Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 74

Standing out from the crowd

by Christine Kling

In my day to day life, I am usually the one hiding in the back of the room. I'm the wallflower at the party. I'm the friend who makes up an excuse so I don't have to go out to some social gathering. I often don't return phone calls, don't answer emails. A few years back, folks started writing about this new-fangled thing called emotional intelligence. I score high in that – and I would imagine most authors do. But if there is such a thing as social intelligence, I would score at the single digit end of that scale. This is one reason why I love night watches when it's just me and the stars, and why I am a single hander who can't seem to co-exist on a boat with anyone other than my dog.

So, it is with trepidation that I prepare to launch myself back into that world of being a writer with a new book out. I know I am supposed to have a marketing plan, but all I've been worried about is getting the book done! I checked the numbers recently and Amazon now has over 800,000 ebooks available for the Kindle. Theirs is the largest ebook retail outlet, but the Nook store, the iBookstore and the Sony Reader Store are not too far behind them. So, how in the bloody hell is this socially-retarded writer going to stand out from that crowd with her new book?

It would be nice to have money to buy ads on sites like Kindle Nation or Facebook, but see I'm the one who did that thing they talk about at the top of this blog page.  You know, I quit my job and moved onto a boat so I could write. The bottom line is, I've no longer got enough money to buy a fancy coffee at Starbucks. But, they say that nowadays, all the marketing can be done on the Internet through social networking tools. In other words, now when I am in the privacy of my own boat where I've allowed myself to be a cantankerous sea bitch (though perhaps not quite as murderous as my characters), I am now going to be expected to be charming and tweet my way to sales? Oh Lord help me, I'm going to starve.

Okay, so here's the plan. I intend to get the new book Circle of Bones up on the major retail outlets by the end of the weekend. Then I will send out an email newsletter to the fans of my former books, and I'll let them know it's there with an ever-so-delightful suggestion that they purchase the book. Then I'll spend time the following week getting a schedule set up where I'll be charming on Facebook and Twitter and the Kindleboards and Goodreads, etc. Well, charming is relative, right? I'll ask to guest blog and I'll comment and post like crazy.

But, see, there's a problem with my social marketing plan. I have purchased a plane ticket to New Bern, NC on December 26th to fly back up to my boat and start the trip south. I have about 800 miles or more to cover in little hops of 40-50 miles per day. The weather will be growing colder every day, and I'll be chug-chugging down the Ditch in my long underwear trying desperately to find Internet. I'll be rowing the dog ashore in methane-producing marshes, and sitting for hours at the helm due to my lack of an autopilot. I'll be paying record amounts of money for diesel as I try to push my boat speed to the max to make the night's anchorage on these short winter days. I'll be coaxing my little propane heater to take the chill off the cabin without setting the dog's tail on fire. This is not likely to induce a perky personality in this already inclined-to-be-cranky individual on those rare occasions when I can find an unlocked wifi signal. When I finally get the anchor down and attempt to do my requisite social butterfly routine, the only way I may stand out from the crowd is as the writer who puts a big DONATE button on her Facebook page asking fans to help me out at the fuel dock.

Fair winds!

Christine

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How many fictional murder victims and mystery novels does it take to change a tire?

C.E. Grundler

There's a very strange story behind the very strange picture shown above, taken at 2 A.M. on the side of the New York Thruway, miles from anywhere. After all, it's not every day you get the chance to bump off the same person both fictionally and in real life, in nearly the same way, no less. And it's not every day you find a new and unexpected use for your books, one you never, in your wildest, most twisted fiction-writing dreams would have ever imagined. But all these things and more happened the other night, for real.

I suppose I should back up to last summer, when one of my husband's co-workers, who I'd never met firsthand, read and apparently enjoyed Last Exit. My husband reported back to me, "Danny asked if you could kill him off in your next book." I was amused; Danny wanted me use his full name for one of the victims. I only needed to know whether he wanted to die quick and sudden early on, or play a more key role, one where he'd ultimately wind up slowly tortured and then die a messy death. He opted for the torture and messy death, and that's precisely what he got… on paper at least.

