My fourth novel Wreck of the Huron is now available. It’s been nearly three years since I published my last novel (Guardian’s Keep) and it feels good to be back to telling stories again. But this story came with its own set of challenges. The incident that serves as the catalyst for the book is a real event.

The USS Huron is a real shipwreck located just a few hundred yards off shore in Nags Head, North Carolina. Most of Wreck of the Huron is set in the present day, but there are several scenes that are set in 1877 on board the ship on the day it sank. To tell that story and to make it as realistic as possible, I used quotes and the names and accounts from the men who survived the wreck. Those accounts were recorded in the PROCEEDINGS OF COURT OF INQUIRY ON THE LOSS OF THE HURON held by the NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington DC, Wednesday, December 5, 1877. The wreck happened in the early morning hours on November 24, 1877.

Here is an excerpt for the account of the accident just as the ship ran aground, as retold in Wreck of the Huron:

With each wave that passed, the jarring of the hull against the bottom was lessened — only because the ship was run further aground and was lifted less and less.
“Stop the engines!” Ryan ordered from the bridge. “Palmer, find out if we still have steam in the boilers. I want to see if we can back her out of here before the hull gets holed.”
Master French pulled back on the throttle, signaling the engineer to stop the engines. Palmer left his station to yell down the hatch to the engine room below.
“Can you back her, engineer?” Palmer asked.
“We’ve got full steam on all the engines. Yes, we can,” Chief Engineer Loomis replied.
“Make it happen, Mr. Loomis,” Palmer ordered.
“Mr. French, save the ship’s log. We’ve probably foundered on Nags Head. Mr. Palmer, please sound the distress whistle. We’re going to need some help,” Ryan said, taking charge of the bridge. “Get all hands on deck and batten down the hatches. Get those sails lowered.”
Within moments, French reported back to the bridge that the captain’s office where the ship’s log was stored was filled with water, being on the starboard side.
“Very well,” Ryan acknowledged. “Lieutenant Simons, order the fore mast cut away, please. Maybe we can right this ship without the added weight.”
“I will make it happen immediately,” Simons said, leaving across the angled deck to organize the men.  The Huron was over on her side, at about 40 degrees.

To be perfectly clear, aside from my own fertile imagination, the “mystery” around the sinking of the ship portrayed in this story is total fiction.  These men died in service to their country and there has never been any suspicion of wrongdoing connected with the wreck. It was a tragic loss of life.
It is wrapped up in the local history of the Outer Banks of North Carolina that this wreck and one elsewhere a few months later persuaded Congress to fund the US Lifesaving Service year-round. At the time of the wreck the rescue boats and other equipment were locked up tight for the winter. That group eventually became the US Coast Guard.

The other historical setting for the story is the situation in Cuba at the time of the wreck. Cuba was in the midst of the first Cuban Revolution against Spain. They had been fighting for nine years at that point, finally calling a truce in 1878. This revolution helped bring about an end to slavery on the island eight years later. Cuba did not gain independence for Spain until the end of the Spanish American War in 1898.

In some ways writing a story like this with that sort of historical backdrop is difficult. While some authors have been known to take liberties with historical events, move things around and change dates and locations, I wanted to keep this story as close to the truth as I could. Obviously, I had to manufacture characters and scenarios. That’s the fun part of writing fiction. But I wanted it to be as true to what really happened as possible.

If you’re interested, you can read the first two chapters of Wreck of the Huron on my website. Unfortunately, neither of those chapters includes any of the historical references I’ve been talking about. To get to that part of the book, you’ll just have to get a copy for yourself.

If you do, I hope you find the mixture of real history and imagination as much fun to read as I enjoyed writing it..

Final review on Wreck of the Huron

When I tell people that I’m a writer, I usually get a reaction of “I wish I could do that” or “When are you going to get a real job” or some variation on the theme of “I hate to write. Writing is such a chore.”

Let me set the record straight: for those of us who call ourselves writers, be it full time or something we do “on the side” writing is work and it is a chore. It’s just a chore that we choose to take on and a challenge we accept. There are days it sings and it is so much fun. There are also days where you feel like you’re beating your head against a wall.

A less dramatic response, and one I’ve used from time to time is “It helps keep the voices in my head quiet.” That usually gets a half-laugh in response until they look me in the eye and see that I’m not really laughing with them.

