Linda Daunter, writer
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Welcome to my Jottings - a place for random thoughts about this, that, and anything else that catches my attention. Come in, sit down, and make yourself at home. And if you have a blog of your own, don't forget to leave the address in the comments so I can return the visit.

Questions, questions ...

22/12/2019

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​Not sure if Fashion Circles is the kind of book you’d enjoy? Wondering if it would make a suitable present for that difficult-to-buy-for person on your Christmas list? Here’s a short question and answer session to explain a little more about it.

Q.  Fashion Circles. What’s it about then?
A.  It’s my collection of 13 short stories all connected in some way with the clothes people wear, styles they adopt, or fashions they follow.
 
Q.  So why did you choose that theme?
A.  It happened by accident. The title story began as an account of a real-life shopping trip I’d taken with my then teenage daughter. The trip had ended with her declaring she would never buy clothes with me again because I was so embarrassing. My crime? I’d merely pointed out that all her favourite ‘latest fashions’ were very similar to things I’d worn at her age!
      To save her even more embarrassment, I rewrote the story from a different point of view and with older characters. It sparked other fashion related memories and I soon realised they’d given me enough story prompts to fill a book.

 
Q.  Does that mean all these stories are true?
A.  Not exactly. The ideas behind most of them have come from situations I’ve experienced or witnessed, but the characters and storylines are pure fiction.
 
Q.   Can you give an example?

A.   One of the stories, A Perfect Match, begins with 17 year-old Wendy  looking for a pair of green shoes. The inspiration for it was the time a friend of mine set her heart on having some green shoes and dragged me along to every shoe shop in town to help her in her quest. My friend never did find her dream shoes, but I gave them to Wendy – and they led her to something she hadn’t expected.
 
Q.   Would you call the stories chick-lit? Are they all about young women?
A.   Not at all. My characters include men and women of all ages, and one tale is about children.
 
Q.   And what about your personal fashion choices? What do you wear when you’re writing?
A.   I wish you hadn’t asked! I’d like to say I waft about in silk kaftans whilst communing with my muse, but I mostly live in jeans paired with t-shirts or jumpers depending on the weather. I do make more of an effort when I go out in public, but I prefer comfortable rather than trendsetting.
 
Q.   Where can I find out more about Fashion Circles?

A.   Just click on this link: https://books2read.com/FashionCircles  It will show you all the places where you can buy the eBook edition in different formats. If you’d prefer a paperback, click the Kindle option to go to Amazon. Most of these outlets allow you to ‘Look Inside’ or download a preview before deciding if you want to buy.
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Happy (something) anniversary to us …

14/6/2019

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No, of course I didn’t forget our wedding anniversary. Yes, I did have to do a quick bit of mental arithmetic to work out what number it was! But who’s counting? The important thing is that we’re still together – and still want to be.
 
The secret of a happy marriage? I don’t consider myself an expert, but I’m sure tolerance and not having unrealistic expectations of the other person play a big part. 
 
Here’s a slightly edited version of a post I wrote on the subject for my old blog. It’s still true today. 

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Opposites attract


When I first tried to 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 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 about me writing, but clearly wasn’t interested in reading the finished product. I began to suspect 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 as well have been speaking double Dutch with a bit of Chinese thrown in. 
 
It was only then that I understood he had the same problem with my writing. He knew it was important to me, so tried to take an interest, but he rarely read fiction of any kind and the world of women’s magazines was completely alien to him. If a magazine accepted one of my stories that proved it was good, didn’t it? There was nothing else he could say.     
 
When he – very reluctantly – retired, I wondered what he would do all day. Would he expect me to retire too, and spend all my time with him? What on earth would we find to 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 we have plenty to discuss. I tell him how my writing or art is progressing, and he explains how he helped a friend with their computer problem or spent all afternoon tinkering with his beloved sports car.
 
He does know more about writing now (he’s even read some of my stories!) and I’ve learnt at least the basics of how computer viruses and car engines work, but the main thing we have in common is that we’re both happy knowing the other person is happy doing their own thing. 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?
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Daffodils - and that poem

27/4/2019

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If I ever had to draw up a list of my favourite flowers I suppose daffodils would be near the top of it. I love them all, from the dainty miniatures to the showy doubles. They’re easy to grow and always look so cheerful, especially the first ones that suddenly appear on a cold, wet, or even snowy day when you’re thinking winter is never going to end. Not only are they capable of blooming in the changeable season we call the British spring, but they seem to positively revel in the worst of the March winds and April showers. At the other extreme, they can also shrug off an Easter heatwave like the one we’ve just experienced.

​Of course most of the daffs in today’s gardens, parks and roadside verges are cultivated varieties, but there are still wild ones to be enjoyed if you know where to look. You’ll find a few suggestions by clicking here.
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And talking of wild daffodils – is there anyone reading this who doesn’t know that famous poem about them? The one inspired by a ramble in the English Lake District? I’ve heard it’s greatly admired by many people, and I’m sure it is a perfectly good poem, but hearing just the first line of it makes me want to clamp my hands over my ears and scream ‘Noooooo!’

Let me explain ...

​In the Grammar School for Girls that was old-fashioned even in those far off days, I was ‘taught’ poetry by committing random chunks of it to memory. 
 
Each week, my class was given a poem to learn. The following week, to prove we’d done our homework, we had to write the poem in our English exercise books. So far, so good. At that age I was capable of memorising all sorts of information: lists of French verbs, chemical symbols, the dates of kings and queens … Compared with some of those, learning a poem was fairly easy, especially if it rhymed.
 
The difficult part wasn’t learning the words, but all those other tricky bits our teacher insisted were important. When she marked the written poems she deducted points for incorrect spellings, missing commas, a lower case letter where the poet had used a capital, and so on.
 
Well, if that’s what she wanted there was only one way to please her.
 
It was springtime so what more appropriate poem could she set for us than that daffodil one by William Wordsworth? 
 
I set to work and learned:
capital I wandered lonely as a cloud new line capital T that floats on high o apostrophe e r vales and hills comma new line capital W when all at once I saw a crowd comma new line capital A host comma of golden daffodils semi-colon new line capital B beside the lake comma beneath the trees comma new line capital F fluttering and dancing in the breeze full stop
Yes, I was awarded top marks for that one, and can still recite it today, but the poetry? What poetry? I didn’t start to discover that until many years later. 
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​Have you ever learned poetry by heart? Was it a pleasure, or a pain?
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A quick update

30/1/2019

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A very belated Happy New Year to you!
Yes, I know I should have posted this nearly a whole month ago but I’ve had lots of other demands on my time - mostly good, exciting things I’m happy to report.
 
In the real world, husband and I have been busy ticking off items on our ideal home and garden wish list. So far we’ve got a lovely, new kitchen, have redecorated some of the other rooms, put lots of shelves in the garage for ‘his’ workshop, added a small greenhouse and shed to ‘my’ back garden, and re-designed the front garden. Still lots to do but we aren’t giving ourselves any deadlines. 
 
It hasn’t been all work. We’ve also allowed ourselves plenty of days off to explore some of the towns, villages and beautiful countryside in this part of the world.
 
In my writing life, I decided to have a go at NaNoWriMo in November after giving it a miss for the past three years. As expected, I didn’t manage anything near the magic 50,000 words target but I did end up with some interesting new characters and a very rough outline of a story that might have the makings of a novella, so I’m hoping it wasn’t a completely wasted month of frantically scribbling nonsense.
 
2018 ended on an encouraging note with one of my short stories being long-listed for the Bedford Writing Competition. It’s one I’m particularly fond of so I gave it a few little tweaks and sent it straight off to another competition. Fingers crossed again!

I’ve also dusted off an abandoned children’s novel, decided it’s not all as bad as I thought, and have nearly finished a revised first draft. It still needs some ruthless editing before I even think of showing it to anyone, but I’m quietly pleased with it – so far.   
 
And this year?
 
Lots of things I would like to do but my only firm New Year resolution is not to have an impossibly long to-do list. It's too stressful! Instead, I’ve adopted a new motto:
                               Let’s just see what happens, shall we?
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This book will not change your life

30/5/2018

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How do you write a book cover blurb? When I needed one for Fashion Circles I made the mistake of looking through my bookshelves for inspiration - and cringed at some of the exaggerated claims I found there.

This book will make you laugh and cry, one novel promised. Really? I remembered some amusing scenes that might have raised a smile but I hadn’t shed a single tear.

A crime story assured me it would keep me guessing right to the last devious twist, so how had I managed to work out whodunnit by the end of the third chapter? Historical sagas would sweep me away (they didn’t), every thriller was terrifying (nope), and as for the sensational masterpiece by a famous author - well, I’d found it so boring that I gave up halfway through.


Of course I want people to read my little book, but how to attract readers without actually lying to them? My first attempt at an honest blurb went something like this:

This book will not change your life. It won’t be the most astonishing thing you’ll read this year or even this week. It hasn’t been praised by important literary magazines or become required reading in schools. It is not endorsed by celebrities or, indeed, by anyone at all. (My nearest and dearest say they like it but I’m not sure if they’re just being kind.) If you do read it I hope you’ll find at least some of the stories entertaining, but please accept my apologies in advance if you think it’s all rubbish.

That’s not going to sell many copies, is it?

In the end I decided not to make any claims - false or modest - about the quality of the book. Instead, I tried to give a  rough idea of what the stories are about so potential readers can decide if they're the kind of tales they might like.


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All I have to do now is wait and see if it works.

                     What’s the most outrageous book blurb you’ve ever read?
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