Susan Mansfield introduces the first set of winning entries from the Inspired? – Get Writing! contest in association with the NGS

IT'S hard to leave a great art gallery and not feel inspired. That's the simple idea which led five years ago to the founding of Inspired? – Get Writing! the creative writing competition based around the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Organised by the NGS in partnership with educational charity the English-Speaking Union and the Scottish Poetry Library, the competition has gone from strength to strength. Primary schoolchildren and established writers alike have been inspired by the works in the NGS collection – and have got writing.

Every year, we on the judging panel are surprised by the range of works which inspire the entries, from El Greco to Joan Eardley. Even when two people choose the same work, what they do with it is totally different.

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And someone – often searching the collection online – always manages to find an image which is new even to us.

Today and tomorrow, The Scotsman – the competition's media partner – will publish the winning entries in each of the five categories: Under 12, 12-15, 16-18, published adults and unpublished adults. Each stands out for different reasons: subtlety, originality, sheer inventiveness with language. So be inspired and look out for the launch of next year's competition in the autumn, so you can get writing yourself.

Inspired? Get writing! winners 2010

CATEGORY A under 12 years

Winner: Jamie Arnaud, Perth

Runners-up: Jessica Mustard, Perth; Yevgenya Morrison-Ignatieff, Perth

Special Merit: Chlo Thorburn, Edinburgh; Lucy Middleton, Fife; Ellen Woodhouse, Penicuik, Midlothian; Sophie Brown, Edinburgh; Eilidh Macmillan, Isle of Islay; Marge Urquhart, Edinburgh; Charles Francis, Glasgow

CATEGORY B, 12-15 years

Winner: Annie Forbes, Edinburgh

Runners-up: Niamh Francis, Edinburgh; Annie Forbes Edinburgh

Special Merit: Tommy Pia, Edinburgh; James Gao, Edinburgh; Rosie Sumner, Edinburgh; Aidan Johnson, Edinburgh; Jessamy Cowie, Nairn; Lauren Gage, Edinburgh; Saskia Cooper, Kilmacolm

CATEGORY C, 16-18 years

Winner: Darcy Carson, Dumfries and Galloway

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Runners-up: Ellen Kendrick, Edinburgh; Zoe Storrie, Dumfries and Galloway

Special Merit: Andrew Murray Danet, Alness, Ross-shire; Calista Winstanley, Edinburgh; Darcy Carson, Dumfries and Galloway; Naomi Temple, Dumfries; Charlotte Singleton, Dumfries

CATEGORY D, unpublished adults

Winner: Laura Helyer, Dumfries

Runners-up: Philip Murnin, Glasgow; Laura Helyer, Dumfries

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Special Merit: Paul McQuade, Edinburgh; George McGilvray Wilson, Edinburgh; Judith Stewart, Haddington; Tony Garner, Edinburgh; Nicola Murray, Edinburgh; Andrew Campbell-Kearsey, Brighton; Linda Burns, Edinburgh

CATEGORY E, published adults

Winner: Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown, Cambridge

Runners-up: Heather Reid, Abernethy, Perthshire; Andy Jackson, Fife

Special Merit: Kirstin Zhang, Inverclyde; Helen Lawrenson, Newport-on-Tay, Fife; Carey Morning, Edinburgh; Rafael Torrubia, Penicuik; Lesley Harrison, Orkney; Allan Crosbie, Edinburgh; Jean Taylor, Edinburgh

Cat E, published adults

WINNER: Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown

TITLE: Imagine you are driving

INSPIRED BY: Imagine you are driving by Julian Opie

Imagine you are driving

I STARTED out with the others on a boat from Kismayo. They are gone and my family is gone and now I am on a bus in England with children like me. The bus goes where it goes without slowing. There are no checkpoints, no barricades. No-one tries to stop us or climbs on board with a bomb. The driver will not be beaten with sticks or made to dance before he is shot. At night, we drive with many lights and all our driver wants to do is sing. He leans across and turns up the radio. Papapapapapapokafay, papapapapapapokafay, he sings, louder each time, and rests a hand on his leg.

Outside, the sky is dark and the road is black. I sink lower in my seat. I cannot stop shaking.

The children like me they call unacompanee. They put me next to a small boy but he looked at me as if I had snakes in my pockets and cried so hard that they had to move him. Now one of the uniforms sits with me instead. It is not good to stare but his skin is strange. He is hairy and heavy, but not strong. My Commander was not fat. His arms were not soft. He had food for me until he didn't and anyway his dogs could not stand by then and they had no strength left to bark.

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This day there has been more rain than could fill the well. "Allahu Akbar," I say and the uniform stabs a finger at me and says, "No funny business." He looks at me and repeats this more slowly, like it's a command, "No funny business, you hear?"

