Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. I don’t even know if Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are popular in the US. They sure still are over here in Australia but then we kept a lot of our British ways like tea drinking and the use of the word ‘bloody’.

Anyway, enough waffling! Avast, me hearties! Arrrrrrrrrrrrr! Shiver me timbers! Walk the plank, ye landlubbers!

Yes, we’re about to celebrate the writer as pirate! And I’m waving my cutlass in excitement (hmm, perhaps that’s what my heroes do instead?) at this incredible honor of being the first captain from a rival vessel to board the good ship YO HO, A WRITER’S LIFE FOR ME! Land ho! Well, publication ho, anyway!!!!

Firstly, good luck to your enterprise and may she sail the seven seas for a long, long time to come. I’ve been lurking for a while and I think it’s fantastic. You’re all doing wonderful jobs of filling out the captain’s log…uh, blog. An extra measure of grog to you all! But be careful when you climb the mizzenmast! We don’t want you coming to grief on a sagging middle and falling flat on the decks, now, do we?

I love the idea of a writer as a pirate. We’re all pirates, setting out as outlaws to seize the gold bullion from the Spanish galleons plying the main. Um, that is grab fantastic publishing contracts and share our wildest fantasies with a breathlessly waiting public.

The qualities of a good pirate are definitely the qualities a writer needs. Courage! Chutzpah! A certain amount of arrogance because if you don’t believe in your stuff, nobody else will! You also need those navigational skills so you don’t come to grief on the reefs and shoals of writing life.

You need to know how to pick a great crew to accompany you on your adventures – clearly, that’s something I don’t need to tell you pirate lasses about! You need to know how to hold your nerve when you get becalmed in the doldrums. You need to weather storms and lash yourself to that bucking helm when the huge waves threaten to swamp you! Above all you need dash and daring. And that’s something you girls have in spades. Or perhaps in bailing buckets!

So thank you for inviting me to toast the fortunes of the Good Ship Yo Ho! May all your parrots be housetrained. May termites stay clear of your wooden legs! May you fill your big leather boots with pride and not with sand! Ugh, hate sand in my shoes almost as much as I hate sand in my underwear. Hmm, do pirates even WEAR underwear? And no, please don’t answer that!

May you rescue Johnny Depp from a tropical island… Oh, right, that’s my task. You girls go off and find someone else to rescue!

Long may your ship sail and a keelhauling to any landlubber who says me nay!!! It’s Davy Jones’s locker for anyone who tries to scuttle this grand privateer!

OK, so do you have any pirate questions I can help with? Something about anchors or blunderbusses or, shock, horror, actual writing? Why do you think you need to be a pirate to be a writer? Clearly you agree with me about this! And honestly, is there any way to make ship’s biscuit palatable? Or would you rather I brought over some good Aussie chocolate when I come for my next visit?

And there’s pirate plunder! Terri who invited me gets to choose a commenter at random and they get a signed copy of what’s currently keeping Good Ship Anna Campbell afloat on the briny waves. My latest release UNTOUCHED! I’d love someone to show that mad marquess a good time on the ocean! He definitely needs to get out more!

Good luck, me hearties! Another serve of rum all round! ARRRRRRRR!

Now that Anna is Queen Pirate for the Day (and perhaps hit the rum a little too hard already) it’s your turn to pillage from her all the writing knowledge you can. And she’s full of it. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Argh! You know what I mean. Lets talk Mad Marquesses, Uber-Alphas, and chasing that publishing dream undaunted or just tell Anna how sweet and generous and wonderful she is! Don’t forget, one lucky commenter will win their own copy of Untouched.