I was at an event recently where I met a lady who had read all of my books. More to the point, she enjoyed each of them. To hear that was music to my ears and I was very happy to engage in conversation with her.
What I invariably find is that people who do not write are amazed at the amount of work that is involved in writing a book. My new fan thought I must be an experienced sailor to have written my sailing scenes as well as I did. I would have loved to say, yes, I’ve been to sea many times but that is simply not true. Thanks to Google, YouTube, and my youngest son, I managed to construct my scenes with some semblance of reality for the era in which my story is set after hours of research.
I read nautical manuals, I read a few of Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin books set during the Napoleonic Wars and watched YouTube clips of the art of sailing three-masted ships over and over again. My fan, and her husband, both said they would not have the patience to do that. And that’s what research takes, patience. Sometimes you have to travel through many avenues to arrive at the nugget of knowledge you need for a particular scene or to add just that kick of spice to your book.
Writing any book requires so much more than ‘just coming up with an idea’. It is not a process for the faint of heart because an author needs a passion for their project, insight, patience, the determination to write and then write more, then work through revisions and re-write, sometimes again and again until the point is reached that they know they have done the best they can. Then it’s time to let the baby go. As a writer, I hoped I had learned the skill of drawing my reader into the world I created. From the conversation I had with my fan (and her husband, by the way), I consider I achieved that goal. And just to whet your appetite, here is a scene from His Ocean Vixen.
Still trembling in the darkness, dread seeping into her very bones, Juliana chastised herself for not having the courage to venture beyond the safety the locker afforded her. Much as she did not like to admit it, she knew Doctor Tryon had been right. Whoever had overrun them would soon best one lone female, armed or not. The only clear thought in her mind was that she would use her sword however she could to defend herself to the death.
For once in her life she did as she was told and stayed exactly where the doctor had stowed her. She did not know how long she huddled in the locker, praying all the while that Doctor Tryon had kept his promise to help William. The sound of voices faded away as the ship rocked a little, her timbers protesting as she settled in the water. She reached forward and lifted the latch, pushed the door ajar.
All she could hear was the sigh and whisper of the ocean and the squeak and rustle of rats as they scurried along the struts. She waited a few minutes more, each second taking a toll on her nerves, then pushed the door all the way open and emerged slowly, listening intently for any sounds of life above decks.
The boom of a cannon close by made her jump, and then a moment later the Jenny Wren shuddered under the impact as another missile found its mark. Juliana fell back, grabbing for a handhold in the darkness. Another explosion followed the first and the ship groaned as if in anguish and listed heavily to one side.
Juliana sprang into action, not caring about the swirling bilges or the rats jabbering about her feet. The sounds of splintering wood filled her ears as she scrambled up the steep steps of the stairwells. As her head cleared the last set of stairs, she stopped and took in the hellish scene on deck with wide-eyed disbelief.
Scorched stumps were all that remained of the once proud and tall fore and main masts. The masts themselves, with their yardarms and rigging, were a tangled mess of fragmented timber littering the deck. Shredded by cannon fire, what was left of the sails now draped the gunwales in tattered strips of canvas. Amidships the deck was nothing more than a black hole still reeking of gunpowder and smoke. The ship listed a little more.
Tripping on the end of a trailing rope, Juliana lost her balance and tumbled to the deck. Her fingers slipped through something wet and greasy as she tried to get up, and she fell again. Bile rose in her throat when she saw the blood on her hand. The coppery taste of it tainted her tongue. There was so much blood everywhere and, unable to get to her feet, she slid through it across the deck, grasping at anything that might halt her progress.
She landed against an untidy heap of clothing, caught her breath and screamed when she saw the huge, ragged splinters that pinned the man’s body to the deck. His sightless eyes stared at her and her stomach lurched. That was all the incentive she needed to grab at the cargo netting on the gunwale and haul herself to her feet.
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