Marc Liebman's Blog, page 41

C4I in 1776

Imagine you are a frigate captain in 1776 for either the Continental or Royal Navy and once you opened your sailing orders, you were on your own. You could be at sea and not know a war has started or ended.

Back in 1776, there were no smart phones or computers. The internet didn’t exist. Ships didn’t have radar, radios, GPS or satellite phones or linked together in a global telecommunications and intelligence network.

The ship’s primary sensor was the Mark 1 eyeball and on a good day, a sharp lookout from a platform a hundred feet above the water could spot another ship fifteen miles away. Encounters at sea were more by chance than intelligence which is why the Brits favored blockades.  By stationing  ships off enemy ports, they knew where the enemy was (or wasn’t) and if they came home or tried to go to sea, they could be engaged.

So why my interest?  Researching events from the Revolutionary War period for an Age of Sail novel is again reminding me of the independence ship, fleet and army commanders were given by their national leaders. Their freedom of action was a far cry from today’s world of satellite sensors and communications and drones in networked C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) systems that enable and generals and admirals in D.C. to approve the release of a bomb from an airplane flying in the Middle East in real time.

The technology revolution of the past thirty years has not only changed the pace of life, but how we communicate with our loved ones on the battlefield. In 1776, it took three weeks for a letter to be carried east across the Atlantic and four to come back not including the time it took to be delivered to the recipient received who quickly wrote a response. In those days, two months was a realistic cycle time for transatlantic correspondence.

Fast forward to Vietnam, my wife and I communicated via letters and cassette tapes. In the seventies, it took less than a week to go from the Gulf of Tonkin to the U.S.  The cycle time was two weeks.  During Desert Shield and Storm in the nineties, we were able to use cell phones to call home.  Email and texting, as we know it today, didn’t exist.

Today, our servicemen can call home, Skype or Facetime a loved one from the battlefield. The pace of life was slower in the sixties and seventies and even slower during the Revolutionary War. Most Americans don’t know it took nine years to win our independence.

Writing novel that takes place during the Revolutionary War also reminds me of how much technology has changed our lives since the Internet became practical. Some days, I long for the days when we didn’t have instant communication and everyone didn’t have to be “connected.” Research meant going to a library, using the Dewey Decimal system to find books that had the necessary source material and either check them out or take notes.  Writing a manuscript meant using a typewriter (maybe one with erasing features) and feeding it paper, sheet by sheet.  Changes and editing, that’s another subject for another post.

Marc Liebman

November 2019

Pace of Things in 1776

In 2018, we take for granted things such as highways, telecommunications, even something that everyone says they want to get rid of, paper. Hark back to 1776 when the American Revolution was in full swing in the thirteen colonies.

Back in those days, paper was relatively expensive and if you wanted two or three copies of something, it had to be copied by hand. Not everyone had a printing press in their back room. What one had was a quill pen made from a feather and a bottle of ink.

If you were in Philadelphia and wanted to communicate with someone in New York, how did one do it? There was no internet so texting, email and a phone call was out. One wrote a letter by hand in cursif. Computers with word processing systems didn’t exist.

After the ink was blotted dry, it was put into an envelope, again addressed by hand. One didn’t lick the glue and seal the envelope or pull off a strip to expose the self-sealing adhesive. One sealed it with wax.

We actually had a postal system in the colonies that started in 1693 to make weekly trips between Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Williamsburg, Virginia. Post offices didn’t come into existence until much later. One took the letter to a government office, paid the tax we now call postage, where the envelope was stamped with ink and turned over to a postal rider.

Very few cities at the time had street numbering systems of today or government offices. Postal riders left the mail at taverns and inns which were common gathering places in destination cities.

Roads in North America were cart paths between towns, not interstates paved with concrete. On a good day, a postal rider on a healthy horse could make fifty miles so in 1776, a letter mailed in New York City to an individual in Philadelphia would take five to seven days to make the ninety-five mile trip. Day one, cross the Hudson River. There’s no George Washington Bridge or Holland Tunnel so the rider takes a ferry. Its mode of power, sail or rowing. Think several hours to make the trip. Add in waiting time, it is half a day.

