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Wood the Writer

~ Author of Tales From Undersea

Wood the Writer

Category Archives: pirate

Deleted scene – Where Shiro got his otter

05 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by Jessica Wood in author, Blog, deleted scene, pirate, self publishing, steampunk, story

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deleted scene, fiction, pirate, sea otter, steampunk, writing

I was going through an old draft and found this deleted scene I thought readers would like. I initially introduced Shiro and his pet otter Kappa earlier and explained in more detail where he came from.

 

“Mum, look what I got with my share!” Marina’s voice appeared behind them. Alethea turned to see her daughter. She shared her mother’s thin face and dark hair, although hers was cut short and worn loosely rather than the bun which Alethea preferred. But she had her father’s thoughtful forest green eyes. Now that she was getting closer to adulthood, the resemblance was even stronger, Alethea always thought wistfully. But she was snapped out of her thoughts when she remembered that she was angry with her.

“Where have you been? It’s madness out there.”

“I was only buying a book,” Marina said with a scowl, showing her the title of her new purchase.

“Leif Erikson and the Golden Sea,” Alethea read the title.

“It’s a first edition. It was the last one in the shop,” Marina said.

“This was your father’s favourite book, too,” Alethea said, taking the book and running her hand over the cover.

“Really?” Marina said, her eyebrows raised.

“Yes. We didn’t think much of the opera version, though. The Vikings of Vyborg is much better.”

“Oh look at me, I’m going to the opera!” the teasing voice of Rico Hernández, the Barracuda’s gun master, came as the Hispanic man slid down the flank of the boat to land next to them. “I grew up drinking expensive wine from golden cups and hunting pheasants while riding side saddle,” he said in a mocking British accent.

“Do you think I grew up in the Middle Ages?” Alethea asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Who grew up in the Middle Ages? Are you talking about my village?” Asked Shirokani, the boatswain, as he joined the others.

“It’s nothing. Rico’s being an arse again,” Kei said.

“Right, same as usual,” said Shirokani.

“Shiro, why is your tunic moving?” Rico asked, eyeing Shiro’s chest.

“What? No it’s not…” Shiro said, gripping his tunic, which now that Alethea looked closer, did appear to have something moving underneath it.

“Yes, it is. Is there something inside of you about to burst out?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shiro said, turning red, before a tiny furry head poked out from the top of his tunic.

“Oh, it’s so cute!” Marina almost screamed as she leant an arm out to stroke the fuzzy creature.

“Be careful, he’s only a baby. He still bites,” Shiro said, drawing out the baby sea otter, no bigger than his palm, out from his tunic to allow Marina to find a safe spot to pet him. Alethea noticed that there were already several bright red bite marks on Shiro’s fingers.

“Seriously? Another one?” Rico groaned. This wasn’t the first time that Shiro had adopted a baby animal. In the two years he’d been on the Barracuda, he’d already adopted a cat, a turtle, and a squirrel. Rico slept in the bunk next to Shiro, and wasn’t always happy about it.

“I had to! He was about to be sold to fur traders. I couldn’t let that happen to little Kappa,” Shiro said, gently stroking the otter’s head.

“Kappa?”

“It’s a legend from my home. I had a dream that I met a kappa when I was little. Wait…was that a dream?”

“You can adopt as many pets as you want, so long as you don’t bring a parrot onboard,” Alethea said.

“What is with you and parrots?” Kei laughed. Alethea had never told anybody about Redscalp’s parrot and how much she’d hated it.

“Anyway, I suppose you’ve all heard by now,” Alethea said.

“I think everyone from here to Pacifica will have heard by now,” Kei replied, looking out to the dozens of ships which were already exploding out the pods, almost crashing into each other as they headed out in every direction like children on an Easter egg hunt.

“Meeting in the galley,” Alethea ordered.


