Captain Kidd & Wooden Ships by Katherine Pym

YA for All Ages London 1665

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Capt Kidd in NY Harbor. It was traditional to have wives & lovers aboard before sailing

Research takes me to different eras and locales. One of those places is on a wooden ship slicing through the ocean's heavy swells. I have several books that describe the building of them, their terminologies, but few mention what it was like living on board. Until now...

Oh, I knew ships were crowded. Cages of ducks, geese and chickens lined the main deck rails. Cows and goats were harnessed to masts. Below decks, the magazine and filling rooms sat close together but the powder room was farther astern. Safety, you know, even as ships sometimes spontaneously exploded.

Capt Kidd's New York home

Seamen would often re-use old gun cartridges that, after a while, would deteriorate to a fine dust, and combined with particles of sulphuric and nitric acids found in gunpowder, a highly combustible substance called ‘guncotton’ would form. This friction of dust and gunpowder would cause terrific explosions, sinking the ship and everyone on board. 

Upward to several hundred men crowded onto a vessel. Captain Kidd, the privateer who turned pirate in the last years of the 17^th century, had one hundred fifty-two men and boys cheek to jowl aboard his ship Adventure Galley. Men had to sleep in shifts. 

Inaccurate renduring of Capt Kidd

The decks were so short, maybe 5 feet ceilings, everyone had to walk in a permanent crouch. Unless a seaman was given express permission from the captain, no fire could be taken below decks, and unless the decks had gun ports, it was damn dark down there. 

“’No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail,’ observed Samuel Johnson. ‘For being in a ship is being in jail with the chance of being drowned... a man in jail has more room, better food and commonly better company.’

“Every available inch below deck was taken up with water-casks, barrels of salt beef, peas, beer; coils of ropes, bundles of extra canvas;” a private cabin or two, depending on the ship’s rate. These cabins were 4x4 feet. No one could stretch or pace. One had to sleep in the fetal position. 

“For landsmen, novices at this naval dormitory, the smell of that sleep chamber was gagging. Their overworked fellow sailors rarely changed their clothes or bathed; to top off the aroma of vintage sweat, toilet hygiene was rudimentary at best. 

“The ship’s head (i.e., toilet) consisted of a plank with a hole in it, which extended forward from the bow; a sailor perched on it, rode it like a seesaw, and, while doing his business, resembled some gargoyle or perverse bowsprit; the ship’s rail might provide the merest amount of privacy. A man attempting to tidy his ass risked a plunge into the sea.” 

Sailor being flogged

Even as existence such as this seemed pretty unpalatable, it got into the blood of men. Once they found their sea legs and learned the ways of the sea, many wouldn’t leave it for all their stolen treasure. If they didn’t like what their captain did, they could always mutiny, throw the offending captain overboard (as the Henry Hudson’s crew did) and sail away into the stormy sunset. 

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Many thanks to: 

Wikicommons, public domain 

The Pirate Hunter, The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks. Hyperio, NY, NY. 2002

Tuesday 4 August, 2015: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-london-after-350-years-the-riddle-of-britains-exploding-fleet-is-finally-solved-10438854.html

Writing for Sanity

Years ago I was fortunate to teach a journaling class as part of a Women's Wellness seminar at a hospital in Edmonton. It was my first time every doing any sort of presentation in front of a crowd and my co-instructor, a minister, had made notes to keep us both on track. On that page of notes was a typo. A mistake. That one little piece of "wrong" struck me as funny and relaxed us both. When I told the story in the session, one woman got very angry at me for "embarrassing" the other woman in front of the crowd. The typo - and our nervousness - wasn't the point of the session.

The entire point was learning to give yourself the freedom to write.

In all fairness, I had asked my partner if I could talk about that tiny mistake as an example of how we don't need to be perfect when we write. We just need to do it. We don't need to be afraid of the mistakes, just write to get the ideas out of our heads. To clear our minds.

Rough drafts, to me, are like journaling. Things come out of our heads, out of our pens, our keyboards and fill the page. Sometimes they make sense. Sometimes they're disjointed scenes of a book that really don't seem to connect until we get them down on paper and find a way to connect them. Sometimes they're even filled with weird typos that make us laugh. But those things aren't meant for an audience, yet sometimes we share them just to give our friends a good laugh. Our finished novels are.

One of the most common complaints I hear in my writing group is that everything has to be perfect and writers will work on Chapter 1 for days, weeks, or even years until it is just right. Then they will move on to Chapter 2 and find they have to go back and change something in Chapter 1, and so on.

My cure for that is simple. Just write the book! Your rough draft doesn't have to be perfect. I just has to be written. Once it's done, then go back and smooth out the rough spots. Remove paragraphs. Add paragraphs. Take out whole chapters. Whatever it takes to get those thoughts out of your head and turn that book into something you can be proud of.

Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way, talks about Morning Pages. Sitting down every morning before you do anything else to "prime the pump." Basically writing all the gunk out of your head so you can go on to form actual thoughts and create your art whether it be writing, creating music, painting or the like.

Whatever you call it, just write to clear your head. For your sanity.
I'll be here writing for mine!

Diane Bator
http://bookswelove.net/authors/bator-diane-mystery/
Author of Wild Blue Mysteries, Gilda Wright Mysteries & Glitter Bay Mysteries

The confusing world of idioms by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page

I love idioms. They can be colorful, sarcastic, and more often than none, impossible to translate in a different language. 

The first idiom I encountered in English was When pigs fly. I was in my twenties slowly learning English when one of my friends said it. I understood the when, the pigs, and the fly, but I couldn't figure out how or when she switched the conversation to pink farm animals. She explained, but then she was also surprised we didn't use that expression to say never in French. I told her we do have a similar expression, which also features a farm animal. In French we say Quand les poules auront des dents, which translate to When hens will have teeth. 
That's when I learned I couldn't translate idioms words for words. At the same time, it was fascinating to discover how two different languages use two different images to convey the same meaning, like:

Love at first sight   is the equivalent to   Coup de foudre (lightning strike) in French.
Once in a blue moon   to   Tous les trente-six du mois (every 36th of the month)
To feel under the weather   to   Ne pas être dans son assiette (not to be in one’s plate)
To mind one’s own business   to   S'occuper de ses oignons (to take care of one’s onions)
To have other fish to fry   to   Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter (to have other cats to whip)
To put in two cents   to   Mettre son grain de sel (to put one’s grain of salt)

It just goes to show that every language is truly unique and meanings can really get lost in the translation.

Happy reading & writing!
JS

 J. S. Marlo's Website