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When I was a little girl I loved pirate stories, especially tales of Ann Bonny and Mary Read. The idea of women pirates who fought their way across the Carribean for booty and plunder fascinated me, just as these tales fascinated English readers in 1724 who bought Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. Sales were no doubt assisted by the book’s woodcuts of Ann and Mary as bosom baring babes in breeches.
So when it came time to research my own novels, I was thrilled to find that Bonny and Read were not alone. There have always been women who went to sea to make new lives for themselves, as pirates, sailors, warriors, and in the navy. In her comprehensive study Bold in Her Breeches, Jo Stanley calls these women “transgressive rovers”, women who operate outside society’s rules.

When “Calico Jack” Rackham’s black hulled sloop was attacked off of Jamaica in 1720, the two pirates who put up the fiercest resistance with cutlass, pistol and raw language were Ann Bonny and Mary Read, fighting at each other’s backs even as their male shipmates ran away.

In She Captains, Joan Druett says that Ann Bonny had joined “Calico Jack” as his lover, but became part of the crew. She never pretended not to be a woman. Mary Read, on the other hand, was a transvestite who dressed as a man and went to sea, first as a British seaman, later as a pirate with Calico Jack’s crew.

The story goes that Ann took a liking to the handsome “lad”, Jack got jealous, and Mary revealed her sex to avoid problems. A friendship formed between the women that lasted until they were brought to trial in Jamaica. While Ann was Jack’s lover, Mary took an unnamed young pirate as her paramour.

Both women “pled their bellies” during their trial, claiming they couldn’t be hanged because they were pregnant.
Mary refused to testify against her lover, but Ann was angry with Jack’s poor performance when they were captured, according to the court records: “She was sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a Man, he need not have been hang’d like a Dog.”

Mary died in prison of a fever, but Ann’s fate is unknown. There’s no record of her being hanged, so she may have gone on to live an interesting, if less public life, elsewhere.

In this article I focused on the “bad girls”, the pirates and buccaneers. But there are plenty of women who went to sea to serve alongside their husbands aboard whalers, or as fisherwomen, or as “seamen” and sailors. There are well documented cases of women fighting for Britain during the Napoleonic wars, many of them serving with distinction before their sex was revealed and they had to leave the Royal Navy or the Marines. Sometimes the woman was only found out after dying in battle, bravely fighting alongside the other Jack Tars.

While the United States has a less colorful history of women’s naval exploits, it’s worth noting that the Flying Cloud was
navigated by Eleanor Creesy in the 1850’s when it broke all records on the New York to San Francisco voyage around Cape Horn.
If you wish to read more about seafaring women, here are some recommended books:

She Captains–Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett
Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women by David Cordingly
The Pirate Queen–In Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea by Barbara Sjoholm
Bold in her Breeches–Women Pirates Across the Ages by Jo Stanley
Flying Cloud–The True Story of America’s Most Famous Clipper Ship and the Woman Who Guided Her by David Shaw

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When I was trying to get published, I prepared myself for a lot of things. I knew that family time would suffer, deadlines would need to be met, rejections faced … but there was one thing that never entered my radar.

My friends gave me every encouragement along the path to publication. They supported me, encouraged me to keep going when things got tough, they celebrated with me and cried with me - they still do. Most of them. Yet a couple have reacted very strangely. One was shocked at the cover of one of my books, declaring “I didn’t realise you wrote THOSE sort of books”. Another was visibly surprised when she found out I wrote sex scenes, as if I didn’t have enough experience to write sex (hmm … surely I must have learned something in 33 years of marriage).

That’s all okay, and I can deal, but when one told me that using bad language, in dialogue I might add, was a sign of sloppy writing, well, that I couldn’t handle. It’s not as if she’s a purist - she has no compunction peppering her sentences with the odd swear word.

At first I was so taken aback I considered changing the dialogue, but then I realised that first and foremost I am a writer. I spend time creating a character and it gives me great pleasure when that character starts speaking and acting in his/her own unique way. So, the dialogue stays. If it loses me a few friends, then so be it. The true ones are still there … supporting, encouraging and ready to offer an expletive in my defence when required.

Tricia

www.tricia-jones.com

Everything I know about writing I learned from my dog, Yofi. Oh sure, her lovemaking scenes involve more buttsniffing than mine, and there was that disaster where her hero was distracted by a can opener while he was disarming a bomb, but overall, I can learn a lot from her.

