Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 82

The dream vs. reality or only the tough survive

Irene a-coming

Okay, I admit it.  I shed real tears yesterday. Yes, I was the wimpy, blubbering girl who decided I didn't want to be tough anymore.  I'd had it with this *&%$#^ boat and everything breaking and the incessant rain from tropical systems and the fact that I wasn't getting anywhere near the writing done that I had hoped.

But let me back up.  Back to the title of this blog.  The dream.  "So you want to quit your job, move on a boat and write."

Are you sure about that?

Let me inject a little reality here.  The whole boat thing is not just sipping rum cocktails on the afterdeck as the sun slips into the west and you are waiting to see if you can see the green flash and finding your muse in the natural beauty of your surroundings.

Sometimes the boat demands all your attention because things are breaking faster than you can fix them and the situation becomes overwhelming.  Yeah, they don't usually write about that in the boating magazines, but anybody who has cruised or lived aboard for any length of time is probably nodding his or her head about now saying yeah, that's about right.

So here's my story.  About two weeks ago when I was in Solomons, I got up in the morning planning to leave and found my bilge full of oil.  I had blown the main oil gasket around the timing case and had to get a mechanic to replace it.  It wasn't something I could do on my own.  At $100/hr. plus parts it was nearly a $1000 repair.  A friend of mine refers to boat yard repairs as boat units and they equal one grand.  He estimated that my problem was one boat unit and he wasn't far off.  How I wish I had majored in diesel engine repair instead of English lit.

So, I left Solomons trying to head up Chesapeake Bay to get ahead of Hurricane Irene and I found myself running up the bay with 25-30 knots of wind behind me and without an autopilot, it was an exhausting sail.  I made it to the South River and when I attempted a controlled gybe to enter the South River, the windward block on my mainsheet traveler exploded. I made it in to a safe anchorage for the night, but it meant that my main was then out of commission.

Before

After

The next day, I made it around the point into the Severn River and eventually up to an anchorage to ride out the storm, but when I attempted to lower my jib, the halyard jammed.  I got the sail down after a friend hoisted me up in the bosun's chair and I released the shackle at the head of the sail.  However, for the future, my jib was out of commission.

Then, while waiting for the hurricane, I noticed that my alternator wasn't charging (probably as a result of that repair in Solomons), so I shut down my fridge which is the main user of electricity.  My solar panels and wind generator do fine to keep the batteries fully charged if the fridge isn't running.

And if this story isn't complicated enough, right after Hurricane Irene left the area, I had to catch a plane to fly to New Orleans to attend a writer's conference called Writers for New Orleans that I had booked back in March.  I left my boat anchored in Weems Creek and flew out of BWI.  Of course, that meant that I got to hunker down in New Orleans for Tropical Storm Lee, my second named storm in a week.  I stayed in the Hotel Monteleone and while I'll admit that I did party on Bourbon Street in the rain until 3:30 a.m. on Friday night, I hunkered down on Saturday listening to the flash flood warnings on my iPad.

My panel at this conference was about "Re-energizing and Re-juvenating a Writing Career."  I was very honest in stating where my career was and what I intended to do.  Everyone agreed that in the would of writing today, you had to have a thick skin.

I wanted to say, "Puleeze. You think it takes guts to write a book or two?  Try single handing a sailboat through a hurricane or figuring out how to keep a 20+ year old boat running!"

When I flew back into Baltimore and returned to the boat, I tried to start up my fridge and discovered that it now didn't work.  Okay, no mainsail, no jib, no ability to charge my batteries, no fridge, and I found that my engine hours meter (my only way to judge my fuel usage since I have no fuel gauge) wasn't working — and that , too, was probably related to that boat unit that I spent in Solomons.

And since my return here, it has been raining non-stop.  I am now getting whacked by TS Lee's remnants – which is the second time for me.  The rain just won't quit.

I had planned to accompany another boat to a different anchorage and it was blowing 20 knots and I balked.  I said I wasn't going out into the bay because I just couldn't take one more thing breaking on this boat.  That was when I broke into tears.  There were two things I needed to do at the moment — fix my boat and get my writing out there earning money.  It just didn't make sense for me to take off and break something else.

