Tuesday, August 21, 2012

M.C. Muir (author of FLOATING GOLD) in conversation with George Jepson (Quarterdeck)

Do you read the historical fiction and nautical fiction of your contemporaries? Have any in particular been inspirations for your writing?
I read nautical fiction but little general historical fiction. It was C.S. Forester who inspired my enthusiasm for the age-of-sail. His Horatio Hornblower series is exciting, easy to read, and, without being didactic, conjures up scenes and events to create a real sense of adventure. Of course, I have sampled, Alexander Kent, Julian Stockwin, Richard Woodman and others, not forgetting Patrick O’Brian, but Forester would have to be my favourite. Like everyone else, my reading time is limited and today it is nautical non-fiction, set in the age-of-sail, which I devour. Books I have particularly enjoyed, and use for reference include: ‘Jack Tar’ by Roy and Lesley Adkins, ‘Nelson’s Favourite’ by Anthony Deane; also real-life stories such as ‘Billy Ruffian’ by David Cordingly, the memoirs of Admiral Lord Cochrane, and ‘A Mariner Of England: An Account Of The Career Of William Richardson From Cabin Boy In The Merchant Service To Warrant Officer In The Royal Navy (1780 To 1819) As Told By Himself’. Books, such as the latter, provide a reminder that all sailors serving on His Majesty’s ships were not unintelligent louts, but honest, hardworking, and often literate men.

When did you begin writing? Was writing your first career choice?
I began writing late in life after a career in Cytology (microscopic detection of cancer), working full time and raising two boys. But in the mid-1990s my busy lifestyle fell in a hole. I had a personal brush with cancer, lost my elder son to illness at the age of 25, was made redundant from my job, and my marriage broke down. By the late 90s, I found myself with time on my hands, so decided to do the things I had always wanted to do. One was to sail on a tall ship. The other was to write.
Over the next few years, I entered university and in 2004 graduated with a BA (Writing). My first book was published in 2005 and four others followed. It was prior to my study that I signed on for a 12 day voyage on an 1853-style barquentine, STS Leeuwin 2 which sails out of Fremantle (Western Australia). That brings me to your next question.

Where did your interest in the sea originate?
Joining the ship in Exmouth on the coast of Western Australia, with 40 other trainees, was a little daunting. But it was on this voyage, sailing north to the warm tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, hauling on lines, furling sails and taking the helm, that I became hooked on the sea. Sitting on watch one night, I witnessed the tiny marine bioluminescent particles shining in the bow wave – flashing like tiny fireflies – and it was this spectacle which inspired my first book, ‘Sea Dust’. Despite suffering sea-sickness, numerous similar sailing experiences followed on replica vessels, sail training ships and on a 23-day sail across the North Atlantic. Apart from travelling under sail, I have cruised to destinations I would not otherwise have visited, such as around the coast of South America and to the Antarctic Peninsula – the location that features heavily in ‘Floating Gold’.
From an historical point of view, I have visited many tall ships and national maritime museums and will be revisiting the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard later this year. Over the last two years, I returned to university to improve my knowledge of the Age of Revolution and the Atlantic and Colonial Worlds. I love to learn perhaps as much as I love to write and it is hard sometimes to know how to prioritize the two.

What most appeals to you about the early nineteenth century in which Floating Gold takes place?
The late 18th century and early 19th was a time of enormous change. It was the time when revolutions swept through France, North America and the islands of the West Indies. It was a time when life was cheap and death came quickly, and those heroes, made in battle, are still remembered today. But this period also saw the glorious days of the wooden world come to an end. From Henry V111 time, British sailors went sea in fleets of fighting ships and by the late 1700s mighty men of war, such as HMS Victory, were being constructed in private and naval dockyards along the English coast. But after Trafalgar, the death knell for such vessels was sounding. Soon the clang of iron, and the clatter and hiss of steam engines would replace the thrum of the wind in rigging, the luff of a sail and the creak of a yard. As the age-of-sail died, so did the sense of adventure and the intangible magic it personified. It is the magic surrounding the era of fighting ships which appeals to me and which I try to recapture on paper.

Did you have any second thoughts about entering the already well-populated naval fiction genre?
Because I write whatever grabs my imagination, I never thought twice about entering the male dominated world of maritime fiction. Subsequently, however, I have discovered the pitfalls of being a female writer in this sub-genre. Firstly, for any author, age-of-sail nautical fiction is a very narrow field, and one could argue that the 20 year period of the Napoleonic wars has been done to death. C.S. Forester and Patrick O’Brian are revered as the classic Georgian fiction writers and for decades their voluminous works monopolized the arena. More recently, they have been followed by a number of authors wishing to compete for this narrow window. All have been male and many had naval backgrounds. Naturally, these sorts of credentials make an author’s work more attractive to a publishing house, for it is the author’s career the publisher is promoting not just the book.
For an older female author, therefore, with limited credentials, publication in this field is a challenge. However, having been previously published in Britain, I approached Robert Hale Limited, requesting that ‘Floating Gold’ be published under a pseudonym (even Patrick O’Brian preferred not to use his own name). But the publisher would not accept my argument. Recently, I received a letter from a gentleman in England complimenting me on my work. He told me that he would not have read ‘Floating Gold’ as it was written by a female had not the library insisted he give it a try.
Perhaps I should have considered the publication problem earlier.
However, as I look back and finish my work-in-progress, I am reassured by the increasing number of female sailors now crewing on tall ships, those sailing single-handed across the world, and, just recently the appointment of a female commander to a British naval frigate.
I believe a book should stand on its merits, irrespective of the writer’s name, and it is up to the reader to pass judgment.