For example:

Stay focused.
When she’s in the backyard hunting moles, Yofi can stand still forever, not an eyelid twitching, not a hair moving. She has her eyes on the prize, and she will do whatever it takes to get it. When she makes her move, her muscles explode into action as she begins digging furiously.
She’s not distracted by laundry or other books or rejection letters from publishers. She’s going to get that mole, and that’s all that matters.

Be a big dog in a little package.
Sure, we snicker at wiener dogs, but as dachshund owners know, inside, they’re Rottweilers. They’re willing to take on all comers, and they don’t back down. They don’t let their size keep them from doing what needs to be done. Remember, it’s not the dog in the fight, it’s the fight in the dog.
Same thing with writing. Don’t be intimidated by writers who make the NYT list or blog about their world book tours. You can be a big dog, even if you’re writing for a small publisher. You just have to put all of your fight into it, and believe in your heart that you’re a Rottweiler.

When you’re not working, relax.
When Yofi isn’t trying to save the world from moles, she doesn’t obsess over them. She puts them behind her, and makes sleeping an art form. She saves her energy for what’s important. She takes time to sniff…well, not the roses, but you get the idea.

Characterization.
I admit, dachshunds don’t have to work that hard at characterization because they’re so darn adorable. It’s not like they’re cats or something.
But even when it comes naturally, it’s important to remember that you need to pick out the details to make the character come alive–how he stands, how he laughs, what he enjoys and doesn’t enjoy, whether his tail wags and his ears perk up when he sees the heroine, that sort of thing.

Set goals.
One evening I heard the dog barking in an especially frantic manner, and then quiet. I knew this meant there was another animal about, so I rushed out into the yard. Sure enough, she had her jaws clamped around the tail of an armadillo that outweighed her and was armored as well. But Yofi wasn’t letting go. She dug in all of her 12 ½ pounds and held on for dear life while the armadillo scrabbled at the ground. I finally got them separated with a broom and the ‘dillo scampered off to safety, but that dog was as proud as if she’d just won Westminster.
She set her goal and she achieved it. She was going to capture that invader, even if the whole world thought she was too small to make it happen.
Do you have days when you think you’ll never finish the book? Clamp your jaws down and don’t let go.

So my muse inspires me as she lies on her bed in my office. Sometimes when I get stuck, I ask myself, “What would the dog do?” Usually the answer isn’t at all helpful–licking yourself really doesn’t replace conflict resolution, but sometimes she leads me in the right direction. All I have to remember is that if it’s a dog’s life, it could be one we would be wise to learn from.

I admit I have a weakness for werewolves, vampires and anything else that goes bump in the night. But I picked up a book recently that is completely different from what I normally read and - wow - I love it. It’s called The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory and, yes, I’m probably the last person on the planet to have read this book.

Instead of dark hunters, vampire brotherhoods and immortal highlanders, I’m reading about sisterly rivalry, court intrigue and a few beheadings. It’s so good - and different - that now I’m wondering how many other great books I’ve missed because they’re not in my usual genre.

Of course I can’t read everything. As it is, I burn through 2-3 books a week and my TBR (to be read) stack is probably about as tall as I am. But still, it’s hard to think about the one that got away.

So in an effort to topple my already wobbling TBR stack, I ask you this: Have you read anything recently that’s made you stop and take notice? If so, tell us about it. And if I slip your recommendation up on top of the TBR pile, I’ll even send you a cover flat of The Accidental Demon Slayer.

So, here it is the 26th of the month and I’m right on time (if you don’t count that it’s late in the day) with my monthly post on motivation.

I was having a chat today on IM with RWA Online member (and my American Title sister) Michele Ann Young, and we were talking about throwing away words. Pages and pages of words. And it occurred to me, that no matter how sad and useless that always seems (and how much we rail against it) it’s okay to do that because writing is never wasted. Even when we’ve spent three days on a chapter that no longer has any use, or two years on a book that will never see the light of day, as frustrating as this can be, writing isn’t wasted.

It all goes back to something one of my professors said in college. He was a history professor and a bestselling published writer (not a common combination to be sure) who had written the book Nine Hours to Rama. (You might remember the movie they made out of it.)

I remember asking him for advice one day. It was the usual question from a young and impatient novice, something in the vein of “how do you write a book?” But his answer was gold. At the time, I thought he wasn’t taking me seriously. Finally, all the how-to books later, all the workshops later, all the critiques later, all these years later I understand the wisdom of his advice.

“Well,” he said, “you have to write a million words.”

So go forth and write.

Gina
—–
The Raven’s Revenge coming out in print in June!
From The Wild Rose Press
(and it only took about 1.1M words to get there)