He moved to Washington to sail the waterways of eastern North Carolina. He left having written a novel.

Mike Cavendar, former resident of Pamlico Plantation, published his first novel, “Revenge on the Fly,” through Amazon’s CreateSpace Publishing. Referred to as “a masterful blend of family saga, nature writing and mystery” by one reviewer, the novel is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and tackles the concepts of family, betrayal, love and revenge.

Cavendar tells the story of a dissolute outdoor writer named Ben Phelps, whose entire life has been influenced by a lie told to him by his elder brother — a lie that led to his disinheritance and a later chance at retribution. At stake is love and the last old-growth forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“Originally, I wanted to write a murder mystery about some siblings’ conflict over the sale of a family estate,” Cavendar wrote in a press release. “I was inspired by what I went through when our family house in Highlands (the old Farnsworth house on Main Street, now owned by Old Edwards Inn) was sold, although, fortunately, no one was killed. However, as I developed the novel, I became less interested in a murder plot and more interested in what happens to a character whose soul is shattered, and how he reacts when he has a chance for vengeance and redemption. As they say, character is action.”

That’s Cavendar’s process of writing: start with a character and see where that character wills the plot.

“I usually start out a book with a germ of an idea, a character. I don’t know who did it yet, but I’ll find out. To me that’s one of the fun things about writing: I don’t plot out a book real heavily, I just jump in there and see what happens,” he said.

Eight years of character-driven plot twists later, with the editing assistance of his wife, Paulette Webb, and many friends, Cavendar completed the novel.

“The biggest challenge was all the rewrites — doing it over and over again,” Cavendar laughed. “Each time I did it, I would find mistakes or find a way to improve the narrative. But there’s a time that you have to go, ‘Okay, I’ve done all I can.’”

Though “Revenge on the Fly” may be Cavendar’s first novel, he is by no means a stranger to writing. A former reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel, editor of “Mountain Living” and an avid reader of southern fiction, he started writing the novel in his basement office in Highlands and carried his work with him when he and Webb moved to Washington in 2006. Here, they bought a boat, sailed to Ocracoke a few times to catch the island’s annual Ocrafolk festival and took voyages up the eastern seaboard. The desire to be closer to family made leaving a tough choice, he said.

“We have some great memories of sailing,” Cavendar said. “We hated to leave our friends in Pamlico Plantation.”

Now Cavendar is looking for ways to promote his book on the Internet and in independent bookstores. At the same time, he’s written three chapters of his next novel, and has set a goal to complete the first draft within a year.

“Each novel is a challenge, especially if you don’t have it heavily plotted out,” Cavendar said. “It’s a discovery. The challenge is in writing and not being intimidated by the blank page, having the confidence each day to put something on paper. But I find once I do, the writing just takes over.”

“Revenge on the Fly” can be purchased at Amazon.com, CreateSpace.com and barnes&noble.com.