I am in the process of trying to get TNP noticed by writers, readers, and pirate lovers everywhere. If you care to exchange links with me, let me know. If you want to review it or tell your friends about it, by all means, DO. And if you have any brilliant ideas you’d love to share, please contact me! I would be thrilled.

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We have come to the end of Book One of The Noble Pirates. Obviously, the story is not over. I am merely coming to a stopping point to afford me time to try and get it published. While I didn’t start off intending to publish, along the way I decided it was worth a try. Should my attempts fail, I will self-publish it in e-book form so that you may download it and read it at your pleasure.

In the meantime, I am taking a brief break from writing TNP. I have work that has piled up and been neglected so that I could feed my addiction to this story, and it needs to get done. I will recommence writing soon — the countdown timer will let you know when. As always, I welcome your comments. You are my critics, my fans. You are the advantage I have over other unpublished writers, and I will always take your thoughts to heart. As such, I have a few questions for you to help me with the trying-to-get-published process (which, incidentally, is AWFUL):

1. What “genre” do you think TNP belongs in? Adventure, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Historical, Romance? A combination?

2. Many literary agents and publishers ask for “sample chapter(s).” If individual posts were chapters, which would you submit if you were me?

3. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE IN THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY???? (Fine, this last one was a desperate attempt at putting myself out of my misery. I couldn’t help it.)

Any other suggestions or criticisms or encouragement you have is welcome. If this story ends up getting published in the traditional sense, I will include each and every one of you wonderful readers in my Acknowledgments. I’m not kidding. You people Rock.

And now, without further ado, Sophie (Post 4):

***

The day I left the hospital, there were no reporters, no camera crews waiting. My return to the civilized world, to the 21st century, went unnoticed. Noakes’ visit was foiled by Sophie’s presence, much to my delight. Still, his eyes conveyed the warnings, the promises to return. He would not let me be, of that I was certain.

And there was Sophie. My story had jarred her, disturbed her. I feared she thought I was crazy, but something in the way she gripped my hand as she helped me into the car reassured me.  She wouldn’t write me off as insane, thank God. Her desire to rebuild our relationship filled me with relief, with love.

When I closed my eyes, I still felt the rocking of a ship beneath me, tasted the salt on my lips. I still heard the creaking, the flapping of sails in the wind. When I drifted off into sleep, I still saw those blue eyes, that warm, mischievous smile.

He lives. Liberi.

I would not let him go, not yet.

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Pleasedonthurtme. {Sheepish grin}

I apologize for the delay. Being someone who demands instant gratification, I know how hard it is to wait for something, particularly when it was promised earlier. It sucks. So… sorry. I swear, however, to make it good.

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The very talented Abigail Larson has agreed to provide The Noble Pirates with illustrations. When I contacted Abigail, I thought it would be neat to have more visuals to accompany the story. This is a serial, after all, and what could be better than a great story? That’s right — a great story with pictures! I was inspired by Sidney Paget‘s illustrations of Sherlock Holmes, which accompanied the text by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the Strand Magazine. Abigail read the first few chapters of TNP and, to my delight, loved it.

Abigail’s style is fresh, unique, and like the story itself, darkly magical. I am honored by her interest and hope my readers enjoy her interpretations of the characters. I will post her illustrations as she provides them, in their proper places in the story. And don’t worry, I will notify my readers of their existence and their locations.

Without further ado, Abigail’s Sabrina. Click on it for a full-size image.

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I just wanted to let you guys know that my personal portfolio-slash-blog is finally up, and you can see those pirate headers there. In case you missed them. I will post pirate and TNP-related items on there from time to time, not to mention posts regarding other projects (writing or otherwise), so check it out.

The Black Pirate continues on Tuesday, first thing… It’s been a hard one to write, folks…

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In any case, I wanted to respond to Thomas, one of my readers, who asked about my methods. And I quote (ahem):

I’d love to hear a bit (in a side posting, when you have the time) about how you write and organize in order to keep up a running story like this. I tell a running story myself (no plugging, just the reason for my curiosity), and I always like to hear how other storytellers manage it. Have you written a complete outline, do you write to a beat sheet or off the seat of your pants, do you do a lot of rewriting or go with the flow week by week, how do you plain motivate yourself (much as I love telling my own story, sometimes it’s ALMOST like work…).

First off, Thomas, let me say that I would happily link to your writing, and considering how well-written your comments are, I’m sure your fiction is smashing!

Basically, I think my secret to writing a story like this one is my complete and utter obsession with it. Why do I say that? Because I have no written outline or beat sheet (I actually had to look up “beat sheet” on Google and felt queasy after reading the words “index cards”). This lack of outlining, by the way, drives my husband insane. As a lawyer, he thrives on well-written, detailed outlines, and he simply can’t understand how I could be writing a novel, for chrissake, without a written outline.

My response? “It’s all in my head.” When I said earlier that my obsession was my secret, I meant that I think about my story nearly every chance I get. I listen to epic movie soundtracks and draw pencil sketches (albeit really bad ones) to stimulate my imagination. I’m constantly reviewing my plot, seeing movie scenes in my head. I don’t tend to forget what I’ve already written, and know where in my story I’ve said what. This is not because I have a photographic memory (my dismal SAT and LSAT scores definitely prove that I do not have one of those), but because I can’t stop thinking about Howel and Sabrina. Yes, you’re right — I am a huge nerd.

After I have written a section, I give a copy to my husband and a copy to my father. My husband is great at spotting plot holes, and my father is a master of the English language. Together, they are my editors. Generally speaking, I haven’t had to make enormous revisions to my first draft; I write it in my mind, put it on paper, clean it up, and publish it. It may be that I’ll have to do bigger revisions once I’ve finished, to polish it. Hopefully it won’t be anything too big.

Finally, like anyone else, there are times when I lack the motivation to write, when doing what I love feels like work. Recently, this has stemmed from fear of screwing a good thing up; previously, it was because I thrive from feedback, and I felt like what I was getting was lukewarm. When this happens, I step away, force myself to stop thinking about it for a couple days. Oftentimes, when I sit back down to write, I feel refreshed and full of new ideas. Also, because my story is so heavily based on history, sometimes I will pick up one of my pirate books and skim through it for inspiration.

I do not encourage writers to “fly by the seat of their pants,” and my techniques may come back to bite me in the ass in the end. However, it’s what has worked for me so far, and it’s how I do things. If writing a detailed outline were required of me, I’m not sure TNP would have ever gotten written to begin with. I was always the kid in English class who wrote her essays without an outline, and always the kid who got docked for it — regardless of how good my final essay was. (What IS UP with that, by the way? Seriously?)

Ok, next post, Cavalier Prince of Pirates (Post 26). I promise.

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So what do you guys think of the new design? I got the itch to do something new with it (the web design bug bit me). I wanted to make it fresh and unique, while still keeping its readability and user-friendli(ness?) That’s right, folks, I consider myself a writer…

And of course, I always want to know what you think of the story. The plot, as you will notice, is STILL thickening…

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Anyways, I need some encouragement. Just a bit of ass-kissing.

Thanks, guys. I love you.

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Enter my plea for help: Can you guys help me think of a couple songs that are popular now that would suddenly pop into Sabrina’s head and make her want to groove? Something by an artist that most people would recognize, something that would make even the most solemn person want to shake their booty?

If I get enough responses, I will post twice before Christmas, starting tomorrow… 

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How do you like the header? Where would you like to see the story go?

I would really like to hear your thoughts!