A different view

I find the most frustrating thing about writing - apart from all the rejections - are those times when I know what I want to say, but can't find exactly the right words to say it. If I'm lucky, the answer will reveal itself after I've scribbled down and crossed out all the 'wrong' sentences  I can think of, but when I'm completely stuck the best thing is to give up and go and do something else.

Walking is good, so is pottering about in the garden, doing a bit of housework, or anything else that gives my conscious mind something to think about while my subconscious works on the writing problem.

Another trick I've discovered is to switch from writing to another art form. Believe me, after struggling to describe a scene in watercolour, painting it with words is a doddle!

             

 Do you have a favourite activity that helps with your writing?

A little ray of hope

Overheard in the supermarket,

                        Little boy:    Look, Mummy, look!

                        Mum:             Yes, they’re lovely, but I can’t buy one today.

                        Little boy:    But books are GOOD!

I wanted to hug them both when, after a moment’s hesitation, the young mum put a picture book in her trolley.

Amidst all the doom and gloom in the news, it’s good to be reminded that the world hasn’t ended and there is still hope that we can help to make a bright future for younger generations.

* * *

(And because I’m determined to remain cheerful and optimistic, I won’t go into details about the problems I’m having with Blogger removing pictures from my two blogs. If this one or When I am Rich looks strange to you – please believe it’s not my fault!)

Tweet!

I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’ve finally given in and set up a Twitter account. Not sure how much I’ll use it – I’m still at the bottom of the learning curve – but I’ve managed to find some of my blog followers on there and have signed up to follow them (at least I think I have if I clicked on the right buttons!)

If you’re on Twitter and I’ve missed you, do leave your Twitter name in the comments and I’ll follow you.

My Twitter name is @LindaDaunter.

A Riddle

Q. What do you call a very heavy cold combined with hay fever and tinnitus?

A.  Writer’s block.

I’ve been struggling with it for ten days now!

A 'what if ' too many

‘What if ?’ must be the most useful phrase in a fiction writer’s toolkit. It can – and has – sparked all kinds of wonderful stories.

What if a young girl fell down a rabbit hole?

What if someone found a treasure map?

What if two lovers were kept apart by their families?

What if humans could travel to another planet?

But, in real life, it can be a very disturbing question.

We were planning a weekend visit to my 80-year-old aunt who lives in Wales (the other side of the country from us). I knew she wouldn’t be able to put us up overnight so, after checking she hadn’t made any other plans for that weekend, I told her I’d phone again after I’d arranged some accommodation, and tell her what time to expect us.

A few days later, I tried to call her in the early evening but she didn’t answer her phone. I assumed she must have gone out somewhere.

I tried again the next morning. No answer. Oh well, she was probably out shopping.

I called a couple of times in the afternoon. No answer. Perhaps she was in her garden or visiting a neighbour. But when she still wasn’t answering her phone that evening I began to feel uneasy.

I called my sister and asked if she’d heard anything from Auntie. She hadn’t, but said she would try phoning as well. Another day went by with neither of us being able to contact her.

   My mind filled with 'what if ’s'

What if she was ill?

What if she’d had an accident?

What if something had happened to her while she was away from home and no one knew who she was?

What if she’d suffered some kind of memory loss?

What if I couldn’t find out where she was?

What if she’d been kidnapped? Or abducted by aliens? Or …?

    NO! I had to ignore the ‘what if ’s’ and think logically!

The next morning, I called Auntie's doctor (in case she’d been taken into hospital), social services, and then the police. It was both a relief and a huge worry when they said they would send someone to her house straight away.

   There were more ‘what if ’s’ while I waited for news.

What if she didn’t answer the door?

What if the police had to break in?

What if she wasn’t there?

What if they found …?

And then my phone rang. It was Auntie. She was perfectly okay, although she’d been rather shocked when she’d answered a knock on her door and found two police officers there. The reason she hadn’t answered her phone was that she’d accidentally turned down the volume on it, so she hadn’t heard all that frantic ringing. (I’ve made sure she can’t do it again!)

