Home Again

August 5, 2013
I'm back. I've been to Vienna for three days, followed by three days in Budapest and I'm just about recovering from the heat, which was in the mid 30s or higher most of the time. It was far too hot to wander around on the sunny side of the street, so while I was sitting outside bistros with something cold and non-alcoholic in a glass (alcohol and high temperatures just don't suit me), I had plenty of opportunity to people watch and to write about anything I had seen or done and my impressions of my travels. Before I left England, I read over my notebook from my stay in Barcelona last year. It's amazing what I had already forgotten, and the ideas it sparked. Hopefully, this year's will be a revelation by the time next July comes around.

Viszontlátásra

Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

Following on

July 28, 2013
One more piece about apostrophes and then I'm done with it, honest. There's another use for them that I didn't mention last week, and this one's bucking the who-needs-punctuation trend. This is where apostrophes are placed around words or phrases to indicate that they aren't necessarily factual or true e.g. writing that someone was the 'driver' of a car probably means they were sitting on the back seat. This use is so handy, that some people now draw apostrophes on the air when they speak. I ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics 

 

Don't Get Your Apostrophes in a Twist

July 22, 2013
At the risk of being told where to stick my ;!?"s, I'd like to make a case for punctuation, and apostrophes in particular. The whole point of punctuation is to avoid ambiguity. Most apostrophes are used to show a contraction where letters have been left out of a word or two words are joined, or to indicate possession. 'I'd' is a contraction of 'I would'. 
"That's obvious," I hear someone say, but without the apostrophe, it would read 'id', which is a pyschological term referring to the instin...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics 

 

Revisiting the Past

July 14, 2013
If you have time to sit outside and make the most of the summer weather, and you can't find anything you fancy on your bookshelves, try reading some of your old work. Don't fancy that? Why not? If you don't think it's worth a second look, why should any other reader? Okay, so you already know what happens–or at least you think you do. If you haven't looked through a story, poem or whatever for some while, you could be surprised at how differently you remember it. Not only will you be coming...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Game, Set and Match

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 compe...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions 

 

Facing Facts

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 

 

Life on Mars?

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 

 

Life Arithmetic

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.

 

Short and Sweet

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.

 

Chaos

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 

 
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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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