Your protagonist, Captain Oliver Quintrell, is described in great detail. How did you create him?

Oliver Quintrell is a figment of my imagination and not based on anyone I have ever known.
He is aged 32 years and, as a post captain, has responsibility for one of His Majesty’s frigates and her crew. I have received a couple of comments about this character portrayal. Firstly, that he behaved more maturely than his 32 years, and secondly, that he showed little emotion in the face of death.
I would argue that in the late 1700s boys moved directly from childhood to manhood minus the intervening teenage years as we know them today. Children were sent out to work before reaching the age of 10, and during their lives men and women witnessed death on a regular basis. For a ship’s captain death and dying, be it in battle or as a result of illness, was a familiar sight. Life expectancy, for a male in Britain, in those days, was 38, therefore I feel that Oliver Quintrell at 32 years would have been a fully mature man who was not greatly troubled emotionally by morbidity.

Do you write the sort of story you would like to read, or do you write strictly for readers?
I write for my pleasure, as one must these days, because writing is very time consuming and, for the majority of authors, is not lucrative. I do not write for a specific audience but I aim to produce a piece of work which will engage the reader and capture and hold their attention from cover to cover.

Do you plot out your novels before beginning to write? AND At what point in the process do you begin writing?
No, I don’t work to a plot. Writing usually begins with ideas flashing thorough my head. I may conceive a rough outline of where a story/or ship is heading. With my work-in-progress, the ship is sailing to Callao in Peru, but the twists and turns which happen on the journey come as much a surprise to me as to the reader. Some books take shape from a single idea, such as the marine luminescent particles in ‘Sea Dust’. Having written that scene first, I then back-tracked and wove a story around it. Sound crazy I know, but it works for me.
With ‘Floating Gold’, I read a news article about a lump of floating gold washed up on a South Australian Beach. It intrigued me and inspired a novel. Of course the places I have visited, the things I have experienced, plus a good dose of imagination, combine to provide the raw materials for my writing.


Are there more sea adventures on the horizon for Oliver Quintrell and his mates?
I have titled my work-in-progress, ‘The Tainted Prize’. The story sees Captain Quintrell, Mr Parry and several other officers and crew aboard the frigate, Perpetual, set sail on a voyage around South America. The year is 1803 and war with France has resumed after the short period of peace. I hope to have this ready to present to a publisher by July.
After that, Oliver’s next mission will be to the colony of New South Wales (Australia) and I already have a few ideas on paper.

From the author:
Firstly, I would like to thank, George Jepson and Quarterdeck for this interview.
Secondly, if you embark on my latest novel, ‘Floating Gold’, I hope you will derive as much pleasure from its pages as I did from writing it.
Thirdly, the sequel to ‘Floating Gold’ – THE TAINTED PRIZE – will be out shortly.

FLOATING GOLD available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Lulu.com

Monday, August 20, 2012

Monument to THE CHILD WHO WAS NEVER BORN The anguish of Abortion. The time of Forgiveness.


Undoubtedly, this is the most poignant memorial I have ever seen.

It was commissioned by a group of young mothers who had lost babies through abortion and was created by art student, Martin Hudáček of Slovakia.
“The sculpture shows a woman in great sorrow grieving her abortion. The second figure is the aborted infant, presented as a young child, who, in a very touching, healing way, comes to the mother, to offer forgiveness.”*
In the sculpture, the child is  transparent - a figment of the mother's imagination - a fleeting apparition - an angel.
I believe the statue speaks equally to women who have lost a child through miscarriage.

Surprisingly, in a novel I wrote several years ago, before seeing this picture, I featured an elderly gentleman whose past held a dark secret. In his effort to unravel the mystery, he made a practice of wandering through graveyards looking for an inscription on a grave to A CHILD WHO WAS NEVER BORN.
The reason he searched was because his young wife had died when she was carrying their child and when she was buried the child was buried within her.
Because the infant was never born into the world, it was never given a name. It also never had a date of birth or death, and it never had an inscription on a gravestone, not even on its mother's.

When I saw this memorial dedicated by a group of women to the unborn child, I was touched. I too have lost a child, but not an infant.
In this memorial, the artist has captured two remarkable images - the heart-rending anguish of abortion and the loss of a child whose image can only be conceived by the mother.
Beautiful.

