Drown Melancholy news

 

Again, one of my stories in Cirsova Magazine made the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List - for 2025 this time: 

Reviewed by Seraph

“Drown Melancholy” by Stanley Wheeler

It is unclear whether this is a case of inspiration being found anywhere, or the result of a dare, but if you challenged someone to write a story purely on the basis of several recently popular sea shanties, it might look something like this. Don’t let that sound like criticism, it came out fantastic, and I confess to greatly enjoying the aforementioned songs. The speaker is a cabin boy on Captain Edwards ship at the height of the transatlantic era of exploration, and heard some things he wasn’t meant to. Like any good pirate tale, superstition and the supernatural abound, bordering cleanly upon madness, and even an accursed treasure is too difficult to resist. The concept that sins committed above the waves are punished beneath them is classic, but the author does a great job of cleverly weaving the shanties in throughout the story in a meaningful way. 

See all Seraph's reviews for Cirsova #24 here. 

 

For the record, that story was sort of the result of a dare: There was a call from an anthology for a story featuring a sea shanty. I wrote "Drown Melancholy" and submitted it (perhaps under a different title) only for the the publisher to delay the selection date by several months. Finally, the new date passed and the publisher failed to post any additional information or respond to requests about whether the anthology had been cancelled. After a year of nothing from that publisher, and it giving every appearance of having abandoned the proposed anthology, I submitted the story to Cirsova Magazine with good results. I had fun with  accents for a character or two as well as making the shanty intertwine with the plot. I started with nothing more than knowing which old shanty I wanted to use, and worked out the story and how the song figured in as I went along. Some would call that making it up as one goes along, but I prefer to think of it as plotting and development from the leading edge position.

Plotting and development from the leading edge was also how the story for Accidental Pirates came into existence. I knew it would feature the boys and pirates; the rest developed as the story grew. Coincidentally, the sequel, which I just completed, followed the same pattern. The sequel features the boys, kings, wizards, knights, and a plethora of fantastic beasts bent on the destruction of our heroes.

I have no idea how the sales are going for Accidental Pirates, but it was still in the double and low triple digits in the three categories in which it ranks best.

The bad grammar in the meme could be intentional, reflecting the frenzied mind of the storyteller pictured.

The sequel came out just a little bit longer than the original, but is filled with even more action and adventure. It's a rip-roaring adrenaline rush mingled with intrigue and magic.