October 7, 2012
Writers are lucky compared with those in most creative professions. We don't have to wait for anyone to give us a job to keep working. If actors are rejected at auditions they can't perform unless they want to declaim Shakespeare at the supermarket check-out. Singers can practise in the bath, but their performances are ephemeral and gone forever along with the bathwater. Artists can continue painting whether anyone buys their work or not, providing they have money for materials and enough space to store their work. But all a writer needs is a pencil, a piece of paper and a few spare minutes a day to keep on working.
Having to get a day job to pay the bills doesn't stifle our creativity, but gives us more material to work with. We can keep on writing, honing our skills and producing a body of work, so that when our talents are eventually recognised, we already have a back catalogue to draw on and take advantage of being the latest hot property.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
September 30, 2012
I had news this week that my story, 'Job Satisfaction' has been accepted for Plasma Frequency, a new magazine of speculative fiction. I'm not going to get rich on the proceeds, but it's great to be seen in a new publication. Who knows where this magazine might be in 10 years' time? It could be a respected SFWA approved market, have vanished completely, or have a cult following.
Submitting to a new, or relatively new, magazine can be chancey. Will the editors deliver what they promise? Wi...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
September 23, 2012
When you return to a place after a gap of years it can seem smaller and far more ordinary than how you remembered it. The same applies to re-reading books. The imaginative tale you remembered can now seem derivative, the creative prose clichéd. It's disappointing, and might deter you from revisiting these old 'friends', however there is an upside. Books that you once found incomprehensible or uninteresting might now reward you if you read them again. When I first read 'Ping' by Samuel Becke...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
September 17, 2012
Two weeks away on holiday equals two weeks' worth of emails to sift through. Amongst the Amazon, Facebook and Linked In updates I found several pieces of good news.
There was an offer from the organisers of the Frome Festival Short Story competition to send my entry to a magazine publisher. The proof of the Bridge House Science Fiction anthology, Otherwhere and Elsewhen, arrived, so it shouldn't be long now before it's available. Lastly, my story, 'Salvage', has been accepted by Daily Scie...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
August 29, 2012
I'll soon be off to beautiful Cornwall again. As well as pasties and clotted cream teas, I'm looking forward to rambles down narrow lanes gathering blackberries, going for a hack over the downs and the exhilaration of walking the coastal path. When I get back to the car or the holiday cottage, I'll make notes. In the past, these have come in handy for all kinds of things–characters, descriptions, plots–even poems. One Cornwall-inspired sonnet, won me second prize in Northampton Literature...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
August 19, 2012
When you have to juggle writing with a day job it can be hard to find time to focus. I've often seen it recommended that you should turn down invitations and become a virtual recluse if that's the only way you can make time to write.
Of course, you need to be disciplined, but if you shut yourself off from the world you lose touch with it. Not only do you risk forgetting how to make conversation (and therefore how to write dialogue), but you can all too easily lose perspective. If nothing...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
August 13, 2012
My fingers are still crossed for the competitions in which my work is shortlisted, but I've had news of another competition.
Earlier this year, one of my poems, 'Masters of the Air', came fifth in the Mary Charman-Smith competition, and another, 'DNA', was shortlisted. The good news is that Mary Charman-Smith is holding another competition for unpublished poetry up to a maximum of 45 lines excluding the title. The closing date is 15th November 2012, so there's plenty of time to send in your...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
August 6, 2012
If there are a few typos in this post, it's probably because I'm trying to write it with my fingers crossed. I have three entries short-listed in separate competitions, and I'm on tenterhooks waiting for the results. Of course, none of them might progress further, but if Andy Murray can win a gold medal, then anything's possible. (Go Andy!) If they don't, being short-listed is no dishonour, and at least I've taken part.
Last year, I entered the Salopian Poetry Society's annual open compet...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
July 29, 2012
It worked! (sort of) The dull tasks I tackled last week in hopes of gaining inspiration didn't produce any flashes of genius, but they were useful in themselves, and I felt virtuous enough afterwards to grant myself leave to sit in the garden a while and read.
The book I chose was one I first read many years ago,
What Do I Really Want? by Lloyd Lalande (Harper Collins, 1995). It was interesting to find out whether I felt the same way about the book after such a long period. I have to say t...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
July 22, 2012
Here I sit, fingers on keyboard wondering what to write about. The sad fact is that I can't think of anything, except what to do when you can't think of anything to write. Some people hold that you should keep plugging away, writing anything that comes into your head even if it's rubbish, and eventually something usable will occur to you. It can work, but today it hasn't, so I'm going to put the other theory to the test. Instead of trying to force the words to come, I'm going to walk away ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
