Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 105

The Eternal Dolphin Smile

In spite of the old adage that "practice makes perfect," there are some things in life at which I really don't want to become an expert.  Near the top of that list, I put burials at sea.  This is not something I want to perfect, and after this last weekend, it appears that there is no danger of that happening.  But my mother taught by example that when you feel like you're barely hanging on, you just have to smile.

Probably Not What He Meant by "Put Me In the Drink"

Anyone who has had a boat for a number of years has got stories about sprinkling ashes at sea.  My first experience started in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1976 when my husband and I rented a slip at the fuel dock in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor.  We got to know some of the crew on the big catamaran head boats that did sunset cocktail cruises.  They used to regale us with stories of the newly widowed Midwesterners on holiday who'd sneak the urn onto the sunset cruise and, not being sailors, they'd inevitably wait until everyone had a drink in hand, then they'd step to the windward side of the boat and let Fred fly, thus sprinkling more of Fred into the Mai Tais than into the sea.

Neptune Society Then

Then there was the time we were in a liveaboard slip in Channel Islands Marina in Port Hueneme, California in 1978, and the powerboat next to us did charters for a small organization called the Neptune Society.  Once the guests had disappeared up the dock, he would break out the Jack Daniels and tell us tales about the ashes that fell out of the urn in chunks. When the seagulls swooped down and started fighting over the bits, he would evoke the image of the birds carrying their loved one up to the heavens – not how dear Fred would emerge from the seagull later.  He would reenact his semi-sermons in stentorian tones that echoed across the water and we'd both laugh so hard we cried.

Fast forward twenty years and in 1998, I found myself looking up the Neptune Society for my by-then ex-husband and the father of my son, Tim.  It took Tim and me a year before either of us felt up to it. We both played hooky from school on the anniversary and rented a runabout from Pier 66.  Tim was 14 and we brought a picnic lunch, a cooler, fishing poles and a boom box full of Buffet tunes.  It was a bright sunny day, and the seas were nearly flat, so we went outside and opened her up, flashing giddy grins at the speed as only sailors can.

Four years ago, it was my dad's turn and once again, I called the Neptune Society which was still a dinky operation in a dingy building in North Fort Lauderdale.  On the one year anniversary, Bruce offered to take us out on Biscayne Bay on his boat so my brother, sister and mother joined me aboard Wild Matilda.  That trip was easiest of all since I didn't have to worry about running the boat.  We were able to drink toasts, laugh and cry with a very capable captain to take care of us.

Neptune Society Now

Mom died one year ago and the 2009 version of the Neptune Society was a far cry from that loosely organized society in California.  When I drove to their new site in Pompano Beach, I saw this fancy new multi-storied building.  Inside, a receptionist in the ultra-modern lobby sent me to waiting room number three where a huge 50-inch flat screen TV covered one wall playing a video of what looked like a nature documentary of divers swimming through the lost city of Atlantis.  There were classic columns and stone lions in what the video told me was sixteen acres located three miles off the coast of Miami and they would be happy to sell me a piece of it for mom's eternal resting place.  As I watched the video, I kept wondering how you get title to the ocean floor three miles off the coast of Miami, and I couldn't help but smile.

Screenshot from www.nmreef.com

Glass Half Full is Not Always Positive

So there I was last Friday morning, cleaning my boat up and getting ready for my sister and brother who were flying in to stay for the weekend so we could go sprinkle mom's ashes our way.  I started my engine and went forward to clean out the cooler.  After about five minutes, the engine sputtered to a halt.  It had been two months since I'd fired it up.  I decided it was probably dirty fuel filters, so I ran out and got diesel and changed the Racors.  Still no go.  Even though it was Friday less than one week from the start of the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, I called the local Yanmar shop, hoping they wouldn't just laugh at me.  They gave me the cell number for their mechanic and incredibly,  he promised to come by at the end of his day.  Sure enough, roughly thirty minutes before I needed to go to the airport, he announced from his position with his head under the cockpit floor, that diesels don't run on water.  He lifted a shot glass to show what he had extracted from my injectors and there was a thin film of diesel on top of a glass half full of water.  Miraculously, I got a guy from Gun Marine out to the boat the next morning at 8:00 a.m. to pump out the tank and filter the fuel and we were underway before noon.

