Island by Nicky Singer

A new book is always a treat, but I was more than usually pleased to receive this one ...

  ... especially when I looked inside.



When I came across Nicky’s story about Island on the Notes from the Slushpile blog several months ago, I went into full Victor Meldrew mode.

 I don’t believe it!

Nicky Singer is a successful author with novels for adults and children published by mainstream publishers. She was commissioned to write a stage play for the National Theatre and came up with the idea for Island. The play was produced at the Cottesloe Theatre (now known as the Dorfman Theatre), was also taken on a tour of London schools, and received very good reviews.

After the play finished, Nicky decided to turn Island into a novel in the hope of spreading the story to a wider audience. But when she presented it to her publishers they said – No. Their reason for rejection? They thought the novel was ‘too quiet’ and ‘too literary’.

Fortunately, Nicky thought there might be some people ‘out there’ who like quiet, literary books. And she was right. She set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to publish Island, and I was just one of 100’s of people who were happy to be able to help. (One of the other helpers was the Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell, who offered to supply the illustrations for the book.) I think we all gave a great, big cheer when Nicky announced she had reached her target and Island was going to be published.       

Island will be officially launched on 6^th November. Do look out for it!

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!

I’m a dot com

Well, that’s not strictly true …

 I’m actually a dot uk.

www.linda-daunter.uk

That’s right, folks, I finally have a website. I began one with Weebly way back in 2012, but I didn’t make it public then because I didn’t think it would be of the slightest interest to anyone else.

There’s not a great deal on it now but, looking ahead to the day when I send out my completed (and utterly brilliant) novel, I thought it would seem more professional to add a link to my website rather than a link to my blog.

(There are links to my blogs from the website of course, but I’m hoping I’ll make such a good first impression that a busy editor or agent won’t bother to delve too deeply …☺)

Anyway, on the subject of good impressions, if you can spare a few minutes to take a look at the site and you notice a spelling mistake or a sentence that doesn't make sense – please let me know! I've checked it about a zillion times but I have a horrible feeling I might have missed something. I promise I won’t be offended and I’ll gladly return the favour if you want me to check your website or blog.

Tricks - and a treat!

I was, of course, very pleased when my short story Tricks of the Trade was accepted for publication as an Alfie Dog Fiction ebook. But the thing that had me jigging with joy was this comment about the story from the person behind Alfie Dog, Rosemary Kind:

'I didn't work out the ending in advance which always tells me it's a good twist.'

For a writer, the trickiest thing about a twist in the tale story is that you know what the twist is going to be right from the start. It’s very difficult – if not impossible – to judge if a reader will guess the ending too soon, or will find the twist too contrived.

With Alfie Dog now offering over 1,700 short stories, I thought Rosemary must know every trick in the book when it comes to twisty tales, so I was very surprised that I’d managed to surprise her!

If you want to try surprising the Alfie Dog editors, and win £200 plus the opportunity to have a story collection published, you’ve got until 30th September to enter their 2015 short story competition. Click here for full details.