I suppose all those 'what if ’s' might come in useful for future stories, but sometimes I wish I had a switch to turn down the volume on my imagination!

        

Strange times

A conversation I had yesterday:

‘Must remember to alter the clocks tonight.’

‘Ah yes, forwards or backwards?’

‘Forward one hour.’

‘So if I go to bed at eleven, I’ll have to change my bedside clock to twelve.’

‘You don’t have to. It doesn't officially change until two in the morning. But if you don’t, and forget to do it when you wake up, you’ll be an hour behind everyone else tomorrow.’

‘So that means I’ll lose an hour of sleep tonight.’

‘Unless you go to bed at ten.’

‘Good idea. If I go to bed at ten, change the clock to eleven, set the alarm for eight, when it rings it will really only be seven o’ clock. That means I’ll gain an extra hour.’

‘That can’t be right.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because, um, …’

We’ve been changing the clocks twice a year for as long as I can remember, so why does it still seem so complicated?!

Happy Easter

 whatever time it is where you are.

The real life benefits of made-up stories

It seems to me that there are two sorts of people: those who ‘get’ fiction, and those who don’t. While some of us see nothing strange in becoming totally involved with a fictional character who only lives in a novel, play or film, there are others who look on with puzzled frowns.

‘But it’s not real,’ they say. ‘There’s no such place, no such person. Why waste your time on something that’s pure make-believe?’

Here’s one of my reasons …

I was dreading going to the dentist. Over the years, I’ve had enough traumatic experiences connected with my teeth and dentists to fill a non-fiction book, one of those depressing misery memoirs. But, once again, I had a dental problem and knew I'd have to be brave if I wanted to solve it. Delaying a visit would only make matters worse.

My appointment wasn’t until the afternoon so, instead of worrying about it all morning, I tried to distract myself by working on my latest short story. I managed to write a few paragraphs, but the words weren’t flowing and I soon ground to a halt. I knew what had to happen next in the story but I couldn’t find the right way to explain it. After several attempts, I gave up.

In the dentist’s chair, I relaxed physically as much as I could while trying to convince myself that the ordeal would soon be over. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and – there it was! The next sentence in my story. It was perfect. It moved the story on quickly and clearly, exactly as I’d wanted. I ‘wrote’ the next sentence, and the next, repeating them over and over to myself so I wouldn’t forget them. (Yes, I did have a notebook in my bag but I didn’t think the dentist would appreciate me stopping his work so I could get on with mine.)

I can’t truthfully say I was oblivious to what was happening in my mouth, but having something more important to concentrate on certainly lessened the anxiety. I was almost sorry when the treatment was over. Another two minutes and I’d have been writing THE END.

As soon as I was back in the real world of course, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

Do you have any practical uses for fiction?

 

How many blog posts does it take to make a book?

When I reviewed my 2015 goal list I gave myself a little pat on the back. I hadn’t managed to achieve all my targets, but some unexpected successes more than made up for the failures.

But one statistic flummoxed me. I’d signed up to the Goodreads reading challenge and pledged to read 12 books over the year. I was certain I could get through one book a month, and secretly expected to read a lot more. And my grand total?

Only four books? That had to be a mistake. I checked the notebook I use as a reading record and decided I must have forgotten to enter some of my read books. I checked my bookshelves. They were crammed with books I’d read, but my notebook confirmed I’d read all but four in previous years. I remembered giving a bag of books to a charity shop. What were their titles? When had I read them?

It didn’t make sense. I’m reading all the time. Only that morning I’d read a couple of stories in Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special and …

Of course! I’d only counted fiction I’d read in book form. I hadn’t included any non-fiction, individual short stories I’d found in magazines and online, books I’d dipped into but hadn’t read from cover to cover, not to mention all those interesting articles in newspapers and on websites. And as for blogs …! How many thousands, millions, of words had I read on blogs? I’m sure if I’d added them all up they’d be the equivalent of reading War and Peace – at least!

I’ve signed up to the 2016 reading challenge, and have again chosen the modest target of twelve books, but I won’t be surprised or disappointed if I don’t make it. There are just too many reading distractions out there!

