Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 68

Introducing Guest Blogger John Cunningham

 

Water.  By John H. Cunningham                  www.jhcunningham.com

Our planet is over 70% covered in water. Our bodies are over 60% comprised of water.  Doctors recommend we drink eight 12 oz. glasses of water per day. Water is the essence of our lives.

Water is romantic. Not the beverage, but the environment. Whether ponds, lakes, rivers, gulfs, seas or oceans, we are drawn to being on or near the water. It compels us, it's in our hearts and imaginations. Whether to fish, sail, swim, SCUBA dive, catapult at high speed over, lay next to or float upon in small city-sized barges that deliver you from port to port, water is a destination we dream about.

Water pulls at me, I suspect, like many of you. I learned to SCUBA dive off Key Biscayne when I was 13; to fish off Islamorada at 15; I water skied naked through Garrison Bight Marina in Key West at 18, started sailboat racing in the Chesapeake Bay in my 20's and have been all over the world to destinations surrounded by water.

Nearly all my writing has been centered on, around or under water. So, when I decided to create a series character, I was of course drawn there. Many of my favorite writers have imbued my imagination with images and ideas that have influenced my interests. John D. MacDonald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas McGuane, Randy Wayne White, Jimmy Buffett, even Robert Ludlum started the Bourne Identity with Jason floating face-up in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Buck Reilly series is the culmination of my life on the water. An everyman who gets in more trouble than he can handle, with few resources aside from a broken down, antique flying boat, a one man company, if you can call it that, Last Resort Charter and Salvage, and an endless liquid horizon out the window of the Key West hotel where he resides.

With a flying boat as a crucible, you cover a lot of territory, when it's running properly, and theoretically you can land almost anywhere. What evokes a more romantic image than an old Grumman or Sikorsky tipping a wing over a palm tree by the shore with a beautiful woman gazing up longingly in the travel posters of decades gone by? Exotic ports cry out – Cuba! Rio! And our hearts are lifted.

Whether we write on the water, about the water, over the water or next to the water, we must give credit to our most unsung, yet compelling protagonist, antagonist, setting or muse, wherever it may be. Water can be challenging to portray, but when done well, will register in the hearts and minds of our readers almost as completely as it did in us when we first captured the inspiration.

If you want to find me, look down by the water…

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Desire to acquire

My writing desk

by Christine Kling

When I made the decision a year ago to quit my day job and become a full-time writer, built-in to that decision was the idea that I wanted to embrace a simpler life. I had been reading about the Voluntary Simplicity Movement which is about finding balance and discovering what is truly important in your life. And I'd begun following this long thread on the CruisersForum on Cruising on $500 per Month. I felt weighted down with too many possessions, and I wanted to break myself of the habit of thinking that buying "more stuff" could bring me happiness. It was time to shed that all American desire to acquire.

So, here it is 9 months since I quit my job and said good-bye to that comparatively fat paycheck. I spent far too much of my youth off cruising instead of working, so my pension is mighty thin. But I ride my bicycle to the grocery store, and I'm not tempted to buy more than I can carry in my backpack. I'm doing an excellent job of living inexpensively both while on the boat (except for the current price of diesel) and while I'm in my little one room condo with the boat docked outside. My mortgage, maintenance and slip rent here is just under $500 a month. I couldn't get by on so little if I hadn't found this sweet deal. It is part of why I've been able to retire. But since my renter recently moved out, I'm hanging in the apartment until I can figure out what to do next. For now, this is the cheapest place for me and the boat until I can find another renter or until spring when the Bahamas beckon.

I love living on my boat out on the hook. I don't mind wearing ratty clothes, nor eating simple food. I love riding my bicycle to get around. I'm even okay with putting my boat wish-list on hold for a while. I've never wanted fancy dresses, nor do I have that common female obsession with shoes. The Simplicity Movement is all about living on less and liking it. And I do. Most of the time.

But there is one area where I am seriously feeling the pinch. And that is technology.

