March 2, 2016
It took more hours than I care to admit and my jaw still aches from gritting my teeth, but I've done it! I've fought my way through a first draft of the story that didn't want to be written. It isn't fit for anyone else to read at present, but at least I have something I can work on and shape. If I had given up, I'd have nothing. Sometimes all you can do is plod on.
When you're struggling through a patch when it's tough to find the right words–or any words, for that matter–it's all too easy to doubt yourself. Why put yourself through the agony, when the story's probably rubbish, you're a rotten writer, in fact, you're pretty useless all round? When an attack of self-ridicule hits you, counter the negative thoughts with memories of your successes. You may think if you have yet to be published that you haven't had any, but you're mistaken. Here are a few of the things you might not have considered: meeting a deadline; writing something that fits a theme' getting an idea while you were walking the dog/having a bath etc.; resisting the urge to check your emails again and writing an interesting sentence–write enough interesting sentences and eventually you'll find a way to join them into a bigger work, or you could use them as tweets.
Prepare for the hard times by saving positive comments on your work and making a list of what you've already written. Take heart from the fact that everyone struggles from time to time. Everyone receives unhelpful criticism; everyone looks at other people's work and feels inadequate; everyone has days when the task seems impossible. Don't let it stop you. If you persist, you're entitled to call yourself a successful writer.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
February 22, 2016
There's a story I want to write. I know the plot, I know the main sequence of events and necessary scenes, I know the characters and I have a deadline. I want to write it, really I do. So why do I have this urge to turn on the television? It will only irritate me and I know I won't write if it's on. Perhaps I should make another cup of coffee or check my emails again or do the ironing first, so the knowledge that a pile of crumpled laundry is waiting for me won't put me off. I even started wr...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
February 15, 2016
Editing your own work is one of the hardest parts of writing. The trouble is, you know the story, so it's hard to tell whether you've given the reader insufficient detail or too much. Asking someone else to read it is always a good idea–preferably more than one person. Failing that, put it aside for a few weeks, if possible, so you can come back to it fresh.
There are various 'rules' to stop your work being slow, which is usually taken to mean 'boring'. Generally, writers are told to cut...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
February 7, 2016
I'm not celebrating anyone's birthday (best wishes if it's yours), but those books, films and television programmes you can read or watch time and time again.
There are now TV channels that repeat series on a rolling basis. As soon as they come to the end, they begin again. I suppose people find them comforting in a way, much as the shipping forecast is. They offer a kind of stability. It's comforting to know that somewhere on the television there'll always be an episode of Midsomer Murder...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
January 25, 2016
I don't want to worry anyone, but there are only another 11 months until Christmas. That means I've already had one twelfth of the available time to achieve what I want to in 2016. As ever, time's going faster and things are taking longer than I anticipated.
One thing that has been frustratingly slow is keying in a TV screenplay. I was using a template from the BBC's Writers' Room website and had expected to zip through it. Using a template or setting up styles are well worth the small ini...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 18, 2016
One of my friends is on an extended stay in New Zealand at the moment. Usually, she's only on the other side of the country, but even then we write letters to each other. Thanks to modern technology it's possible to have instant communication with people on the other side of the globe. If she had Skype where she's staying, we could even see each other. That's great but it's ephemeral.
There's something about receiving a letter that's special. You have a real physical connection to the send...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 12, 2016
I treated myself yesterday. I showed no self-restraint at all. I binged on mini-stories in the Binnacle 12th Annual Ultra-short Edition 2015. My intention was to eke them out, to save them as a little pick-me-up whenever I needed something more substantial than a tweet but not demanding the time commitment of a short story.
Of course, I was curious to read the winning entries and find out how 'Harvest-time', my Editor's Pick entry, measured up, but I already knew from previous years that t...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
January 3, 2016
Happy New Year! Welcome to my first blog of 2016.
One of my favourite television dramas in the run-up to Christmas was series three of The Bridge. Everything about it was excellent–the performances, the lighting, and particularly the script, which was full of twists and turns that kept the viewers guessing, and taut dialogue. No doubt the writing was top notch in this and other Scandinavian crime novels and series, but does this alone account for the explosion in their popularity? Do all...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
December 20, 2015
It's been a while since I took a look around the new markets and free competitions, so it's high time I did a round-up. What follows is a mixed bag of creative non-fiction, travel writing, plays, novels and themed science fiction. Check out all of them, because even if a genre isn't normally your thing, you might just find something that sparks your creative instincts and gives your brain a work-out while you're digesting the Christmas dinner. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
* If you'...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
December 14, 2015
Following the excitement of last week's performance of my one-act play, Antarctica, I have some more good news to report: I have a feature in the January issue of Writing Magazine. It covers ways in which you can break the accepted rules of writing successfully.
Anyone who knows my attitude to misplaced apostrophes and similar slips might think this makes me a hypocrite, but I assure you I'm not advocating sloppiness or turning into a grammar rebel. For proof, I'm afraid you'll have to get...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