So here's my current situation:  tomorrow morning, I'm headed for a marina to have a refrigeration guy take a look at my fridge.  I've contacted George McCreary at Caliber, and he is  contacting Lewmar to see if he can find the parts to repair my 1989 vintage mainsheet traveler. I've phoned the yard in Solomons to try to figure out what they did when repairing my oil gasket that might have knocked out my alternator and engine hours meter.  In the marina, I'll get someone to hoist me up to mast and I'll free up my job halyard. One way or another, I'll get all this put right and still manage to get some writing done.

That's what I do.

So, are you sure you want to quit your job, move onto a boat and write?

Crazy as this may sound, I don't have one smidgeon of doubt.  I love this life.

 

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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The perils of navigating the internet…

C.E. Grundler

For years, New York Harbor has wrapped up summer with a lively and entertaining event known as the Great North River Tugboat Race and Competition. Each year I hope to attend, but inevitably find myself working on the boat rather than out on the harbor enjoying the festivities. Eventually this will come to pass, but thanks to the wonders of the internet I can still take a peek at the Tug Parade, tug race, Nose to Nose & Line Toss Competitions:

For more on the festivities, check out Tugster's blog:

http://tugster.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/nyc-tugboat-race-2011-a/

http://tugster.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/nyc-tugboat-race-2011-b/

http://tugster.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/nyc-tugboat-race-2011-others-fotos/

But this peeking leads to a new problem. The internet in general, but worse yet, Youtube. You all know what I mean. You start by viewing one video, then click another, and the next thing you know, more time than you care to admit has passed. Don't get me wrong. Youtube can be a wonderful resource for research. Want to see how to humanely deactivate a cat? Looking to verify that a point blank shot directly to the head with a flare gun is by no means fatal, (though a sure candidate for the Darwin Awards)? Sadly, a search for "shot with flare gun" yields About 1,470 possibilities; a number of them are by people who felt the necessity to test this on themselves while friends(?) filmed the results. (I'll omit the link to that one, but it's easy enough to find.) Have a strong stomach? You can review techniques for field dressing a deer. Lots of them. (Links omitted.) Want to see… you name it. Chances are, if you can imagine it, someone else already has as well, no less recorded it on video and posted it for the world to see. Including a few videos I'd label under 'fun boat tricks', such as:

High speed lobster boats, and yet more lobster boats in a hurry, (not to mention a WTF at 53 seconds in), impressive docking – No twin screws.    No bow thrusters.   No stern thrusters. Just skill.  And speaking of skill, this one is pretty impressive as well.

The trick to Youtube is not letting it draw you in. Find what you need and get out quick… or at least, what you need, (four or five videos you don't,) and then get back to work!

 

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Agent Joyce Holland offers 5 first page critiques.

Sept. 7th 2011

Today is the day I said I would comment on the first page submissions readers sent me. I had hoped to have more, but alas, only five people responded. So, I decided to put them all here and let you decide which ones you liked best. I made my comments in red after each one. Please share your opinions.

Joyce

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wanda Argersinger

Lessons

"Oh, honey. That's not so bad. Once when I had congestive heart failure, some expert doctor told me all I needed was to lose weight and buy a new bra. Now, I want to ask you. What does a bra have to do with congestive heart failure? And even worse, getting that appointment had taken five months and cost two fortunes. And what did I get? Advice on underwear from a guy who had probably never touched a woman's tit in his life."

"Stop it Lil," Corrine said, the sparkle in her eyes betraying the lines on her face. "You know it hurts me when I laugh."

"Not nearly as much as never laughing at all would hurt."

"Well Lil. I guess you're right about that."

"Besides," Lil insisted, "You should always have fun, even in the doctor's office. I'll tell you a little secret. One time a doctor was doing a procedure on me that hurt like hell. He started to tell me how it didn't hurt. It was a feminine procedure so I was sure he couldn't know about the pain. I told him let me snip the top of his penis off, tell him it didn't hurt, and then we would talk. He learned real fast not to tell me what I feel and don't feel."

"You didn't really, did you Lil?"

"I sure did honey. No one knows how we feel except us and I don't tolerate stupidity from some doctor who thinks he knows my body better than I do."

"God love ya, Lil. Cause I know I sure do."

****

I really liked the humor in this one, and I immediately connected with the characters. What I found distracting was the constant use of Lil's name. The first one was enough. There are only two people in the room, so it's not necessary to use her name every time something is said. Also, a comma is required before a name when you address someone. Still, it left me thinking I've met these women. Nicely done.