On March 7th Apple has announced an event at which they will probably be releasing a new iPad – version number 3! I can't wait to see what features the new model will have. I still have the original iPad. Sigh. My iPhone is so old, I can't even upgrade to the current iOS5. My computer just turned five years old. I'm really feeling the hurt. I don't know what I'll do if my computer gives up on me.

I used to be an early adopter. I always had the latest electronics. I never let a computer get more than three years old before I upgraded.And now I have a serious case of iPad envy.

Lately, I've been working on an article and speech I'm going to be presenting to a couple of yacht clubs in the Annapolis area in mid-March on iPad apps, and I've been trolling the tech blogs again and suffering from tech-lust. There is so much cool stuff out there. A UK company called Digital Yacht makes the most amazing wifi devices that will broadcast your NMEA data from your instruments or your AIS to your iPad. Can you imagine lying in your bunk and checking the real wind speed from your anemometer on your iPad? Or getting an AIS overlay of the surrounding ships on the charts on your iPhone?

I can buy into Voluntary Simplicity in almost all versions, and I believe I am closer each day to finding out what is truly important in my life. But I don't think I'll ever lose my desire to acquire shiny new electronics.

Do they have a 12-step program for that?

Fair winds!

Christine

Author of CIRCLE OF BONES
Available for Kindle 
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Whatever floats your corpse…

C.E. Grundler

While the calendar claims that it's only the beginning of March, there's no denying it's been an unusually warm winter here in the northeast. Buds are swelling on the trees, the crocuses have been blooming for weeks, even hyacinths have been clawing their way through the dirt, reaching upward like green zombie fingers towards the sunlight, all well ahead of schedule. And this leaves me wondering: will Floater's Week come early this year?

What is Floater's Week? It's a local event on the waters surrounding New York City. NYC and its neighboring communities hold the title as the nation's largest metropolitan area, with roughly nineteen million people living in a region bordered by the Atlantic and laced with harbors, bays, vast rivers and hidden creeks. It's a city of bridges and tunnels, over two thousand, in fact. Lots of people, lots of water, and lots of access to that water.

With those statistics, it's a given that over time, a certain percentage of deceased bodies might eventually find their ways into said waters. Drowning victims, boating accidents, bridge jumpers, and unfortunate fatalities of criminal activity. As air in the lungs is replaced with water, a body will sink to the bottom, and so long as that water is cold, decomposition is slowed and the corpse will stay put, more or less. But once the days grow longer and water temperatures rise, bacterial activity and decomposition speed up, producing gases that make them buoyant, bringing these bloated bodies bobbing back to the surface in a synchronized resurrection.

So there you have it. Floater's Week. Annually, that perfect mix of conditions usually arrives sometime around mid-April, though, like fishing, it varies based upon a number of factors including position of the body in question and whether or not they may have been additionally 'weighted', so to speak, as well as depth, current, hours of sunlight and so on. And yes, in case anyone is wondering, I have encountered a floater or three in my time on the Hudson. Around here, we see it as a sign of spring.

(And here's a nice, upbeat song by Justin Townes Earle, titled 'Harlem River Blues', about taking a permanent swim in the Harlem River.)

 

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On Assignment: Quebec City

(The walled entrance to Old Quebec)

The international desk at Write On The Water put me on the road again, this time Quebec City, Canada. I have noticed that the majority of our writers are spending their winter months, not in the cold north, but down in the "little latitudes." Regardless, I packed my fleece-lined pants, wool sweater, Sorel boots, and iPad and headed north with my wife and step-son. Besides, the trip is research for a future book partially set on the Saint Lawrence Seaway. So off we went, four-wheel drive ready for the snow we didn't see until we neared the Canadian border.

Much has been much written and said about border control in this election year. However, at least to date, the good people of Vermont have passed on the urge to wall-off our northern neighbors (although I must tell you I think I saw a strategically placed snow fort that suggested the existence of cross-border snowball fights).

