Before grabbing a book and heading below, I took a stroll out on deck to try and gather in the towering strength and beauty of the mountains that surrounded our still and peaceful anchorage, perhaps the most stunning I’d ever seen. Low, shrub-covered flats quickly ran up to rocky foothills that rose straight up into the monstrous snow-covered peaks. It was an area waiting to be hiked and explored but, for me at least, only after a good night’s sleep. Sometime during the past day, we had crossed an invisible line that moved everyday thinking to a seldom-visited level.

We were anchored now in an area much more raw, powerful, and potentially threatening than we had experienced. On our way into this amazing paradise, we encountered, for the first time, charts that simply didn’t have complete soundings, no channel markers, no warning of shoals or hidden rock outcroppings. While we weren’t exactly flying blind, we were navigating in an area of greatly reduced information. Not for the first time in the trip the thought struck, “If we stick here, we are screwed.”

This new level of thinking and awareness was debilitating, a slowly circling feeling of expected isolation and self-reliance. No longer would a potential emergency be met with a simple call on the ship’s radio to the local Coast Guard or towboat. We were becoming increasingly isolated and as such were going to have to rely on our own wits. My hope was that this mounting sense of isolation would stay beyond the limits of the boat and not work its way inside. Time would tell. For the past two years, the talk had been to simply get to this area and then farther north.

I unexpectedly found my senses coming alive. My sense of smell was more acute, my hearing was finer, and my sight was more focused. It was a feeling, a new way of seeing life, that through the rest of the trip would reach far deeper than I could have imagined.

The Northwest Passage is a ship killer, and always has been.

At various stages of the journey, I found myself numb. Exhausted. Terrified.

How had it all started? What were we doing?

I was leading a crossing of the Northwest Passage, an 1,800-mile channel north of the Arctic Circle, connecting, in theory, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Hundreds of sailors had given their lives trying to do the exact same thing. We were a small boat with a small crew. Bagan is a fifty-seven foot long Nordhavn, and she was manned by six of us, three of whom were my children.

One thought and one thought only kept shouting in my mind, a thought that no expedition leader and, especially, no parent should ever have to think; a thought that held me in a cold, mental death grip, a thought that I still think about.

“Have I brought us all together just to lead us to our deaths?”

Sprague Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with over 40,000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the Northwest Passage–the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific–the ultimate uncharted territory. Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather.

What Theobald couldn’t have known was just how life-changing his journey through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.

( TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR “The Other Side of The Ice” [book and documentary] PLEASE GO TO: VIMEO.COM/45526226) 

I learned early on that, unless you are Virginia Woolf, writing without any sort of structure will result in completely rewritten manuscripts. There is one particular novel that is the first of a series, I’ve been working on since the Clinton Administration, that I’ve rewritten about four times. So, I don’t fly by the seat of my pants anymore.

When a publisher took me on to publish my first novel (in this case, a novella), they told me I would be working with an editor first.  I knew very little about book publishing, and up until that point had thought an editor was basically to make sure that all the grammar and punctuation was correct.  I had re-written the manuscript so many times that I thought even that level of editing was not necessary.   I thought I’d already caught every typo, mis-spelling, and grammar mistake, so that I had little need for an editor.  But of course the publisher insisted, and I complied.

The editor I worked with, almost entirely by email, was truly expert at what she did, and worked with me as I understand editors used to do (before the big publishing house editors became little more than barometers of public taste).  She guided me on everything from structural changes to comma uses, including very importantly making me aware of various current writing conventions followed by the publishing industry, of which I was blissfully unaware, and aware how seriously the publishing industry takes these conventions, especially for unpublished writers.  I had previously known that a published book had to be super polished, bearing no resemblance to a draft, and naively thought I had accomplished that. I was extremely wrong.  The editor drilled down in my work at a level one can never get in a workshop, or indeed in any group setting, and evaluated thousands of creative/craft-related decisions I had made in the course of writing the book, and guided me through making many of them better.

I learned much more from my editor than I had ever learned from any writing teacher or work-shop leader.  As pretty much a self-taught writer, I had long wanted detailed specific help in learning the craft, but had been unable to find.  It’s so easy to find people who will give you vague, big picture feedback of the type that isn’t a lot of work to give (they read the work and say generally what they think, like any member of the writing public does, only they do it with more expertise), and even people who do that well are hard to find.  To find someone who will really buckle down, and identify in detail what you aren’t doing right, and guide you through fixing it, is beyond hard.

I would estimate that my editor improved my book by a genuine 20%.  By contrast, I would estimate that the benefit I’ve gotten from any one class or workshop is usually around 2%, and tops out at about 5%, which is an extraordinarily successful result from a workshop.