Well, the other night my husband's office had their annual holiday party. I hadn't gone; I was far too involved with polishing up No Wake Zone to send off to my editor, and around 10 at night I got the call that my husband planned to give two of his less sober friends a lift home. He'd been up since 4 A.M., and his friends lived up in the sticks far north of us, which equaled another two hours round trip. I worried he might be too tired. I suggested, being that they'd pass close by our house, they stop off and I'd drive the rest of the way. I got an hour's sleep before they arrived and we all climbed into my little diesel Jetta.

I love driving, and my favorite time to be at the wheel is in those early A.M. hours, when the road is all but empty and it's just me, the headlights, the hum of the tires on the asphalt – and someone I've 'killed' in the back seat. Much to my amusement, Danny was one of the fellows needing a ride, and I assured him he'd met a highly unpleasant end beneath a heavy load – the key word here would be 'squish.' So we're cruising along at a healthy clip, all laughing away – and the rear tire blows out. I ease off the throttle and downshift my way to the shoulder. A daylight inspection would later a tiny shard of metal had punctured the tire, but at that moment we're on the side of the Thruway, flashers blinking, as my husband and Danny, still laughing away, set up the jack. "Relax," they assured me. "We've got this." The car's rising smoothly, nearly there, we have a full size spare. We'll be rolling again soon enough. And they were – rolling on the ground with laughter. Apparently, something about this situation – or their lack of sobriety – was highly amusing.

This is where it gets strange. I don't know whether it was the angle of the shoulder or they had put the jack on a bit of loose gravel, or whether, quite simply, you should never let somewhat intoxicated men operate anything mechanical, but one minute the car was lifted nearly all the way and the next it was back down on the rim, with the jack wedged securely at an odd angle between the frame and the ground. No one came to any harm; they were clear of the car and had been laughing so hard they didn't even realize what happened. At that point I decided they needed closer supervision – while I'd crushed Danny to death in my writing, I wanted to avoid doing it in reality. But we had another problem; retrieving the jack. And apparently they build Volkswagens heavier than they used to, that or we were all getting old, because I distinctly remember me and some friends picking up my mom's Rabbit and relocating it as a prank when I was younger. One inch was all we needed, but the car remained firmly on the ground. My husband suggested if we could drive the flat tire up on some sort of ramp we could free the jack; a ramp I improvised by stacking several copies of the only thing I had in the back of the car – my book. And it worked.

So there you have it. That's how, with the aid of one fictional murder victim and four copies of Last Exit (now complete with tire tracks) we changed the tire on one Volkswagen at 2 A.M.  Seriously, you can't make this stuff up!

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Who Do You Spend Your Time With?

Some people are loose with their money. They are fun to be around but always penniless. But time is money, so what do you say about people loose with their time? Greediness or thriftiness in time is essentially the same as with money. We only have so much time to spend in life. Are you spending yours wisely?

As writers, our time spent outside of writing feeds our experiences to write about. I draw on my recent adventures on my 11-day delivery of a Leopard 46 catamaran from Fort Lauderdale to Colombia to write a yacht review of the same model. Christine draws on her participation in the Caribbean 1500 to write about the noisiness of land. Mike draws on going to West Marine in Fort Lauderdale to write about his Christmas wishlist. Our experiences shape our art.

Ok, step 1 to happiness is to mark whether the experiences you are engaging in are developing the knowledge and skills that you seek.

But it is not only where you are and what you are doing, but also who you are spending your time with or on that colours your experiences. Are you spending your time wildly partying with colleagues or watching TV with family or riding Harley motorcycles with buddies. Do the people you spend time with curse a lot. Are they democrats or republicans. Are they lazy or dreamers or overachievers. How old. How wealthy.

The people you consort with affects who you are. There is a saying that "if you admire someone and want to have their skills, spend time with them and you will drift in their direction." Look at your friends. In what direction are you drifting? Look at your family. What kind of person did you marry?

If I want to speak fluent Spanish, I must meet and socialise with Cuban Americans or South Americans in South Florida. Only by doing so will I learn the vocabulary and accent to master the skill.