All kidding aside, securing our borders is a serious undertaking, one that I understood fully as we approached the Canadian Border Guards at the Newport Vermont/Route 91 crossing. At that point I knew to turn serious, to focus on the moment. Let me use the following words to take you there.

We wait briefly while the one car ahead of us clears. The signal light turns green and I idle our Ford Explorer to the gate. The border guard is young and fit with a military cut. His Kevlar jacket visible, his holster worn high enough that I see the butt of black handgun. I'm not sure what they use for standard issue, but it occurs to me that I might better focus on his eyes than his firepower.

"Bonjour," I say.

"Hello. Passports?"

I'm surprised he doesn't take me for a native speaker because I'd taken two years of French in high school and I'd been practicing for the past two days. Must be the Massachusetts plate that tipped him off.

"You are going to Quebec?" he asks.

"Quebec City," I say.

"Have you been there before?"

Now the brain starts working fast. Of the three passports I handed him, my wife's might stand out. Trips to Paris, Rome, Ecuador, all in the last twelve months…Should I tell him she's an, how do you say, a lawyer, an…an Avocado? No, no… an Avocat!

"Have you?" he repeats.

"Yes." It's my wife, the Avacat, who speaks.

I say, "Yes, we've been to Quebec, but this will be our first time to Quebec City."

There's some silence and I'm thinking that my wife's corporate travel is leading us to some misunderstanding. I've seen a few of those reality cop shows on TV. I'm now wondering if they are going to pull our Explorer aside and start ripping the side panels apart with crow bars.

There is yet more silence, but the young guard shows no concern, no outward suspicion. Finally, he says, "You going skiing?"

Damn, this border guard is good. How did he figure us as skiers? Must be access to some kind of tracking database. "Yes, we are," I say.

He nods. "Very good."

Oh, right. The skis and snowboard on the roof rack.

He hands us our passports and wishes us a good trip.

I am pulling away. I ask my wife, "Should I have told him I am a mystery writer up here to do some research?"

"No," says the Avocat.

The high school senior in the back seat says nothing. He just puts the iPhone ear buds back in his ears.

We are now on our way into Canadian territory.

Oui, the writer's life.

(Ice on the St Lawrence doesn't stop ferry service up here in Quebec City.)

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My Kindles Numbers and Going to SleuthFest

Two things I want to touch on today. One, my numbers at Kindle have been dismal this month. Especially so after reading Mike's column last week and seeing his high numbers. Are my prices too high? Maybe, so I brought my short stories back to .99-cents and my novels to $2.99.

My thought was that with all the new Kindle owners after the holidays last year, it was a good time to increase the prices. Worked well in January, one of my best months, but fell short in February. Could be all the new Kindle owners loaded up on reading material in January and are now reading it all!

I will see if lowering the prices has an effect on sales. I have also added "Free Range Institution" to the Kindle list. That was my traditionally published book that came out a year ago. I haven't done any advertising on it, yet, but did offer it free for two days to see if that would help.

The second thing is that I am preparing to leave for SleuthFest in two days. This year the event is in Orlando. The board (I am a member) decided to change venues from South Florida to Orlando to be more of a destination location event. It may have works, because, I believe, our number of attendees has increased over last year.

We're at a Disney hotel and the rate is a lot less than in Deerfield Beach or Miami, and now the attendee can send the spouse and kids off to Disney World for the day. Or something like that. More family friendly. Think of it, a writer in the cold northeast (well, it's usually cold this time of year) tells the spouse I'm going to South Florida for the conference and leaving you and the kids here to play in the snow. Yeah! That has probably went over like ice cubes in a blizzard.

There are good panels, and if you are attending, I am on a panel Friday morning to discuss locale in my writing. Well, three others and me. Hope you can stop by and listen.

You can go to www.mwaflorida.org and see the SleuthFest schedule. See the two guests of honor – Charlaine Harris & Jeffery Deaver – as well as who else is attending. Maybe one of your favorite mystery writers?

