The Queen Mary 2 and the Business of Publishing
Metro Magazine has just come out with a story of mine on how going to sea has helped me both directly and seemingly magically with both writing and publishing.
I gave a very brief account of this phenomenon here last summer. In this Metro piece is the whole experience: complete with the particular mists and waves, the poached salmon and plum crumble — and of course the delights of the ship's library and its 180+ degree view of ocean. It begins:
"Almost anyone boarding the Queen Mary 2 in New York does so with high expectations. British accents. Brilliant dinners. Ceremonial bell men in livery. The high life on the high seas. Not everyone who boards expects a life-changing epiphany, however. I did, because I’d reached a dramatic turning point on a trans-Atlantic voyage 16 years earlier…"
(photo borrowed from Cunard)
Categories: 2013
Tags: Cunard, Metro, Metro Magazine, Queen Elizabeth 2, Queen Mary 2
Comments
Amazing writing. I am close to finishing Sister India after completing both Cobalt Blue and Revelation as well as this current magazine article. You requested the reader to let you know if they "caught" you (self-)judging — and I did not. Neither do I (dis-)approve of the behavior of the character Andie, which makes encountering her character as written most exciting to me (as would be in real life — imagining). My concerns are no more than those voiced by the character herself (concerning safety, especially at the shore and the night(s) on the boat). She goes ahead anyway — and that is how I would live (and have lived), still going at age 68. I am sending (under separate cover) my "little rectangles" of watercolor (metaphorical) from the sea voyage writing, which I like greatly (in the context of all the others that I have finished and am reading most recently).
Thank you for this so thoughtful response, Bob. I look forward to seeing these little rectangles.