July 6, 2013
What do tennis players and writers have in common? Not much, you might think, but having (mis)spent a lot of the past two weeks watching Wimbledon, I've come to the conclusion that writers could learn a lot from them.
When you submit your work to a publication or competition, you can try to do some research about what might succeed, just as a tennis player might try to work out their opponent's strengths and weaknesses by watching their previous matches. Ultimately, however, editors and competition judges don't know what will catch their imagination on a particular day, any more than a tennis player can be sure that her opponent will serve to her backhand. It isn't unusual to see guidelines for a magazine that say 'no vampires or zombies' only to find them making war on each other in the latest issue.
All you can really do is put in the training. For a tennis player this means working out in a gym, and for a writer this means reading and taking notice of the advice in classes, magazines or forums. Both tennis players and writers need to practice as often as they can, and then all you can do is make sure you turn up i.e. send your story/poem/flash fiction etc. out–making sure, of course, that you follow the rules and guidelines. Otherwise, you can expect the umpire to call 'Out!'
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
June 30, 2013
I really hate doing it, but I've just had to withdraw one of my stories from an anthology. It was highly commended in a competition and the organisers asked me in 2011 if they could print it in a winners' anthology in the near future. Of course, I jumped at the chance and sent the bio they asked for straight away. After around a year I contacted them to find out what was happening, and was assured that the anthology had been delayed in order to include the 2012 winners, but that it would be p...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
June 23, 2013
One of the things I like about writing fantasy is that when you create your own world, no one can tell you that you haven't done your research. That doesn't mean that you can throw logic out of the window, however (unless in your fantasy world, Logic is the name of the cat).
If you decide to have three moons orbiting your planet, think about what effect they might have on it and anything living on it, and be careful if your characters take to sea when they align. Introducing three moons simpl...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction
June 16, 2013
Pluses: having a mini-story honoured in the 10th Binnacle Ultra-short competition–'Oxygen' should be published in Binnacle's own distinctive fashion towards the end of this year; the support and encouragement of my Twitter friend @OldeYellerCat; putting the penultimate Iyessi song on my
Discord's Child page. Minuses: the illness of a lady who has been a long-suffering, understanding, talented, indomitable, inspiring and fun friend for 30 years. I never was very good at arithmetic, but even ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
June 9, 2013
If you're looking for something that you can read in one 'sitting' I have two suggestions for short story lovers. The first is Plasma Frequency Magazine. It wants readers to vote for their favourite stories to help them choose which ones to put in their first annual anthology. You can find all the past issues at
http://www.plasmafrequencymagazine.com. The second suggestion is my anthology
Artists & Liars, which is now available at
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/322872. It includes short...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
June 2, 2013
I've spent much of this week so far outside my comfort zone that I haven't even been able see where it is–not that I should complain, because it's all been prompted by some rather nice things. I've had a poem commended in a competition and another shortlisted, but what really got me moving was when someone contacted me to ask where they could find my short stories.
I've been planning to put a themed anthology online for some while and this seemed like the ideal prompt. As The Grid has a co...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon
May 26, 2013
It's a bank holiday, the sun's shining at last, so what am I doing indoors blogging? I couldn't stay away, not when I have some information about something to put in your diary. The artists at The Grid studios in Harborough Magna will be taking part in Warwickshire Open Studios from Saturday 29th June to Sunday 14th July. It's a chance to meet the artists and see how they work as well as get a first glimpse of their latest pieces. Go
here to find out more.
That's it, I'm off to do some readi...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
May 19, 2013
You'd have to be a real amateur to send your work out without keeping a copy, wouldn't you? That's what I've always thought, but maybe I won't be so judgemental in future.
When I received a letter from The Letters Page magazine thanking me for responding to their call for handwritten letters about writing letters (got that?), I was really pleased that although the editors hadn't chosen it for publication, they did 'enjoy the sensitive discussion of correspondence and the strong sense of place...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
May 12, 2013
Today, I have good news and... good news! The latest Iyessi song is now on my
Discord's Child page, and my flash story, 'A Matching Pair', which came third in the
Bowers Gifford & North Benfleet Residents' Association competition, can be read on the association's website. It's great when your work appears somewhere new and you can feel that it's being read by people who otherwise would never come across it. Will it last generations? The odds are against it.
Even authors who write the bestsel...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
May 5, 2013
I've been reading an old book of my mother's, A Loving Spirit, by Daphne du Maurier. This edition was published in 1948. It still has spaces between quotation marks and the beginning of a sentence and the punctuation at the end, and between the end of a word and punctuation other than commas e.g. " Help ! ". I had thought that this died out in the 19th century, but it obviously survived far longer.
Even since I started writing for publication there have been changes in standard formatting. I...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
