Are you an expert on sailing?

“The End” is a good thing Weird words and a little gift for you

Are you an expert on sailing?

Any chance you have some sailing experience? If so, I might need to send you a question…or twenty. This week I’ve been researching ships and sailing. It’s not because I really like ships and sailing. It’s because my character insists on loving them. In fact, I despise the ocean. More specifically, sand. I think it has something to do with an unfortunate childhood experience when a wave knocked me down and I spent the next half hour crying while my mom tried to use the public bathroom hoses to spray sand out of places sand should not be. Anyway, my character loves ships and sailing, so I have to learn the basics and sound like I know what I’m talking about when it’s his turn to tell the story. Only this type of research usually involves me traveling down a rabbit trail of useless information. For example, did you know a nautical mile is different than a mile on land? It has to do with the curvature of the earth, which makes sense until you see that the official definition of a nautical mile isn’t even in miles. It’s in kilometers – 1.852 kilometers to be exact. Then you have to factor in knots, which is how sailors measure their speed. One knot equals one nautical mile per hour, which is actually 1.1508 miles per hour on land. Or 1.852 kilometers per hour… I came away from this research thinking that sailors are probably far better at math than me. And I didn’t learn anything that applied to my story. Instead I’ll probably watch Pirates of the Caribbean or Master in Commander. And of course I need to finish reading Oathbound by Victoria McCoombs. It’s much more fun to watch/read the product of someone else’s research than it is to do my own. But I’m not actually writing an extra post this month to talk about ships and sailing. I’m writing it to let you know about two great deals I found that are for this week only. The first is a box set that I’m actually buying for myself because it’s a smoking deal and I’ve heard such great things about the author.

This next one is only 99 cents and it’s written by one of my favorite authors who also happens to be my friend and critique partner. I’m currently reading the third book in this series (which comes out in May!), so I highly recommend snagging this deal now so you have time to read the the first two before the third one comes out. Buy it here!