Transit Installment 29

Witches, Cannibals, and Headhunters, Oh My!

Welcome to the latest installment of Transit. You will find it under the Novels tab of the site.

Typhoon Kaala no longer menaces the Andaman Pearl. Everyone aboard the ship is alive and well the next  brilliantly beautiful morning, continuing the journey across the South China Sea to Haiphong harbor. No surprise, there. Captain Bayani is a crackerjack skipper. 

The captain's daughter, having spent the night in Jessamyn's bed, is still sleeping as Jessamyn arises and fixes herself a cup of Lady Grey tea.  Returning to Lovely's bedside, where the young woman has kicked off her covers, Jessamyn indulges herself, studying young woman’s primitive tramp stamp tattoo and the agimat around her neck.  Lovely's story is nothing short of remarkable.  How could it be otherwise when you come from stock that includes witches, headhunters, and cannibals?

Transit, the novel,  encountered a patch of rough water of its own last week. Shortly after the last Substack post was flung into the ether, the "final" advance author's copy of the book appeared on my doorstep.  We were ready to order copies for the upcoming launch when we discovered that the very first page of the book was missing from the book courtesy of a glitch in the Adobe InDesign program used to prepare the manuscript for publication. It was easily fixed, once we figured out what had gone wrong; another proof is due today. If all goes well, and we fervently pray it will, we can order copies tomorrow and one more piece of the preparation for the  book launch will fall into place. 

I do not think an infinite number of monkeys would ever have succeeded in writing even one of the works of Shakespeare, let along all of them.  Or perhaps they would, but writing is only a part of the equation.  They'd still have to run the gauntlet with the printer by which time they would likely have lost interest and gone back to their bananas.

I am so grateful to all of you who have subscribed to the free edition of Marty Writes Stories. I hope you are enjoying the serialization of Transit and other writings here.  Please let your friends know and encourage them to subscribe.  It would mean the world to me.