Credits
Stories are carefully charted and planned, outlines are made, edits happen often, stuff happens by page 23 and more stuff happens by page 64 and then...
(soundtrack grinds to a screeching halt...)
Who the bleepity bleep writes like that anyway????
Stories appear, they surface like swordwhales, fins slicing through the surface tension, great yin yang shapes materializing out of dark water, trailing seaweed and silt. Characters form in a sketchbook, then demand their stories be told. A stray Siberian husky winds up in your yard and suddenly you are a musher. You meet a cat named Pirate Jenny, Agent of SHIELD. Someone takes you along to their friend's cabin waxing eloquent about kayaks and you snort something about snorkeling... only the vis is inside the mask... so you end up in a floatin' boat... for the rest of your life. You round a corner in Baltimore and fall in love with a ship. They actually let you drive her once.
And a childhood dream comes true in the shape of a wild black mare.
I tell about my experiences with Chincoteague and Assateague, with horses ans sled dogs and kayaks and tall ships elsewhere on this site. All of those experiences as well as small ones make up the rich sea from which stories emerge. Paddling a long tired expedition down the length of Assateague, crossing Tom's Cove in the dark, the only markers for my course a compass heading, a thin line of dark beach and pewter water, and the Assateague Light going blink-blink...blink-blink in the dark. A twenty one year relationship with one wild black mare. Having neighbors who are Deaf. Finding sled dogs on Chincoteague, and then some in my backyard. Jumping off a perfectly good floatin boat to look at the sunken one, miles out at sea where the world is a circle of silver sky and silver sea. Learning to drive a pirate ship (sorry Bran, privateer) from a real sailor who walked the same decks as Captain Jack and Will Turner) she crewed on the Lady Washington, the ship Capn Jack and Will stea..er. commandeer, it's a nautical term, in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film).
And sometimes, it's just making weird connections; a story in a book about merrows and their red caps.. and noting that's what the Cousteau team has always worn...
Pirate Jenny lived to be 21.
Thanks to Heather (who inspired Holly) and her many Siberians. Some of her dogs and mine feature in this tale. Thanks to every Newfoundland person who has let me hug their big fuzzernutter. Thanks to the DEEP dive club and my instructor who weirdly resembled that guy from Sea Hunt. And to Nancy for dragging me into my first kayak. And to the Shire of Dawnfield for the Wild Black Mare. And to Dave for story editing and feedback...
...wait there's more...
This is the first part of a trilogy begun long ago, before I knew anything about kayaks or sled dogs or floatin boats of any kind. Read and reply if you can.
And check out the finished book: Black Horses on Inkitt; http://www.inkitt.com/teanna
(soundtrack grinds to a screeching halt...)
Who the bleepity bleep writes like that anyway????
Stories appear, they surface like swordwhales, fins slicing through the surface tension, great yin yang shapes materializing out of dark water, trailing seaweed and silt. Characters form in a sketchbook, then demand their stories be told. A stray Siberian husky winds up in your yard and suddenly you are a musher. You meet a cat named Pirate Jenny, Agent of SHIELD. Someone takes you along to their friend's cabin waxing eloquent about kayaks and you snort something about snorkeling... only the vis is inside the mask... so you end up in a floatin' boat... for the rest of your life. You round a corner in Baltimore and fall in love with a ship. They actually let you drive her once.
And a childhood dream comes true in the shape of a wild black mare.
I tell about my experiences with Chincoteague and Assateague, with horses ans sled dogs and kayaks and tall ships elsewhere on this site. All of those experiences as well as small ones make up the rich sea from which stories emerge. Paddling a long tired expedition down the length of Assateague, crossing Tom's Cove in the dark, the only markers for my course a compass heading, a thin line of dark beach and pewter water, and the Assateague Light going blink-blink...blink-blink in the dark. A twenty one year relationship with one wild black mare. Having neighbors who are Deaf. Finding sled dogs on Chincoteague, and then some in my backyard. Jumping off a perfectly good floatin boat to look at the sunken one, miles out at sea where the world is a circle of silver sky and silver sea. Learning to drive a pirate ship (sorry Bran, privateer) from a real sailor who walked the same decks as Captain Jack and Will Turner) she crewed on the Lady Washington, the ship Capn Jack and Will stea..er. commandeer, it's a nautical term, in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film).
And sometimes, it's just making weird connections; a story in a book about merrows and their red caps.. and noting that's what the Cousteau team has always worn...
Pirate Jenny lived to be 21.
Thanks to Heather (who inspired Holly) and her many Siberians. Some of her dogs and mine feature in this tale. Thanks to every Newfoundland person who has let me hug their big fuzzernutter. Thanks to the DEEP dive club and my instructor who weirdly resembled that guy from Sea Hunt. And to Nancy for dragging me into my first kayak. And to the Shire of Dawnfield for the Wild Black Mare. And to Dave for story editing and feedback...
...wait there's more...
This is the first part of a trilogy begun long ago, before I knew anything about kayaks or sled dogs or floatin boats of any kind. Read and reply if you can.
And check out the finished book: Black Horses on Inkitt; http://www.inkitt.com/teanna