Ursula Le Guin once had a conversation with Halderman, which is ostensibly about boats but is actually about writing.
ALISON HALDERMAN: You do invent wonderful landscapes. The Earthsea trilogy creates such a vivid picture of the sea — have you done a lot of sailing?
URSULA LE GUIN: All that sailing is complete fakery. It’s amazing what you can fake. I’ve never sailed anything in my life except a nine-foot catboat, and that was in the Berkeley basin in about three feet of water. And we managed to sink it. The sail got wet and it went down while we sang “Nearer My God to Thee.” We had to wade to shore, and go back to the place we’d rented it and tell them. They couldn’t believe it. “You did what?” You know, it’s interesting, they always tell people to write about what they know about. But you don’t have to know about things, you just have to be able to imagine them really well.
The Last Interview
So there you go. You don’t have to ‘write what you know’. Write what you can imagine, and also what you are able to sufficiently and properly research.
Now for some illustrations of boats. I’ve roughly ordered them from cosy to dark. The boat scene can definitely be both!
SR Badmin magazine cover, 1961written by Eudoxie Dupuis and illustrations (here, cover, Newton, Cheops and the monsters before the appearance of man) are signed R. AndréCover illustration for The Maggie B, written and illustrated by Irene Haas (US, ~1930 – 2013) published in 1975 by Margaret K. McElderry BooksClaude Buckle (1905 ~ 1973) 1957 British Railways travel poster illustration to promote rail services to Dunoon, ScotlandGlenvara by Mabel Esther Allan1930 Otto KuebelSt Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls July 1935Chesterfield cigarettes advertisement published in the July 1937 issue of Home Arts Needlecraft magazineȘtefan Popescu (Romanian painter) 1872-1948Frank E. Schoonover, Days Off by Henry Van Dyke Some Remarks on Gulls, 1907Mabel Lucie Attwell – Peter PanAmerican Boy Magazine – May 1936 Hurricane WeatherPan-Am China Clipper 1938 illustration for Cutler-Hammer Magazine by Ben StahlBilly Fishbone And Other Sea Stories by Martin Waddell, Illustrated By Reg Cartwright, Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1994 coverTom Who Was Rachel by J.M. Whitfeld illustrated in colour by N. Tenison 1911 ‘Ned and I … often go to the old house, and bring away things.’Arai Yoshimune (1873-1945) Ferry Boat c. 1910-1930Yoshimune Arai 1873-1945 Fishing BoatThe Digest – Literary Digest – Magazine – July 31st – 1937Charles Pears (1873 – 1958) 1949 British Railways travel poster illustration for Peel Castle, St.Patrick’s Isle, Isle of ManBoaters Rowing on the Yerres by Gustave Caillebotte 1877Row Row Row Your Boat told and illustrated by Iza Trapani1933 Feb AMERICAN BOY Magazine Albin Henning Cover (detail)Stead’s Review Rare Vintage Magazine October 1st, 1921 detail from coverDecember 1936 Yachting magazine cover artVintage 1938 Rockefeller Center Magazine September ‘Full Sail’ Back IssueCover of the August 1931 issue of The American Girl magazine. For all girls – published by the Girl ScoutsAmerican Boy Magazine – March 1930November 1928 Yachting magazineOctober 1928 Yachting magazineSeptember 1928 Yachting magazineLe belle historie que voila by André Hellé. Published c1900, this book contains 6 stories with names such as The Blue Snail or Lost ParadiseAugust 1928 Yachting magazineTravel Magazine February 1937 – Lima Spain Japan WoodblockLotus Lilies (1888) by Charles Courtney Curran (American, 1861–1942)‘The Bears and the Moon’- illustration by Yuri VasnetsovKeep Your Hands Off Eizo UkenWrapper drawing by John Plant, 1957 Three Men In A BoatGo Dog Go P.D. Eastman, 1961William Andrew Pogany (August 24, 1882 – July 30, 1955) was a prolific Hungarian illustrator of children’s and other booksKawase Hasui, Morning at Dotonbori in Osaka, 1933DER SCHATZ AUF DER VOGELINSEL (1956) Karel Zeman (Treasure On Bird Island)DER SCHATZ AUF DER VOGELINSEL (1956) Karel Zeman (Treasure On Bird Island)Fanciful frog limerick with illustration by Edmund DulacHannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (1914 – 1964)Douglas Macpherson (1871 – 1951) April 1912 illustration showing the lowering the lifeboats on the SS Titanic after the liner collided with an