And seeing if your direction diverges from your ambitions, how do you adjust? Ending interpersonal relationships is more difficult than going to the gym more often or to the office earlier. But it seems in this practical world it must be done with the same realism. I guess I have been too idealistic.

I made a spreadsheet analysing what and who I spend my time. I need to make some changes. They will be resolutions, nay alternations starting now, into 2012, and beyond.

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Highlights of Chartering in the San Juan Islands

By Zuzana Prochazka  

You could spend an entire summer exploring the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state but you can also cover the highlights in a week or two of chartering.  These compact cruising grounds are easy to explore due to short point-to-point distances and don't require an international plane ticket to reach.  You'll find everything from secluded anchorages where yours will be the only anchor down, to charming towns where marina life is lively and the bars are filled with music and entertainment.

The San Juan Islands, explored by the likes of Juan de Fuca, James Cook, George Vancouver and Francisco de Eliza, are a part of the San Juan Archipelago in the Salish Sea between the U.S. and Canada.  The archipelago is split into two – the San Juan Islands are part of the U.S. state of Washington, while the Gulf Islands are part of the Canadian province of British Columbia.  Of the total 450 islands, fewer than one sixth are permanently inhabited so if you're looking for a quiet respite to get in touch with nature, this is the place. 

If you want to visit Canada, bring your passport and extend your charter because Victoria and Ganges harbors are not to be missed.  But if your time is limited, pick up a boat in Anacortes and spend a week on the American side exploring some of these beautiful highlights.

Friday Harbor

Friday Harbor on San Juan Island probably gets the most press so it is well known nationally and it's an easy first stop from Anacortes.  It's a real town so if you forgot anything on your provisioning list, there are grocery and drug stores as well as gifts shops, galleries and a movie theater.  Downtown Friday Harbor glides down the hill toward, and then morphs into, the marina where the staff will make sure you can tie up even on busy summer weekends.   

The town, which is said to be the oldest original fishing village on the West Coast, offers a variety of great restaurants, bars and organized activities including biking, kayaking and a walking tour.  The whale museum is worth a visit as is the farmers market with 40 vendors offering locally grown goodies on most Saturdays.  The town is walkable and filled with photo-friendly, quintessential Pacific Northwest scenery so bring your camera, have a bowl of chowder and relax.

Rosario Resort

 

For a bit of history, head north to Orcas Island and the Rosario Resort and Moran Mansion museum.  Shipbuilder and one-time Seattle mayor, Robert Moran, purchased 7,000 acres here in the early 1900s when he was given less than a year to live due to overwork.  In the next 40 years, he had time to build an Arts and Crafts style residence which is now a museum and is open to the public.  Moran's nautical background is evident in all the furnishing and fixtures which you can examine on a self-guided tour.  The mansion was built to last with 12 inch thick concrete walls, a copper roof, and the links of the fence made from the anchor chain of the USS Nebraska. 

Inside, the elaborate music room features a 1913 Aeolian pipe organ, a 1900 Steinway grand piano, a Belgian stained glass window picturing the harbor at Antwerp and two mezzanine libraries overlooking a Tiffany chandelier.  Six days a week at 4:00 pm, Christopher Peacock, accomplished musician and Rosario historian, presents a free concert which includes music and footage from the original silent film, Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney. 

Outside, you can pet deer that wander the grounds freely looking for handouts and grazing on the lawn.  The figurehead, carved from a solid white pine log from the clipper ship America, has kept an eye on Cascade Bay below since 1916 when Moran installed it there as a memorial to shipbuilding, which was becoming, in his opinion, a lost art.

 

The Passes

 

There are lots of passes in these islands, some are beautiful, others are exhilarating due to fast moving currents.  Two you don't want to miss are Deception Pass for a bit of a thrill and Mosquito Pass for the scenery.

