Parties and Pirates

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday where the official calibration days of LUNA-books' 2nd anniversary. Many LUNA authors where present (those who where not to busy writing up their next book, that is), many prizes where given, and a fine time was had by all - even if most of us where sleep deprived. I can't wait until next year.

While partying I was doing research for one of my books (to be named latter) and found some very interesting sites about pirates. But it was the woman pirates that caught my interest (especially since my pirate is a woman). The fallowing was taken from The Pirates Hold. While I do not know how valid the information is, it matches what I have found else where. Anne is a very inspiring modle for my own heroine.

Anne Bonny

Anne was born in Ireland, an illegitimate child of prominent lawyer, William Cormac, and the family maid, Peg Brennan (my best guess at the year of birth is around 1700-1705, marriable age was around 13-14, if the marriage to Bonny lasted 1-3 years and time with Rackham at about the same that would have made her somewhere between 15-20 at the time of the trial). Her father fled the scandal surrounding the birth taking mother and child with him to Charleston, South Carolina. Although the father prospered as a merchant in the colonies, he and the mother appear to have been somewhat less successful as parents. Anne was troublesome, headstrong and ill-tempered. While many of the stories were exaggerated, they include a stabbing incident with a servant girl and the sound thrashing of a would be rapist.

Anne eventually married the unsuccessful James Bonny. The marriage faired poorly as James, taking his wife to the pirate haven of New Providence, had a hard time supporting his wife. He eventually turned informer for the new governor, Woodes Rogers, further alienating his headstrong wife. Disillusioned with her husband, Anne transferred her affections to the peacock like figure of Calico Jack Rackham. Rackham returned Anne's affections by lavishing her with gifts. When James Bonny refused Rackham's offer to buy Anne, the couple snuck aboard a merchant sloop with a handful of Rackham's old pirate buddies and took over the ship. Thus began Anne's pirate career.

While Calico Jack looked the part of the dashing pirate, his career was somewhat lackluster, at least after taking up with Anne. The prizes taken seem to have been mostly coastal traders and fishing boats. Mary Read seems to have joined the pirates when a Dutch trader she was serving on was taken by the pirates. At some point during Anne's sojourn with Calico Jack she is said to have gotten pregnant and have been set ashore in Cuba to deliver the baby. She was later picked up and carried on with Rackham as before.

In late October, 1720, off the coast of Jamaica, a British Navy sloop, commanded by a Captain Barnet, came across Rackham's anchored ship. With most of the crew drunk the only resistance the pirates put up was offered by Anne and Mary. Realizing that the fight was lost the women turned on their less than courageous crewmates, killing one and wounding others, screaming at them to 'fight like men'. Anne and the others of the pirate crew were captured and put on trial for piracy. All were sentenced to death, but Anne and Mary escaped the noose by pleading their bellies (no English court would kill an unborn child).

Anne seems to have disappeared from the world's stage at this point, there is some conjecture that her wealthy father bought her release after the birth of the child.

A New Year, A New Resolution

It's that time again. Time to change your calendar, send the family home, and write out those ridiculously long resolutions that you have absolutely no plan on keeping (and if you do, I'm sure you've already broken half of them by now). Yep, I'm talking about the New Year's Resolution. I've made them for years and have failed to keep a single one of them. But, as with any sort of tradition, I sat down on December 31st, went over my plan, and wrote out my Resolution.

1) Finish my MS. Not very hard if I put butt-to-chair and fallow my plan of writing 600 words (about 3 pages) each and everyday.

2) Finish 2 shorts and submit them. Ok, come on. A short should be verry easy, right? Not! You have less room to finish your plot, and in my case they seem to grow to novel size. I plan on writing 200 words/day (1 page) each month for this.

3) Walk the dog more. Yes, we all have the scary "lose weight" on our list, and they never seam to work. So I've decided to change mine a bit. Instead of 'losing weight' I'm goint to walk the dog 2 blocks in the morning and 2 in the evening. Nough said.