If you live in the Orlando area, the bookstore being set up at the hotel is open to the public, so feel free to stop by.

www.michaelhaskins.net

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Bruising to go cruising

By Mike Jastrzebski

I've been working on the boat quite a bit lately, trying to get it ready to go cruising sometime before summer. If you were to come aboard Rough Draft it might not seem like I've gotten anything done. Boxes are piled on the top of boxes on the starboard settee, wires are hanging loose here and there, and I've been ornery as a bear, but work is getting done.

How can I tell? Well, today I scraped a layer of skin off my forehead while I was running wires for the new chartplotter. I was wedged into our aft quarter berth crimping wires together when I brushed the top of my head against a bulkhead that I swear wasn't there the last time I was back there.

Then there's the black and blue bruise on my leg where I banged it climbing into the quarter berth to begin with. And of course there's the true sign that I've been slaving away on the boat; the almost empty bottle of ibuprofen resting in the medicine cabinet. By the way, why is it that the ibuprofen bottle seems to be the only thing resting around here lately? (Note to self, time to go to Walmart and buy another extra large bottle of pain reliever, and while I'm at it I might as well pick up another box of bandaids, they're going pretty fast too.)

Sitting here I took a look at my to-do list and I see I have a couple of fun projects coming up. The bilge has to be cleaned and I need to replace a bilge pump and the shower drain box. After that the head has to be rebuilt and I need to replace some of the hoses.

Ah the joys of cruising — doesn't it make you want to rush out and buy a boat? The truth is sometimes I question the sanity of our decission to move aboard a boat, but I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing.

How about you out there, do you have a love-hate relationship with a boat?

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Welcome aboard to guest author Randall Peffer

Ruby G. Ford, credit: M.C. Wootton , 07/1984, from Maryland Historic Trust

 BLOW??? YOU AIN'T SEEN "BLOW" …

by Randall Peffer

Mid-February and another cold front passage is blasting through southern New England. Winds northwest at twenty-five, gusting to thirty-five. Temp a balmy twenty degrees before you subtract the wind chill.

When I went down to the boatyard this afternoon to check the winter cover on my schooner (she's on the hard until April), a local lobster boat was just tying up at the dock, sheathed in rime ice from battling freezing spray. I could hear the captain and his stern man begging the weather gods for a little mercy as they pounded the ice off the boat with ball peen hammers.

It took me back to my winters as a young man working as a commercial waterman, "drudgin'" oysters from the skipjack Ruby G. Ford out of Tilghman Island, Maryland. As the old, black cook told me the first time I went below to thaw out my frozen rubber gloves (and the fingers inside them) over the propane stove, "They don't call it drudgin' 'cause this here's a right smart mess o' fun, boy."

Amen. Most miserable job I've ever had at sea.

But I was young and green and full of the romance of the sea. So I stuck with drudgin' because my captain Bart Murphy had a sweet way of driving his hundred-year-old skipjack. In a fair breeze she could just lick up her hundred-and-fifty bushel limit almost every morning. I thought I might learn a thing or two about seafaring if I paid attention and didn't fall overboard hauling a dredge. Every day that Bart brought me home safe from another face off with a blizzard or blown-out sails or a swamped push boat felt like a victory and another lesson in survival problem solving. Have you ever been knee-deep in forty-five degree bilge water "chinked up" a brutal leak in a centerboard trunk with a coal chisel and cotton ticking from the first-mate's mattress? My wife told me I was certifiable. My mother prayed for me.

But rarely have I every felt quite so alive. And I must have learned something about sailing workboats and fishing oysters because by mid-season Bart stopped calling me "Dummy," and started paying me a full-share of the catch. When I walked into the Carpenter St. Pub in St. Michaels after work with Bart, splattered in oyster mud, the bartender would tell his patrons to "make room for the Lone Ranger and Tonto." Kind of made me feel like I could be king of the world.

