Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 39
July 15, 2013
Remedy for going stir crazy
I have been a little stir crazy these past weeks because I’ve had nothing to write. I finished “To Beat The Devil” and it’s an eBook and trade paperback, wrote a short story, “Hemingway’s Typewriter,” that I sent to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and am waiting to hear back. As any writer can tell you, waiting is part of the process, so get used to it.
My wife doesn’t believe my walking around under the house (it’s a stilt house, I can walk under it) and maybe smoke a cigar or lay in the hammock has anything to do with writing. Well, just in case she reads this let me explain.
I’m in between book projects, but my mind is working and I have an idea. I start to work it out in my head – new characters, good guys/bad guys or gals. Forged art, drug dealer, Murphy’s cousin sells forged art. Murphy tries to find him. What are the obstacles? Write them down. Have to go from KW to LA to NJ to Ireland, back to KW. What are the obstacles at each place, how dangerous? How do I get Norm involved?
Open up with the murder of a Cuban artist in KW. How does that lead to Ireland?
You see why I work it out in my head first? As an idea takes shape and seems plausible, I start writing notes in a notebook (I guess that’s how it got its name). I draw little boxes with points or names or happenings in them and then lines to other boxes with names, happenings etc. that are related to or because of.
When, in my head, I have a beginning, middle and end, I begin the writing. Of course, the characters usually take over somewhere in the process and my middle and end don’t end up as I had planned, but that’s the fun of being god in my universe, I am constantly surprised by what my characters do to each other and to my plans.
So, I have my beginning, middle and end, but no title. I have four chapters done and three have gone through my critique group. They are totally confused, but interested.
“To Beat the Devil” is no longer on the top 100 mystery/thriller list on Kindle, but it remains selling well. Ads I’ve taken out on the eBook websites began appearing this week for both that book and its predecessor, “Stairway to the Bottom.” I’ve seen a small spike in Stairway sales. Maybe the ads are working.
Two questions for the three people that read my blog posts, 1) if you write, what’s your process? 2) do eBook site ads get your attention? Are readers really paying attention to them? Let me know, please?
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It’s writing time again.
By Mike Jastrzebski
We’re back on the boat again after spending three weeks visiting family in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Although I loved seeing everyone, it was time to get back to the writing.
I wrote the first draft of Stranded Naked Blues, the new Wes Darling book, while in the Bahamas. I’ve always found that it helps in my rewriting process if I let the book set for a month or two before making changes. That time has come and gone, and today I am sitting at my desk and pushing hard on the first rewrite.
In my other books I rewrote each book between five and seven times. I expect the new book to go through the same process. That said, I plan to have the book available this fall.
If you haven’t read any of the Wes Darling books feel free to download a free Kindle eBook of Dog River Blues (Wes Darling Book 2). This book is free for three days only, starting today 07/15/2013 through Wednesday 
07/17/2013 at Amazon. Here’s a description of the book:
This exciting sequel to Key Lime Blues has it all !
A sexy relative who wants to teach Wes Darling the meaning of kissin’ cousins, a priceless centuries old manuscript, a three hundred pound redneck, and an ex-spy who thinks murder is a justifiable means of support are just a few of the things awaiting Wes when he sails into the Dog River in search of answers about the father he never knew.
Dog River Blues blends the mystique of the liveaboard boating lifestyle and the colorful characters and vagabonds who live, work, and sometimes commit murder on our nation’s waterways. This is one voyage to Mobile, Alabama you don’t want to miss.
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July 12, 2013
Where the hell are my ruby slippers?
The storm dropped a house out in the anchorage?
by Christine Kling
I’m back home in the USA, but I swear, it feels like Oz to me. Seriously.
I left Green Turtle Cay late in the afternoon on Saturday, July 6 and motored the ten miles up to Powell Cay. The wind was blowing hard, but the anchorage was well protected, so I rowed the Yorkshire Terror ashore. We walked the white sand beach and met some folks off a giant motor yacht, who were very nice to us and gave us an ice cold bottle of Fiji water. The weird thing was, Barney became obsessed with this one lady’s toes. She was floating in a water chair and as he brightly painted toes bobbed to the surface he kept trying to bite them. She was giggling so loud it sounded like she was cackling. She made jokes about taking Barney with her. I’ll bet she had a bicycle with a basket on it hidden on that island somewhere – along with her red-striped leggings.
Let’s go this way – or maybe this way?
–From the film The Wizard of Oz, MGM (1939)
The next day the wind was blowing fairly strong again and my stalwart guide, my little autopilot friend lost his brain. He wobbled all over and pointed this way, then that way. Then he tried to go both ways at once. It was hopeless. He was done in. So, I was hand steering for the next four hours of sailing 5.5 knots under headsail alone to the anchorage at Great Sale Cay.
