Introducing Guest Blogger John Cunningham
Water. By John H. Cunningham www.jhcunningham.com
Our planet is over 70% covered in water. Our bodies are over 60% comprised of water. Doctors recommend we drink eight 12 oz. glasses of water per day. Water is the essence of our lives.
Water is romantic. Not the beverage, but the environment. Whether ponds, lakes, rivers, gulfs, seas or oceans, we are drawn to being on or near the water. It compels us, it's in our hearts and imaginations. Whether to fish, sail, swim, SCUBA dive, catapult at high speed over, lay next to or float upon in small city-sized barges that deliver you from port to port, water is a destination we dream about.
Water pulls at me, I suspect, like many of you. I learned to SCUBA dive off Key Biscayne when I was 13; to fish off Islamorada at 15; I water skied naked through Garrison Bight Marina in Key West at 18, started sailboat racing in the Chesapeake Bay in my 20's and have been all over the world to destinations surrounded by water.
Nearly all my writing has been centered on, around or under water. So, when I decided to create a series character, I was of course drawn there. Many of my favorite writers have imbued my imagination with images and ideas that have influenced my interests. John D. MacDonald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas McGuane, Randy Wayne White, Jimmy Buffett, even Robert Ludlum started the Bourne Identity with Jason floating face-up in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Buck Reilly series is the culmination of my life on the water. An everyman who gets in more trouble than he can handle, with few resources aside from a broken down, antique flying boat, a one man company, if you can call it that, Last Resort Charter and Salvage, and an endless liquid horizon out the window of the Key West hotel where he resides.
With a flying boat as a crucible, you cover a lot of territory, when it's running properly, and theoretically you can land almost anywhere. What evokes a more romantic image than an old Grumman or Sikorsky tipping a wing over a palm tree by the shore with a beautiful woman gazing up longingly in the travel posters of decades gone by? Exotic ports cry out – Cuba! Rio! And our hearts are lifted.
Whether we write on the water, about the water, over the water or next to the water, we must give credit to our most unsung, yet compelling protagonist, antagonist, setting or muse, wherever it may be. Water can be challenging to portray, but when done well, will register in the hearts and minds of our readers almost as completely as it did in us when we first captured the inspiration.
If you want to find me, look down by the water…
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