I'm speaking at the Alachua County Library on January 25th, and I need to spend this week reviewing some of my pirate and privateering research. When I started writing Pirate's Price many years ago I didn't intend to make a career of telling pirate tales, but sometimes it just works out that way. I even remember the first two research books I bought used when I had a germ of a story running through my head--Basic Sailing and Pirates, An Illustrated History by David Mitchell.
Since then my piratical and nautical bookshelf has blossomed with volumes--it helps when you can write off some of your book purchases as business expenses--and one of the reasons I stuck with the pirates and nautical themes was because there's so much good reading out there. When I was writing Pirate's Price I found a small reference to the "West Indies Anti-Piracy Campaign" and it was so cool I just knew I had to follow up on that. I did, and ended up with Captain Sinister's Lady, my upcoming release.
Then when I started tossing ideas around in my head for Smuggler's Bride, part of my thinking was that I'd already done lots of research on the US Navy for Sinister and it would be a shame not to use it.
But once I started digging I realized I needed to research not the US Navy, but the United States Revenue Marine if I was going to write about 19th C. smugglers, which opened up a whole new line of research (and lots of inter-library loans from the Naval Institute Press).
So it will be fun revisiting some of my old friends, my research books, in preparation for the talk at the library. I did tell the Library Director my last panel at Worldcon was on "Crafting Sex Scenes that Work", but he preferred I stick with the pirates.
Since then my piratical and nautical bookshelf has blossomed with volumes--it helps when you can write off some of your book purchases as business expenses--and one of the reasons I stuck with the pirates and nautical themes was because there's so much good reading out there. When I was writing Pirate's Price I found a small reference to the "West Indies Anti-Piracy Campaign" and it was so cool I just knew I had to follow up on that. I did, and ended up with Captain Sinister's Lady, my upcoming release.
Then when I started tossing ideas around in my head for Smuggler's Bride, part of my thinking was that I'd already done lots of research on the US Navy for Sinister and it would be a shame not to use it.
But once I started digging I realized I needed to research not the US Navy, but the United States Revenue Marine if I was going to write about 19th C. smugglers, which opened up a whole new line of research (and lots of inter-library loans from the Naval Institute Press).
So it will be fun revisiting some of my old friends, my research books, in preparation for the talk at the library. I did tell the Library Director my last panel at Worldcon was on "Crafting Sex Scenes that Work", but he preferred I stick with the pirates.
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