Thar She Blows

The forecast was for winds 15-20 and seas 4-6 feet.  I assured my brother and sister I knew what I was doing, and we would be fine.  We tucked a reef into the main and headed out to run down the coast to Miami and slip into Biscayne Bay.  Okay, it was a little bouncy, but our dad had owned sailboats and we had all sailed before.  Once we got out of the slop around the entrance, I assured them, it will get better.  Down off Dania Beach I decided to unroll a bit of headsail, and as I cranked on the winch to bring in the flapping sail, I heard that noise that every sailor dreads.  Rrrrriiiippppp!  The entire blue sun shade on the roller furling sail had decided to separate and the triangle of sail in the middle was flapping like a flag in the wind.

The Dolphin's Smile

When we'd more or less got the sail furled and wrapped round the forestay with the sheets, my sister quietly suggested that perhaps we should turn around and forget taking mom to Miami because, hell, she'd lived in Fort Lauderdale for the last 20 years.  She was quite a swimmer, and she'd make her way down there and find dad on her own.  So there I was, screwdriver in hand, trying to figure out how to unscrew the bottom of the burled wood box when my sister shouted, "Dolphins!"  There looked to be about five of them, two adults and three juveniles enjoying the hell out of the rough water.  "It's an omen!" and it felt like it was so.  We said farewell to our mom and turned the bow back to port.

Tow, Tow, Tow the Boat, Gently Up the Stream

Not wanting to dock in the strong cross current, I suggested we go into Lake Sylvia and anchor for lunch while waiting for the tide.  We told mom stories and had a feast, and around 5:00 p.m. when I went to start the engine, Click, Click, Click.  Nada.  I checked the bilge and it was full of fuel.  So I swore my brother and sister to silence telling them I'd keel-haul them if they said anything about my background — and I called Towboat US.  My siblings smiled and kept their word and the guys on the towboat never knew they were towing Seychelle's creator back to her slip on the New River.

Somewhere out there at sea, I know there was a dolphin leaping into the air wearing a huge smile.

Fair winds!

Christine

Joyce Holland-On being a writer and an agent.

Mike asked me a question. He wanted to know if I preferred being an agent or a writer. Now there's a loaded question, but it has an easy answer. I'm a writer through and through. However, being writer produces a million frustrations, and not just because it's hard to get published. The real frustration is the constant need to express yourself, a trait that lies deep within each true 'writer.' I remember even as a child grabbing a pencil and paper and penning rude retorts to my family and friends for perceived injustices. And you know the rest, I felt better for having expressed myself–to myself. I certainly never sent them those evil missives, they would have disowned me. The other trait I believe is common to us is the art of daydreaming. I was a horrible student when I was little, mainly because I wasn't really there. I was in my zone, creating my make-believe world. So, when I write, that's where I return, to those happy make-believe days where things happen the way I want.

The hardest writing I ever did was when I wrote a true crime. The "truth" confined me to the real world, and it wasn't a pleasant one. For one thing, the crime happened in my neighborhood and a family member was one of the players in the drama leading up to that ghastly night. It was years after the murder before I could bring myself to write a book about it. It was like writing my own version of 'Peyton Place.' People in town bought the book hoping to get the scoop on half the county — and, to make sure they weren't in it. LOL.

We'll get to the agenting part in a minute, but first, I realize you don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about, so let me help you out. Hey, it's out of print so I'm not trying to sell it to you. Here's the blurb for MY, MY, MYRA:

Known for their flamboyant lifestyle, it was no surprise to this community when Robert and Myra Vaivada became overnight headline news. But many of their secrets continue to surface–secrets that are still shocking this quiet little resort town on Florida's Emerald Coast. What brought the couple to that crucial night? The night, when close to midnight, Myra placed a gun to Robert's head while he lay sleeping and blew his brains out.

Was it money? Robert, an ex Navy Seal, had an accident years before and received close to a million dollars in a court settlement. Was it love? Although both Myra and Robert had extramarital affairs, often as participants in group encounters, Myra had become sexually obsessed with a local musician. She showered him with gifts and money. Or, did Myra do it at all? She still maintains an intruder broke in, robbed them of thirty to forty-thousand dollars and murdered Robert.