After two days riding and a night in a tavern, the postal rider has to cross the Delaware River. Again, another ferry ride and another half day. So at best, our mythical letter, assuming it was dropped off in time before the postal rider left, needs four days just to get to Philly. Then it has to be delivered and or picked up at a designated spot on day five.

My point is this. Today, we communicate in seconds with email. Back then, it took at least two weeks to send a letter and get one back, that’s assuming the person receiving the note pens his answer and posts it the day it was received. So think about how your life would be different if you had to wait at least two weeks after sending a thought to someone you knew and getting an answer? Everything slows down.

Marc Liebman

November 2018

Struggles With a Manuscript

It is time to ‘fess up. Forty thousand plus words into Raider of the Scottish Coast and I’m struggling with the manuscript. Some passages flew right off the keyboard. I like it so far overall, but there are flaws.

A short notice commitment to write a feature article on how ski resorts can attract more senior skiers – skiers over the age of 54 – to attract more new skiers of all ages. As a group, senior skiers are 16% of the total skier population and ski just over 46% of the total skier days.

The piece is for Ski Area Management gave me a needed break from Raider of the Scottish Coast. For about a week, alarm bells had been going off.

Bong, bong – it was becoming a travelog built around the adventures of John Paul Jones.

Bong, Bong – the American hero wasn’t being developed as fast as the British one.

Bong, Bong – there wasn’t a character flaw or trait that drove tension and conflict.

It took about forty-eight hours to sort through the key bullets of the story line for Ski Area Management and come up with enough bullets around which to write the article. The next day as in yesterday, I sat down and wrote the first draft that had to be between 1.500 and 2,000 words. First pass was 1,800, perfecto!

After this blog is published, I’ll go through it again because it needs tweaking. Sentences will be added, deleted, modified and expect as I edit it, more material will be added. The deadline is this coming Friday, so I have time to polish and tweak it.

Did the break help Raider of the Scottish Coast? The jury is still out, but yes. My brain worked out how to end the John Paul Jones travelog. This will set off a chain reaction in the story to develop the character of what the British refer as one of the ‘damned rebels’. So two “bongs” may be killed with one stone.

In the process, I should be able work in a character flaw. One possibility hit me literally in the middle of the night after I made my middle of night trip to the bathroom and was lying there, trying to go back to sleep.

That’s probably TMI but even when I physically stop writing a book in any stages, parts of my brain don’t. Ideas pop into my head while I’m walking my dog or in the past, dogs, driving, working out and at odd moments during the day. Some are good, some are bad and some passed through my conscious and can’t remember. Often, I wonder what those were and if they reappeared as part of another idea.

So, in a day or so, it is back to the decks of a square rigged sailing ship writing about hauling yardarms, wearing ships and spotting the enemy, two points of the ‘larboard bow.

Marc Liebman

November 2018

Wonders of Research

 

Research takes time.  It can be frustrating as in sorting good material from bad, informative, i.e. one learns something and enlightening in a way that changes one’s perspective.  It can even be really exciting.

As noted in an earlier post, I’ve started writing the first book in a trilogy that takes place during the early days of the U.S. Navy.  Again, the Internet is a wonderful tool.  However, one has to be careful in how it is used and not because there are sites with viruses and malware, it is because there is a lot of bad info in cyberspace.

For the Age of Sail series, I’m compiling a list of sources that will be for be handy for books two and three.  Since my publisher has cautioned me that readers of this genre will pick the book’s operational scenes apart because they are very familiar with how square rigged ships are sailed, the tactics used and how they function.  If for nothing else, the list of sources will tell readers where the information in the scene came from.

I should know because I pick apart movies and books that are historically and operationally inaccurate.  When I see/read these passages, the author or the movie loses credibility.  Yes, there is some creative license but when one is showing Japanese dive bombers during the attack on Pearl Harbor or at the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, don’t show film of U.S. Navy SBD Dauntless’s.

Back to research on the Internet.  I found a file with a list of Royal Navy frigates and ships of the line in service between 1760 and 1825.  Ditto for the Continental Navy.  In it is a link to the ship’s history in Wikipedia that leads me to the bibliography and more potential sources.

The real treasure trove was on the U.S. Navy’s archives where there are twelve volumes titled Naval Documents of the American Revolution.

When I opened one, my reaction was OMG!!!  There are letters between political figures, members of the Continental Congress’s Navy Committee, officers as well as diaries along with sections from official reports and ship’s logs.

