyco at Scholastic Book Fairs, and doing odd jobs for Barbara Marcus with Scholastic Book Clubs, and just beginning to conjure up the “Jigsaw Jones” mystery series. This little project came, as I recall, at the request of Alan Boyco, who was very kind to me over the years.

The “book,” of course, was not quite a book. It was a collection of postcards with brief player profiles on the back. Here’s an example of a “page,” which was printed on sturdy cardboard stock: 

–

–

The book consisted of 30 postcards, featuring many of the NBA’s top players at the time: Toni Kukoc, Rik Smits, Chris Webber, Joe Dumars, Patrick Ewing, etc.  My writing occupied a small space on the back. Like so:

–

–

Maybe not the highest literary standard, I realize. But the truth is, I love this kind of writing. And I mean, I have always loved it: that classic “punchy” sportswriting voice. And while I worked hard in my career to avoid getting trapped in that box — pigeonholed as “just” a sports guy — it was something I very much enjoyed and still respect. And I was good at it, too.

Here’s a closer sample from the book:

–

–

I still like the opening to my write-up on Glen Rice:

What does Glen Rice mean to the Charlotte Hornets? Instant offense. Winner of the three-point contest at the 1995 NBA All-Star Game, Glen has one of the purest shots in the league. He sets up behind the arc and fires hoop-seeking rainbows . . . 

That’s a swish, right?

Growing up, like so many kids, I was a huge sports fan. My favorite team was the New York Mets. When I was 8 years old, the “Miracle Mets” won the 1969 World Series. I was there, it seems, for every pitch. Watching the games with my mom, an old Brookly Dodgers fan who chomped on ice and smoked Chesterfields. In the days before ESPN and social media highlights, the only way to relive the games and follow the players in depth was to open the newspaper and read. Today I consider myself blessed to have lived in that time, because my love of sports turned me into a reader. And my first favorite writer — the first writer I was aware of, and actively enjoyed — was Dick Young, who wrote for the New York Daily News.

His writing was funny, fast-paced, sharp, and stylish. On Sundays, he penned a long, free-flowing column called “Young Ideas” where he riffed on all sorts of things, often separated, I think I remember, by an ellipses.

 

Young, a truly larger-than-life sports writer, would later become a pariah in New York, since he wrote a series of brutal, cruel, merciless columns that helped drive Tom Seaver, the Franchise, out of New York. The world of sports and American culture had changed, and Dick Young, staunchly conservative, did not change with the times. He didn’t care for hippies or the freedoms (and wealth) of modern ballplayers. Anyway: A kid, I read his columns religiously.

It is very possible that Dick Young had the most lasting effect on my writing style than any other writer I later encountered. I’d love to say it was Joan Didion or Richard Ford, but in life, nobody quite ever measures up to your first love.

Anyway, here’s the title page and that’s me, James Preller, a guy just trying to earn a living as a writer, gratefully taking whatever job came my way.

–

 

 

 

 

Share Share Tweet Follow Share Print Email
Category: Greatest Hits, the writing process / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Celebrating Local Star for USA Women’s Soccer, Bethlehem’s Own Claire Hutton

July 7, 2025 / / No comments

–

This was cool news from the other day:

–

–

I don’t know Claire Hutton, a standout local soccer player, but I’ve long been aware of her ability on the field. I heard she was special. A kid to root for, a good family. I know some coaches and people involved in the sport, and they all have nothing but praise for her attitude, dedication, talent, kindness. A great kid. I heard that over and over. 

I think every town, sooner or later, has some young athlete who breaks through. The shortstop who gets drafted in the 11th round by the Washington Nationals, the kid who is skating in the Olympics, a running back who signs with a D-1 powerhouse. 

For me, here in Delmar, NY, one of those kids was Claire Hutton. She went to the same schools as my three children. 

I met Claire briefly, just once. I was walking my dog near Bethlehem high school early one morning. It must have been a weekend or the summer; no one else was around, not even on the nearby tennis courts. I spied a young woman — she must have been 16 — setting out orange cones near the track. She looked strong-legged. I guessed that it might be Claire Hutton and, curious, I wandered over to say hello. We chatted for a bit. Claire was articulate and friendly, comfortable talking, happy to take a short break, and she liked my dog. Claire told me how she was going to play on the Boys Team that coming season (I later got to watch her play). She explained her drills after I asked what in the world was she doing. I shared with her how my very athletic daughter, Maggie, about five years older, suffered from three ACL surgeries and had to give up soccer (and basketball!) after 7th grade. She had already made JV soccer that season. Claire understood what that loss might feel like. I wished her luck and good health, told her I was rooting for her, and went on my way.

A couple of years later, when I wrote a book called Shaken about a 7th-grade athlete who suffers from a severe concussion, derailing her soccer activities, I was largely inspired by Maggie’s experience. Loving something and having it taken away. Kurt Vonnegut’s notion of making awful things happen to your characters in order to reveal what they are made of. And I thought about Claire, too. Or more accurately, I imagined what someone like Claire would think. The drive and the talent and the huge ambition. That’s the writer’s job, after all. We make things up out of life’s raw material. I wanted my character to be like that. 

So I guess I put a little of Claire — the imaginary Claire — into the main character of my book, Kristy Barrett. But to be fully transparent, I don’t know anything about Claire and I doubt she would remember me. I know “of” her. I was just a benign dad type with a cool black-and-white rescue dog named Echo. We were alone on the edge of a football field, beside the track. And she was with her orange cones and workout gear, inching toward her big dreams. 

Today it is so gratifying to see Claire, off in the distance, realizing those same dreams. Scoring a goal for USA soccer! And crazy as this sounds, it’s not the least bit surprising.

Great kid, I thought.

I used that inspiration for the first few pages of Shaken, introducing the character of Kristy Barrett.

 

—

Kristy alone on a soccer field. The sun barely up above the trees. The turf damp from yesterday’s rain. It was cold. She went through her warm-up routine. 

High knees, side shuffles, Frankensteins, butt kicks, hip flexors, etc. No ball. Not yet. Fitness first, always. 

Today was a game day; she wouldn’t overdo it.

Kristy walked off the paces, set out small orange cones in different configurations. Soccer was a game of changing speeds, spurts, sharp cuts, quick accelerations, and periods of rest. This morning’s plan was designed to replicate a game situation. If it does not challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Kristy heard her mother say those words so many times she now thought of it as her own original idea. She jogged the shape once, then began working in a pattern of slow jogs and sprints. At the end of the first set, Kristy waited, winded, shook out her legs, counted to thirty. She began a second set. And so on. Fitness wasn’t the fun part of soccer. But it helped win games. It made her a better player. And, at thirteen, Kristy was determined to become the best in the state.

<snip>

This was her happy place. No matter what else was going on in the world, Kristy found peace and pleasure alone on the field. Even during a game, surrounded by teammates, crowded by opponents — pushed, knocked down, high-fived and cheered — Kristy felt gloriously alone. Bubbled, sheltered, secure. 

—

Here’s a quick one-minute interview with Claire.

But be warned: if you watch it, you’ll be rooting for her, too. It’s an affliction!

Addendum: Maybe Claire will see this someday. If she does, I hope she doesn’t mind that, in a circuitous way, I put something of her in a book. Or that I wrote this post.

A great kid, yeah. And an inspiring one, too.

 

–

–

SHAKEN was listed by Bank Street Center of Children’s Literature as one of the “Best Children’s Books for 2025.” Ages 10-up.

–

 

 

Share Share Tweet Follow Share Print Email
Category: Shaken, the writing process / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries   Recent Entries »
Website Hosted by Web Instinct