Bizarre stories concerning the Vaivadas abound. Stories such as Myra calling exclusive clothing stores and having them bring over a truck with clothing in her size, picking out the ones she liked and then trying them on in her driveway. Stories of Myra cruising the strip every night in a limousine, picking up men or women to feed her insatiable sexual appetite.

At the time of the murder, Myra's stepfather was an Air Force General. The sordid details of the case attracted so much publicity that the firm of Simpson & Judkins was hired to defend Myra. Simpson was the prosecutor of Ted Bundy. People came from all over northwest Florida to line up for a seat at the sensational thirteen-day trial.

***

Sounds juicy, huh? Well it was, but it was work from beginning to end. I spent months in the courthouse and hours taking interviews. I might as well have been writing a term paper. I'm not sure I understand the joy that some people get from writing nonfiction. I'm still that little girl whose mother found her in the closet with a flashlight shining down on her world of marble people. ( I had more of them then dolls.)

Ah … the agenting business. Yes, I love it too. I get to read other peoples' dreams. Ones that haven't seen the light of day yet, and I get to help make that happen. It's the next best thing to writing the stories myself. I went from being conference chair for my local writers' organization to becoming an agent. It felt like a natural progression for me. I enjoyed helping other writers showcase their talent by importing editors and agents for our conferences. Then I decided I would be even more helpful if I were an agent myself. Anyway, that's how this ordinary writer became an extraordinary agent. Just kidding. I do my best and that's all I can say about that.

The Last Run

                                        (Winter, it will be soon on its way.)

In New England, the sails are now coming off, the masts lowered, the anchors stowed as one more season on the water ends. Soon, the skis will come out of the basement and the winter sky will offer night watchers glorious evenings, but there is no mistaking the end of the boating season. So with this as a backdrop I recently took my last sail of the season – an outing that's akin to the last run of a day on the slopes. Such an idyllic vision. Idyllic but for the fact that October's last run on the water was unfortunately the equivalent of one of those thigh burning hellish rides through an icy mogul field.

My account of this final sail starts the way every sailing story begins – you might have heard the adage, you can tell a sailing story from a fairy tale because one starts with "once upon a time" while the other begins with "no shit, there I was." So, no shit, there I was, sailing out of Westport. The sun bright, the wind honking, and only two other boats on the water: one, a big powerboat returning to port, the other, a fool like me, headed out. The wind, as it can be this time of year, was from the northwest.  I was on an angle of sail that put the breeze behind me for a nice run under the genoa. The perfect end to the season.

As I merrily hopped along the waves heading south, further and further from land, the wind began stirring up the waves and even more so as I went toward the center of Buzzards Bay, a body of water known for its malicious chop. Once I was three miles or so from shore the waves grew steep, as in five-plus footers that stack right next to each other and hit you bam, bam, bam. (For those of you unaccustomed to boating, an estimated measurement of waves can be achieved by viewing the crest (top) and trough (bottom) to gauge the distance from bottom to top, which is the face of the wave. To calculate wave height, you take this figure and multiply by two or three in order to add a sense of what it was really like being out there. Lastly, if needed, round down to a more reasonable figure in cases where your calculations create an obvious overstatement. The resulting figure is your wave height.) But anyways, like I said, there I was, the waves now building up. Fortunately, our old boat is good in a sea so I wasn't worried at all about these ten-footers, errr, five-foot, waves. It was, however, time to get back home, so I headed up close to the wind, keeping my speed, and I then began to tack.

I pushed the tiller over hard and the boat began to turn until gradually the turning motion slowed. I now found myself headed into the wind, which had shifted to the west. Tacking with only a headsail can cause this challenge. But, determined, I kept the tiller over hard because I thought that one of those darn waves would slam hard into me and I could complete the tack and be able to head home. It didn't. Instead, the boat pointed into the wind and came to a standstill while the sail slapped wildly back and forth in what was now a hounding wind. In defeat, I turned the tiller back to head further out to sea, but somehow, the port sheet – the rope that controls the sail – wrapped around one of the big dorade vents up forward on the cabin top.

(Here's a good look at one of the dorade vents, this one on the starboard side, the photo taken on a pleasant, unusually flat, day.)

