Alan E. (Al) Strunk's Blog

French Market Mayhem - an Early Times New Orleans Murder Mystery will be released the first week of the new year according to Los Osos author Alan E (Al) Strunk.

Early Times never meant to become a private investigator. He escapes his San Francisco past and its romantic complication by fleeing to New Orleans. James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux would warn Early about taking that drink at Bourbon Street’s Smuggler’s Den. Tony Dunbar’s Tubby Dubonnet would buy the round. Drink it, Early does. One “Micky.” Straight up. Fantasia and gin.

Good times roll until a severed head lands on Early’s front porch, leaking on his morning Times-Picayune.

Tarot cards appear in his mailbox. On his kitchen bulletin board. Under a windshield wiper. Neighbor Angélique Rolé leads Early through the mysteries of Caribbean occult, serving up gore and ritual with the hush puppies.

Early fights his personal ghosts while finding new ones.

French Market Mayhem will be available at Amazon.com and by contacting the author at pacifcsaga@yahoo.com.

It is 1848; there are rumors of gold in the Californias. Azalea, a sailing brig out of Maine, carries Charles Hagglund to adventure and first love’s bite. On the opposite coast a shanghaied Richard Taverner finds himself aboard a whaler bound for the Arctic. A refugee from Ireland’s starving shore, Mary O’Connor sails to Australia as a contracted bride. In the Caribbean, Samuel Adams leads his shipmates in bloody battle to rescue captives destined for the auction block. Adventure and romance on the high seas and ashore as brave men and bold women face the challenges of life and love.

Coalesce Bookstore, 845 Main Street, Morro Bay, CA will host my book signing of Pacific Sail on June 8th, 2019 from 2 – 4 p.m. Thank you Coalesce Bookstore for providing me with this opportunity! Your Humble Author

Want the book but don’t want to deal with Amazon.com?

Want the book but don’t want to give up personal information online?

Want the book but want it signed by the author?

Let’s talk, Matey!

Inquire at pacificsaga.permissions@gmail.com

Coalesce Bookstore, 845 Main Street Morro Bay, CA June 8, 2019, 2 - 4 p.m. Book Signing for Pacific Sail by local author Alan E. (Al) Strunk. Thank you Coalesce Bookstore for presenting me with this opportunity. Your Humble Author,

Dear Readers: No one can tell you how to write your novel, though people are willing to take a lot of your money trying to do it. My “Tips” are free, but sometimes free is too expensive, so if you find them a waste of your time: Abandon ship. Once I “finished” Pacific Sail I gave it several months of rest. I didn’t edit, re-write, read, feed or water it. It just sat there in the dark inside a flash drive, alone, ripening like a young avocado. It is hard to keep the writing of a novel secret. Word leaks out, curiosity sparks conversations. You might, as was I, be lucky enough to have friends who follow your progress. They prod and poke me into action over many a fine scotch and local brew in my favorite seaside tavern. I finally open the files and read the book, machete at hand to chop off fingers in case I am tempted to rewrite. I want to read it, period, just to see what I had created. To my surprise, I liked it. I have a picture of Ernest Hemingway frowning down at me from above my desktop monitor. Not really a “Papa” fan I did pay close attention to his quote: “The first draft of anything is shit.” I put the machete away and went back to work. I rewrote, re-worked, re-ordered, cut, cut some more and suddenly, I was done. For years I had asked studio artists, sculptors, painters, how they knew when a work was complete. I never got an answer more than the artist just knew it was done. Now I was done with writing my novel. How’d I know? I knew. Case closed. I wrote Pacific Sail without a plan. I had no editing software except an out-of-date version of MS Word. I figured my agent would get me a publisher who would provide an editor to clean up whatever small errors I might have made. And Unicorns romp in my back yard. Sincerely, Your Humble Author, Alan E. (Al) Strunk. pacificsaga.permissions@gmail.com

Where you can find me or my work:

Amazon.com/books: Pacific Sail Alan E. (Al) Strunk

https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Sail-Alan-Al-Strunk/dp/1790806100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550318341&sr=8-1&keywords=pacific+sail

Author’s Den:

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?AuthorID=204437&id=75957

Facebook: Pacific Sail, a novel by Alan E. – Al Strunk

https://www.facebook.com/Pacific-Sail-a-novel-by-Alan-E-Al-Strunk-202228626857652/?view_public_for=202228626857652

Goodreads: Title Search: Pacific Sail    Author Search: Alan E. (Al) Strunk

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43518062-pacific-sail?from_search=true

Merrimaker Bar – Baywood California

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-merrimaker-los-osos

Morro Bay Maritime Museum

https://morrobaymaritime.org/

Dear Readers: How I quit smoking step one: I told everybody I knew I was
going to do it. How I wrote a novel step one: I kept it a secret. I was pretty
sure I could kick the habit but put the gadfly of peer pressure in place just
in case. I was just as sure I wouldn’t complete a novel. Disclosure: I was not a
true virgin author. I had experimented through heavy petting with news articles,
script edits and the god-awful experience of drafting corporate procedures. Emotional
scars left from sentence diagrams and outlines prohibited a standard approach. I
was born with no taste for foreign tongues, but jargon came easily. I had
personal experience of ships and the sea and a lust for history. I started with
a simple idea: Young spud farmer escapes to sea, rounds the Horn, ends up in
Yerba Buena, the Californias, during the gold rush. Out jumps Charles Hagglund,
eighteen, spud farmer, stuck in the muds of, where? How about Maine? Needs a
reason to want to go to sea. Ah, enter Uncle Richard Taverner, retired sea
captain and would be poet. Shove off mate, we’re on our way!

Dear Readers: “Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them,” Poet Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote. Seems a bit one sided to me. There is a difference between review and criticism. But, “here is my message to you-oo-oo”, as Bob Marley sang: I will never publish a counterfeit review of my work. I will, however, reserve the right to select which reviews I publish based on their validity and the odd chance of my, or a fellow author, gleaning some value from another’s insight; which is the true purpose of criticism. Sincerely, your humble author, Alan E. (Al) Strunk

Five Star Amazon Review of Pacific Sail by Linda Collison, Amazon bestselling author of Water Ghosts: Interconnected stories converge in this worthy first novel: This nautical historical tale is several stories in one, of men and women in passage aboard different ships as they convergence on their separate journeys in the great Pacific Ocean during the American Age of Sail. Told with insight into maritime detail and human nature, the author captures the voice and spirit of the mid-nineteenth century in his turn of phrase and dialogue, including under-represented minorities (women, Africans, Aborigines) as full-fledged characters. As one who has traveled more than a few blue water Pacific miles under sail, I related to Strunk’s appreciation of the human spirit as well as the ocean is so familiar with. As a writer, I liked his ability to say a lot, develop character, in a few well-chosen words. The subtext is rich in humor and compassion. The waters of the Earth connect us all, this first novel by Alan E. Strunk so well illustrates.

Five Star Amazon Review of Pacific Sail by L. McManus verified purchaser: High adventure set
in the days of hands on labor of sailing: Very exciting. A must read. I enjoyed every minute of it. Certainly one of those
“stay up all night to read” books. Don’t miss out on this first part
of a series. Looking forward to the next, and the next after that.

Dear Readers: “Write a novel”, they said. “It’ll be fun”, they said. Ha! Never thought at age seventy-three I’d write a novel, but I did. Pacific Sail, available at amazon.com/books listed under my pen name: Alan E. (Al) Strunk. There. The first plug made. Writing a blog should be a walk in the park! It’s not. For better or worse, through waters fair and foul, I offer you this collection of insights into the creation of my first novel, Pacific Sail, and updates as to the progress of the following volumes that will make up the series Pacific Saga. I will discuss why I chose to write a historical novel that includes sailing around Cape Horn in the days of California’s gold rush, being shanghaied from early San Francisco to an arctic whaling ship, a woman’s flight from starvation in Ireland, aboriginal connections in the wilds of Australia, and, of course, adventure, romance and the sting of love’s first bite. A surprise bonus resulted from writing the book. A series of short stories. These I’ve offered free on my Author’s Den page at authorsden.com There you can visit young Charlie Hagglund in a fairly contemporary setting on the waters of Morro Bay, California. Sincerely, Your Humble Author, Alan E. (Al) Strunk. pacificsaga.permissions@gmail.com