Apparently I’ve done it again
I’ve won one of Jodi Taylor’s writing competitions.

I don’t really have anything useful in terms of stats or explanation and being a writer I’m craving that information, but it isn’t available. It’s reader voted, so at some point people read it, liked it enough and that was that. I strongly suspect it was either the leaf blower and the unfortunate incident with a Roman guards tunic, or the inflatable flamingos. Both absurd but easy to imagine I think.

This one’s called Boudicca’s Breeze. And follows just months after The Sands Of Time was published so this is going well, I would say. The brief was short, an historical event, a ridiculous item and the line ‘It was not my fault’. This is following the idea of a St Mary’s Incident Report, a common requirement in the St Mary’s World.

I have long had a fondness for Boudicca after, I think, something from the Wide Reading Range at primary school. She seemed to me to be the original blueprint for a woman doing it her way. And somewhere in the mix I learned about the phrase “the sublime to the ridiculous”, that high contrast in a moment or an event. And this was the perfect opportunity to exploit that concept and have fun doing so.
Boudicca at a very serious moment in the history of the Roman Empire should absolutely not encounter something modern or absurd. But this is the beauty of Jodi Taylor’s books, it does become absurd and it’s funny.

In each step of the story there is the plausibility factor, how this could have come to happen. How it makes sense if you think about it. There’s a logical process of events. Well, as far as logic goes in a time travelling historical exploration scenario.

Yet here, after the crafting and building there’s an outcome and I’m so pleased. I’m always slightly wary of talking about wins because most of writing isn’t this. Every time I’m published in any way it’s a win. It always has been. But there can only be one winner which rather spoils the nature of writing which is about creating, sharing, working, devising, crafting, understanding and producing and without gain or recognition mostly. But twice feels… worth celebrating. Quietly, here at home, on the sofa. With the inevitable cup of tea.

The story’s over on Jodi Taylor’s site here: https://www.joditaylorbooks.com/p/st-marys-institute-of-historical-0e2

I won’t put the whole thing here because it properly lives there, but this is the gist:

Jump Directive Summary
Jump RB/60–2A was authorised as a brief observational visit to the Iceni uprising under Boudicca. The intention was to verify troop organisation shortly before the destruction of Camulodunum (modern Colchester) and to settle, once and for all, if Tacitus exaggerated the theatricality of the opening moments of the rebellion.I’m pleased to say that for approximately ten minutes the mission proceeded in an orderly and historically productive fashion.After that, Boudicca briefly took possession of a leaf blower.This was not my fault.

If you read it, I hope it makes you smile. That was the aim.