Alone on the boat, alone the on the water, I had no choice but to go forward in this twelve five foot sea, I mean five-foot sea, to free the line before it ripped the vent off the deck. With one hand on the grab rail I unwrapped the sheet and hurried back to the cockpit. Maybe I'll just sail to Cuttyhunk and stay overnight, I thought. Instead, I was more pragmatic – I started the engine, determined that I would be able to come about even if I needed the help of a diesel. I then began the process again, the tiller over.

The chances of looping that sheet around the vent a second time had to have been a remote statistical probability, I mean way less than the chances of Brett Favre getting an I-phone under the Christmas tree, but that's what happened. Except, this time the port and starboard sheets then wrapped around each other in a mini birds nest that resembled the spool of a fishing reel after a bad cast. So up again I went and this time I had to use both hands to straighten out the sheets, meaning that I wasn't holding onto the rocking boat with anything other than the soles of my Sperry topsider feet.

Now, the reader might remember that earlier this summer I wrote of a famed boat designer who fell off his boat while he was alone at sea. Funny how that same thought came to me as I climbed up onto the deck. But I made it. With the lines untangled I returned to the cockpit, tacked the bow around, and steered the boat home.

Thus the season was closing as I sailed for home, once again on a howling wind. And as I turned toward the entrance of the Westport River, facing the westerly wind, I furled the foresail, turned on the diesel, and steered for the mooring. Click, click, click, click, click went my trusty 3 cylinder Yanmar diesel. Click, click, click, click, click, click…STOP.

The engine, which had been reliable all year, crapped out. Up again to the deck I went, this time throwing the anchor. But what happened next is a story is for another day and in any event I got home safely without damage or loss. And at the mooring I sat back, the last run of 2010 a chapter now written.

       (Even the local animals are fretting the passage of summer.)

My Friend Art

By Michael Haskins

 My friend Art, general managers of the Hog's Breath Saloon, has decided to write a novel. I think his words were something like, "If you can do it, so can I!" He's discovering it is not as easy as he thought.

"I read your recent blog," Art said and bought me a Jameson on the rocks. "Insightful," he nodded and smiled.

I knew there was more to come, so I waited and sipped my Jameson.

"Thank you, Art," I finally said.

The Carter Brothers, Tim and Danny Carter, were setting up on stage and when they began to play I wanted to listen, so I needed Art to get to what concerned him about writing.

"How's the novel coming?" I took a sip of whiskey, to keep from smiling too widely.

"I haven't gotten to the writing, yet," he mumbled.

"You're plotting?" I said without looking at him. "Good way to go, for the first one. Get all your ducks in a row."

"I'm looking for a fresh idea," he mumbled. He moved closer. "When you read the newspapers and magazines, what do you look for? I mean, to stimulate your ideas?"

I lit a cigar and turned in my barstool. "Something unusual. Maybe a little quirky."

"How do you know if it's unusual or quirky?" He lit a cigarette and sat down.

"Art, you've lived here too long," I laughed. "If you find something in the paper that strikes you, a long-time resident of Key West, as unusual or quirky, you can bet your paycheck that the rest of the world will think so too."

"Okay," he sighed, and I knew he wanted more. "How do you incorporate it into your story?"

"Maybe you do, maybe you don't," I blew thick cigar smoke into the night. "Sometimes I cut it out and file it for possible future use."

"Why?"

"Because later I may remember it and that way I have it to reread." The Carter Brothers were almost ready to do a sound check. "I don't trust my memory. I clip newspapers and magazine stories, I take notes of things I hear and people I see."

"Why?" he frowned.

"Because, if I hear an unusual phrase, I want to save it, to remember it, so I write it down. Or I run into a person with a trait I think a character could have, I write it down."

"Can you give me an example?" He twisted in his seat.

I looked around the large outdoor bar. It was getting crowded, as show time approached. Across the bar a young women, dressed in black, with dyed black hair, black nail polish and a pierced nose, sat talking to a young guy who dressed like a yuppie. They were talking into each other's face, but not touching.

"See the couple over there?" I nodded toward the couple. "She's Gothic and he's a yuppie, probably on vacation together. I see that and I wonder why? What do they have in common?"

"Sex?" Art suggests.

"That's a good first guess, but how'd they get to the point of sex?"

