Dates for Your Diary

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 a series of author responses to its questionnaire–a kind of online interview–on Alfie Dog Bites. Mine should go live on 10th August.
    The dates have yet to be confirmed for three other pieces of my work. My feature about 'Ping' by Samuel Beckett, which was entered in Threshold's recent contest for its Author Profiles and 'We Recommend...' sections, has been chosen to appear on the site. Without being sycophantic, I can recommend Thresholds for readers and writers who love short stories. The site covers famous authors and little known gems, classics and contemporary masterpieces. It's knowledgeable without being heavy-going. I'll put an update on the website as soon as I have a date for my piece to join its ranks, as I will when I have a date for the publication of 'The Adult Prodigy' in Nameless Magazine, which I believe should be in the autumn 2014. Lastly, my entry 'Reflections' in The  Binnacle Ultra-Short Competition has been chosen for the anthology which should be published towards the end of the year–fingers crossed  and all being well, barring accidents...

Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon 

 

Bits and Bobs

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 

 

Time-wasters

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.

 

Temptation

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.

 

Bilingual

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 

 

Important Omissions

May 26, 2014
Recently, I gave links to a few free competitions, but there was one I forgot to mention: Spinetinglers. I was reminded of this in the nicest way possible–by winning! My SF story, 'No Good Deed', is already on their website at http://www.spinetinglers.co.uk and is due to appear in their print anthology. Don't worry that my omission means that you've missed your chance to enter, as Spintinglers runs a short story competition every month with prizes of £100 for first, £50 for second and thr...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions 

 

Numbers Count

May 18, 2014
Sonnets have 14 lines, tweets are allowed up to 140 characters, most story contests have a maximum and sometimes a minimum word count. What they all have in common is that they offer the writer a certain amount of leeway as to exactly how many words to use. An exception is the drabble. This must have exactly 100 words excluding the title. Easy to get spot on, even if you have to count them manually–at least that's what I thought until I tried submitting some this week and discovered that my...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

Stop Struggling

May 12, 2014
There are many writing competitions around and it would be great to enter them all, but apart from the difficulty of coming up with work of a high enough standard, all those entry fees add up. Sadly, not all prizes reflect the amount of the entry fee either. Sometimes the only prize offered is publication, which is great if all you want is the exposure, but most writers need to earn to eat. Entrants are also, in effect, paying to be published. They might be better off self-publishing on Kindl...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions 

 

Awkward Characters

April 27, 2014
Discord's Apprentice was steaming along nicely this week, but then it got hijacked by one of the characters. I don't know where she came from and I'm not at all sure she should be allowed to stay. What's more, I'm not even sure whose side she's on. Now, she's painted herself into a corner, and I can't see yet how to get her out.
    No doubt, I shall have to backtrack. It could be that if I try thinking myself into another character, I'll find a more logical way for the story to progress. It c...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction 

 

Simply Complicated

April 20, 2014
With regard to writing sentences, Mark Twain said: "At times he [the author] may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions in its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won't be a sea-serpent with half its arches under the water; it will be a torchlight procession."
    As soon as I read that I felt an urge to check my sentences. Have I indulged in parenthetical loops? Do I use lots of subordinate clau...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics 

 
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About Me


My writing career began as a freelance feature writer for the local press, businesses and organisations. Now a prize-winning playwright and short story writer, my work has appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic. I write as K. S. Dearsley because it saves having to keep repeating my forename, and specialise in fantasy and other speculative genres.

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