4) Update my web site and blog more often. Once every couple of moths is some what pathetic. I'm aiming for twice a month at the least.

5) Finish MS. Yes, I need it on their twice, just in case ;-)

Well, now that my goals are down and in front of millions of eyes (ok, at lease 50 pair) I feel confident in completing each and everyone. With a little (or a lot) of hard work, I'm sure I can do this. And if I start to slip, feel free to give me a swift kick in the right direction.

How about you? What are your New Year's resolutions? Do you even have any? I'd love to know! It's always interesting to see what other people expect for themselves.

Happy Writing and a Happy New Year,
Amber

Wet Friday

You wont believe what I found in my closet this Friday. I can't even remember why I went in there, but I came out p***ed. Seems that my water heater has been leaking for who knows how long. Completely soaked the bottom of my closet. Nothing overly important got ruined, only a box of about 3 years worth of The Horse magazine ($24/year). Luckily my Renaissance magazines where safe.

The worst port is the mold. I hate mold. To kill it, I had to spray the floor with bleach water wich, of course, bleached the carpet. Just my luck. On top of that, I think I'm coming down with my fall cold and my favorite 'graphic novel' ;-) publisher is no more. -Sigh- My luck should get better, right?

Because of all this fun, I haven't been able to write and probably won't until the middle of next week. I neet to get that carpet up and the walls scrubed. I just hope it hasn't gotten into the walls or I'll have to move.

Hope for the best!
~Amber

Link, Link, and Update

Found this on another author's blog and just HAD to repost it! Read Me! A very interesting article from USA Today about the romance genera. Oh, my! To think, the news is actually talking about Romance novels in a favorable light! Even if they do use the term ' bodice-ripper' at least once (my eyebrow always raises at this term). I know, I know, it is a little old, but hey, it's a very favorable article.

Also found this site of Author blogs: AuthorBlogs.com. Author blogs of all types. Check them out! And those authors out there who may be reading this and have not listed your site, do so! What a wonderful way to get out there.

Which leads me onto 'A Dire Entanglement'. Changed main characters after a suggestion from a friend. Cecilia seamed a little... mellow for our dear captain, so I've switched her position with that of her sister (though Sophia is still our resident horsewoman and unladylike enthusiast). Cecilia will be in the second book (keep fingers crossed!). I shouldn't get my self dug too deep, or the whole thing will fall apart. I belive I'm going target Harlequin Historicals with this one, them or Avon or Ivy. We'll see how long the story grows.

Came up with the basis for another series, though. I'll definitely target Harlequin H. with theses. All three regencies (maybe). I'd go further into their descriptions, but I'll probably change allot in the planning process.

I want to get all the ideas out of my head before November. I plan on diving into NaNoWriMo with a blank slate. The last thing I need right now is getting attached to characters and planing their whole life before I even start. Besides, NaNoWriMo is suppose to be a spontaneous thing. 50,000 is allot to aim for in just one month.

Well, it's quite late here. I've writen more on this darn blog than on my story. And the week is almost over!

Happy Writing all,
Amber

B-Day Post and CJ score

Well, I haven't posted for a while, have I? Unfortunately life has kept me busy. I wouldn't be posting now save for the fact that I pulled a muscle balling yarn last night and It hurts to do much of anything. Pathetic, isn't it? And on my birthday.

Well, on the other things. I received my score for the RomanticJunkies.com contest (contestjunkies.com). I didn't finale, but I wasn't expecting to. My score was 7.5/10. Not bad. It was much better than I expected, thought I only received 3 'reviews'. Thank you everyone who checked it out and voted honestly. I really do appreciate it.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do today. The family went bowling and miniture golfing this weekend so we got all our excitement out of our systems. It was fun, though.

Well, I better got back to writing. Only one and a half months left untill NaNoWriMo!

Happy Writing,
Amber