Deception Pass, which separates Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island, is a short, narrow and rugged pass spanned by a picturesque bridge.  Descriptions of this pass, named by explorer George Vancouver, always include words like "prohibitive", "impressive" and "tricky" because it can be an E-ticket ride.  A prudent mariner would only transit the pass at slack water due to the strong currents and wild whirlpools, but if you arrive a couple hours before and go in on the current, it's like sailing a river as the boat speeds up to 12 knots.  It's not advisable to do this at the height of the current because the pass is narrow, and strong engines, clear weather and good helming is key.  Once through the pass you'll be in Cornet Bay where you might catch a glimpse of tall ships firing cannons in a mock battle in later summer when the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain make the rounds of the nearby islands. 

Mosquito Pass winds between Henry and San Juan Islands and is a shortcut to Roche Harbor from Haro Strait.  It leads past two tranquil anchorages in Garrison and Westcott Bays.  The Coast Pilot recommends this passage only to small craft with local knowledge but at slack tide and with good visibility (this second point is key as you maneuver marker to marker), it's a very pretty journey that will take a couple miles off your trip when heading north or south. 

Roche Harbor

On the northern tip of San Juan Island, and only 15 miles from Canada, is Roche Harbor, a friendly marina with 377 slips and more to do than first meets the eye.  The quaint Hotel de Haro which was built in 1886, is the heart of the town and is listed on the National Register of Historical Sites.  It still offers 20 rooms to visitors and a lobby full of old photographs that tell the story of this former lime quarrying center, the ruins of which are still visible nearby.  The gardens and grounds are reason enough to visit but the hiking is a good excuse to get off the boat as is the local cuisine.   

On Sunday, you can visit the 100 year-old Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel which was the original Roche school or walk further up the road to a self-guided tour through an outdoor sculpture garden with bits of art positioned on the small meadow and tucked between the trees.  The McMillin family mausoleum is a ten minute walk into the woods and is a peaceful place to sit and ponder life a hundred years ago. 

The days at Roche Harbor begin with morning bell carillons and end with the lowering of the American and Canadian flags with their respective anthems, followed by cannon and taps.  Even people at dinner put down their forks, step outside and take time out for the ceremony.

Critters

One of the real treats of chartering in this area is the wildlife.  Black-tailed deer, wild turkey and silver foxes roam the land while the water teems with harbor seals, sea lions, minke whales and dall's porpoise which are small dolphins capable of traveling upwards of 30 miles per hour.  Of course, it's the tuxedo'd orcas that are the stars of the show up here and their favorite bit of water seems to be the Haro Strait that separates the US from Canada.  This is the orca feeding place and playground and with a bit of patience, you're bound to catch a pod traveling the channel, breeching and splashing.  Local laws ensure that boats stay at least 100 yards away from the whales but sometimes if you're lucky, they'll swim right to and around you.  Whale watching boats are available and if your time is limited, local knowledge is key to spotting the orcas quickly so check out San Juan Outfitters, San Juan Excursions or San Juan Safaris out of Roche and Friday Harbors for a quick trip and an up-close and personal encounter. 

Chartering Options

The busy season in the San Juan Islands is mid-July to mid-September and if you want an August charter, book well in advance.  There are numerous places to charter in the Pacific Northwest but the most convenient might be to start in Anacortes on Fidalgo Island, a 2 hour shuttle ride from Seattle airport.  The three most prominent charter companies here are the Moorings, ABC Yacht Charters and Anacortes Yacht Charters (AYC).  Each has a good selection of well-maintained yachts with AYC offering a broad selection of both power and sailboats.  Remember, that the distances are short and the winds are fluky and elusive so a powerboat might be a more comfortable option for these cruising grounds that are sure to charm you for a week or a lifetime. 

Zuzana Prochazka. Zuzana is a freelancer and a regular contributor to Sea Magazine, SAIL, Latitudes and Attitudes, Lakeland Boating, Yachtworld and Boats.com. Her work has appeared in Santana, Voyaging, Good Old Boat, Reeds Nautical Almanac, and the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, as well as online at underwatercolors.com, sailingbreezes.com, catamarans.comand floridascubanews.com. She is president of Boating Writers International (BWI) and has served as Innovation Awards judge at the IBEX, Miami, and MAATS shows for several years. Currently, she serves as the chairperson for the BWI New Products Committee and as a judging chair for the BWI Annual Writing Contest. Zuzana's gear and boat review blog is TalkoftheDock .

http://www.talkofthedock.com

 

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Wants verses needs.

West Marine held the grand opening of their new Ft. Lauderdale store this week, and what a grand store it is. Lots and lots of boating stuff, plenty of employees, and lots of giveaways. We entered the contests–didn't win, bought a new grill (a need for us), and walked out of the store with a list of goodies I would like to have.

I've been contemplating a chartplotter. We've done just fine to date with a GPS and paper charts, but it would be nice to have all that information available at the helm. Don't get me wrong, we plan on carrying paper charts, but that will be for backup. As you can probably tell I've pretty much decided on a chartplotter.

The dilemma: I've been planning on spending about $1000.00 for the plotter. West Marine has a Garmin with a five inch screen and sonar capabilities on sale for about $600.00. It's a perfectly acceptable plotter and it's $400.00 below my budget, but I would like a little larger screen.

Then there's the hi-def Garmin with a seven inch screen that called to me the entire time standing in the electronics room. It's a touch screen with pictures of harbors and the ability to set up a track by just touching your departure and arrival locations. As long as you have your mast height and depth programmed in, the plotter does the work for you. Of course even on sale it's twice the price of the other plotter. It's $400.00 over budget plus $150.00 for a chart card if you want to use all of the features.

Here are a few more examples: We want solar panels, but do we really need them? We currently have a small Honda generator that served us fine when we were living on a mooring ball in Key West a few years ago. But even the Honda is noisy and if we could run it less often with solar panels it would be nice.

A new mattress? Ours is almost nine years old and it wasn't that great to begin with. Both Mary and I are discovering new aches and pains on a daily basis. A good mattress might ease the discomfort.

There are many more items on our want vs. need list, but how about you the reader? What's on your want list, and why is it there?

To purchase Mike's books for the Barnes and Noble Nook click here: Mike's Books for Nook.

To order Mike's books for all other e-Readers: Mike's books at Smashwords

Amazon.com Widgets

 

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Guest Blogger Jeffrey Siegel-Active Captain

Who are the real experts?

—————————————————–

by Jeffrey Siegel, ActiveCaptain.com

When we started ActiveCaptain we had a simple three word concept that drove everything we built into the product. It was, "Capture the conversation." As long range cruisers ourselves, we knew that the most valuable information exchanged were the informal conversations that happened at docks and anchorages between boaters. This was the information that was the most relevant and true. Because while a guidebook might specify that a marina had showers, boaters told each other if those showers were clean. And it is local knowledge like that, along with navigational hazards and anchorage details, that can make the difference between a happy crew and a mutiny.

The problem was that these conversations were fleeting and left to chance. We believed that there needed to be a way to automate and share them for the benefit of the whole boating community.

We have spent several years developing, enhancing, and nurturing a system that allows boaters to exchange many types of useful knowledge. As ActiveCaptain gained popularity, we began seeing reviews for anchorages that would say something like, "The guidebooks are wrong about the what we found in the town." Examples abound in reviews:

Deep Bay anchorage:

https://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=44.774341&lon=-73.382749&t=n&z=14

Coecles Harbor anchorage:

https://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=41.065374&lon=-72.293128&t=n&z=14

Vermilion Public Guest Docks:

https://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=41.424097&lon=-82.365145&t=n&z=16

As boaters we purchased expensive guidebooks for the expertise they gave us. So how come these guidebooks were so often wrong when they are supposed to be written by experts who have familiarity with a specific area?

This got us thinking. What makes an author an expert for a particular area? It's usually someone who has some experience and can write in a way that an editor can make readable. But does that expert have experience with my type of boat? Or the specific time of year that I'll be coming through? More often than not, the answer is no. In fact, we've yet to meet an expert who doesn't spend more time behind a desk than a helm.

The true expertise in cruising today lies in the community of cruisers who are actually out there in different types of boats, in different kinds of weather, with different needs. Their conversations are exceedingly valuable. We've received criticisms in ActiveCaptain that some marinas or anchorages are given high ratings by some people and low ratings by others. To that we scream, "Exactly!" That represents reality and ends up describing the good and bad across multiple experiences.

