A Lucky Day

Have you ever awakened with a smile on your face, thinking: "This is my lucky day!"

It may not occur often but it DOES happen. And when it does...

...you should take advantage of it because those days, believe me, are rare.

Now, believe me, I am trying to be modest, but without going overboard, I have to say this has been a lucky day -- or a lucky week -- for me. And it doesn't have anything to do with gambling. It's all about writing.

Many of my readers have praised my work on this website. Some of you, bless your hearts, have even suggested that I write a book.

Oh, if only it were that easy.

All real writers want to write a book. Or a screenplay. Or make a movie or television series and become wealthy beyond their expectations. If I were to tell you I am an exception to this rule, I would be lying.

I have tried to write books over the past several years. They are easy to conceive but exceptionally hard to achieve.

I tried to write a book about gambling, even got a contract and an advance, but the book did not pan out. Thank goodness the publisher did not ask me to return the advance.

A writer never stays in one place.

My late friend Dave Molina was well known for his comment, 'A moving target is hard to hit.'

Dave and I moved around a lot during our early newspapering years. We were like jackrabbits with a firecracker tied to our tail. It was fun. It was exhilarating. It was exhausting. But we never slowed down.

Somewhere along the line, I gave up on America. It was only temporary, but I went through a divorce, soured on the U.S.A. and American women, and flew to the Caribbean.

There surrounded by rain forests, dazzling white beaches, coconut palms, and green monkeys, I labored as a journalist and magazine writer.

I wrote about coconut soup, spiny-tailed lobster, machete gangs, and playing poker in casinos where nighttime could be dangerous -- even deadly.

I fell in and out of love with island girls, joked with the kin of pirates, and luxuriated at resorts like the Hermitage Plantation Inn owned by Richard and Maureen Lupinacci.

Look up the Hermitage on the Internet. It is located in the heart of a rain forest on Nevis, a piece of tropical paradise located three miles by ferry boat from St. Kitts where I worked as editor of a weekly newspaper for two years.

My publisher was a no-nonsense man named Kenneth Williams. Tough. Fearless. Sometimes even a bit brutal, but he had his charming ways. He was born in Trinidad, educated by a political leader, and became an independent publisher of a powerful weekly newspaper called The Observer.

He hired me, complimented me on my work, gave me a new Honda to drive -- and then fired me for just cause. No matter. He re-hired me later and somehow we stayed friends.

I spent a holiday weekend at the Hermitage. The Lupinaccis were investment bankers in Philadelphia, PA. and moved to Nevis, supposedly to retire. Retirement bored them and they instead purchased a 200-year-old Tudor mansion.

They constructed a number of villas around it along with a horse stable and built a half-mile race track on Nevis, an island supposedly visited by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury was born there. I even slept in the house where he was born.

The Hermitage has a charming bar and a library right next to it. On a Saturday I read a book borrowed from the library. It was about pirates, sugar cane and rum and it was written by a local historian who was fascinated by the lives of Blackbeard, whose real name was Edward Teach, and Stede Bonner, two pirates who became partners.

Teach and Bonner fascinated me. I researched their lives and read more about them. Then I began writing a pirate novel. I called it THE STRUMPET. And that is where my lucky day starts.

I have been working on the book for nearly a year. Last week I finished the first six chapters and sent them to a book publishing company in Charleston.

They like it and may publish it. I just got the word in an email received today.

That is my lucky day! Tell me about yours.