Friday, February 28, 2014

A new start

A new title, a new background picture and me under my real name. Amy has served her purpose for the moment, introducing me to eleven different editors and six publishers. Writing under her name allowed me to polish my craft to the point where I could do justice to the stories I wanted to tell about ships and men as I knew them in my forty-five years in the maritime industry.
The background picture, taken from the bridge of a ship called the Selkirk Settler looks dangerous, but it isn't. The most interesting thing about it is how far the hull has flexed under the impact of the wave. Follow the lines of the deck visible aft and you will see how far the stubby foremast on the fo'csle has shifted to the right of the center-line. The mast is almost 150 metres (500 feet) from the bridge and has moved 4-5 metres off the center-line. It is not an abnormal flexing of a ship this size.

What's happening now?

The Sapphire Sea was released in November, 2013, and has already garnered eleven reviews on its Amazon page. Most of them are four stars and above and even the one at three stars praised the story-telling.
Coasting is a finalist in the 2014 EPIC competition and the winner will be announced on March 15th.
I have signed two contracts with Eternal Press:
Home is the Sailor is set during the brief peace that followed the signing of the Treaty of Amiens  in 1802 and follows the voyage of an ex-blockade runner from London to Jamaica as it runs the gauntlet of privateers turned pirate and the machinations of Evan Nepean, Fouche` and Tallyrand; and
Timor Phoenix, which follows the operation of a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility in the Timor Sea in 1999. It is fiction firmly based on my own experience.
There is no cover art or release date for either book yet.
I am working on another sea story set around the Ships of Shame campaign in the mid 1980s, following the loss of a number of aging bulk carriers with cargoes of iron ore around the east coast of southern Africa. Unfortunately, this is on hold for a while as we downsize our home of the last thirty-five years to something more manageable for a couple in their mid seventies.

David Andrews
Ancient Mariner - Teller of Tall Tales