I wrote my first novel in 2004 and it was published in 2005. It was the first fiction I’d ever written. A couple more novels followed along with some short stories. Frankly, I think I’ve gotten better at telling “stories” with each book I’ve written. And the act of writing the short stories has helped me refine my craft as well. My last novel was published in the fall of 2009. For various reasons, I lost the fiction spark after that.

In 2010, I had the pleasure of exhibiting a collection of my photographs from Russia in Russia, France and in the United States (including my hometown). That year I also got involved with a documentary project on Harvesting Divers in Honduras and elsewhere around the world. If you look back in this blog, to posts from 2010, you’ll see a lot of travel and thought went into those projects. At the same time, I was going through some personal changes that had me distracted to say the least.

I’ve found that fiction spark again, while not forgetting my documentary/journalism passion. A friend told me recently that she checks this blog from time to time to see what I’ve been up to. She noted that my posts lately have been all over the map. My response was “Welcome to my world…” I’ve got three fiction projects that I am in the final stages with right now. They’ll all be coming out very soon.

Probable cover for the new novel

• Wreck of the Huron is my latest novel. It follows Mike Scott on a new adventure that begins on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and ends up off the coast of Cuba. This story will be available in the next couple weeks. I’m planning a couple book signing/release parties as soon as it comes out.
• Decisions on a Small Plane is a short story I’ve written for my church to help begin the discussion about salvation and prayer. The plan is for this short story to be posted on the church’s website and be free for anyone who wants to download it or link to it. It should be available in the next week or two. I will post the links when they are available. Also, I’ve just started a discussion with a friend about making the story into a short film.
• Racing for Miss Jayne Marie is a short story I’ve written as part of an anthology project called River Town I’m working on with some writer friends. I’ll talk more about it later, but this anthology is set in a fictional place called River Town in 1890s West Virginia. I’ve written period sections in my novels, but this is the first project that is entirely about a “period” other than present day. I’m really excited how this project is beginning to shape up. This project should be done by the end of the year, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve not forgotten the Voices of War documentary project, either. My plan is to have the interviews transcribed and the documentary edited together by Veterans Day, November 11, 2012. I’ve got a few more interviews to conduct and then it is time to begin putting it all together.

Should be a busy summer and fall…welcome to my world. Glad I like to tell stories. And it does seem to keep the voices mostly quiet… 😉.

My new children’s chapter book, Swimming with Sharks, is now available as a Kindle Ebook. This book is written for young readers, from 5-to 9-years-old, as a beginning chapter book. You can download a copy today and begin reading it with your kids tonight. Click on the book title link and it will take you to the page on Amazon.

Swimming with Sharks features two young girls living on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with their parents who work at a marine science center. The girls love the ocean and are learning about its creatures. The story opens with the girls snorkeling in the ocean while their parents dive below them conducting research. Back at the aquarium, they overhear students talking about sharks and spreading their own misunderstanding. After a confrontation with the other students, the girls help their parents nurse a sick sandtiger shark back to health. The story is fun and entertaining, but is also loaded with information about sharks and why they are something to be respected and admired, but not feared.

As my own girls were growing up, they were huge fans of the Magic Treehouse books that included information on science, art, history and geography while being carefully disguised as a fun adventure. I decided to write stories for them focusing on the ocean. Swimming with Sharks is the same approximate length as the Magic Treehouse books and other beginning chapter books. There are eight chapters, each about 1000 words long.

Swimming with Sharks is the second book to follow Jayne and Marie on the Outer Banks. The first was called “The Sea Turtle Rescue” and was originally published by the international environmental organization Oceana and used as part of their sea turtle outreach program. The Sea Turtle Rescue is now available for newspapers to publish as part of the Newspapers in Education program. Contact your local newspaper and tell them you want to see The Sea Turtle Rescue in your local newspaper.

One topic in the Swimming with Sharks is a thing called “finning” where sharks are caught, have their fins cut off for soup and then the animal is thrown back into the water to drown. If you want to learn more about this barbaric practice, I wrote a blog about it a few weeks ago. 

Sharks are amazing creatures to see in the water and I am lucky to have made dives with sharks several times. I hope we learn that sharks are important to the health of the oceans before we are too late. A great way to do that is teach our children so they understand..