I say, "No, boss," and he folds his arms and closes his eyes. I watch him. He pretends to sleep. The bus drives on and the rain falls.

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"Boss," I say, but his eyes stay shut. It is not wise to shake a uniform. In the end I have no choice. I wet myself.

He tells the driver to stop at the next services, and the bus pulls in by a red and yellow sign that is as tall as a palm tree. "Mistermacdonal!" a child cries out as the deep red light moves across each of us in turn.

We press our cheeks up against the glass and then turn to each other, our open mouths a line of amazed circles. Then the light goes and the shadow pulls a black hood over us one by one.

"Filthy," the man says as he scrubs my seat. "Five minutes," he tells the driver and marches me off the bus. "Boss," I say and I tug on his sleeve. I point to a sign where the bus had turned.

He jerks his arm free. "Immigration Reception Centre. Fifteen miles. Not far." He walks away, and then calls back over his shoulder, "Oi! This way."

Outside the toilet there is a small, dark space with tall machines and bright lights. One man holds on to a machine. He holds it as if it is his. He has a hand either side, at hip height, and presses the buttons hard. Something catches the uniform's eye. He pushes me towards the toilet and says, "Get changed, then straight back."

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After I change and wash my hands I come back out and he is sitting in front of one of the machines. I watch him, and press my cheek against the cold, black surface. He stares at the TV in the machine and pushes a coin into a slot with his thumb. The picture jumps then starts to move, opening up a wide road. It is confusing.

The white lines in the centre move towards me but the lines at the sides move away. He rests his hands on a wheel and drives. The corners are long and sometimes sharp and he drives faster and faster and he does not blink or smile. He says, "Haven't done this in years."

I don't have the words for what I want to say to him.

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The machine clicks and the road disappears and he sits there. "I wonder where it goes?" he says after a while. I shrug.

"You ever had a go with one of these?" he asks as he levers himself out of the seat. He digs in one pocket. "Here. Imagine you are driving…" and he pushes me with a nudge towards the machine, his other hand is open and inviting. As I lower myself onto the seat, he drops a coin into the slot and I hold the wheel. The road flickers before me and starts to curve and the curve goes on and on and is long and black and the sky is blue and clear like the sky above Mogadishu.

"Where are you driving?" he asks.

The first word in my head is the wrong word. I turn a tight corner with a flick of the wheel and then turn in the opposite direction. My heart beats faster. "New York," I say.

He thinks this is funny and laughs.

"New York," I repeat and I grip the wheel tighter.

For a while we both stare at the screen as if expecting New York to appear around the next bend. Then he looks at his watch. "That's it. Time's up."

I shake my head.

"The road goes wherever you want it to, kid," he says.

Does he think I am stupid? I know it goes nowhere other than the back of the machine and behind that there's not even space for me to squeeze in.

"Out," he says. He pulls me so hard that my arms go up and bend back behind my head. As he drags me away I see the wheel spin out of control. The road does not care. It curves and curves and moves on without me.

Darcy Carson: Wallace Hall Academy

TITLE: Have You Been Crying?

INSPIRED BY: Edvard Munch, The Sick Girl

Have You Been Crying?

Ribena stained sheets

Is she thinking?

Her eyelids let in no light

Is she looking?

Watching her fall

Like ringlets and curls

Watching her fall.

Ears are cold and blue

Is she listening?

I tell her about the Frisbee,

and the time the bees stung our legs,

and hot dinners in the half light,

and the sea

and

can she hear?

Watching her fall

Like ringlets and curls

Watching her fall.

Long eyelashes shimmering

Is she breathing?

Hands holding each other

Have you been crying?

Watching her fall

Like ringlets and curls

Watching her fall.

Watching her fall

Like ringlets and curls

Watching her fall.

WINNER: Laura Helyer: Dumfries

TITLE: Joan Among Nets

INSPIRED BY: Joan Eardley archive material

Joan Among Nets

The blue boat was our escape.

See how it ran and ran into the sleek, green sea.

We did not have to push, or spade the waves.

The foam, spray, the rush – zinc white,

the cottages tipping the cliff,

chops of boulder clay – red ochre,

vermilion fields of valved earth,

heavy slates of weather, a continent of cloud.

***

The slubbed nets haired the depths.

I wanted their slim, free bodies

hooked to a line of sun.

Flicker and twist, a meeting of eyes,

flicker, and then nothing.

Bottle-green, royal blue.

Deep, calmed silence.

Your breath; mine.

***

Tonight I will hold you again

stickered with fish scales,

sequin kisses I call them,

shining your skin, your hair

the flavour of old ocean and love,

sung on my tongue.