STEEL is out today!

My personal life kind of took over this weekend.  Got nothing done, including blogging.  But I could not stay quiet today, because Steel is finally out in the wild!

And it suddenly occurred to me that this book has an awful lot of rum in it for a YA novel.  But you know, I had to be historically accurate.

Speaking of which, I’ve also been thinking about how when people think of pirates, at least in fiction, they almost exclusively imagine the so-called “golden age” of piracy which lasted from about 1716 to 1724 in the Caribbean.  That period was instantly immortalized in story and legend.  A General History of the Pyrates was published in 1724 and was written, many believe, by Daniel Defoe.  Almost every story about pirates in the Caribbean can be traced back to this book.  I think this period had something of a “perfect storm” that contributed to its romantic aura:  a lot of out-of-work privateers, the vast wealth being generated in the Caribbean at this time, and a newly burgeoning popular culture hungry for stories.  What’s amazing is how the mystique keeps going.  It’s become an archetype, like the Old West or Arthurian Britain.

Really, pirates have existed at all times and in all seas.  Wherever and whenever people have shipped goods by boat, there’ve been pirates.  At some point, I think I’d like to write about some of those other times and places.  For Steel, though, I really wanted to put my own stamp on the classic “golden age” pirate story.

About these ads