Shadows of the Sea

22 MAY 2018

Anthologies are great practice for beginning writers. Sort of like training wheels. You don't have to do all the work on your own. You're given a point of reference, some guidance to the end of your journey and off you go. Case in point, the new anthology by a Facebook group I belong to called Fantasy Writers, led by the indomitable Jade Feldman. I have no horse in this particular race, but I love the title and the premise. The back blurb reads thus: 

Pirates, mermaids, monsters, oh my!

The depths of the ocean hold many untold secrets. Some are beautiful tales of mermaids who ride seahorses, and others are massive monsters bent on destroying every ship crossing its path.

Delve into these seven stories by the following authors:
A.M. Cummins, Marcus Bines, Joann M. Shevock, Hui Lang, Irina Ivanova, Layne Calry, Angel Blackwood

Who doesn't love a fantasy-based sea story? I loved the idea so much I wrote a story based on the premise and released it on my own. So today I want to share two links. One for the new anthology, and I hope they have the biggest of 'sails':
Shadows of the Sea

It's available through Kindle right now. Seven stories for $3.99.


The second link today is to my story based on the premise: 
Pirates & Demons: Eye of Dog

Mine is still free with Kindle Unlimited. I might change that in the future, but it won't be more than a dollar. Go get it and enjoy a taste of what I like to write about. It's got pirates, and demons, lol. And a great cast of characters I'll write more about in other stories. Sea Dog is my favorite character among the ship's crew, but don't tell the others!

Picture for today: A cover for The Dreaming City, by Michael Moorcock. Elric, the main character in the series, is one of those complex characters who lured me deeper into the myriad worlds of fantasy. He is so different from the good vs. evil of your 'standard' fantasy characters, such as Gandalf from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings characters. Nothing against Tolkien, his world-building is second to none. But if you've only read Tolkien-like stories, give Elric a try, see what you think.  

As always, I hope you have a great day. Be well and of good cheer.

Ice Pirates

03 July 17: I'm working on a pirate story this week. It's set to either go into an anthology later this year or be my first solo publishing attempt. 

Part of the behind the scenes writing stuff I want to share today is character creation. But first a little bit about how I write. My stories are organic. What I mean by that is I don't start out with what story I want to write, but instead I let it develop from an idea and I go from there. 

For this story I started with a prompt from the Fantasy Writers group on Facebook, who has released anthologies in the past and has produced some good writers already. The prompt was demons and winter. Well, I have already written a winter tale for a seasonal anthology, no demons in it though. So I had an idea for a story about the Ice Pirates, a group in my world I am building who live in the North and come down to hunt sometimes. No, not Vikings, but yeah, something like that. In winter. 

So the kernel of my idea was based on some writing I did a few days ago, about how assassins traveled to the New Lands, smuggled as fabric and furniture aboard ships. I started writing about a ship, making the long voyage across the ocean and they get attacked by pirates!

But wait, that doesn't happen yet. It's still a nice sea voyage.

Then the Ice Pirates attack! And there's an obnoxious passenger, who was promised the ship would not encounter any pirates. 
I can't forget the demons though, from the prompt. 
There may be a little Princess Bride influence there as well.

Okay, back to character creation. I needed a strong captain and an even stronger first mate. The captain was easy, had loads of captains in my military career. He's good. But the first mate was a little harder. I tried to give him a good name. Sea Dog Sam. Don't ask who I based him on, he's a mix of this fellow and that. From there he blossomed into a guy who might have been an Ice Pirate on previous voyages. From there he became an integral part of the plot once I brought along the demons. And then there's Cheeks, the ship's load master, and a few other sailors. Right now I am still working on the demons themselves. Nasty bunch they are, real evil. I think the Ice Pirates might be the good guys in the story after all.  


EDIT: Favorite line written recently for this story: 

Over the next few hours the crew of the Breaker ran her as fast as she could go, leaving mists behind them like ink squirting from a squid. 

Any favorite lines from anyone else writing?
Happy Writing to my writers out there and Happy Reading to everyone!