Though I had intended to sail from there to Cape Canaveral in the company of my friends Matt and Cindy on Mikaya, I told them I’d changed my plans. I didn’t want to hand steer for 24 to 36 hours due to the osteoarthritis I have in my neck, so I was headed to West End the following morning. Though the trip would be much longer, I would break it up into manageable bits and be able to get to Fort Lauderdale to take care of my business there.
I had a nice trip across the banks, motorsailing and sailing. I arrived around 4:30 in the afternoon, tied up in the marina, and had a nice hot shower. While I was registering in the office, I met an acquaintance. He told me I shouldn’t go the next day because a low had developed to the south of us. He had seen it on satellite weather, he said, and I should be prepared to be stuck in West End waiting with him for a break in the weather. I went back to the boat and looked at the Internet, and found what he was looking at was just a cell of thunderstorms. An hour later it had disappeared. It was just normal summer weather. I wonder if the cowardly lion is still waiting in West End for the summer squalls to end.
As it turned out, I made it through the first forty miles of my crossing without problems. I was motorsailing with headsail only in 10-15 knots of wind off my aft quarter, rocking and rolling and doing my best to keep my sail from backing. My shoulders and neck were burning from the exertion of trying to hold a course in the very moderate swell, but I was considering myself lucky that it was so quiet. The rolling was enough that the Terror wanted to sit on my lap all the time, and I was trying to balance keeping myself upright, holding a dog on my lap and steering one armed using all my strength to turn the wheel. I finally put him into his box down below around 11:00 a.m. I had to use both arms to steer.
The last twenty miles just about did me in. The Gulf Stream current was so strong, it seemed like the bow was pointed towards Miami and the boat was still being pushed north. I had sailed a course that took me well south of the rhumb line before hitting the stream to build in room so that I wouldn’t lose speed by heading directly into the current. It almost worked.
But then I got hit by a line of squalls that just kept coming one after the other. I had to roll up my headsail in the 30 knot winds and the seas grew bigger and more confused. We rolled rail to rail and I heard things crashing and banging and breaking down below. I saw two waterspouts form and snake down to the surface so close to my boat I could see the white spume at the surface where the powerful cyclonic winds pick up the water and turn it into a white vapor storm. I called out to the Terror, “Hang on Todo! We might go airborne soon!” I decided if the waterspouts came any closer, I was going to go below, put in the drop boards and climb into the box with Barney. I kept clicking my bare heels together, trying to sight land and saying to myself, “There’s no place like home.”
In the end, it wasn’t until I motored through the breakwaters that I finally made it out of that relentless current. I never did go north of my rhumb line and I made the 53 mile crossing in 11.5 hours in spite of numerous course changes to dodge waterspouts and covering a route that was more of an arc than a line. I was beat and the pain was pretty intense. I dropped my anchor, but not before looking out across the water and seeing that somehow a house had been dropped in the middle of the anchorage. I wondered if Barney would find shriveled toes sticking out underneath it.
The last couple of days, I’ve spent with a rental car doing all the errands I needed to do in Fort Lauderdale, so tomorrow morning I will start north up then Yellow Brick Road (aka the ICW). I’m going to break it up into three shorter days and try to go easy on my neck and shoulders. Eventually, I will replace the brain on the autopilot, but I don’t want to pay transient marina rates here and waste time when I am on a deadline. This way I can motor up the road, and still be able to lift my arms to write in the evenings. That’s the plan anyway.
So, in the morning Todo and I will be off to see the wizard. Remember how Dorothy got that makeover in the Emerald City? I wonder if those munchkins could shave a few years off this tired old body.
Fair winds!
Christine
Want more sea stories? My nautical novels are available here.
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July 11, 2013
Right or left???
C.E. Grundler
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Working in a marina or boatyard provides an almost daily abundance of material for a writer. The last few months have well proven that. Boats sinking, burning, and so on.
Gladly, not of this season’s toasted boats have been where I am. The memorable quote in the above case was: “The mechanic stated he smell gasoline, and when he started the boat it just burst into flame.” Uhm. Yeah. No comment. Amazingly, no one was hurt. A bit singed, perhaps, but the boat was a total loss.
The marine environment attracts some truly unique and interesting characters, from the yard crews and office staff (myself included) to the customers, and even an occasional critter hiding in the attic. The transient pictured below was gently and humanely relocated to the nearby marshland.