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Blurb reveal and 99 cent book

21 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by Jessica Wood in author, Blog, blurb, indie, pirate, sale, self publishing, steampunk

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99 cents, blurb reveal, book, ebook sale, sale, self publishing, steampunk

It’s here, the blurb for the second Tales From Undersea book, titled Stealing From Thieves:

Pirates rule the ocean. Money rules the world.

In an alternate 18th century, Captain Alethea is desperate to live up to her position on her Pirate submarine, the Barracuda, by chasing down the Vikings of the Fenrir to reclaim the treasure her crew went to hell and back to uncover on a previous mission. So far, Alethea has only succeeded in getting her crew clobbered by the Fenrir’s new chieftain, Inoki Kekoa, and stoking their frustration and distrust in her.

Chieftain Inoki has his own reasons for holding onto the treasure so fiercely. It is his only way of securing a life of freedom away from the colonising Empire which invaded his home and drove him and his husband Undersea.

Captain Alethea has a new idea – ask for help from the Pirate Queen. But the Queen has a different mission for them. They must go undercover as upstanding citizens to steal a priceless necklace. But if they fail, they’ll be kicked out of the Pirate faction and left with nothing. Will the Barracuda crew find their treasure, or will they lose their freedom?

The second book in the Tales From Undersea series dives deeper into the cutthroat world of sea monsters, forbidden romance, and train hijacking bandits.

 

This book will be coming out around June 2021.

 

Amazon Sale

The first Tales From Undersea book, Traitor’s Revenge, is on sale for only 99 cents (or the equivalent in your local currency) on Amazon until Tuesday. Unlike last time, this deal will be available on all the Amazon sites where the book is on sale, not just the US or UK. Just click on the link on the right hand side to go to your local Amazon store. Click the book cover below to access the sale.

Traitor’s Revenge is on sale

02 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by Jessica Wood in author, Blog, books, pirate, sale, self publishing, steampunk, story

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99 cents, book promo, book sale, discount, ebook sale, steampunk, steampunk book

The e-book edition of Traitor’s Revenge is on sale on Amazon for only 99 cents until February 4th!

Don’t forget to sign up to the Undersea newsletter for more deals, book recommendations, updates, and free stories. You get a free prologue for Traitor’s Revenge when you sign up!

Writing update – Janurary 2021

18 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by Jessica Wood in adaptation, author, Blog, Editing, indie, pirate, self publishing, steampunk, story, writing update

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am writing, creative writing, dieselpunk, steampunk, writing, writing update

I haven’t posted many actual updates since the first book in my series came out. Rest assured, I’m already in the swing of the next two books in the series.

Book 2 – Stealing From Thieves: I got feedback from beta readers which was mostly positive, but did point out some things to correct, which I have done. The book is almost ready to begin the editing phase. I did plan to have this book finished by the end of 2020, but the feedback took longer than I anticipated. Now I’m planning to have it published by Midsummer this year, and hopefully to have the paperback ready to publish at the same time as the e-book.

Book 3 – Outcast’s Alliance: I’m looking over the first draft which I wrote at the end of last year. I expected it to be full of plot holes and errors, which it is, but not nearly as many as I feared. Dare I say it, it’s actually pretty good. Or at least it will be once it’s edited. Once I’ve finished making notes, I’ll be starting the second draft. I plan to have this book finished and ready to publish by the end of 2021.

Other books: I just can’t help myself. Even with these other two books to write and one to promote, I’m still developing ideas for future books in the series, and other series. I just don’t know which one I will work on immedietly after I’ve finished this current trilogy. I’ll probably leave it up to whatever the readers want the most. I’m already planning two one-off sequels to the first Tales From Undersea trilogy focusing on some of the secondary characters who have already proved popular with readers (and with me!). I’m also planning a dieselpunk trilogy set in the same world but moved ahead to the 1920s and set in an underwater version of New York City. A non-related series I’m also developing ideas for is a series based upon the Jules Verne books (can you tell yet that I like Jules Verne?). But that is still in the very early stages of development, so I can’t say anything else about the plot or characters.

