Friday, July 10, 2009

I'm Thinking of Writing a Book

A collection of autobiographical fiction articles along the lines of Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams except about kayaking instead of mountaineering. Of course, Jon Krakauer did actually solo Devil's Thumb and did actually wave off a rescue helicopter on Mont Blanc du Tacul. He did climb a 350-foot frozen waterfall in Valdez, Alaska and he did go higher on Eiger's Nordwand than any human has any business going. Of course, I don't have the balls to climb crazy peaks like that. I'm a kayaker so my book will be about rivers I don't have the balls to run. Maybe I'll tell the story of how I didn't quit my job, sell everything I own, and move to Chile to fulfill my lifelong non-fantasy about becoming a guide on the Futaleufu. Or I could talk about the first descents I didn't bag in Mindanao the last time I went to visit my wife's family. That might sell. I mean, who wouldn't want to read a humble vignette about how poorly my sea kayaking skills stacked up against those of the fishermen I didn't stay with in Greenland? It'll be a bestseller!

3 comments:

bulletholes said...

The guy sitting on the sand, surrounded by the Kayak frame...you could do that Davy.

walter wardlow said...

Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The white whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

Dave Renfro said...

You smart, W!