Dearest Squad,
A new chapter is now live! Chapter 40: The Lucky Thief
Before Scrivener, I used to keep Excel spreadsheets of my daily word counts. So I know what day I first started writing this novel: June 23, 2015.
Eleven years is a long time.
Because of that, I don’t always remember the exact order in which certain things happen. But some confluence of events ended with me and George Kourounis having a very particular conversation in the parking lot of the Casey’s in Medicine Park, Oklahoma last May while we waited for storms to fire off the dry line.
“Tell me about the ice ships,” I said to him.
For those of you who don’t know, George is a professional adventurer and explorer. Like me, he is of both Greek and French Canadian heritage…only he was actually born in Canada, and I was born in Vermont. I joke that we’re cousins, even though we have no blood relation (that I know of). He and I have just always gotten along fabulously, ridiculously well.
George has starred in a few of his own television series—these days, he pops up on this or that Discovery Channel-type show to share expert information about a bunch of extraordinary things. He had just done a feature on the HMS Terror and its arctic expedition in the 1800s…and I was (eventually) going to get to the chapter that featured a bunch of evil ice pirates…and we sat at this gas station for four hours…
We ended up busting on our chase that day. It’s still a sore spot with some of our crew. But I learned a lot about icebreaker ships and the Northwest Passage AND got a ton of George’s notes, so that day will always be a win for me.
“Want to be my asshole ice pirate captain?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said.
We came up with Yorgo Krakatoa that day almost as a joke, but like many jokes, the name stuck. It went on to inspire George to name his ship (yup, he named his own ship) the Kamu Mati, which essentially means “You die” or “You are dead” in Indonesian. Krakatoa (Krakatau) is located in Indonesia. Also, “mati” means “evil eye” in Greek—it is both the curse and the talisman that protects against the curse. Bonus Points! 🧿
Now Captain Krakatoa needed a crew. And suddenly I needed more names for more pirates. So…you guessed it…Wulfgar, Calgar, Butcher Bard, and Stanislaw the Pierced were all recommended by other members of my storm chase family. I won’t reveal who’s who—if you see us on the road this May, you can ask them yourselves!
xox
Princess Alethea
PS: Once again, this is a perfect example of why Generative AI will never be able to create real novels…
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This Patreon has been keeping me alive. You can either subscribe to the Thursday Chapter level and read everything so far or just pay-per-post. Thank you for your continued support!