I could — and ultimately will — fill pages with the things I’ve seen and heard almost daily. Of course, in a fictional context, names and situations will be changed, but the material I encounter is a virtual well-spring of inspiration on the behavior of humans on and around boats. Some times I have to shake my head and laugh, (or at least try to laugh,) because you simply can’t make this sh*t up. For example: the boat we found tied to the dock in the morning, half sunk, with a flooded cockpit, the forward hatch open, THE MAIN UP and the jib piled on the deck and hanging overboard. When I called the owner, he replied that he had left it that way because he “went sailing yesterday and will be going out tomorrow,” and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand why leaving his boat under sail at the dock was an issue. It was a miracle it hadn’t gone over during the storm we’d had overnight, though he fully acknowledged that his cockpit drains were permanently clogged, which explained the abundance of water on the wrong side of the hull. Yet he couldn’t understood why I felt it necessary to call him on any of these matters.
Maybe I’m being too picky, but behavior like that makes my head hurt. It’s something marinas deal with constantly, so we should be used to these ‘quirky’ customers. And whenever I think I’ve seen it all, like the fellow complaining that someone dinged his boat -
- a bashed up center console that annually sinks, is filled with junk and quite literally has grass growing through cracks in the cockpit — that I get a call that takes the prize.
Caller, sounding slightly aggravated: “Yeah. How do I figure out where I am on the river?”
Me, already getting a bad feeling: “You’re calling from a boat? Are you in distress? Is there some sort of emergency?”
Caller: “No. I just want to park at the restaurant for lunch. How do I find you guys?”
Me: “Uhm. Charts. Navigational instruments. Do you have them aboard?”
Caller: “I don’t know how to use them. Can’t you just tell me which way to go?”
Deep breath. Me: “Where did you start from, and are you travelling north or south.”
Caller: “I got gas but I don’t know where that was, and when I left there I made a right. I don’t know that north and south stuff.” His tone grew more irritable. “Can’t you just tell me if I should go right or left?”
Wince. These are the people we share the waterways with. Another deep breath. Me: “Do you have a smart phone? Look up Google maps. That should give you a general idea.”
Caller: “Oh, hey! Great! Thanks!”
And when ultimately he did arrive, aided by his data plan, it was aboard a shiny new $250K boat sporting every bell and whistle, including all the latest and greatest nav instruments.
No, you can’t make this sh*t up.
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July 7, 2013
Heading back
By Mike Jastrzebski
This morning we’re leaving Minnesota and heading back home. We’ve had a great two weeks visiting with our son Neil, his wife Stacie, and our granddaughter Cianna. We’ve eaten way too much great food at their restaurant, Troubles, spent a lot of time with Cianna, and been way too lazy.
We plan on driving through Wisconsin to visit Mary’s family, then back to Cape Canaveral where I can get to work on the rewrite of the next Wes Darling book, Stranded Naked Blues.
I don’t know how anyone else feels, but as much as I like seeing family, I can’t wait to be back home.
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July 5, 2013
My Independence Day 2013
Abaco Regatta Party at Green Turtle Cay
by Christine Kling
I just dinghied out to my boat as the last blue light of dying day glowed on the horizon. I headed for the masthead light I’d left on. Barney and I had been at the after race party down on the Bluff House beach on Green Turtle Cay. In the photo above if you look between the two blue umbrellas, you can see a tiny boat out at anchor on the horizon. That’s Talespinner.
Today is the 4th of July, the American Independence Day and it does make me think about that word independence. Today, I have more of it in my life than I’ve ever had before, and I feel so grateful. I’m an indie author writing my books for a living wherever I decide to go aboard my sailboat.
This evening at the regatta party I was talking to a friend from Fort Lauderdale, and she told me she wished she could do what I do and sail a boat singlehanded. I told her that a big change came for me when I allowed myself the freedom to make stupid mistakes. And I do make them. But I try to learn each time I do.
Yet I’m still afraid — often. Now as I contemplate another long overnight passage across the Gulf Stream, I’m watching our local weather at BarometerBob and seeing day after day of winds at 20 to 25, I’m wondering what this trip will be like and I worry. Strong winds mean things break, and I won’t always be able to fix them. I always worry and feel nervous before a passage, but once underway, that all goes away. I know I can learn and adapt to whatever comes my way and I enjoy the ride.
Whether we are talking about nations, writing careers or sailing, independence means liberty, and with that comes the likelihood of making stupid mistakes. Goodness knows, our nation has been making plenty of them recently — and throughout its 200+ year existence. And I make plenty of mistakes in my writing in spite of my efforts at research and revision.
The opposite of independence is dependent. America was once dependent on England. Today, lots of midlist writers are depending on their traditional publishers to make their books successful. I know I once was. But since I got the rights back to my Seychelle books and published them independently, I’ve sold more copies than Ballantine ever did.
So here’s to independence! And just before leaving the party tonight, I danced a little with the Junkanoo boys and I’d like to share (at a certain point in this video you will see my friend Matt who volunteered to hold the Yorkshire Terror in the background – and Barney did not like the Junkanoo as much as I did. Note to self – bringing the dog to the Junkanoo was another stupid mistake).