And so it was that my enthusiasm and new-found nautical confidence led me to overstep my bounds.

It happened one particularly nasty morning. A two-foot chop was slamming against the wharf in Knapps Narrows and the wind was howling through the rigging of our old drudge boat when the rest of the crew and I rolled up to the Ruby at 4:30 a.m., hoping against hope that Bart would send us all home, that he was not going to make us put out into a roiling, freezing bay to pound ice with ball peen hammers aboard a wooden sailboat built in the previous century.

"What the hell y'all doing standing around like a bunch of miserable monkeys?" asked Bart when he noticed the five of us in his crew hiding in the lee of an old skipjack run up on shore.

"It's blowin' a gale, Bart," I said in my most practiced Eastern Shore drawl by way of an excuse.

He stiffened. This Popeye of a captain walked into the midst of his crew like a man ready for a fight. I could feel the other guys try to back away as he got up in our faces.

"Blow?" he asked, screwing his eyes into my face. "Blow??? You ain't seen 'blow.'"

His jaw muscles flexed, and I could imagine his fists tightening as he ruminated on my audacity in judging the weather conditions. Clearly such judgments belonged only to a captain and man with infinitely more seafaring experience than I had.

"Listen here," he said. "I seen it blow so hard one time down at Hooper Straits, it sunk three boats. It drowned seven men … And it blowed a chicken into a bottle."

Damn.

And with that pronouncement, I saw a twinkle flash in his eyes, a smile ghost across his face, as he turned away and walked toward his skipjack. Almost instantly we scrambled after him to cast off the lines … still chuckling. Somehow Bart's chicken story had taken the sting out of the wind, the fear out of the gale. We could laugh a little at adversity. Put it in perspective. And now we could do our jobs without the kind of emotional interference that is a certain recipe for disaster at sea.

So it is that on days like today when the wind screams of trouble and the air bites steaks out of the cheeks, I always think of Bart's chicken in the bottle. And I know that sometimes we mariners just have to laugh at what the gods throw our way. Only then can we think clearly enough to do whatever it takes to go safely. Even if that means stuffing a leak in a centerboard trunk with an old mattress or pounding ice with a ball peen hammer.

 About Randall Peffer

Schooner Sarah Abbot

Holding a 100-ton masters license, Randall Peffer has well over 100,000 miles at sea, mostly in traditional working vessels. He has been the captain of the 55' wooden research schooner Sarah Abbot for twenty-seven years.

Randy is the author of nine crime/romantic suspense novels and eight nonfiction books. His first book, Watermen is a documentary of the lives of the Chesapeake's fishermen. It won the Baltimore Sun's Critic's Choice award and was Maryland Book of the Year. His novel Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues was a Lambda Award finalist and has been optioned for film.

Screams & Whispers (Aug, 2011) is the sixth novel in Randy's Cape Islands Mystery series. Like the other books in the series, this novel features police, lawyers and commercial fishermen from Massachusetts' south coast, Cape Cod and the islands.

He is the author of over 300 travel-lifestyle features for magazines like National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Reader's Digest, Travel Holiday, Islands, Sail and Wooden Boat. His travel features appear in most of the US major metro dailies.

Randy's Civil War naval thriller trilogy Southern Seahawk launched in Nov, 2008. These historical novels feature the Confederate raider Raphael Semmes, the most successful naval predator in history. The third novel in the trilogy SEAHAWK BURNING (Tyrus Books)will be in stores and online in April 2012.

Randy teaches writing and literature at Phillips Academy, Andover. He sails out of his homeports of Marion, Massachusetts and Great Guana Cay, Abaco.

 

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The Dark Side…

C.E. Grundler

I've heard the whispers. I've read between the lines, and I know what everyone's saying behind my back. I'm not really one of you. I don't quite fit in here at Write On the Water. And I know what this is all about.

"She's gone over to the Dark Side."

And you're all absolutely right. Yes. I'll come out and say it. I'm… a stinkpotter.