So, I’m sitting here typing to tell you that real writing gurus are not the professors, seminar leaders, publishing house editors, literary agents, or workshop leaders.  They are the freelance editors out there who have really learned their craft and willing to work hard at it.

How far would you go to add excitement to a life you felt was boring and meaningless?

For seventy-three-year-old Jaime, the answer takes him by surprise. Accustomed to a lonely life high up in the mountains on the western coast of Mallorca, his dull routine is suddenly shattered when a man parachutes from a plane and lands nearby. The plane crashes; the man lives.

It’s a drug smuggling operation gone bad. But Stefan, the man from the sky, has escaped with eight kilos of cocaine in a gym bag. Jaime brings Stefan home and is soon entangled in Stefan’s attempts to sell the cocaine and start a new life.

As they dodge Parisian drug dealers and corrupt Mallorcan police, Jaime’s search for excitement and Stefan’s resolve to find stability lead them both down dangerous paths.

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Genre - Literary Fiction, Adventure

Rating – PG-13

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Connect with Danny Wynn on Facebook

Website http://www.dannywynn.net/

Is your family supportive? Do your friends support you?

Yes, my family is supportive. Some of my friends are and some aren’t. Most of them don’t even know I write.

Do you plan to publish more books?

I most definitely plan to publish more books! And a lot of them, too! In fact, I hope to become the world’s most prolific author. The reason being, I have so many ideas I want to share with the world, it’s driving me insane.

What else do you do to make money, other than write? It’s rare today for writers to be full time…

I work sometimes. Get usual jobs.

What other jobs have you had in your life?

I’ve actually only had one real job so far.

If you could study any subject at university what would you pick?

I’d go to Durham University and join the Harry Potter course they’re offering. But on a more serious note, I’d go for literature.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

I’d love to live in China. Their cuisine is probably my most favorite and Hong Kong seems to be a lovely place.

Tell us about your family?

I love my family. Everyone is very kind and nice, and we always stick together, come hell or high water.

How do you write – laptop, pen and paper, in bed, at a desk?

I use my PC to write. In fact, I have three different ones. I do most of my writing at my desk, but the bed happens, too, every now and then.

Where do you get support from? Do you have any friends in the industry?

Sadly enough, I don’t. But I will say that the FreeBooksy team was extremely nice to me and really helped me out despite the fact that I’m a total nube.

Peter Simmons thinks he is an ordinary boy, before he is abducted by a man with certain special abilities, learns of his inescapable destiny, befriends immortals and becomes famous worldwide. Why? Because Peter Simmons is mankind's last hope for survival.

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Genre – Young Adult, Action and Adventure, Coming of Age, Sci-fi

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://ramzartso.blogspot.com/

Dantes flinches at those words; he knows he still struggles to overcome many of the feelings he has experienced in the past, including anger and jealousy. It seems that no matter what he does, he cannot completely expunge that negativity and the lust to destroy those who would harm him that still lives deep in his heart.

“Forgive me, Highest Father,” he cries, bowing his head to the ground. “I will find a new way of living through faith and servitude, I promise this.”

Elohim’s voice falls silent, and Lady Wisdom’s voice follows next. She comforts him.

“My son,” she starts, “you have seen more in your lifetime than some men would see in ten lifetimes. Use these experiences to learn, and look back on them not to chastise your innate nature for mistakes, but to grow going forward. That is the true basis of wisdom.”

Sitting in the sand under a tree and talking to her helps release the bad memories he has, including his tenacious feelings of revenge and remorse.

“I have seen much, Mother,” he says. “And I have traveled far. You are right; I should use those experiences to better the lives of those around me—to bring meaning to the world.”

“You are on the right path,” she says. “And you must ask yourself—is this roaming through the world truly what you want? Is there not more you need to accomplish than entertaining townspeople?”

“I have the will,” he says, “but not the way—what guidance can you offer me? What should I put my hand to? Whatever it is, I am sure I will not fail.”

“Your purpose will be revealed to you in time,” says Mother Wisdom. “For now, you must wait. If you are patient and have faith in me, I will lead you to your destiny.”

The Sovereign Order of Monte Cristo is a continuation of The Count of Monte Cristo (Book I), related through the voice of Sherlock Holmes and The Sultan of Monte Cristo (Book II). It includes exhilarating new adventures, characters, and ideas, carrying the reader past book I and II and into book III of an ever-expanding new series based on the classic.

Those who have already had the pleasure of reading The Sultan of Monte Cristo will certainly appreciate the unique way in which the Holy Ghost Writer has expanded the original story without the help of anyone (except perhaps from the ghosts of Dumas and Doyle).

In addition to comprising a 3rd sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo, The Sovereign Order of Monte Cristo serves as a prequel to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

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Genre – Action, Adventure

Rating – PG-15

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Website http://holyghostwriterbooks.blogspot.ca/