* April 2, 2012 (https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/heart-rending-young-slovakian-sculptor-captures-post-abortion-pain-mercy-an).
THE BLACK THREAD by Margaret Muir is available on Amazon.

A readers is touched by THE BLACK THREAD


Having read one of my other books, a reader wrote:
Well, you have done it again, brought me down to a crying baby with THE BLACK THREAD, it was so lovely, and the characters were so nice...except for a couple that is.
I started reading it about 10.30pm last night, had some sleep, woke at 7.45am and did not get out of bed till 10.15am today...I just had to finish it.
Next one to read is the SEA DUST...right beside my bed ready to go tonight. Will I need tissues???

Author - Margaret Muir was inspired to write this story after visiting some of the British canals a few years ago.

FLOATING GOLD - a review by George Jepson, editor Quarterdeck magazine of McBooks Press

Captain Oliver Quintrell languishes on the beach. It is July 1802 and a troubled peace has swept across Europe in the wake of the Treaty of Amiens. Unemployed officers in the RoyalNavy besiege the Admiralty in London, seeking any sort of commission.
On the streets of Portsmouth, Jack Tars –unafraid of press gangs – are at loose ends. Anchorages bristle with the masts of ships slowly rotting away in ordinary.
On the Isle of Wight, Quintrell is summoned to London, where Admiral Viscount St Vincent tells him “You will have your ship, Captain … Elusive is a 38-gun frigate … chosen, not for its size or the number of its guns, but for its speed and versatility.”
Elusive, sailing from Portsmouth harbor under “secret orders,” is bound for the Atlantic and points south, in company with a merchant convoy.
Driving into the South Atlantic, the frigate leaves the convoy, setting a course for its clandestine destination – an island in the Southern Ocean. On this island the government believes is a treasure, which Britain desperately desires to assist in financing what it believes will soon be the resumption of its naval war with France.
Finding the treasure is the trick, for Quintrell’s orders do not specify in what form it exists or whether, in fact, it does exist. The Admiralty’s missive only concludes, “Your voyage is of vital importance. Succeed and England will be forever in your debt.”
Unstated is what will happen if he fails.
Margaret Muir, writing with a keen familiarity with wooden ships under sail and the early nineteenth century Royal Navy, charts a course with enough danger to keep ardent armchair admirals on edge, as Elusive – aptly named – tacks ever deeper into the frigid southern seas, with icebergs threatening ship and crew alike. Her prose tickles the senses, as the aroma of Stockholm tar wafts off the pages, along with sheets of salt spray. And she is equally adept at creating captivating characters, and, in particular, Oliver Quintrell, a competent, but flawed, sea officer.
Muir is a welcome addition to the nautical fiction genre.
George Jepson
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Floating-Under-Admiralty-Orders-ebook/dp/B008K9E3FQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345106634&sr=1-1
Note: FLOATING GOLD is available as an e-book on Kindle.

THE BLACK THREAD a review by EA Harwik




THE BLACK THREAD by Margaret Muir is one of those gorgeously rare stories that keeps bubbling along with unfolding detail designed to capture and tease all who take pride at being able to visualise what will come next.

Set in Yorkshire just prior to the 20th century this book will engage the reader with beautiful descriptive local detail woven into a well timed fictional saga of deprivation, loss, escape, fear and discovery. Plus THE BLACK THREAD holds an extra treat via a very standard build-up to the usual happy-ever-after being interrupted and replaced with the most unexpected and grandly wonderful catch and capture imaginable. Simply marvellous; five stars.

Thank you, EA Harwik.

Reader loves THROUGH GLASS EYES

What a lovely email to wake up on a morning to.
It read:
"I have just finished reading 'The Twisting Vine', I just loved it, started crying on the last few pages, I loved the finish, such heart and mind you have. My husband and I were telling each other about the books we have just read, and I was telling him about this one, got towards to finish and started crying again, I was all choked up, ple
ase write a lot more books. This one is the first I have read, and I am looking for the rest of your books to read, wish me happy searching."

(This is the large print edition cover - from Ulverscroft and available through libraries).

Note: THE TWISTING VINE, was the title chosen by the publisher. But it was written under the author's working title of THROUGH GLASS EYES. Which title do you think is most appropriate?

SEA DUST (revised) paperback - Reviewed on HNS


Just discover this review of SEA DUST by Rachel Malone on behalf of Historical Novel Society.
Make no mistake; Sea Dust is a gritty book. There’s an edge to Margaret Muir’s writing that makes you feel every bit of emotion experienced by Emma Quinlan. From the death and burial of her infant
daughter, to the cramped conditions in the tiny sailor’s loft; to the terror she feels at sea, the reader is experiencing everything along with the character.

Sea Dust is absolutely gripping. Muir’s talent for writing is so good you can almost feel the salt spray of the sea and smell the tar on the ship. Sea Dust is a highly recommended read.
Rachel Malone
http://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/sea-dust/

Note: In July, SEA DUST was released as a Kindle edition through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).