Here are two books (both Christmas presents) that I doubt I’ll get through by the end of the year. The last Writers’ & Artists’Yearbook I bought for myself was the 2012 edition, so I’ll be reading the new articles in this year’s edition very carefully, but the listings of publishers, agents, magazines etc. will be dipped into as and when I need them.

The other book, Photocrafty by Sue Venables, offers hours of distracting fun with suggestions for 75 photography projects. Can’t wait to get started on some of them. (Except I’m supposed to be writing – and reading!)      

Have you given yourself any reading challenges this year?

Here we go again

Every day is the first day of the rest of your life. Any day could be the day when everything changes. Any day might be the one on which a new idea, an unexpected opportunity or a chance meeting makes your dreams come true.

So why is the first day of January extra special?

For me, it’s the day when I look back over the previous year, remind myself of the good things that happened, and decide that the not-so-good things were really only minor disappointments and problems that can now be forgotten. It’s the day I stop feeling I’ve failed because I haven’t ticked off every item on my to-do list. I take great pleasure in ripping it up and writing a smaller, more manageable one. It’s the day I open up my new diary and flick through all those lovely, blank pages.

In 2016 there are 366 days of new possibilities!

Ready, steady, go!

Happy New Year!

 

Season’s Greetings!

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

I’m off on my Christmas break now. See you all in the New Year.

Funny how they turn out

Once upon a time, I had a stroppy teenage daughter who refused to learn how to cook.

‘But it’s important you know how to make a few, simple dishes,’ I said. 'How else will you feed yourself when you leave home?’

She just tutted and shrugged. ‘I’m going to be a famous TV presenter. I’ll be eating out in restaurants most of the time.’

And I tutted and shrugged back. ‘Well don’t expect me to send you food parcels!’

Just look at her now. Not only cooking, but blogging about it too!

Home again

Back home from a wonderful holiday in Scotland.

We stayed in this holiday cottage in Forres, Moray (traditional outside, modern and comfortable inside – highly recommended) and went out from there to different places every day. Enjoyed lots of good, top down driving (top down on the car – not husband or me!), stopped to explore towns and villages along the way, and also managed many miles of walking up and down hills, through forests and along beaches.    

Good news – I finally got to see not one, but two red squirrels, although not in the nature reserves where I’d been looking for them.

Bad news – I was so surprised I didn’t reach for my camera until they had scampered out of sight.

Oh well, perhaps next time …

The only squirrel I managed to snap!

My plan to take a break from writing worked for the first five days, but on the sixth morning I woke up with one of those Eureka! moments. I found myself thinking about a story I’d started but then abandoned years ago. I suddenly realised what was wrong with it and how I could change it. I was itching to start writing straight away but I made do with a few scribbled notes and hoped they would still make sense when I got home.

I didn’t write anything else, but I did gather lots of inspiration for stories and articles everywhere we went. Just hope it’s all safely stored somewhere in my cluttered mind.

The first week back home was all a bit of a muddle. Lots to do, but I think I was still in holiday mode so everything felt a bit strange and took longer than it should. More or less settled into my ‘normal’ routine now – I think!

Hope to catch up with you all soon.

Time out

      A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.  (Eugene Ionesco)

Although I agree completely with the above quotation, I’m really going to work hard at taking a two-week break from my writing. See you when I get back!

 * * *

With thanks to a Writing Map where I discovered this quotation. An attractive and useful distraction for anyone interested in writing – or maps.

 (And there’s a clue to where I’m going in these maps)

More animal distractions

It was going to be a day for serious work.

Oodles of doodles

I’d been faffing about for too long planning the next assignment of my children’s book illustration course. Today, I was determined to sit down and do a finished pen and ink drawing of cartoon elephants.

I estimated it would only take a couple of hours, and then I’d have the rest of the day to polish off another chapter of my novel. Easy-peasy!

I set out my drawing materials and realized something was missing. Tea. I needed tea.

On my way back from the kitchen, I happened to glance out of the window – and instantly forgot all my good intentions.