Art studied the couple and smoked another cigarette. "They guy's sister is married with kids and she was the baby sitter." He spoke quickly and smiled when he'd finished.

"Good, Art. And maybe at home he's ashamed to be seen with her, so they've escaped to Key West."

"Yeah," Art agreed. "And they want to make a life together here."

"But, you're forgetting something, Art."

"What?"

"This is a mystery novel, so there has to be some mystery. A murder or a robbery or both."

"Maybe to get the money to move here they committed a robbery and someone was killed?"

"That's workable," I told him and finished my drink, hoping he'd buy me another before the band started.

"I think it could be a short story," he said, as he removed a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. "I need to get this down." He began writing in the notebook.

I ordered a fresh drink from Frank and when I turned around Art was walking away, muttering to himself. It might have been dialogue and he wanted to hear how it sounded.

A boat show state of mind.

By Mike Jastrzebski

This week the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show takes place. We've lived here for four years now, and this is the first year I've been excited about the show. In fact, the only reason we attended last year is because we had free tickets. So what's changed?

This year we're getting ready to go cruising. We need some things, and we want some others. We need a new dinghy. Our old dink is fifteen years old and has developed some leaks. I've patched and re-patched, and finally have to admit that if the dinghy were an American flag, we'd be burning it right now. (According to the USA Flag site the US Flag code title 4, Chapter 1, Sec. 8(k) states: When a flag is so worn it is no longer fit to serve as a symbol of our country, it should be destroyed by burning in a dignified manner.) This reminds me, I think we need a new flag.

I'm also considering a chart plotter, but since I'm planning to buy an Ipad as a backup to my computer for writing, I may just purchase the navigation software available for the Ipad. This will not be the ideal solution since I will have to keep the Ipad in a plastic cover while it's outside, but we don't have unlimited funds.

We also want to get an EPIRB before we leave. If we go to the Bahamas like we plan, and then shoot along the Gulf Stream to the Chesapeake, we'll be far enough away from shore for a long enough period that we'll feel better with the EPIRB.

The final major items we want to buy before we leave are solar panels. A wind generator would be nice, but after living at a mooring for three months in Key West, we feel solar panels are a necessity.

Then there are the things we like to look at that we may buy in the future. A watermaker would be nice, and a dedicated life raft. It's getting close to that time when we need to replace the mattress, but not this year.

So what about you? What items would you need before you went cruising?

The List

Mike wrote yesterday about cutting down the list and it got me to thinking about the phrase "The List."  For my well-published novelist friends, that can only mean one thing — making THE LIST.  The phrase always has the unspoken initials NYT inserted between the two words.

But for boat owners like us, The List means that long list of projects that seems to grow ever longer no matter how hard you work.  Although I was an English major and math is not my strongest subject, I do understand that if you add two items for every one you delete, you are never going to get to the end of that list.  And on boats, one item on a list often entails much more than it would appear.

For example, I had on my list the one item — Install vent in chart table door.  My battery charger is located in the cabinet under the chart table and it creates too much heat in that confined area.  I was tired of having to crack the door all the time to vent the heat.  I had purchased a pre-made teak louvered insert, but of course, my jig saw was in storage.  If I go to the storage unit, I need to make a list of everything I need to pick up while I'm there.  Then I  get out my spare jar of stainless screws to see if any one of them will fit and of course none will, so now I must stop by the hardware store en route to the storage locker.  At the storage unit, I can't find the saw, so I need to repack and reorganize for an hour or so.  When I finally get back with my saw and my screws, and I take all my gear onto the dock to make my cuts and drill my holes, I discover that my tube of wood glue is dried solid.  Tools go back on board and the dog and I climb into the car and head back to the hardware store.  And so it goes.  At the end of the day, the list is one item shorter, but two items longer, and even I can see where that math is headed.

There is yet another very important list in my life:  my revision list.  While writing my novels, I try to press on moving the story forward each time I'm able to sit down at the computer.  Of course, throughout my day, and literally through all these years, more ideas are constantly popping into my head for ways to revise what I've already written.  I keep a list.  My revisions list.

