Changes

Robin Lloyd: As I wrote ''Rough Passage to London'', I always had a few of my friends in mind; all were experienced sailors or the armchair variety of sailors who prefer to dream rather than experience the wind and the waves. I wanted to give a sense of the sea, the smells, the motion, the taste, and Ely Morgan’s life was such a perfect opportunity. So even though I ventured onto land quite a bit, as I wrote the book I saw it as a sea novel. The readers I envisioned would be like me, filled with curiosity and wonder about what it would be like to sail the Atlantic on a three masted squarerigger. Oddly enough, I also envisioned Morgan’s English friends, particularly C.R. Leslie and Charles Dickens as the readers. I knew Morgan had captured their imaginations long ago with his sea stories so I always had them in my mind.

RL: I like to say that ''Rough Passage to London'' was a family research project that ran seriously amok. From a planned 6 month long effort it became a five year long marathon. It was like a giant magnet pulling me forward. My original task to myself was simply to find out as much as I could about the man, his time at sea, the dates, the ships and above all, explain how he met all of these famous people in the literary and arts circle of London. That became a self-inflicted, but much-enjoyed research project on the transatlantic Age of Sail in the mid 19th century. I was fascinated by this entire world, the sailors, the passengers and the transition to steam. These sailing ships were, in effect, the first cruise ships. They were the link that tied together the transatlantic world of letters, arts and commerce, not to mention people. I wrote a 300 page rough draft about the man and his times with no intention of doing much more than that. My wife encouraged me to show it to an editor in the publishing world.

He liked the topic but said you don’t have enough material about Ely Morgan. You can either write a history about the packet ship era, he said, or you can write an historical fiction about Ely Morgan. I’d never written any fiction before in my life, but I knew I wanted to write about this man. So with great trepidation I chose fiction. My skill set was as a journalist so a non-fiction book might have made more sense. But I simply could not see how I could capture the man’s personality and his life story with a non-fiction. I wanted to see this world of ships and sailors through his eyes. So like an early explorer, I set out on my largely uncharted voyage, knowing little about where fiction was going to take me. Certainly all the background and research I’d done gave me a foundation to work from, but I oftentimes felt like I had no compass to steer by. It took me two years of solid writing to finish the novel. Editing and rewriting took another year. And most of the original 300 page non-fiction I wrote about the man and his era became extraneous material. As my editor said, most of that is ''deadwood''.

RL: Throughout the writing of Rough Passage to London, I struggled with the marriage of fact and fiction. That’s the reason I wrote such extensive Author’s Notes at the end of the book. In those notes, I describe my journey and how I made sense of bringing fact and fiction together to create this novel. What helped me was the knowledge that I had researched his life quite intensively. I felt that I had gone as far as I could in my research. In all likelihood, I felt that I had uncovered what was possible to find out about him. I had his life chronology at sea, all the family genealogy, the names and details of his ships, the dates when he met C.R. Leslie, the dates when he married his wife. I knew quite a bit about his personality thanks to descriptions of him by C.R. Leslie and Robert Leslie in their books.

But I suppose the biggest surprise came from an actual letter dated July of 1816 I discovered in the family records of a distant relative. It was written to Ely Morgan’s mother. The tragic news in the letter would change that family forever. The cryptic wording of the letter gave me the idea for a mystery and a plot line where I could blend and weave the fiction through the known facts. The discovery of that real letter got the novel started.

RL: Well, everything is relative I suppose. Ely came from a rough background with few amenities so it may be that life as a young sailor was tolerable, particularly as he burned his bridges by running away from home. Within the merchant marine, he came up the hard way. I know that he was a simple sailor for five years before he became a second mate. Then it would be another two years before he would become first mate. These would have been tough years where he would have had little time off. That being said, as he’d survived the gauntlet of deck life, it must have seemed like a major accomplishment when he became first mate and then even more so when he became captain. I tried to convey his sense of ambition and quick thinking as best I could. He was advancing through the ranks, and because he was successful it may have made the life of a sailor more acceptable. Endurance and hope propelled him forward. He also didn’t have many choices.

As for me, I think I would have jumped ship. Climbing the ratlines to get 100 feet or more above deck would have terrified me, if not killed me. As far as what I might have enjoyed…. I would have liked to have been the helmsman on one of those ships, sledding downwind under full canvas with a full moon lighting the way, lines taut and straining with a freshening night breeze on my face. Under those fairweather conditions, I might also have liked to be offered one of Captain Morgan’s Havana cigars.

you find the switch and which do you prefer?'''

Simply put, fiction writing is far more complex. Which do I like more? I don’t think you can compare them. One is more of a skill learned. The other is more of an art form with several different writing skills required.

RL: Well, I’m here to humbly say that I feel extremely fortunate to have found a publisher. Certainly more than a dozen publishers, big and small, turned this manuscript down with little to no explanation offered. I was out wandering in the unpublished wilderness for many months before Sheridan House kindly took a chance with me. They are a maritime imprint so that was part of the attraction. That would be one bit of advice I might give to first time authors. Look for a small publishing house that has handled books with similar themes to your book.