Author Archives: Felicity Banks

About 60% of new sailors get seasick (more women than men). It usually lasts only two or three days, and then you’re fine (unless the weather changes significantly and rapidly – which, at sea, it does). Captain Sol, Ulandin and Oldy are just lucky they don’t get sick. It’s horrible. If you go below decks,Continue reading “Companion to Day Eight: Seasickness”

You can’t just park a ship. You can anchor it, but you still need at least one or two people keeping watch (apart from anything else, an anchor chain is long and can get twisted if the ship is getting turned around and around for hours. A ship never sleeps. If someone’s always awake onContinue reading “Companion to Day Seven: Sleep”

Hello to all the kids I met today, who invented wonderful stories for me – the handsome prince with bed-wetting issues – the flying dog with a taste for leg of schoolboy, and – the horrifying – but delicious – sludge monster, Jim. —————————————————————————————————- The tropical world of the story is called Rahana. Rahana isContinue reading “Companion to Day Six: Magic”

Before I begin, hello to Leo, Nathan, Michael and Nikki! Like the other interviews, this is conducted by Louise Curtis and plays in real-time (so Louise Curtis magically dropped in on the island pictured at the top of this blog, and ran into a hungry – but rich – Captain Sol). Interview I found Sol wanderingContinue reading “Companion to Day Five: Interview with Captain Sol”

There’s not much to discuss about today’s tweet except to sigh and say, “Young love. . .” Speaking of the young, hello to the kids I met today! Jordan, Sam, Britney, Alexandro (selamat malam!), Thomas and Hazel. Look for “Pirate Flashmob Canberra” on YouTube and hopefully you’ll find the movie of the mob! Let meContinue reading “Companion to Day Four: Videos”

Hello to Dorian, Scott and Hayley who I met today (along with the rest of their classes)! Like Ulandin (the person telling the story of, “Worse Things Happen at Sea”, I love food. Here’s a recipe for soto (Javanese chicken soup) which I invented after eating it at Jakarta airport. Ingredients: 1 Onion Asian spicesContinue reading “Companion to Day Three: Food”

What do you mean by ‘real time’? I mean that if the pirates attack at dawn, the tweet is sent at dawn. If nothing is happening (eg the pirates are asleep), there are no tweets until they wake up/do something interesting. It also means that some tweets will happen at odd hours of the night.Continue reading “Frequently Asked Questions”

If you’re wondering what the island looks like – look up. I based it off the island in the home page photo (although Sol and Ulandin’s perspective is rather different). On to today’s topic. Pirates were infamous for using their wits and sheer bravado as much as their cutlasses at times. In 1719, Captain Rackham’sContinue reading “Companion to Day 2: Tricksy Pirates”

Oh no! Captain Sol is barely alive and our main character is unconscious! What will happen next!?! Some of my friends predicted the following: Day 2 Dead. Day 3 Still dead. Day 4 Starting to bloat.

I’ve just returned victorious from the bizarro launch of the twitter tale – a pirate flashmob at Lyneham local shops in Canberra. I’ll upload some videos (much edited) tomorrow. We had quite a number of midget pirates, and one girl who insisted on coming as a dragon. A cutlass-wielding dragon. Our attempts at looking normalContinue reading “Flashmob: Report”

Amazingly*, the flashmob is on tomorrow! (*Not that amazing if you subscribe to the time-space continuum.) Who wants to help hand out free lollies (you’ll need to be someone I know and trust) and/or short-short stories? Please bring digital cameras for still photos to send to various media. I’d like someone to come with aContinue reading “Pirates Required”

Today I visited a primary school and took over two Year 5/6 classes for about an hour each. I met Aiden, Riley, Andrea, Nathan and many others. Teaching is a little bit like getting executed and a little bit like having God-like powers. The combination is confusing, to say the least. The kids were startlinglyContinue reading “I survived Year Five (and also Year Six)”

This is an email I sent to my sister very very late at night on the third Saturday in September, 2007 (cut for length/sense/name-changing, but otherwise untouched): I have one regret, and that’s that I didn’t immediately reply to your sms. My brain was too mooshy to form a sentence. I’m sorry.   So, toContinue reading “Why I owe Johnny Depp a favour”

I already have a group of people who receive free short stories between 50 and 1000 words on the first day of the month. If you’d like to be part of the list (called “Felicitations” after my adult-writing name, Felicity Bloomfield), then email fellissimo[at]hotmail.com with “Felicitations Please” in the subject line. NOTE: the list isContinue reading “Free Short Stories”

Can you believe the pirate flashmob is happening THIS Saturday? (FYI: At Lyneham shops outside Tillies and the second-hand bookshop, 2:00-2:30pm. Free family event.) My father-in-law was just panicking over lunch about what he was going to wear (not a conversation we have every day). I will be bringing a stack of home-made eyepatches, so ifContinue reading “Pirate How-To Guide”

The narrator of the twitter tale is Ulandin (chosen as narrator mainly because his name is the longest). He will be telling the story in first person (“I. . . “) Keep in mind that both Ulandin and “Louise Curtis” are technically fictional – Louise is MOSTLY me, but nicer. And a bit dumber (arguably).Continue reading “Interview with the main character”

This entry is all about child safety. The first thing to remember is that my “Louise Curtis” pen-name will never write above a PG rating (generally for piratical violence, or it’d be a G rating throughout). It should also be noted that I am a Christian and one of my characters is faintly based on JesusContinue reading “Parental Advisory”

I’ll be tweeting the very first post of the twittertale this Saturday 25 July. (It’s a bit weird calling it a free sample when the whole thing is free, but oh well.) Harper Collins is within a month of making a decision on one of my novels – the first I ever wrote that hadContinue reading “Free sample”

The “novel” will be told in real time – so if the characters are eating lunch, I’ll post that tweet at lunch time. Whenever I add a tweet to the novel, I’ll check the real-time weather in Jakarta (since my fantasy world is based on Indonesia). So you can check the novel weather, too (becauseContinue reading “Real Time Weather”

It is waaaaay easier than I expected. Go to: http://twitter.com/Louise_Curtis_ and join from there. You’ll need a name, an email address, and the ability to invent a password and type in a word verification. That’s it! It will ask you if you want to follow various celebrities, and my little icon should be on theContinue reading “Twitter for. . . well, for twits”