But it's not so much that I've gone to the Dark Side as returned to my roots. The truth is, I come from a stinkpot family, twin diesel, no less, and growing up, I was the black sheep. The one who wanted to –gasp—sail! We didn't sail in my family, in fact, we didn't even know any sailors. Yet, out on the water, I'd watch the sailboats come and go, moving with silent and seemingly effortless grace, dancing across the waves with an elegance that transcended a growling engine and a cockpit full of fumes. They tacked along without the aid of all those greasy, complex mechanical guts and foul-smelling fuel. I wanted to venture out on my own, and I'd seen the constant headaches my brother had with the cantankerous old outboard on his dinghy, forever fighting with clogged fuel filters and fouled plugs. A sailboat seemed the more practical, logical solution, and when my parents surprised me with a sailing dinghy and I raised that sail for the first time, that mix of thrill, terror and exhilaration is something I'll never forget. And from that point on, from spring until fall, I was aboard that little boat at every possible opportunity.

So why the return to power? When I first met my husband I flat out refused to date him, based solely on the fact that I ultimately planned to live aboard a sailboat and 1. he was too tall, (just try finding headroom for someone 6'4" in a pocket cruiser) and 2. he absolutely hated sailing. Clearly, this relationship was doomed. But we're rapidly approaching our 25th anniversary, and through those years we've alternately owned two small runabouts and two sailboats. His appreciation for my preferred mode of transit never grew, and during the times the boats had a mast they were mine and mine alone. While I'll admit there's much to be said for single-handing, at times it's like drinking… you can do it alone, but it's much more fun with a little company. And when, ultimately, fate led us to a charming little full displacement trawler with headroom to spare, I decided a compromise was in order — if you can call it a compromise. While Annabel Lee may be a powerboat in theory, it's clear she came from a builder more familiar with constructing sailing craft and small ships. At 32' she has a draft of 4'6" and a full, ballasted keel, and her top speed is seven knots. And once we finish up some of the more pressing projects, a mast and steadying sail are next on our to-do list.

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Am I Supposed To Post?

Hell, for that's sake, what is my name? I am so confused between being in Miami for the boat show and business in Lauderdale that I hardly can remember. It struck me a minute ago that I should be posting here at WOW. I was talking with a literary friend and mieswell open the floor to a discussion about a well trod issue. I'll keep it short and sweet this week.

You see my friend has a great book, long since informally produced and sold via non-traditional channels. Now he's looking at e-book publishing which will be traditional from his perspective.

What is best avenue to go to make this book available on iPads and Kindles? Smashwords? What are the restrictions in terms of pricing and rights? I remember when publishing via Kindle Direct there were pricing limitations. All and any help appreciated. I'll try and search the archives too here as I think this topic has been discussed a number of times.

The Miami Show was fun and maybe not even knowing it I met someone of you while exhibiting a yacht on B dock at Bayside. You can read some of my take aways from the show over at my blog.

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Kindle Select – final thoughts

By Mike Jastrzebski

This will be my final post on the Select program. Between the US and the UK I gave away slightly more than 30,000 books over four weekends. So far this month I've sold 1083 copies of Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery), 468 copies of The Storm Killer, 475 copies of Dog River Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery), and 71 copies of Weep No More. Considering that my normal monthly sales are between 500 and 600 books a month this program has been a great boost to my numbers.

The biggest disappointment has been Weep No More. This book is a stand alone psychological thriller. I have decided to change the cover and am probably going to change the title. Any thoughts out there on MIND DEMONS? Here's a brief description:

A hedonistic therapist clashes with a dedicated investigator in this psychological thriller about abuse of power and the hidden demons that torment the lives of ordinary people.

Linda Morgan investigates psychotherapists who are having sex with their clients. The job is bizarre, but not particularly dangerous — at least until the day she discovers she's being stalked. Is it one of the therapists she's investigating? Her ex-husband? The new boyfriend?

Any feed back from our readers out there would be greatly appreciated.

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