August 4, 2014
Having recently been to Florence, I took the opportunity on a sunny afternoon to sit in the garden and read E. M. Forster's A Room with a View. I watched the film again the night before I went away, and I'm glad to say that it's very faithful to the book. That's quite remarkable, especially for a novel of that period (early 1900s).
Usually, novels have to be pared down for the screen, but Merchant-Ivory's adaptation has kept every character and scene. Practically every line of dialogue in the novel is in the film. Forster has not indulged in any authorial digressions for moralising, he has avoided purple prose descriptions and he has not gone in for stylistic experiments. He could almost have written A Room with a View with film in mind. The result is that the film captures perfectly the spirit of the book, and the book captures perfectly the spirit of Florence.
Here are a few of my favourite quotes:
"Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away, and the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it."
"One doesn't come to Italy for niceness... one comes for life."
"Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of acquiring information, she began to be happy."
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
July 28, 2014
It's been almost too hot to think. It's hard to plot stories or craft beautiful sentences when you're wilting. Not that I'm complaining. Who knows how long the lovely weather will last? I would encourage everyone to avoid spending all day at their computer, if they can. Slap on the suncreen, don your sunglasses and possibly a hat, and set your chair up in a shady spot outside.
You can write just as well with paper and a pencil. Should the piece you intended to work on become a sluggish tri...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
July 20, 2014
Researching a novel can be fun or frustrating, but it's always time consuming and, all too often, the facts that you find the most fascinating never make it into the finished work. That doesn't mean that the hours spent checking websites, hunting out books and talking to experts are wasted.
The more background information you have, the more confidently you can write. You'll know your characters better and won't have to waste time rewriting because you've placed them in impossible situatio...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
July 14, 2014
When you go on holiday, it isn't unusual to see people taking photo after photo, barely taking the time to focus. In fact, they're so intent on getting the shot that they don't even really look at the things they're taking photos of. When they look at them afterwards they probably have trouble remembering that they were there.
Writers are always told to carry a notebook with them, and I second that, but there's a danger of becoming like those photographers. Somehow a balance needs to be found...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
July 5, 2014
There'll be no blog next week. I shall be hard at it carrying out research, interviewing people, trudging around the heart of the city... okay, I'll come clean, I shall actually be eating ice-cream and sampling the local vino. Who could pretend that visiting Florence will be anything other than a joy? However, I shall be taking my notebook and camera and hope to return inspired by acres of art, wonderful architecture and glimpses of characters who could people any number of works of fiction, ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
July 1, 2014
I have a few publication dates coming up for various bits and pieces, so at the risk of jinxing things and causing delays, here they are.
TwictionAddict has four tweets of mine. Two are on the prompt 'collar', due online on 6th and 29th July, and two are on the prompt 'custard' (a subject close to my heart), due online on 9th and 31st August. Read them as they come out, or save them all up for a commercial break or the next time you're waiting at a bus stop.
Alfie Dog Fiction is running...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon
June 23, 2014
In my search for free to enter competitions, I came across The World's Best Birthday Ideas competition for humorous birthday verses. The closing date isn't until 30th June 2014, so there's still time to enter. I did, and you can read my effort at
http://www.great-happy-birthday-ideas.com/made-it.html.
On another subject, my efforts to write in another language have gone off at a tangent. One language doesn't translate exactly to another. If language is an extension of the way people think,...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
June 15, 2014
Strange how those little jobs that you thought would only take a minute or two have a habit of eating up half your day. Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, can be a great help to writers as a means of publishing their work and of keeping up with what else is going on in the 'literary' world, but if you aren't careful, you could find that there's no time left for anything else. Coming up with a strategy to keep them within bounds makes sense.
Be clear what it is that you want to ach...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
June 10, 2014
What makes someone buy a particular book? That's a question I've been asking myself.
Unless I'm looking for a particular author, or a book that's been recommended to me, the first thing I usually look for is the genre. If your book doesn't fit one genre exactly or crosses genres, that could be a problem unless you can persuade the bookseller to display it in both. My novel, Discord's Child, is epic fantasy and although it was written with adults in mind, it's also suitable for young adult...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
June 3, 2014
Struggling to write a letter in German this weekend made me think of Joseph Conrad. The Polish author wrote masterpeices such as Heart of Darkness in English. How wonderful to be able to write so stylishly in a language other than your native one. He is not the only author with extraordinary linguistic ability. Samuel Beckett originally wrote many of his works in French, including the incredible short story, 'Ping'. Viggo Mortensen, probably best known as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, is ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics