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Dee Jordan

Untitled

"Yes, this is Jordan Hurst. I think I killed my ex-wife. I need an ambulance fast!"

I flipped my long hair out of my eyes and with trembling hands, I lit a cigarette. After looking around at the crappy house, I saw her laid out cold in the kitchen. I walked in and turned on the overhead light, painting her a garish white.

"Amber, Amber! Wake up. I didn't mean to hurt you! I only wanted to protect myself. You make me so damn mad. My God, what have I done?"

"Sir, stay on the phone. An ambulance will be there shortly. Is she breathing?"

"I don't know, I'll have to check."

"Does she have a pulse?"

"Not sure of that either."

"How did she hurt you?"

"She didn't."

Do you need any medical care?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Sir, is she alive?"

"I told you I didn't know. Wait a minute. Let me check." Afraid to touch her, I was about to panic. Laying my head on her chest, I listened for a heartbeat, sat up and watched to see if her rib cage moved.

Her glazed blue eyes stared at the ceiling. I looked up, curious to see what she was looking at before she went down. Just a bunch of spider webs that had dust bunnies in them. I felt my heart pounding and an ache because I realized I might not ever see her again. I wiped my hands on my slacks, leaving wet marks on them.

"Yes, she's alive. I saw her breathing. Hurry up." I shouldered the cell phone and started cracking my knuckles.

"Please, Honey, don't die. I just wanted to stop you. You hurt me with all of your cheating. Then you blabbed to everyone I was the cheater."

The sound of an ambulance siren blared and lights flashed. I sat down and rested her head in my lap. I rubbed her face as tears formed in my eyes. We couldn't live together, but I still loved her.

****

This is a great beginning because something happens. The pacing is well done, but I was confused when he entered the room and turned on the light. Did he kill her, leave the room and turn off the light? That struck me as odd. Then when he looked into her dead eyes staring at the ceiling, I liked how he described the cobwebs because it's the sort of inane thing one would do in a shocking situation. But is she really dead or not? It became confusing here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gene Henson

Untitled

The humidity hung like a curtain, and sweat popped from the effort just to lift the two five-gallon pails of bait I was delivering to my friend Ray into the back of the pick up. Ray is a fisherman, who fishes for lobsters, but if you call him a lobsterman, he gets all bent out of shape saying, "People who call themselves lobstermen are wannabes."

It was early July and our weather for the past few weeks resembled Louisiana a lot more than Southern New England. But this being Southern New England, I knew that the weather could change at the snap of a finger. I was gonna meet Ray at Marie's diner, where a bunch of us *macerates* usually meet for breakfast several days a week.

It was quarter to seven on a Saturday, so the parking lot was full but I managed to find a spot and squeeze in between a Lexus and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Marie's is a hash house much like thousands of others, but being a stone's throw from the second largest casino in the country, you never knew who is going to grace their doors. Rumor has it that Michael Jordan once had a hash breakfast here, sitting on a stool at the counter.

Several of the regulars were already seated in booths and Marie was busily pouring coffee. There's an un-written protocol in Marie's: The postal guys, who start at eight, occupy the big booth to the left of the door. The paramedics who have been working since midnight take the booth opposite. Our place is back in the corner, next to the rest rooms. Mostly, it's never a problem; the causal breakfast crowd seems to know instinctively that that's the way it is.

****

This one has a very distinct New England flavor to it, from the lobsterman to the local breakfast hangout. You get the feeling you are in for a long homey tale, but the last paragraph hints things are not going to go according to plan. The rules are about to be broken. I liked the edge of anticipation it left me with, making it my choice as the best of the five selections.

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April Higgenbotham

Atoning Ayla

Ramie (Boehmeria nivea) is a flowering plant in the nettle family. The leaves are heart-shaped.

Where was I when the book was written on how to torment a soul?

She glances down to the lined white paper, now stained with her tears. The whiteness of the paper stands in great contrast to the darkness in her soul. How telling, she thinks to herself, because she knows "he" brought the darkness with him when he came. The tears always come easily as she remembers him. Ramie. Ramie Taha, the man she called, "her heart." The man who called her, "his wife." The man she loved. The man she adored. The man who brought love into her life. A love unlike any love she had ever known.

But now, all she has are questions. Questions not only with no answers, but answers that may never come. Or will they? That is what she lives for. "Ramie, why?" she thinks to herself. "Why did you do this?" And she cries harder as she pours her heart out in words, hoping that someday she will understand.

Marked on the top of her hand that she writes with is an ornately beautiful mark of a ritual of her wedding. A wedding that only she showed up for, at least according to her heart. She gazes down at the tattoo on top of her right hand, a tattoo made from the flowering plant called henna which stains the skin a red-brown color. While once a temporary marking for a wedding that never took place, it is now a permanent tattoo. And she realizes that by making it permanent, that she will be reminded forever of his lies. While once she wore it proudly and delighted in its intricate details, she can't help but think that it is now like a symbol of death, a slow agonizing death. And the lies were just as intricate. Or were they lies?

And she screams inside her mind, will I ever know his heart?

****

Atoning Alya is a mood piece and as such it leaves a definite mark. The author strikes a resounding chord in all of us, but I'm not sure quite where she is going with this as it's hard to maintain sadness for long and keep the reader along for the journey. She might do well to plant some glimmer of hope or strength to face the day. A little hint of revenge might even be in order if she wants to liven it up.

Carol Newman Cronin

Game of Sails: An Olympic Love Story

BANG!

The loud but harmless warning gun blew an acrid whiff of smoke across my boat. Five minutes to the start of race two—and I was planning to win this next one as well.

I felt like I'd been spun through a salt water rinse cycle. Water dripped off my waterproof top and neoprene shorts, and my arms and legs ached. But today's thumping southerly breeze rewarded my height and strength. So if I was a little tired, the thirty-four girls I'd beaten in the first race must be exhausted.

This was the best place—the only place—to be, and even the thick buildup of salt on my cheeks couldn't keep me from smiling. Perched on my fourteen foot Solo in the middle of Miami's Biscayne Bay, surrounded by the best Olympic sailors in the world—and ready to show them all over again who was boss.

"Your kind of day, Casey," Rachel had told me this morning as we rigged our boats, palm trees already thrashing overhead. "You'll make the team this year—easy."

Four days and nine races from now, the top three boats—along with the top three from the men's fleet—would qualify for the national team, which meant enough funding to train full time for the Olympic Trials. That regatta would be in Newport, Rhode Island, where Rachel and I had spent summers since we were five years old. But only one of us (or, God forbid, someone far less deserving) would go to the Olympics.

"Jenny Garcia's the only other girl who's been practicing at all," Rachel had told me yesterday. "And she doesn't have even half of your drive."

I shook my head to clear it, chafing my thick braid against the back of my lifejacket. Time to focus on winning this race.

****

Wonderful action scenes and well a well drawn character. The problem with this selection is the overuse of em dashes (—). About the only thing that will turn off an editor faster is a bunch of ellipses…. The other problem is the capitalized word, BANG. It leads me to believe there will be more of the same later in the book. Otherwise, this story in a winner. But both problems are easily corrected.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

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The Dream

by Tom Tripp

Krogen 44' Le Reve in 20 Foot Seas on the Atlantic

A couple of years ago, I wrote about an interesting ocean passage in which the Krogen 44 Le rêve, with owner Bill van Lenthe and crew aboard, crossed the North Atlantic nonstop from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, to the port of Horta, on the Island of Faial in the Azores, a distance of 2,250 NM. That was the first leg of a journey that brought Le rêve to IJmuiden, Netherlands, in three legs. The second leg of the trip, 1,268 NM, took the boat to Plymouth, England. And the final leg to Holland was a short jaunt of 367 NM. The successful passage was reported on the Kadey-Krogen company website, where there are links to the blogs of a number of Kadey-Krogen Yachts owners.

While many trans-Atlantic passagemakers stop at Bermuda along the way, especially when the original departure is from Florida, van Lenthe decided to forego the stop since it would have taken him significantly out of his way, given his own New Jersey departure. Van Lenthe and his wife, Joanne, were both born in Holland, hence the final destination.

The stabilized Krogen 44 encountered rather a lot of bad weather along the way; more than would be expected for a June crossing at 40 degrees north latitude. Seas encountered frequently reached 20 feet, but the owner reported no difficulties whatsoever, adding that the autopilot handled steep following seas especially well.

Here are the stats for the overall voyage:

Total days at sea                             26

Total Hr at sea                               612

Total Miles at sea                        3885

Total fuel consumed by engine   1290 gallons

Average gallons/hr                          2.1

Average m/g                                   3.01

Average speed                                6.35kts

Le rêve and the van Lenthe family went on to cruise Holland and then visited Norway in 2009; made their way to Turkey via the canals of Europe in 2010/2011, and will head to the Med next year.  I will be writing about the European legs of their cruise soon on my passagemaking news blog, OceanLines.Biz.

You can follow their travels on their blog here.

Have any transoceanic stories (or dreams) of your own to tell?

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An homage to the Edit Queen

I was thinking today that my wife, Mary, is one of the sweetest, easy going people I've ever met. This applies to just about every aspect of her life–except for when it comes to editing my books.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just observing. After months of grueling rewriting on my recently released book, Dog River Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery), I've started on the rewrite of my next release and at this moment Mary is sitting out at the pool going through the first draft of the book. She's looking for errors, and from my experience, she'll find plenty.

For some reason, no matter how many times I read through a manuscript, I miss things. Words, tense, spelling. My eyes are willing, but my mind plays games with me.

And when I'm stubborn about some point and refuse to change something, Mary doesn't just let it go and let me have my way. No. She points the problem out over and over until I start to think maybe she's right.

Mary read Dog River Blues seven or eight times before we finished the book. Each time she read it thoroughly and each time she found errors.

In fact, it became a running joke at the end of each day's edits I'd ask Mary how she liked the book and she'd reply, "It's really good, Mike," even on the eighth read.

Now I think anyone who's ever written a book knows that after eight reads the book isn't good, it's boring. You know who the killer is, you know what's going to happen in the end, hell–there are sections of dialog you can quote by heart.

So the purpose of this post is to thank my Edit Queen, who I must admit I sometimes refer to as 'The Edit Nazi'.

Amazon.com Widgets

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It's a boat

Last Saturday night as the winds of Hurricane Irene howled overhead, and I sat boarded up inside my boat as she bucked and shuddered in the wind and waves, I felt very alone.  I checked my email on my iPad and at that hour just past midnight,  it seemed as though the only people in the world who knew of my existence were trying to sell me Cialis or offering to enlarge my penis.  Try as I might, I cannot convince them that I am not their target market.

At one point, I decided to send an email to another boating friend who was moored in a bay off Long Island Sound, and shortly after I pushed send, my cell phone rang.

"So, how are you doing?" he asked.

I was thrilled to have someone to talk to, so I unloaded on him.  "Well," I said, "while I was in Solomons, I blew the main oil gasket on the engine and had to have it replaced, and then sailing up the bay, I executed a controlled gybe and a block on my mainsheet traveler disintegrated, then when I tried to lower my headsail in anticipation of the hurricane, I discovered my jib halyard has jammed at the top of the mast, and I had to go up in the bosun's chair to undo the shackle to lower the sail, and it appears that I have alternator problems again because my batteries aren't charging when I run my engine so I've had to turn off my refrigeration."  I paused to take a breath.

"Oh," he said.  "It's a boat."

Yup.  That about sums it up.

Many non-boating writer friends, after reading this blog of my adventures this summer, have asked me why I choose to do this.  They think it sounds like I'm having a terrible time.  They cannot imagine why one would inflict this sort of pain on oneself.  Why would one chose to do something that requires hundreds of hours of labor and is so financially risky?

I do it for the same reasons I write — because I love it.

Some people climb mountains or row boats across oceans or go skiing across country.  All these undertakings will have moments when it seems like everything has completely gone to hell, but some sort of passion keeps bringing us back.

And so it goes with writing.  For those newbies who are thinking of writing a book, you will likely spend hundreds of hours over the course of several years experiencing extreme frustration and self-doubt all for the chance to earn maybe two cents an hour for your labors.  Why would anyone choose to do it?

If you are doing it because you think it's a "get rich quick" scheme,  I know of a few fixer-upper boats you might want to buy once you earn all that writing dough.  Yeah, right.

There is only one reason we choose to write or to live on the water.  Passion.

And right now, I have a book that has just as many broken parts as my boat.

I've been reading all the email lists and blogs from Indie authors who are self publishing ebooks, and many of them are wondering why their books aren't selling well.  They think that they just need to find the marketing secret that will bring instant success.  In just the same way that my boat won't get underway without a working engine or jib or mainsail, I know that my book won't sell unless the plot and characters and pacing are all humming along with mechanical precision.

So, just as I hired a mechanic in Solomons, I have now hired a professional editor for my new book which this blog helped me title CIRCLE OF BONES.  I'd done all the DIY editing I could do, and it was time to call in a pro.  I will be spending lots of money on an editor and a cover and a final copy editor, but after all –

It's a book.

 

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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True love…

C.E. Grundler

It's funny how certain memories can slip to the back of your brain for years, filed away so deeply that they're all but forgotten, yet the strangest triggers can retrieve them instantly in perfect detail. In that moment of catching a few notes of a song I haven't heard since high school, drifting from the open window of a passing car, suddenly I recall the precise lyrics as well as friends I was with one rainy afternoon so many years ago, friends I hadn't thought about in decades. It's something I'd all but forgotten, yet it all comes back to me in with such vivid clarity, as though it had only been yesterday.

Scents are even more powerful. One whiff of mothballs and I'm eight years old, rummaging through the trunks in the attic for hidden treasures. The right combination of a bus passing outside Starbuck's, and my brain remembers a backdraft of diesel over the transom mingling with the aroma of fresh-ground coffee as we passed the massive neon Maxwell House cup, perpetually dripping that last drop of coffee, glowing like a beacon along the Hoboken shoreline as we motored down river. The scents of sawdust and varnish don't have any specific moments attached to them, or perhaps it's that there are so many years of moments that they've all blended together, but whatever the case, it's not so much a single memory so much as an emotion. I smell that smell and my brain switches to 'happy'.

So what is it about removing old 3M 5200 from Annabel Lee's rudder components, a task I've been attacking with a pick, thread by thread in endless sessions and feel as though I'll never complete, that brings to mind my late friend Butch, and leaves me with a smile? It's not a sound or a scent. It's a riddle Butch once said that my brain retained as surely as if he'd set it there with that very adhesive. "What's the difference between 5200 and true love?" he'd joke.  "5200 is forever."

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You Have My Attention

Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene has passed. With floods, power outages, some wrecked hulls, and unfortunate loss of life in her wake, there are plenty of lessons learned. Some in the media seem especially interested the question of a better balance between pre-storm hype and the need for preparedness. As for me, I am inclined to focus on an indisputable lesson: hurricanes, especially those that head for New York City, galvanize public attention like nothing else. In this, I see opportunity. We may be an attention deficit society, but that wasn't the case leading to Irene. In recognizing this, I ask: isn't there a way we can harness this collective focus?

Consider last week: whenever I logged onto my computer, the lead story on the search browser – Irene. TV, be it the Weather Channel or local news? Irene. I didn't check, but my guess is the recent episode of "Bridezilla" featured weddings that occur during hurricanes. Even PBS was likely searching its files for a Ken Burns documentary on the '38 Hurricane. Radio? Irene. Ads? Irene. Conversation in the check-out line? Irene. Conversation at the water cooler? Yup. On and on. And you know what? The public listened. We were galvanized. Doppler radar, predictive paths, science concerning winds at sky scraper heights, we knew it all. Millions of us were listening and listening really well.

The intensity of Irene coverage wasn't limited to the media. Governor Christie of New Jersey was heard over the airwaves, saying: "I saw some of these news feeds that I've been watching upstairs of people sitting on the beach in Asbury Park. Get the hell off the beach in Asbury Park and get out," Christie said. "You're done. It's 4:30. You've maximized your tan. Get off the beach. Get in your cars and get out of those areas." Imagine, a straght-talking elected official. And something tells me they did get the hell off the beach.

As a nation, we're pretty smart folks. It just happens that we're easily distracted and we don't address anything until it becomes catastrophic. Let's just admit this as a given and let's use Hurricane Irene level reporting to get everyone focused, if only for one week. We could use this collective energy to correct any number of societal problems. Take your pick: Do you think it's time we get serious about the environment? Then lets create an intense week of related news, complete with computer graphics, statistics, expert predictions, and a few tell it like it is politicians. Hell, we might even be able to create some headway in solving our economic problems if we all pay fierce attention for a week.

So there it is, my take-away from Hurricane Irene. And in the meantime, I suppose I'll head back to the beach before summer ends, book in hand, glad that Irene's destruction wasn't worse.

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Welcome to the Dark Side

I am a stubborn person. It took two friends to drag me, kicking and screaming, away from my typewriter and force an old Apple computer on me. Since spelling is only one of my many weak points, I learned to appreciate what the computer could do and what it allowed me to do.

Things haven't changed much – with me being stubborn – and my fellow blogger Mike J spent many Saturday afternoons trying to explain to me the benefits of eBooks, after MWA luncheons.

The thought of giving up holding whatever book I was reading, turned my stomach. I want to turn the pages of my book – and my newspaper and magazine – and not read on a computer screen on a book-sized Kindle. I love my home library and had already lost it once, during Hurricane Georges. It has taken me years to rebuild it.

Well, reality can be horrible to a stubborn person. I remember sitting with Mike and Mary, Jerry Healey and Sandy Balzo after a luncheon and listening to Mike talk about his success on Kindle. Both Sandy and I were on the cusp of joining the dark side. Sandy more honestly interested than I. Either Mike or Jerry then said something that shook my stubbornness.

"No one with a Kindle is going to show up at your signing. If they hear about your signing, or your book, they're going to the Amazon Kindle store to see if it's available. If it isn't, they'll buy someone else's book."

I wasn't convinced, but thought about what was said on the four-hour ride back to Key West. It was as if Mike was Darth Vader and offering me a place on the 'dark side." On the other hand, maybe he was Satan tempting Jesus? (I had to compare me to Jesus 'cause no one else would! (Sorry about comparing you to Satan, Mike)).

I read some of the websites Mike told me about and soon put my short stories on Kindle for ninety-nine cents. I found a company that would convert "Chasin' the Wind" for Kindle and bit the bullet and had it done. It was pretty much painless but I had to keep repeating the comments about Kindle owners not buying my writings because they were not available. I was slowly making them available.

I now have three novels on Kindle and Nook. My sales on Kindle have been steady at around 200 sales per month. Not up there with Mike and many others, but I see little changes each month. I am almost done with my next Mick Murphy Mystery – Stairway to the Bottom – and have my website woman working on a cover for me and have an editor willing to go through it when she returns from California the middle of September. My wish is to have it on Kindle and as a trade paperback on Amazon before the winter holidays.

I am still a believer in the hard/paperback book – and paper newspaper and magazine. However, reality, no matter how brutal, tells me to check my bank account. Not that, as my father used to say, "may ship has come in," but each month there is a deposit or two from eBook sales.

I had a signing in Key West a couple of weeks ago featuring my three trade paperback books – Revenge, Tijuana Weekend and Chasin' the Wind. To my surprise and the store's, most of the copies available sold out. Scott, from the bookstore said people were buying two books.

Trade paperback, $15 or hardback for $25. In today's economy, it isn't a difficult choice.

I'll talk about CreateSpace soon and, yes, Mike played a role in that too! Mike ain't no devil, but he has sure proven to be a Godsend to me. Maybe he's an angle. I'll have to check with Mary and get her opinion.

I would like to know what you think of Kindle and giving up holding a real book in your hands. It's the future, I know, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

This week ends with the beginning of September. Welcome to the Fall.

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Now what?

Now that Irene has missed us and my new book, Dog River Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery) is live, what do I do?

It's been too hot to do much on the boat, although we did have a rigger go up the mast and fix our roller furling. It has been jamming and now it seems to be working right. I also took the time before the storm to install a new water pump. The old one gave up a while back but I was determined to get the book done before I tackled the job (two more jobs off the to do list). Now I just hope the hurricanes keep away for the rest of the summer.

Since it won't begin to cool down before the end of October, that gives me two full months to work on the next book, a standalone thriller tentatively titled Weep No More. I have a first draft finished on the book and I think I can get most of the rewriting done before November. I'd like to get it out before we leave Ft. Lauderdale (hopefully around the first of the year) but no promises. It took me eight months longer than I thought it would to get Dog River Blues out.

Starting in November we plan to work full time on the boat. That was our plan last year but like I said, it took longer than expected to finish Dog River Blues and Mary and I both felt that the book took priority over getting away from Ft. Lauderdale.

Sometimes I'm not sure which is more time consuming, living on a boat and maintaining it, or writing. I'd rather be writing, but someone has to do the boat maintenance. Unfortunately, I'm a one project at a time person and it seems that I have to give all of my attention to either the boat or the writing, but I have a hard time doing both.

What about you, the reader. Are you a multitasker, or do you have to plod along working on one project at a time?

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