St Augustine Municipal Marina in Florida is a great example. It's a fantastic mooring field and marina – one of the highest rated in ActiveCaptain. But it has some 2-star reviews mixed in with the 5-star. How is that possible?

It turns out that the municipal marina is very close to an ocean inlet where a large amount of water gets squeezed at a bridge right by the marina. The result? Extremely swift currents occur a couple of times a day. If you don't realize this, pull into the marina at the wrong time and get slammed into the dock, you end up writing a 2 star review – usually after someone else asks why you didn't read the warnings in ActiveCaptain. That 2 star review can help the next wave of boaters who will read the reviews before they come in and wait an hour to experience less current. Ultimately, this is good for boaters and good for the marina.

It was a short leap from marinas, anchorages, and local knowledge to other boating areas that have experts providing us information. Boating magazines are full of articles by yet another set of experts who live behind their desks. Experts who purport to be writing for the benefit of boaters but often are biased by the reality of the marketplace and the advertising paid for within the magazines and websites.

How many times have you seen a negative boat review in a boating magazine? Is it simply happenstance that a new boat found to be without fault chose to buy a full page ad in the same magazine? The boating community is starved for real, unbiased assessments. We thought our experience with ActiveCaptain gave us a unique position to provide just such a venue.

So we started CaptainRated.com, a sister site to ActiveCaptain. It allows information to be gathered along with real reviews by boaters on different products and services. It's starting out slowly with just brokers, surveyors, and transporters being listed. It'll eventually be expanded to many types of services and products. So when you're cruising away from home, you'll be able to get info on canvas repairers in the area along with the latest reviews from real boaters about the radars they're using.

The Internet is an incredible communications tool. It is what allows us to share and write information. It has caused a dramatic shift in what makes an expert. It's no longer simply who has access to the medium. The real experts are all of us because we're the ones out there doing it.

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Silencing the Noise

by Christine Kling

Last Saturday, I boarded a plane at the Charlotte Amalie airport and flew home to Fort Lauderdale, exactly one month after I'd left for my Caribbean 1500 sailing adventures. In the time I'd been gone, I spent 11 days at sea, 11 days on the dock, and 8 days at anchor.

I flew back here to South Florida on Saturday night and the one big difference I've noticed between life on land and life at sea – is the noise.

Yes, a sailing boat does have lots of noises, but they are background noises. The whoosh of the water, the singing of the wind, the creaking rigging – these are all just a fabric of the day to day life aboard a sailboat, and your brain catalogs them all and marks them as normal, healthy boat noises. You almost stop hearing them. They become less "noise" and more like background music. When you hear a bang or clank or new pitch, you sit up and take notice and generally wonder what is breaking.

Here on land, it seems that everyone is trying hard to distract themselves from all that noise of garbage trucks and motorcycles and sirens. They are talking into cell phones, listening to iPods, watching TV, looking at the Internet, listening to the radio.  It's rare to see anyone simply paying attention to his or her surroundings. In the first couple of days in Fort Lauderdale, everything seemed so loud, but I've found myself adapting and getting reaccustomed to the noise level.

Lots of noise for us human beings is noise we hear in our minds. Those little nagging voices that keep us awake at night are always saying, "What did my boss really mean when he said that? Did I remember to turn off the iron? Should I get gas here or look elsewhere? Did I pay that bill?" We often obsess over the minutia of life and forget to pay attention to the beauty around us and the fact that we are the minutia of the universe.

I miss those night watches. Try sitting under the billion stars of the Milky Way for three hours, and you will see how much it silences those pesky inner voices. Don't allow yourself electronic distraction – just sit with the quiet of your own mind. If you are like me, you will start telling yourself stories and some of the most amazing thoughts and ideas will flow into that quiet. That's gold for a writer.

So, I am forcing myself to keep my butt in the chair and working night and day on the editing and formatting Circle of Bones. I'm not going back TALESPINNER in New Bern, NC until the book is published. I miss my boat, and even though it will be bloody cold up there, I really want to get back to the quiet of my diesel engine pushing me south down the ICW and sitting in the cold cockpit contemplating the stars.

