The MEGASAGA competition theme this year is THE SEA

It doesn’t have to be THEIR story! It can be yours! Or purest fiction.

BUT IT HAS TO BE EXACTLY 100 WORDS INCLUDING THE TITLE! And, of course, be about the sea.

I spend some of the most enjoyable times of my life on the waves. I am tremendously lucky in having dear friends with yachts, who travel the world and every now and then they invite me to join them. I have seen the sea smile, frown, churn in fury, laugh at we puny humans. I have seen the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Irish Sea and the Mediterranean at their best and their almost worst – though I have yet to experience the horror of, say, Force 9 or worse.

WRITING ABOUT THE SEA

The Sea teaches us about how fragile we are, how tiny, how arrogant. That we are ephemera. No wonder we like to anthropomorphise these vast stretches of water. We give the sea moods – see above. We describe it in terms we reserve, normally, for humans. Even when we call the sea ‘beautiful’, we’re thinking of a human attribute.

Can the sea be a murderer?

How many human skeletons lie on the sea bed?

Yet when the sea kills humans, they are often the victims of natural forces under nobody’s control. Wind, tide, wave, weather. The sea does not have a mind. It can’t be angry. The sea is itself subject to the weather – its ‘moods’ determined by outside forces.

Many of the skeletons under the waves, however, were killed by other humans. In war, say. Or piracy. Or incompetence. Or sheer greed. Take the example of asylum seekers and would be immigrants, victims of horrible forces outside their control. Tragedies which stand as an indictment for human cruelty.

The sea, the sea. So much has been written about it, so much has yet to be written about it. And it provides us with a massive archive of great fiction, wonderful novels, poems, plays. From Shakespeare’s Tempest to Iris Murdoch to Joseph Conrad to Melville to….The sea is the greatest Deus ex Machina in too many tales to mention! I could fill innumerable pages with authors and titles inspired by the sea. Not to mention music, art, sculpture…

Here’s one I prepared earlier., I’m not saying it’s good! But I am saying that writing a precisely 100 word story is a fantastic exercise for a writer not just in writing, but in ruthless editing,

Geffen

The sea had concluded its business with our beautiful yacht and swallowed her whole. Luckily, we had freed the dinghy from the deck just in time. Marie, Geffen and me. There was no way we could have saved his wife Joan, a picture of her being swept from the deck with her red hair swarming about her face was stuck in my mind. And no doubt in his.

We felt no real joy when we woke on the fifth day and saw the coast only a mile or so away. And no surprise when Geffen slipped into the sea.

Precisely 100 words including the title.

Now you write me a story. Exactly 100 words. It doesn’t have to be serious, or historical. it doesn’t have to relate to the pictures in this blog. As long as it’s good, even humour or comedy could nab the prize.

For the Competition Rules, terms and conditions see http://jonelkon.com/writers-win-100-for-100-words/

For WRITING HINTS AND TIPS see http://jonelkon.com/category/writing-tips/

For past winners, scroll through the blog on Jonelkon.com

Good luck!

I love you all.