Whispers of Redemption

Will have a new chapter ready in a day or two…I’m in the middle of a midterm paper in sociology of religion, grad level crap. Plus actually administering a midterm of my own. Swamped, as it were. But, in the mean time, I thought I might address the reviews that have been given to me, previously. I want to thank all of you for this---reviews are important to a writer. They are like a necessary cheerleading, if nothing else. We have a need, as writers, to be seen and heard---else why would we bother to post where others can read what we’ve produced?
My work is basically half-edited. That’s because I spend only an hour or two a day putting these stories together. So much to do, so little time. We all know what that’s like.
I appreciate the support---my eldest daughter has been reading the story herself, minus the smut parts. I won’t let her read those. She loves my portrayal of hector and jack and everyone, too. She told me, the very first few chapters of ‘wi’ a wannion’ that she’ll never be able to see barbossa in the same light again, as a person. She finds herself quite taken with him, now, I believe….
lol. aren’t we all?
I find it difficult to think of jack and hector as being, as one reviewer puts it, ‘mindless slut and barbaric rapist’. They’re too deep, characterization-wise, to be so one-dimensional. They both strike me as educated individuals---whether their education comes from books read on ship, taken as booty, or from a sense of some previous formal education or, even a mixture of both. They also strike me as men who are quite aware of the value of a strong friend at one’s back. Pirate or not, you want someone you can actually trust.
Which does make elizabeth’s observation concerning hector’s betrayal (once she learns what matelot actually means!) all the more a cry of horror…she’s shocked to discover the nature of the relationship, per her intuitions and gibb’s definition, but she is even more shocked to think on what that betrayal of trust must mean to jack. How does one get past the betrayal of the one person in the whole world who is supposed to back you up, cover your arse, etc…? is it even possible to ever really trust that person again, if they happen to survive your revenge? How do you face them, every day, with the knowledge of the betrayal and its results hanging between you?
Hector betrayed jack, jack tracked him down and shot him---for whatever reason. Hector came back, then he brought jack back from the locker---for whatever reason. And you layer that with the knowledge that---each of them knows what death is like, already. How could you consign a friend to death after being there, yourself, a time or two? How could you go through with murdering an ex-lover that you still have great feelings for? Piracy takes on a strange twist---how can you love someone and resent them as a pirate at the same time? Is that possible?
And how, considering the ending of the movie AWE, does it come about that barbossa might maroon jack again? Any ideas on that, my beauties? I’ll take anything you can toss at me, for THAT! Email at hagerman5@marshall.edu. Please!!!! Lol.
Do I have characters I hate? Not really. I even like Beckett. Lol. As a pro writer of slash fiction, nonfiction, and erotica, I’ve learned a lot about what makes a character into someone so real that the reader falls into experiencing genuine emotion for them. No character is ever one-dimensional. If you know or suspect the reasons for cutler beckett’s behaviors, you’d probably like him, too. Or at least understand him enough to feel some commiseration.
That’s the joy of fanfiction---we are the writers of apocrypha, aye? We go beyond the dogma and canon of our chosen meaning-worlds and use characters to explain motivations, moods, and ethos. I could take a certain plot and twist it around to make beckett into the most loveable person you can imagine. It’s all in the twist. Right?
Oh, god, I’d better stop that particular line of crap right now. That’s starting to sound remarkably like the nature of my sociology of religion paper---I’m writing about fandom behaviors and attributing them to a quasi-religious status. No, you’re not my guinea pigs. If you were, I’d have to tell you. It’s the law of scientific research. Lol…I might ask you to get involved later, though. (Just a thought)
As for the terminology and wording? I like accurate material. I’m a researcher, a sociologist. I was born to be a research bitch, somewhere and somehow. I read the encyclopedias, volume by volume, by the time I was twelve. It’s just what I DO, for work and enjoyment. Research and intellect is my personal path to happiness. I’ve been fascinated by pirates and sailing my whole life. My first novel, attempted and accomplished (but never published) at nine years old, was a pirate story that, if memory serves me correctly, my mother found quite delightful…if a little disturbing. Picture me as Elizabeth swann, at the time of her crossing to Jamaica. The little girl who liked pirate stories, the bloodier and uglier the better. Only, I didn’t wear the dresses and have long hair---I was more like will turner, in that respect. *raised brow*
As for’ the true confessions of charlotte doyle’….like a fellow fanfic writer who has mentioned doing such a grievous crime to this book, I also tore out the appendix in the back and kept it. But I was already an adult when that story was published by Avi. *eg*
What can I say? Pirate.
I do find myself easily drawn into elizabeth’s pov…her voice is quite beautiful, when heard in my head as I put her thoughts about events onship to the page. Marvelous. I’m considering writing another story, after this one, a tale that takes a slightly different angle and a few more povs. Jack, henriette, and with Elizabeth’s journal. Henriette isn’t a mere OC…even as she is an OC. She’s not a mary sue, that’s for sure. I think of her as an extension of anamaria, in many ways. Hmm. Big plans for her, to drive the plot. Which should pick up any day now, in my head, once these papers are finished at uni. *sigh*
So, read on. And thank you---you’re awesome just for reading this, but I love the knowledge that I’m bringing you as much joy as I’m bringing myself with the fanfiction.

Georgie