But for now, in spite of myself, I am back on land and fitting in. What a racket!

Fair winds!

Christine

 

 

 

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Checkmate…

C.E. Grundler

When I woke this morning my husband asked if anything was wrong. "You look like something's bothering you," he said. I assured him I was fine; aside from some self-inflicted sleep deprivation and a questionable diet (wasabi peas and seaweed snacks washed down with Mountain Dew isn't exactly a nutritionally sound lunch three days running,) I couldn't be better. My characters, on the other hand, are all currently wired up, strung out, mis-informed and generally trying to figure out who is trying to kill them and who they should kill first. It's my favorite sort of mayhem, but to truly get inside their alternating heads I have to step outside my own, and that does leave me occasionaly wandering around mumbling to myself about some pretty strange things. It suppose it's understandable that this behavior raises concerns, but not to worry. I really am okay.

Yes, I'm on the home stretch with No Wake Zone, when the action ramps up to full-blown chaos, in more ways than one. I'm coming down to the last pages, and while, as I've posted in the past, I start writing with some very structured outlines, as I reach this point I've long since veered away from those notes. I knew this would happen; it usually does. Whether it's a post, an article, a chapter or an entire book, I always set out with a specific direction in mind, knowing full well I may wind up somewhere else entirely.

I haven't played Chess since I was young, but from what I recall, there is a parallel to writing a mystery. There is an opening, a middle game, and an end game.  At the start you have a neat, orderly board with all the pieces in their specific locations. But the moment you make the first move, that initiates counter moves that gradually weed down the pieces (characters) until you're left with only the most critical ones, facing off against one another. Within the game, each piece can only move according to specific guidelines, and as the board clears it all comes down to strategy and how well you planned out positions as events unfolded. Even as I come into the last pages, I'm still seeing possible moves that never entered into my original outlines. I knew from the start who was behind what would unfold through the story. I knew who had the most to gain and the most to lose. Who was motivated by greed, or loyalty, and who was simply batsh*t crazy. Those motivations set the rules to how each of these characters would respond. I know who is going down and who will be left standing. But at four in the morning I realized if one character made one simple phone call, that could send this whole thing spinning another direction to that end, and that presented a fascinating can of worms I'd never considered. So don't mind me as I wander around mumbling to myself. I have much work to do!

 

 

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A Write On The Water Christmas List

Santa and his elves are no doubt working hard as the December 25 deadline approaches. With this in mind, I figured it's time to work on the old Christmas list. Here are a few things I've been thinking about just in case Santa checks out Write On The Water:

Case of 3M green fine-line masking tape.  Wooden boats are all about painting and varnishing, and the job always comes out better when you prep with 3M tape.  It's a great product and I am pleased to make this endorsement.  However, if Santa can't find the tape he can substitute a high performance European sports car (at only a slight increase in cost).

Laminated Rand McNally map.  We've all heard stories about people using these things for charts.  I can't wait to see my guests' reaction when I go below some foggy day and then climb out the cabin with one of these babies in hand.

Diver's weight belt.  Anyone who has tried to snorkel down to check their hull knows that buoyancy makes this task impossibly difficult.  A friend at the marina says you only need five pounds of lead.  A few other friends are suggesting considerably more weight, but I'm not so sure.

Super magnet.  I've seen the guys in the boatyard use these things.  I figure I could refasten the entire hull with all the screws I've dropped into the bilge over the years.

Bluetooth Halyard Downhaul. Everything else has gone wireless. Surely someone must have invented a way to get that damn line down without having to climb the mast.

New soles for the surf fishing waders. The on-lookers will miss the entertainment, but I'm sick of doing Buster Keaton imitations climbing over the rocks to my favorite casting spot.

Bee-keepers hat. Speaking of fly-fishing, how about face protection for those early morning, pre-coffee, back-casts.

A pen with spell check. Microsoft and Apple figured it out. Come on, Schaefer & BIC, step-up!

Harness belt.  Falling overboard is not a good thing.  Next year when I'm standing on the edge of the transom at night, distracted by nature, I'm going the safe route.

