‘Water, Water everywhere’ by Ms Paige Turner.
I think I’m entitled to a bit of water imagery this month for three reasons. Firstly, I’ve just returned from lecturing aboard Cruise & Maritime’s Magellan. Miss Trial and I did a two week serious bonding on a Baltics cruise. It rained most of the time, especially in St Petersburg where the quality of the rain is somewhat denser than anywhere else on this earth. I know. I’ve been there before and nothing there changes much except for the politics. But we’ll come to Politics later. Wet weather’s good for lecturing though and I had a good turnout for Write Beginnings and Effective Endings, From Big Idea to Publication (which I did in one hour) Sixteen Steps to Successful Suspense Writing, The Serious Business of Humour and Writing Your Life Story (which we all did in six words). Mister Justin Case spent two rainy weeks at our home in Cape Town to give mother and daughter some cabin space.
As we were coming in to dock in Tilbury our prime minister resigned. His use of ship metaphors was impressive and it’s fair to say that the boat got docked and rocked slightly. That’s a bit of an understatement as, to coin a cliché, we’re apparently now into unchartered waters.
Seeing my metaphors through I then switched on to my emails when I returned home to find that I had won Bloomsbury Publishing’s ‘Writers and Artists’ International Sonnet Competition in conjunction with the Royal Society of Literature and judged by Ruth Padel. The brief was to write a sonnet inspired by one of Shakespeare’s very own. I chose sonnet 30/When to the sessions of sweet silent thought.
Here’s the link:
https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/2016/06/on-having-to-choose-only-three-out-of-a-whole-rainbow-of-wonderful-sonnets
What has this to do with water? The sonnet is called ‘Silver Surfing’.
Well, all I can say is, “Rock on silver surfers.” We may need to in the coming months …
Still that one place left on Tuesday morning ‘Get Inspired’ course beginning October 4th at the Fitzwiliams Centre, Beaconsfield/Creative Ink for Writers. Email me for this or a place on the ‘Get that Book Out of You’ course/assessment, editing and one to one consultation.
Water, Water Everywhere …
02/07/2016 // by Jan Moran Neil
Many congratulations, Jan. I loved your sonnet – a worthy winner and a delight to read. I’m searching now for watery imagery – your boat has come in … as we sail the SS Great Britain into uncharted waters … a Titanic moment … but you remain as the Captain of your cargo ship of charming and multiple talents. That’s it. I’m awash with purple prose and heading for the rocks. I may put a few of those rocks in a crystal tumbler later and toast your health with a single malt. Again, well done.