The field opposite our house had just been harvested and there in the middle of it, sitting up in full view, was this beautiful hare.

(If you’ve seen my other blog you’ll know that one of my ambitions is to get a good photo of a hare. I’m lucky enough to live in an area where hares are fairly common, but I usually only catch quick glimpses of them running away into the distance.)

I grabbed my camera and took some shots through the window. To my surprise and delight the hare didn’t move, so I went outside to see if I could get a bit closer. With those big eyes and huge ears, I was sure it had noticed me, but it didn’t seem too concerned. It was definitely looking and listening very intently at something though.

It began to move. A few steps this way, stop, turn, a short run that way, pause … A great photo opportunity for me, but what was it up to? I lowered the camera and saw the bigger picture. Its wanderings weren’t as aimless as they appeared. It was carefully zigzagging across the field, ready to run away at the first hint of danger, but gradually getting closer and closer to the allotments.           

 

A quick dash

Stop, look and listen.

Sneak in here

Now, what's for lunch?

When I came back indoors, my tea was stone cold. Never mind, it was coffee time by then. So I made some coffee and then uploaded my photos onto the computer. I couldn’t wait to see what they were like. (There's one that I'm very pleased about, but I’m not posting it here in case I can use it somewhere else!)

Right, what was I supposed to be doing? Ah, yes, back to the drawing board. Elephants. I had to think about elephants … but while my mind was deciding which would look best, curly elephants or shaggy elephants, my hand was sketching hares. 

Distraction or inspiration?

I met this little chap last weekend …

… and came home with ideas for so many stories!

Not looking!

We all know a watched pot never boils, but far more frustrating is the fact that important email never arrives in your inbox if you keep checking for it.

I’m going away next week (a trip ‘up north’ to visit family) so I’ve been busy this week tidying my writing room, getting rid of clutter, putting papers I want to keep into physical files, reorganizing and backing up computer files, and drastically pruning my to-do lists so I can get off to a fresh start when I come back.

I checked my writing records and realized I haven’t heard anything about five submissions I’ve made: three short stories entered into competitions, a children’s picture book story sent to a publisher, and the first three chapters of a children’s novel with another publisher.

I’m hoping that no response from the publishers might be a good sign – I’m happy for them to take as long as they like – but I'm puzzled as to why the competition results haven't been announced yet. The organizers have had plenty of time to come to a decision.

I will have access to the Internet while I’m away but I’ve decided, no, I’m going to be on holiday. I’m going to resist the temptation to check my emails every day. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that when I get home I might find something interesting amongst all the spam clogging up my inbox!

P.S. Just received a very quick response to a submission I made to Alfie Dog Fiction. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.

Opposites attract

When I first wondered aloud if I could get a story published in a women’s magazine, my husband was completely supportive.

Good idea! Why not? Yes, go for it!

So I did. And when the rejections arrived he was very encouraging.

Never mind, don’t give up. Send it to someone else.

And when I received my first acceptance he seemed as pleased as me.

Well done! I knew you could do it!

But when that first story appeared in print I was puzzled by his non-reaction. He glanced at my name in the magazine when I pointed it out, but he made no attempt to read the story. I was a bit disappointed but assumed he would read it later when he had time to give it his full attention. I left the magazine on the coffee table and waited … and waited …

The same thing happened with my next published story – and the next. He was enthusiastic enough while I was writing and trying to get published, but he clearly wasn’t interested in reading the finished product. I began to suspect that he had secretly read some of my work and didn’t think it was any good. Was he keeping quiet to spare my feelings?

The penny finally dropped one evening when he came home from work and started telling me how he’d solved a problem with some sub-standard concrete. (He was a materials engineer in road construction).

Gosh, that was clever of you! How fascinating! 

I did listen to what he was saying, and tried to nod in the right places, but he might just as well have been speaking double Dutch with a bit of Chinese thrown in.

Then I understood that he had the same problem with my writing. He knew it was important to me, so he tried to take an interest, but he didn’t read fiction of any kind and the world of women’s magazines was completely alien to him. If one of my stories was published that meant it was good, didn’t it? There was nothing else he could say about it.    

When he – very reluctantly – retired, I wondered what he would find to do all day. Would he expect me to retire too, and spend all my time with him? What on earth would we talk about?

I needn’t have worried. Although we’re both at home all day, we still  ‘go to work’ separately. And when we meet up at mealtimes and in the evenings, or agree to take some time off to go for a walk, or to enjoy an outing together, we find plenty to discuss. I tell him about my writing and art, and he explains how he’s helped a friend with a computer problem and spent all morning tinkering with his beloved sports car …

And we both pretend to be really interested, and we both know the other person is just pretending …

But it works. Which is probably why we’ve made it through another year.

Are you and your significant other like peas in a pod, or as different as chalk and cheese?

  

Dream on …

I always feel a bit disappointed if I wake up in the morning and can’t remember my dreams. Aren’t dreams the main reason for sleep? A dreamless night feels like a wasted night.

Mind you, most of the dreams I do recall are of the nonsensical variety. I have no idea where they’ve come from, and I certainly don’t want them to come true.

For example, there was the one in which I was standing on a house roof in the pouring rain. Someone shouted at me to come down but I calmly explained I was testing a new umbrella and the roof was the best place because the rain was harder up there than on the ground. Crazy! In my waking life I don’t like heights, so I’d need a much better reason than umbrella testing to get up on the roof!

In another dream, I had to guide an airplane that was trying to land in a small, suburban garden. Left a bit, right a bit, mind the rose bushes … Luckily, I woke up before the plane reached the ground!

But last night, I had the strangest dream of all. I was sitting in a posh office – lots of wood panelling and shelves of leather-bound books – and someone gave me a document to sign. It was a book-publishing contract. I was just about to sign it when the door was flung open and a man rushed in shouting, ‘Noooo!’ He slammed another document down in front of me and told me it was a contract for the film rights to my story. Book or film? Film or book? I had to choose one or the other – but I was still dithering when I woke up.

I wonder what it meant?

Have you had any good/ weird/ inexplicable dreams lately?

Butterfly alert!

I don’t mean the real butterflies that have made a welcome appearance in the spring sunshine, but those jittery, flittery ones inside me.

And what’s got me all in a tizz?

This.

It’s my first assignment for the Illustrating Children’s Books course that I’m doing with the London Art College. I had to do a double page illustration for the rhyme 'Row, row, row your boat'. I’m enjoying doing all the exercises – and I’m sure I’ve learnt a lot already – but I’m sooo nervous about showing my work to the tutor. 

It’s ridiculous! I know my artwork is far from perfect, that’s why I’m doing this course. I want some professional feedback and advice on how to improve it. There’s no logical reason for this swarm of butterflies, but here they are!

I can’t remember when I last felt like this.

Oh, yes, I can. It was the first time I plucked up the courage to send a little children’s story to a publisher. I had nightmares about them suing me for wasting their time. But that episode resulted in my first publishing acceptance, and those butterflies of apprehension turned into butterflies of excitement. Here’s hoping the same thing happens again.        

What gets your butterflies fluttering?

That was the year that was

The only thing wrong with our holiday in Scotland last year was that it was too short. We wanted to see so many places but only had enough time for brief visits to a handful of them. Even before we packed to go home, we decided to treat ourselves to another holiday there next September.

As we’re barely into spring, I hadn’t thought about looking for accommodation yet, but my husband found a holiday cottage on the Internet that ticked all our boxes and booked it.

So, that’s September sorted.

Thinking about summer reminded me of a summer holiday story I began writing for People’s Friend last year, only to abandon it when I realised I’d left it too late to submit to them. I found the story and dusted it off, but before I set to work to finish it I checked PF’s fiction editor’s blog. Good job I did, because I discovered she was buying summer themed stories back in February and is now looking at autumn/ winter tales.

Plan B – I’m now busy writing a Christmas story. I’ve also made a note in the back of my diary to submit the summer story in January 2016.

How was your 2015?

How far ahead do you plan?