Climate Change Edition of the Farmer's Almanac. Snowstorms on Halloween followed by 60 degree December boating days in New England? I don't care what you think of Al Gore or global warming, just give me some help in scheduling the end of year haul out.

If you have any questions, Santa, drop me a note at Write On The Water.

p.s., Thanks in advance to the elves for making all those Kindles.

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Sitting on the fence of the eBook revolution

I am in the frigid north for my grandson's christening, as I write this. For the few days I'm here, the temps have been a lot chillier than in Key West, where I live. On Saturday, I had time to check emails, etc., and opened this blog to find Christine's tale. It did two things, it warmed me – it really did – and second, for a sailor finding himself landlocked on an island it brought back memories and brightened my day. Thank you Christine and good luck with the book, I hope you'll be somewhere – maybe SleuthFest – to sign my copy.

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As the two or three followers of mine who read this know, my newest Mick Murphy Key West Mystery – Stairway to the Bottom – is now available as an eBook and on Amazon as a trade paperback. If I had gone the conventional way and presented it to my publisher it would have been sometime in 2013 before it was available. I wrote Car Was Blues right after Free Range Institution (published Feb. 2011, written in 2009) and it will not be available until Aug. 2012, by my publisher.

Since eBooks begin to make money, or have the possibility to make money, as soon as they become available, logic says go eBook. Small, conventional publishers do little to help the author on book signings, to get exposure on radio or TV, and so forth. From what I've heard from a few writers I know who are with the larges house, the support they receive from their publishers is receding too. Of course what we all know is that the publishing world on the '90s is gone and reinventing itself in the 2000s.

As a newly published writer (2008) this change has left me in a quandary. Like many wannabe writers, being published was a dream and when it happened, I expected my life to change. In a way it did! I learned that I was not only a writer, but a public relations person, travel agent, and the list continues to grow. Not all the things the larger houses offer a writer are available from the small houses. Maybe that's why they're called "smaller publishing houses."

Nothing will ever match the feeling I had as I opened my box of hardback books and held my first book in my hand. It was something! Or the first time I walked into a bookstore and saw my book on the shelf! Wow! What an ego trip. Too bad, it didn't go all the way to my bankbook balance.

The eBook revolution came and I have friends who'd never published making money; more money than me, a traditionally published writer. My advance, small as it was, went the way of the unicorn as I did my self-arranged book tour and PR.

It didn't take me long to join the revolution, but I haven't walked away from my publisher. They have Car Wash Blues and as I begin to rewriter my third, and last of the 'lost manuscripts,' they may be offered it when finally done. It's not a Key West Mick Murphy, but one of the first three I began writing. (If you care to know more about the 'lost manuscripts' you can find a story by Shirrel Rhoads from Solares Hill news on my website that explains it all).

There is one major, to me, downside of eBooks. Many of the awards for books shy away from eBooks. That is slowly changing in both the MWA and ITW. That's a good thing.

For writers like me with only a few years and/or books it is also unlikely that a major publisher will ever consider anything I writer. I know there are exceptions. But let's get real, the odds are against eBook authors ever getting the four or five figure advance from the large publishing houses. Of course, the large houses are growing smaller and even some of their favorite authors have switched sides and come over to the revolution.

I don't know, on one side I have my ego that is great at remembering the feeling of holding the hardback in my hands and seeing my name on the cover. On the other hand, my banker (not half as exciting as my ego) loves me, as my small balance seems to grow a little each month.

Maybe I've not joined the revolution totally. I would like to see the publishing world come into the eBook world and work something out that would benefit writers and publishers. I am losing faith in that possibility as the days go by, especially when you hear of a top selling author leaving his/her publisher and going into the eBook world.

My rewrite of the last 'lost manuscript' begin the first of the year, so I have a few weeks to ponder, but my banker did send me a nice Christmas card thanking me for my business and my ego hasn't done much for me lately. Maybe on Jan. 13, 2012 (Friday the 13th!) my ego will come pay a visit at my first book signing for Stairway to the Bottom. If you're in the Keys, stop by Key West Island Books, a 5 pm, and say hi. Being Key West, you'll probably even find something to drink.

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