For me, this material is dangerous.  Not to my health, but to my time.  The documents are transcribed as they were written so the diction, spelling and syntax represents how they wrote 1776 and makes them hard to read.  Nonetheless, one can get so involved, hours go by.

The question is how does it get incorporate in a manuscript.  At the advice of my publisher, conversations between the characters are in modern syntax to make it easier to read.  That was a godsend because trying to recreate someone speaking in 1776 would be hard, if not impossible for me to write.

Researching has been both fun and exciting as I sort through the material.  Writing the first draft of Raider of the Scottish Coast is well underway but not done, so I need to get back to writing and researching.

Marc Liebman

November 2018

Birth of a Book Idea

On the morning of September 25th, my writing plans for was pretty well laid out for what books would be written in what sequence. The first two novels in a new, four book series based on a character by the name of Derek Almer were written. While my agent was contacting publishers about the first book in the new series – Flight of the Pawnee – and trying to place a non-fiction book called Gold & Silver Wings – Tales from Three Generations of Military Pilots with a publisher, I could beaver away on the third book in the Derek Almer series – The Ass’m Draggin.

That was the plan when I walked into the restaurant in Tucson on the evening of September 25th, 2018 with the owner of Penmore Press who publishes my first seven books. Note, the operative word is was.

During the dinner, somehow we got on the subject about books about the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars of which there are many. I grew up reading C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series, Alexander Kent’s books about the career of Richard Bolitho and Patrick O’Bryan’s novels about Jack Aubrey adventures. He noted that there weren’t many about the American Navy during the period and he thought it would sell well.

We began discussing how the novel might unfold and before we parted company, I said I would think about it. Boy, was that an understatement.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. After a quick, as in about half an hour or so, searching Amazon, I came to the same conclusion – there weren’t many books about the Continental Navy/American Navy during the Revolutionary War or during the Quasi War with France in 1799, the War with the Barbary Pirates or the War of 1812.

My mind raced as I typed a potential book concept that became a trilogy. The books will follow the careers of two men, Jaco Jacinto an American and a Brit by the name of William Smythe beginning when they entire their respective navies as midshipmen.

The story concepts for all three are done and I’ve started banging away on the keys to write the first one tentatively titled Raider of the Scottish Coast. To write these will require research not only into the historical context, but also into how ships were built and sailed, crews organized and into the war fighting tactics. It is fascinating but takes time to find ones that have the specific info needed to write a passage.

More on this series to come but I have go get back to researching and writing Raider of the Scottish Coast.

Marc Liebman

October 2018

Rejection Farther Up the Publishing Food Chain

Over the years I have been an author, I have tried finding an agent to represent my books to large publishers on three different occasions. The first two were mildly successful in that several responded to my queries and asked for the manuscripts.

On the first attempts, some read them and decided for a variety or reasons mostly because the industry was going through a major upheaval caused by the advent of the e-book, self-publishing, print on demand and the explosion in social media. At the time, agents and publishers were not looking to invest in new authors. That led me to approaching small, independent publishers and voila, six of my books are in print and a seventh will be out by the end of the year, I hope or worst case, early next.

Undaunted, in late 2017, I decided to joust at the agent windmill for a new series of novels base on a new character and more contemporary settings. This quest led me to an agent who asked in her query form what other books I had in work and I listed a non-fiction book called Gold & Silver Wings – Tales from Three Generations of Military Pilots. One thing led to another and suddenly back in June, I was creating a book proposal that would be sent out in August 2018 to a list of publishers she thought might be interested.

Call me naïve, but I thought that agents had the inside track to the publishers and they do. Major publisher websites and they say they do not want “un-agented” queries. She said it would take months to find a publisher.

That statement should have been interpreted as “I get rejected as much as you do.” Agents, as I am learning, face the same hurdles as the authors. Publishers use agents to screen manuscripts and authors. And, the process is just as fickle and quirky for them as it is when an author is trying to find an agent.

Some publishers send nice notes saying “they like the story and content, but it is just not for them.” Others have rejected it with no reason. The one that got me was “I didn’t have a big enough social media presence.” Huh? Let’s see, I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, have a large website… Oh, I don’t tweet. A following can be with a little help from the publisher built. My agent and I had a laugh about that because she said it is harder to find quality manuscripts, than build a social media following.

