My second finished Middle-Grade novel – think, slightly sub-Harry Potter – is a strange fantasy based on the American Midwest and Polish mythology. It’s called Harvey Stickman and I fear it might just be too strange a story to be publishable. I rarely share this side of my writing but I’ve just read this to Maggie and have begun, finally, sending it ’round to publishers. This being “Talk like a Pirate Day” and my book having a pirate scene in it – I couldn’t resist sharing. Hopefully one of my readers knows someone in the publishing industry? Here it is and it’s very brief (but loads of fun to write):

“Mister?” the pirate cocked his head. “No-no! It’s Capn’, ain’t that right, lads?”

The pirates agreed.

“Captain Tynes, at yer service!” And he gave a low bow, sweeping his fork hand up above his head and across his body, in a grand gentlemanly motion. His men chuckled, fingering their weapons.

Tynes waved the gun around casually, sweeping it around the deck. “We be the Lake Michigan Pirates and this be my ship, The Nitechka! And a fine ship she be, says I.” He waved the gun barrel at his men, some of them ducked as it passed. “This be me crew!” he smiled. “A scurvier bunch of lake dogs never sailed between the Green Bay and Gary, Indiana, to be sure.” He turned back to Stanley and Harvey. “Murderers and cut-throats to a man they be, says I, but they does what I tells them to do, Har!”

“And you two freaks be our prisoners!” Tynes continued. “Surrender and we’ll ransom ye . . . if ye be worth anything, that is. Or maybe we’ll enslave ye, if ye be good fer that. Or maybe,” he added craftily, “we’ll use ye as bait fer old Smok, the Lake Michigan dragon!”

Tags: Misc