Fair winds!
Christine
Nautical novels by Christine are available here.
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July 4, 2013
I know what I said, but…
Once again, the launch date has been pushed back. And from this point forward I think I’ll be charging $.05 for every time I’m asked “Are you guys going in this year?”, “Is that thing ever going to float?” And I’m charging double for the ever popular, “Where’s it going to end?” and “When do you plan to stop.”
The answer to all those questions and more is simply, “When it’s done.” No more, no less. And being that this is a boat, I know it’s never really ever done, so I’ll revise that to “When ALL the decks are sealed.”
And on that note, it’s the 4th of July, which for most people is a holiday but for us is another ‘work on the boat and then barbeque’ day. It’s six in the morning, the car is loaded with tools, and it’s time for me to run.
I’ll be counting my nickels!
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July 2, 2013
Ocean Is My Potion
by John Urban
Singer-songwriter Mishka Frith knows something about being on the water. Born to a Bermudian father and Nova Scotian mother, he grew up on his family’s boat, sailing the islands of the Caribbean. As a musician, Mishka’s sound is reggae, with a broad appeal to anyone who loves the ocean.
I’ll save my own words today. As the 4th of July approaches, I’ll be humming along to Ocean Is My Potion. Perhaps the lyrics below, and the link to the song, will cause you to do the same.
Ocean Is My Potion by Mishka
Ocean is my potion
I need vitamin sea
So if you´re trying to find me
head on down by the beach
Ocean is my potion
I need vitamin sea
So if you´re trying to find me
Look out there by the reef
Cause I love to
Get high
Under the blue sky
Oh, Sweet ride
Got you by my side
If I´ve got open horizons
all around me
360 degrees
I feel at home like I know were I´m going
feel all the breeze.
Thousands shades of blue
and I’m on a rock beach
Everything that I got to learn
I know she will teach
that she will teach
she will teach
Cause I love a
Free dive
on the lee side
down 25 feet
with you by me side
If I’m trippin on my ego
like humility
She tumbles me
humbles me
She lets me know
brings me back
to reality
She´s my living treasure
Yes my sweet relief
Take away the pressure
She´s my remedy
If you´re a
sailor
swimmer
deep sea diver
then you know what I mean
If you´re a
fisherman
paddler
big wave ridder
then you know what I mean
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July 1, 2013
Amazon/Kindle returns?
By Michael Haskins
Since “To Beat the Devil” has been doing well on Kindle, I’v been receiving emails from friends and other writers with questions that usually are beyond my explaining. I’m not a techie nor do I read the small print when the bank or credit card sends me something to sign. The damn print is too small for one thing and the other is that I missed law school entirely, so it’s all gibberish, but I figure it protects them and screws me.
I have a question for Amazon/Kindle and thought maybe someone out there could answer in plain English. On the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, My Reports, it lists my books, sales, UNITS RETURNED, units sold, and so on.
What the hell are UNITS RETURNED? I know what units returned are, but with my eBooks there’s the chance to read a half dozen chapters before buying it. Shouldn’t that be enough?
A friend thinks it happens when someone buys the book and is able to download a copy for themselves (and maybe for resale) and then returns it for a refund. All this for $2.99 to $4.99!
I’m okay with someone not liking my book, but I’m not sure you get a refund if you return a book. Maybe a credit toward another book. What’s wrong with Amazon? Don’t they know that they and I are being cheated? If someone reads the free chapters they should have a good idea of the writing and story line, so why give a refund?
The more I get into this techie stuff the more confused I become. It’s like trying to understand a publisher’s spreadsheet explaining why you are not receiving royalties, again.
Too many damn lawyers and too few common folks, if you ask me!
Can anyone help me here? I’ll take help from a recovering attorney, if there’s such a person.
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Now I remember
By Mike Jastrzebski
We’re in Minnesota this week visiting the grandkids. It’s been great seeing the family, but it didn’t take long to get that I want to be back home feeling.
The weather has been nice, a little rain, a little sunshine, cool mornings, and warm afternoons. But for some reason I keep dwelling on what’s coming. That would be snow and cold windy days. Maybe that’s because that was what was always on our minds in the summer when we kept the boat on Lake Superior.
Back then, we spent less than four months a year on the water. The boat usually went into the water around Memorial Day. June on Lake Superior is cold, July was hot and still, August was great for sailing, and then Labor Day came along and it was time to pull the boat and get it ready for winter.
All I can say is it’s nice to visit family, but I’m kind of looking forward to heading back to Florida, where the days are hot, but the winters don’t freeze you to the bone.
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