So the takeaway from this process is that agents get rejected just as often as the authors. They’re just closer to the holy grail of getting on with a major publisher. Patience, in this case, is a virtue, but the waiting and rejection is hard. A bastardization of Kevin Costner’s line in the movie Field of Dreams applies, “write it and a publisher will buy…” Maybe, the word “eventually” should be added.

Marc Liebman

October 2015

Genres and Eras We Love

If you go to Amazon and enter in ‘Revolutionary War Navy Novels’ or ‘Revolutionary War nautical fiction’ in the search bar, you’ll find there aren’t many. There are a few by Alaric Bond from the British side and one or two from the American side. There is one by Alexander Dumas called Captain Paul based on John Paul Jones. Net net, there’s not much.

Most of the famous authors of the period – C.S. Forester, Patrick O’Brian, Alexander Kent – wrote about the Napoleonic Wars. I grew up reading and re-reading Forester’s Hornblower series that follows the career of a young midshipman through is career and ends when he makes admiral.

So why the sudden interest on my part? Historically it is important because the Napoleonic Wars were the end to what really was about a century of conflict.

For most of the 18th Century, the British, French and Dutch were at each other’s throats for control over the world’s trade routes. Each country was trying to build a global empire of colonies around the world. The Dutch were the first to fall out, but the British and the French kept at each other up until Napoleon was captured after the disaster at Waterloo. The wars embroiled the Russians, the Prussians, the Swedes, the Danes and almost every European power. In some ways, it was the Catholic countries – France and Spain – supported by the pope taking on the Protestant England. It was not a religious war but it had religious overtones.

Historically, in this maelstrom, the American Revolution was really a sideshow with the real effort focused on control of the Caribbean, trade routes to India. The Royal Navy was the predominant force in the world and it was a role it would not give up until the end of World War II.

So why my sudden interest, or more accurately stated, re-interest? Last month, at dinner with my publisher he asked me straight out had I ever thought about writing a book about the age of sail? The answer was no.

He said I should consider it.   Hmmmm…. Then the discussion started one about an American captain with the time frame of the 1776 through 1814 so it encompasses the War of 1812. Why, because the fledgling U.S. Navy fights four wars – the Revolutionary War, the Quasi War with the French, the Barbary Pirates and the War of 1812 against the British. During these conflicts, the U.S. Navy comes of age as a viable, blue water navy capable of taking on the most powerful navy in the world, i.e. the Royal Navy.

At the end of dinner, I said I would think about it and I am. While I am working on getting my next book out – The Simushir Island Incident, from a writing perspective, it is all that I am thinking about. Ideas are rattling around in my head. The only thing I am sure about is that I am going to write at least one. More I won’t know until I sit down and think it through. Stay tuned.

Marc Liebman

October 2018

A Pleasurable Chore

Normally, once one of my books is published, I don’t go back and read it. By the time it is on the market, I’ve read it at least two dozen times or more during the writing, editing and proofreading. If nothing else, I like to think I know what’s on the pages.

Two things forced me into reading the book again. One, when a second edition is needed or, two when the contract with one publisher expires and I decide to have it re-released by another one. In either situation, it is a chance to read the book again and do some judicious editing.

Such is the case with Forgotten, my fourth novel. I decided to have all the books in the Josh Haman series with one publisher, Penmore, so I got the rights to the book back. Deeds Publishing will keep it available until the second edition is available sometime in late November.

As part of the process, I wanted to read through the manuscript. It was the first time I picked up the book since it came out in September 2015. So, I started reading and making changes. I thought it would take only a few days to go through it. It took twelve.

Along the way, it is getting a new cover as any second edition book should. I loved the first one and we’re trying to adapt it so that it fits in with the other five that are already published, and eventually, the seventh – The Simushir Island Incident – when it comes out.

Reading it was fun and enjoyable. Forgotten is a great story – yes I am biased – and the reviewers agreed. It won three national awards, the logos of which will be on the new cover.

However, editing and proofing it was not! It was hard work because even after three years, often I didn’t see what was on the page. I would remember the passage and think that it was O.K. and didn’t need any tweaks. I found myself forcing my brain to read what was on the page, not what I remembered from three years ago.