I throw everything that seems to be important onto that list.  Sometimes, it is something as simple as an added character trait, and I go back and layer in a preference in dialogue for certain words or tastes.  But at other times, it's as bad as a sailor's multiple trips to the hardware store.  Sometimes the items on that list go back and change things early in the story that will reverberate in hundreds of ways throughout the novel.  I don't even know how to do the math to calculate the hours that it takes me to deal with a single change on page 22 of a 500+ page book.  And often, as I go through making the changes in all the places where this new direction takes me, I encounter road blocks.  So, I go back to my list and add another couple of "quick fixes" that I will need to do to maintain continuity.

Most sailors know someone who never ventured out of port because he never reached the end of his list.  There comes a point for all of us when we realize the list will never end.  We must just throw off the dock lines and go.

The metaphor seems obvious on the surface, but letting go of that book is even harder sometimes.  If the plumbing and electrical don't hook up just right, the circuits won't close, the water won't flow and the book will be dead in the water.  I continue to believe that this is a list I can conquer.  I'll let you know when I'm ready to launch.

Fair winds!

Christine

Cutting down the list.

By Mike Jastrzebski

We're now five months away from our projected take-off day. Mary starts back to work today after hurting her back and being off of work for over a month. We've decided that beginning next week we will work on boat projects on her days off. On the days she works I will write until I complete the rewrite of Dog River Blues, hopefully before Christmas. At that time I will begin to work on the boat project list full time.

Our list started with 55 projects and over the summer I've whittled that number down to 42. The 13 items I've checked off have been mostly the easy jobs. I'll save the biggest projects for after Dog River Blues is completed, and I'm sure along the way I'll be adding to the list. What I don't understand is why it seems like such an onerous undertaking. After all, before we left Minnesota I did a complete refit which took five years.

I removed all of the hardware from the boat.

Painted it

Gutted the interior

And rebuilt it.

So why is it that I'm having so much trouble building enthusiasm for the project list? Partially I think I didn't expect living on a boat in a hot climate to be so hard on the boat. Partially I think it's because I've become used to spending my time writing which is much less demanding physically. And finally, I'm getting older. I'll be 62 next year and when I started on the refit I was only still in my forties.

Whatever the reason, the work has to be done if we want to go cruising. I guess I just have to get my rear in gear and get the boat ready to go, because I don't want to be sitting at the dock a year from now.

Literary Groupie

I'm starting to think that I am a stalker.  No, scratch that, more of a groupie than a stalker, an author groupie.

Sunday, after spending the week reading the latest Randy Wayne White Doc Ford novel, I traveled across the state of Florida to Sanibel Island.  White is nice enough to include a map of his setting in the front of his books, which makes it awful easy to stake out visit.

As I turned down Tarpon Bay Road, as Doc often does and paddled the bay where he catches fish, I couldn't help but feel apart of the story.  Osprey soared above my kayak, and graceful egrets waded through the shallows just like White had described on the page.  The tangled maze of mangroves lined the bay, just as he said they did. I used his writing as a form of guidebook.  It was not the first time.

Last year, I spent a weekend in Paris staying in a hotel on rue d'Odeon just because Ernest Hemingway used to live there.  I walked the streets he wrote about and hung out in the bookstore he once frequented.

Closer to home, I've gone for drinks at The Downtowner because Christine Kling wrote that her character, Seychelle Sullivan likes to hangout there.

And the stalking has worked. As a groupie, I've attended writer's conferences, as much for the knowledge as to hear some of my favorite authors speak. Imagine my surprise, when after one of the talks, I had the opportunity to speak to Isabel Allende at length. I was on cloud nine just being in her presence, but then she started asking me about my life as a yacht chef and the writing I had done. We ended the discussion with an exchange of e-mails. Eureka! What stalker fan wouldn't love that?

After a number of writer's conferences, I now possess numerous authors contact information and converse regularly with many of them.  I am learning about the writing and publishing process from people who have been through it: people I respect and admire.

The Internet has fueled this obsession greatly.  Now, a literary lover can befriend authors on Facebook, contact them through their web-sites and comment on their blogs. A few of my favorites even send me newsletters describing what is happening in their writing world.  The Internet has become an open forum for contact. Check it out! Google your favorite author and you will see just how easy it is.

I must sign off now and do some research on Ruth Reichl, the key-note speaker at the Key West Literary Seminar, the next writer's conference I am attending.