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Traitor’s Revenge is out now in paperback

03 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by Jessica Wood in author, Blog, book launch, pirate, self publishing, steampunk, story, writing

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book, book release, paperback, paperback release, steampunk, steampunk book, steampunk fiction, ya, ya literature, young adult literature

I hope that everybody had a fun and safe Christmas and New Year and that you’re now getting back into the swing of work. Or maybe you’re still working through those Christmas sweets!

Traitor’s Revenge, the first Tale From Undersea, is now out in both ebook and paperback format from Amazon. Formatting and putting together the physical book myself was a real headache, so I’m especially proud now that it’s done. I know that the international mail service still has a lot of restrictions and delays (I still haven’t received all of my Christmas presents!) so I hope they will be resolved soon. I will also be doing a ‘wide’ release on other websites soon.

I’m also hard at work on the next few books in the series. I even started working on an additional novella during my Christmas break, when I was supposed to be resting!

Here’s hoping that 2021 will be kinder to all of us!

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Top Five Amazing Pirate Facts I Discovered During my Research

15 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by Jessica Wood in adaptation, Blog, culture, pirate, villain

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history facts, pirate, pirate facts, privateer, research

My debut novel Traitor’s Revenge, a pirate steampunk adventure, came out the other week and I’m very proud of all the hard work I put into it. One of the best parts of writing the book was all the weird facts I discovered about pirates during my research, many of which I’ve managed to work into the series. These are some of my favourites:

  1. Pirates practised gay marriage

Well, not exactly marriage in the way we understand it today. Pirates did have a practise called ‘matelotage’ between two male pirates, which worked as a sort of life insurance policy. Piracy was incredibly dangerous so in the very likely chance that you would be blown to pieces during a fight, your friend could inherit all of your money and possessions, and would have a financial safety net when you were gone. Sexual relationships between pirates in matelotage has been recorded, so it’s likely that some of these relationships were romantic in nature, too. Homosexuality was so common amongst pirates that prostitutes were sent to the island of Tortuga to try and put a stop to it. All it did was turn them into polyamorous, bisexual pirates.

  1. Pirates played mock trial

With long, tedious stretches of time between fights and nothing much for entertainment (most pirates were illiterate), one of the most common forms of entertainment for pirates was to put on mock piracy trials and pretend to condemn one another to death. No doubt this was at least partially to mock the authorities who were out to get them, too.

  1. There were government sanctioned pirates

It may seem hypocritical, and it was, but the same governments which worked so hard to put a stop to piracy encouraged the practise themselves. Privateers were essentially legal pirates with pieces of paper known as ‘letters of marque’ which said that they could attack and loot other ships as much as they wanted, even taking slaves. Because of course, anything is fine if the government says you can do it.

  1. The ‘pirate accent’ is just a regional dialect

When we think of ‘pirate talk’, we imagine a lot of ‘argh mateys’. Truthfully, this is just the West Country accent common around the British port city of Bristol. Pirates came from all over and had a range of different accents, languages, and dialects. We only associated the West Country accent because of actor Robert Newton, who played Long John Silver in the 1950 version adaptation of Treasure Island and appeared in many other pirate films. He exaggerated his south-west accent and the association stuck. However, being a major port city at the time, some famous pirates such as Blackbeard did come from Bristol, so it’s likely that at least some of them did speak in the ‘pirate accent’.

  1. Pirates mostly stole essentials

Another common association with pirates is stealing hefty chests full of gold and treasure. They probably wouldn’t have said no to it, but such valuables would have been difficult to sell, and wouldn’t have sustained them during long sea voyages. If your ship was held up by pirates, they would be much more likely to steal food, fresh water, building material, spices, and most valuable of all; medicine. Not only could they use these, they were much easier to sell in the next port.

If you like pirate stories, my novel Traitor’s Revenge is out now.

Or sign up to the Undersea newsletter to get release dates for further books in the series, special offers, and exclusive free short stories.

This is unrelated to anything else, but I just have to draw attention to this amazing stock image I found when looking for images for this post:

Clearly I’m writing in the wrong genre…

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