51°55'43"N 8°34'14"W
Sunny weather with a gentle wind speed of 10 knots
Captain's Log: 5/15/2025
Concerning my writing:
On my current course towards publication, I'll disclose to you the conditions of my manuscripts. Current course of my first novel, sailing on my third draft, at about 127K words. I've begun the first draft for the second book, sitting at a decent 23K words. An outline has also begun for the next two books to come in what originally was meant to be a single, standalone novel, has now become a four books series. As of right now, I'm forcing myself to stop at the fourth book because I've honestly already tortured myself enough with this entire shitstorm of a pirate series 😂
In all reality though, I've had so much fun in putting together this crazy chain of events, and I'm not even half-way through it all yet. So it's still a bit early to truly say, but at present I'm feeling truly excited and overwhelmed at what I've been able to conjure onto a page.
Other than the first book, The Last Pirate King, I won't disclose yet to the names of the other books to come. Because fun little secrets 😈
The current conditions of TLPK, I've gone over my beta reports again and again and have been dwelling on the changes that need to be made. Many parts need to be polished, while others may need to be removed entirely. However Hemingway had gone through over 40 drafts before releasing A Farewell to Arms before he was truly satisfied with it, so I'm still only in my beginning stages. However admittedly I have to say that I pulled a Herman Melville with my manuscript by completely halting the narrative for a simple fishing journey between Capt. Johnson and his father. Morale with my beta readers were particularly low with this scene, stating that the narrative doesn't need the info dump on how lobster traps work. I could easily find a way to make this scene work on a symbolic level perhaps, but for the moment thats been my current dwelling on the first book.
On the conditions of the second book, I'll definitely say that the beginning is still the most challenging part for me. Because I don't know if I'm moving too slow in establishing and developing the main plot or if I'm moving too fast, or worse if I have too much going on. All of this will be answered upon sending it over to my Beta readers upon completion. I'll be sailing at a steady pace of at least five pages a day if I'm able to. Lately I've barely been getting even a single page done a day. Even still that's a relatively good pace I've been told. Once I finish this first daft then I'll go full sail on the changes with TLPK.
Concerning my opinion on writing:
When starting to tell a story, unlike certain writers who may or may not ignore this method, I personally dislike the idea of describing one's main protagonist as an "ordinary" or "average" individual. When I come across an introduction like this in any book, I'm tempted to close the book and never pick it up again. As far as I'm concerned, if you lead me on with your main character being described as anything other than what makes them significant to the story, I'll just assume that they're just normal, unimportant, uninteresting, and the story is over. BUT... if you were to leave out the "normal person" aspect of them, and introduced me with the qualities about them that I want to know about and what make them valuable to the story as the protagonist, CONGRATS you got me hooked.
No truly compelling narrative was ever told about any "normal" person living a "normal" life that have "normal" interests. Unless of course you perfectly describe every extraordinary feature about them and then sum it up with a comedic "you know...normal." My point is, there are much better ways to describe your main character without having to water them down as something insignificant to the next few hundred pages ahead of me.
Ok rant over.
Concerning the Captain:
Many great things are going on in my life right now, as well as some certain stresses. But I'll meet you with the good things. As of right now I've officially paid off the ring I bought to my beautiful fiancée a year ago this month. Carefully budgeting to make monthly payments can be challenging but that's something that goes with being an adult, and purposefully doing adult things. So luckily that leaves me with some extra money I get to set aside and continue my task of saving and responsibly spending occasionally. But back as of right now no wedding date has been made yet, I'm doing the best I can to juggle multiple things on the daily, but she and I will eventually be getting to that once we accomplish some things on our To-Do list.
Overall morale is well with the crew.
Until we next make full sail,
Flynn Forecastle ⚓