What about you? Have you ever visited a place because of a book you read? Have you ever written to an author? I'm not the only one…right?

Victoria Allman has been following her stomach around the globe for eleven years as a yacht chef.  She writes about her floating culinary odyssey through Europe, the Caribbean, Nepal, Vietnam, Africa and the South Pacific in her first book, Sea Fare:  A Chef's Journey Across the Ocean, available through Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Victoria is a columnist for Dockwalk, an International magazine for crew members aboard yachts.  Her column, Dishing It Up, is a humorous look at cooking for the rich and famous in an ever-moving galley.

You can read more of her food-driven escapades through her web-site,

www.victoriaallman.com

How Does Your Writing Sound?

A Soundless Picture of the Back Bay

I was sitting in my truck yesterday, by a dock on Smithtown Bay, watching the tide trickle into the marsh and the summer trickle out of the sky. Initially, it was the light that held my attention; the long, wan yellow of October. But after a few minutes, I realized I wasn't watching the sky anymore. I was listening to the life that lingered still on the edge of that marsh.

There were the gulls of course, fewer in number but raucous as always. There were also crickets; unexpected in the cool autumn afternoon. Their chirping was slow. I imagined them struggling sluggishly in the cold air, their prehistoric bodies stiff and uncooperative. In the background I could hear the mini-rivulets of brine running in over the muddy flats, tiny air bubbles snapping as the cold water closed over them.

Of course, the more I listened, the more I heard. Eventually, it became a cacophony of natural and man-made sounds – a far-off outboard motor buzzing low on the water; the angry chirping of a nesting Osprey offended by some nearby intruder, even the breeze rustling the sea oats up on the dunes. I realized that my little setting there on the marsh was a great deal richer than just the streaky pastels of the sky.

When we write a scene, including an authentic auditory layer can add a richness that pulls the reader ever deeper into the story. Sound can be used to add texture and can even become part of the dramatic structure. Surely you recall the pounding of "The Telltale Heart," by Edgar Allan Poe. But even if you're not writing Gothic fiction, the elements of sound in your scenes are as critical as the visual descriptions.

A good way to make your scenes sound, as well as look real, is to practice cataloging the sounds that surround you. Stop what you're doing at some point today, close your eyes, and spend a few minutes sampling the resonating world. Like all sensory exercises, you will become aware of more and more the longer you listen. Imagine how your characters might cause sounds; how they might hear them and react to them. It's all about including that rich auditory layer in your writing. You've heard all of these sounds before but never paid much attention to them. But they really are everywhere — the squeaky hinges on the floating docks, the clanking of the halyard snaps against the mast, the mysterious splashes — capture them and lay them into your scenes.

Sounds simple, right?

From Rags to Riches on the Kindle? The new kid in town.

Barnes & Noble's new self-publishing program, PubIt, is now available for those looking to expand beyond the Kindle e-book market. In the past if you wanted to have your books available for the Nook it was necessary to publish through Smashwords and sign up to be listed on their premium catalog. My book has been on the Barnes & Noble site for some time now. So why did I take the Smashwords version down and sign up for PubIt? Because I wanted to have more control over my product.

About a month ago I discovered that Kobo, who was publishing my books through Smashwords, had put my books on sale at a 20% discount. I never expected to sell a lot of books on Kobo and this wouldn't have bothered me except that Amazon's contract gives them the right to match any lower price. They did so and I lost about $60.00 in royalties last month. Not a lot of money, but money I would just as soon keep. It took me almost 4 weeks to get my book taken down from the Kobo site. I contacted Kobo–they said it had to be done through Smashwords. I contacted Smashwords and was assured it would be off the Kobo site soon. I guess a month is soon to them, not to me.

The Pubit contract gives Barnes & Noble the right to discount my books, but they also offer me the chance to change my price. I can raise my price to counter the discount and it will be taken care of in 5 days. This, along with the fact that PubIt allows you to track your sales in the same manner that Amazon does, is what made up my mind. The royalty rate is 65%, slightly lower than Amazon's rate, but I'll still make a little more on sales than through Smashwords.

I will post my Nook sales in the coming months as I have my Kindle sales. In the meantime, if you would like to order my books for your Nook, here are the links.

The Storm Killer 

Key Lime Blues

Also Available for Kindle: