November 17, 2013
If you want to be taken seriously as a writer, you need to act like an author. That doesn't mean donning a cravat or reciting poetry in the pub when you've had a few. It means having the attitude of a writer. If you don't value what you do and believe it's a justifiable occupation, no one else is going to. Drop your writing every time someone wants a chat on the phone or wants your help with their pet project, and not only will you never finish it, but everyone will regard what you do as 'a nice little interest'–something that's of little importance, even to you.
When people ask what you do, say: "I'm a writer (or author)" and if they ask if you've had anything published, don't be embarrassed if you haven't. Once, a friend introduced me to a leading light of a local amateur dramatic society she belonged to as having had 'a couple of stories published'. The response was: "In anything I might have heard of?" Miaow! I wasn't quick enough to reply: "That depends on how well-read you are", but that's the attitude I should have had. As for having 'a couple' of stories published? That's 60 plus, thank you.
No one asks people who draw or paint if they've sold any of their work or exhibited it. They respect that it's a worthwhile activity in itself that not everyone can do well, and that needs to be worked at. So is writing. It isn't something you need to apologise for. It shows that you have good organisational skills, determination and above all, imagination.
Albert Einstein said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Hear! Hear!
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
November 3, 2013
Mud, mud, glorious mud... whatever Flanders and Swann sang about mud, it isn't all that glorious when your characters have been ankle deep in it for days only to get even more seriously bogged down in a city full of potential enemies. The trouble is, I thought I knew exactly how they were going to get out of this fix until I came to write it and realised that it simply wouldn't work. So much for plotting in advance! It looks as if I might have to backtrack, and get them all wading through the...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
October 27, 2013
With the clocks changing and the weather forecasters predicting floods and hurricane-strength winds tonight, perhaps this is a good time to prepare for a night indoors.
I could settle in front of the television to watch a film and call it research. Or I could read a book–ditto. Or I could sharpen my pencil, sort out a pad of paper and write about the storm. How will the wind sound? Will it whistle down the chimney? Will the rain rattle on the door trying to get in? Will the trees thrash abo...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
October 21, 2013
Why do writers procrastinate? Presumably we're all writers because we enjoy writing or derive some satisfaction from it (if not an income). Why is it, then, that most of us would rather bath the dog than settle down and get on with it?
My own delaying tactics include everything from sharpening the pencil, making coffee, remembering that the veggies for dinner need peeling and discovering that an essential piece of information requires an hour of research on the internet, to sorting out the co...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
October 14, 2013
I've been asked to give a talk about writing to 11 and 12-year-old members of a local school's book club. I'm honoured and terrified. What can I possibly say that will interest them? It's a long time since I was that age–perhaps they'll be interested in what I was reading then, and I still have some of my 'deathless prose' from that period which might not be too embarrassing to show them.
In trying to trace what it was that set me writing initially, I realised that it was reading. I had an ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
October 6, 2013
In the past couple of weeks I've had news of a few successes. I've had a poem short-listed in a competition (the final winner is yet to be decided) and a short story short-listed in another. A poem has been commended in the Thynks competition and another has been long-listed in a fourth competition. Okay, none of them are actually in the prizes (yet), but it's still something to be pleased about, isn't it? The fact is, the organisers of the latter competition offered me an extra opportunity, ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
September 30, 2013
Fiction that crosses genre boundaries is increasingly popular, so much so that many sub-genres are popping up, such as steampunk, paranormal romance and Western science fiction. Reading
Map of Bones by James Rollins recently, I was struck by how easily the plot could have been adapted for a fantasy novel.
Map of Bones is a fast-paced action-packed thriller involving secret societies, undercover agents with special abilities and a race to stop an evil sect from gaining ancient knowledge that w...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
August 26, 2013
I've been reading some classic stories, courtesy of Paul Hatcher. The Pedestrian is by Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451. A man takes a walk on a November evening. The writing is evocative, yet spare. There isn't one wasted word. The tale itself is science fiction, and as with all good SF (even the stories that are full of aliens) it concerns the human condition and where we might be heading. The story was written in 1951, which makes it uncannily prophetic.
The second tale, August H...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
August 18, 2013
Following on from what I wrote last week about how coincidences that have happened in real life seem too far-fetched if used in fiction, did you hear about the Chinese zoo where the lion turned out to be the keeper's pet chow-chow dog? It took a small boy to point out that lions didn't bark. The story made me think straight away of Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale, The Emperor's New Clothes. The reason that Anderson got away with such an improbable tale was primarily because readers unders...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
August 11, 2013
Here's a definition of 'serendipity' from the Oxford Dictionary: "faculty of making happy discoveries by accident". This week, I've made a few serendipitous discoveries, not least how well my view of how creativity involves talent, hard work and (you guessed it) serendipity chimes with that of Paul Hatcher, an artist who combines all three. You'll find his work at
http://thedrawingsofhatch.blogspot.co.uk and
http://thehouseofhatch.blogspot.co.uk.
Although serendipity is a great thing to find ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
