Okay, so I wrote my first novel—'Pyrate Rising’. After three years of work, I was thrilled just to bring it to fruition. But an interesting thing happened along the way; just like what often happens to me when I’m reading someone else’s novels. I wanted to see what happened to the characters after the novel ended. So I took a little inspiration from Patrick O'brian’s ‘Master & Commander’ series...I decided to continue Garret’s story.
The challenge in writing the second novel, ‘Pyrate Assassin’, was that I didn’t have a series of events to work with, as I did for ‘Pyrate Rising’. Instead, I had to create my own. So I laid out a possible storyline. And then I started writing. I quickly learned that the characters wanted me to tell a different story than the one I'd outlined. It’s hard to explain it but they seemed to have a story of their own. So I just went with it. The story simply evolved as I was writing. And when the novel was complete, I realized just how freeing it was to let the characters drive their story.
The same thing happened with ‘Pyrate Crossover’. It wrote itself. I started only with the fundamental premise that Garret would have to face turning to the dark side.
As for ‘Pyrate – Black Flag’, I set down some storyline ideas first. It helped. But, as with all my novels...somewhere along the way, they carve their own path.