The new version of the manuscript now goes to a proofreader and then will come back to me for me to approve all the changes. From there, it will take a few weeks to convert the Word document to an electronic form that can be used by a printer and then it will be re-released.

So it is now on to my next writing project – working with the editor on the final version of The Simushir Island Incident. That’s only one project, I have many more in work. Stay tuned.

Marc Liebman

October 2018

Thanks for the Ratings

While most authors (including this one) claim they write for themselves, the reality is that we like to share what our imaginations produce. And, we want them to be read and liked.

Probably, the best way to learn what others think is through the reviews by professionals and reader ratings. If you dig into the Amazon site and go to the Author’s page, you can root around and find the professional reviewer’s comments on my books. They’re all good. FYI, authors are limited on the number of these they can post on Amazon.

All the professional reviews (although I am sometimes a bit late) for my books on my website. However, it is the reader’s ratings on Amazon and Goodreads that are another and maybe better barometer of how well the novels have been received.

In my book, figuratively speaking, the more reviews, the better. So if you’ve read one of my books and haven’t done so, please post a review!

The following numbers were pulled (copied?) from the Amazon and Goodreads sites as I am writing this blog so they are as current as possible. Amazon readers uses stars. Goodreads readers grade on a five point scale and the show both the stars and the numerical score (shown below). Here they are:

Cherubs 2 – Amazon – 5 stars; Goodreads – 4.36.
Big Mother 40 – Amazon – 5 stars; Goodreads – 4.18.
Render Harmless – Amazon – 4 stars; Goodreads – 4.44.
Forgotten – Amazon 4.5 stars; Goodreads – 4.50.
Inner Look – Amazon – no reviews yet; Goodreads – 4.30.
Moscow Airlift – Amazon 4.5 stars; Goodreads – 5.00.

The Goodreads numbers average 4.46 that, if you use the star rating system is very close to four and a half stars. In other words, there are no clunkers in the Josh Haman series, at least so far and there’s one – The Simushir Island Incident – yet to be published this year.

While I’d like them to be all five star, that’s probably an unrealistic goal. So, to all you who read my blog and books AND post reviews, thanks. They are most appreciated.

Marc Liebman

September 2018

An F for Creativity

Everyday, emails show up in either my inbox or junk folder from lord only knows who with interesting subject lines. Here are some of them and comments in the italics are mine:

Business proposal. Really, as if I am going to respond to an unsolicited proposal from a stranger who knows nothing about being an author.
Congratulations, you’re qualified for a $250,000 loan. What financial institution do you know will call a non-customer and offer a quarter million without filling out a loan app?
You’ve just qualified for a $200,000 grant? I didn’t know I applied for one. The best part is that they call themselves the government grant department.
Dear friend. Is that how you address your friends? Not me?
I need help. We all do, call someone who cares. There is no way I am giving you my credit card or bank information.
Claim your lottery prize. If I had a winning lottery ticket, I can do that on my own.
Re: with nothing more in the subject line. K., to what are you referring?

Thant’s just a sampling from the past two weeks. The only reason I know what the contents of the note might be is if the email gets through the junk mail filter, I see the first few lines. If it is in the junk mail folder, all I see is the subject line. In either case, it is block sender and delete.

Then there are the phone calls. I must be in a database that gets passed from one spammer to another who are peddling health care, trips, credit cards and lord knows what else.

I keep a log and have started to see a pattern. The morning calls come in sometime around nine, then from another number either just before or after lunch and then one around five or six. Some leave a message, others just call and don’t leave a message if the phone is not answered.

Normally, if the number has a +1 in front of my number it is a spam call. If it is important and real, the caller will leave a message and I’ll call them back.

Some do leave messages. The one I like best is the message “The IRS is coming to arrest me and call this number.” Really. The IRS doesn’t arrest anyone. They send the FBI.

Another one is the call saying, “The police are on the way to arrest me. Call this number to stop it.” Arrest me for what?

A friend has the best way to deal with these people. If per chance there is a voice at the other end, he aggressively asks, “Where’s my refund? You promised me a $500 refund!” The person on the other end doesn’t know what to do.

Sadly, some must fall for these scams because if they didn’t the money would dry up and the scammers would do something else. In my book, they get an F for creativity.

Marc Liebman

September 2018