iceberg. Original publication from a page of The GraphicEdgar P. Jacobs (1904) 1948 illustration for ′Le Journal de Tintin’Science fiction boat from the 1970sDulac, Venice (The London Illustrated News, 1912)Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (1914 – 1964)Mermaids’ Rock Edward Matthew Hale ca. 1894November 1936 Yachting magazine cover artNew Yorker cover yachts by Garrett PriceHannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (1914 – 1964)‘Mevagissey, Cornwall’, Stanley Royle, oil on canvas, 1960Albert Chevallier Tayler – The Thames at Benson 1912 James Aumonier – Where the Water Lilies Grow William Marshall Brown – At the Water’s EdgeRobert McCloskey yachtWinslow Homer – The CatboatPoster illustrator not found 1930sGeorge Sheridan Knowles – Summer Pleasures on the River 1908Myles Birket Foster – The Ferry boatFrom ‘The Object Lesson’ by Edward Gorey, 1958, Heavens, how dashingHARRY ROUNTREE The butcher the baker the candlestick maker, 1910Illustration from ‘Time was Away’ 1948 by John MintonN. Zeitlin – Tales of the Brothers Grimm Seven Brave Men boatHolling C. Holling. Paddle-to-the-SeaNorman Mills Price (1877 – 1951)Blackpool Illuminations souvenir, published by Saidman Brothers 1953 boatBernadette Watts – The Snow QueenJohn Patience – The Snow QueenLeonid Zolotarev – The Snow QueenMotor Boating June 1922Motor Boating 1932
A fresh wave of loneliness swept over him. He had lost Flag and he had lost his father, too. The gaunt little man he had last seen crouched in pain in the kitchen doorway, calling for help to stand, was a stranger. He pushed out his dug-out and took up his paddle and headed for the open waters. He was out in the world, and it seemed to him that he was alien here, and alone, and that he was being carried away into a void. He paddled for the location where he had seen the steamer pass. Living was no longer the grief behind him, but the anxiety ahead. Leaving the mouth of the creek behind him, he found the wind freshening. Out from the shelter of the land a brisk breeze was blowing. He ignored the gnawing in his belly and paddled desperately. The wind caught the dug-out and slewed it around. He could not keep it headed. The waves were mounting. Their soft lapping changed to a hissing. They began to break over the bow of the canoe. When it swung sideways, they washed in and it tipped and rolled. There was an inch of water across the bottom. There was no vessel of any sort in sight.
He looked back. The shore had receded alarmingly. Ahead of him, the open water seemed to stretch without an end. He turned about in a panic and paddled madly for the shore. It would be best, after all, to go back up the creek and get help from Mis’ Nellie Ginright. It might be better even to walk to Fort Gates and make his way from there. The wind behind him helped him, and it seemed to him that he could feel the north-bound current of the great river. He headed for an opening that must be the end of the Salt Springs run. When he reached it, it was a blind opening in the shore that led only into swamp. The mouth of the run was nowhere to be found.
N.C. Wyeth from The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Published by Scribner’s 1940 Jody Lost, You don’t contract Wyeth for a job without asking him to do clouds.Carl Hollander, The Little Captain, by Paul Biegel, 1969-71Vikings Heading for Land, 1873, by Sir Frank Dicksee (1853- 1928)A Basket in the Reeds, illustrated by H. Hechtkopf, 1966Drift Boat, Eric Ravilious, 1941 with anti-tank defences from WW2 Magazine cover art, System D, Peach To Flambeau, 1925Sophie Anderson – Elaine (The Lily Maid of Astolat) 1870Edmund Blair Leighton – In Time of PerilGeorge Sheridan Knowles, Seeking SanctuaryBLUE BOOK (Bedsheet Size Pulp Magazine). May 1943William Andrew Pogany (August 24, 1882 – July 30, 1955) was a prolific Hungarian illustrator of children’s and other booksAndrew Wyeth (American, 1917 – 2009) Adrift 1982Venice, Full Moon over Santa Maria Salute by Karl Heilmayer (German, 1829–1908)Fishermen at Sea (1796) by J. M. W. Turner (England, 1775–1851)Stanisław Witkiewicz (Polish 1851-1915) Mountain Wind 1895The Boat of Charon (1919) by Jose Benlliure y Gil (Spanish, 1858 – 1937). The ferryman of Hades
Header illustration: William Henry Knight – On the Thames 1859
