April 3, 2011
Strange how little it can take to change your whole outlook on life. This week I'd been struggling under a pile of things that I thought I ought to do and work that I had to do, rather than what I wanted to do. The harder I tried to get everything done, the more it seemed was left. Would I ever be able to get back to writing the follow-up to Discord's Child? Was it even worth trying?
Then I recieved some news I'd been waiting about a month to hear. Nothing earth-shattering, but it made all the difference. Everything changed. Instead of slumping around the house, I felt like dancing, and all because of one little e-mail.
Good news likes to congregate together, as I've had confirmation of our holiday booking too. My husband, the dogs and I will once again be enjoying a fortnight at Bodilly Manor near Helston in Cornwall. It's a great place surrounded by countryside and close to the sea with a wonderful garden, and the best settees for reading on if it rains. If I don't find inspiration there, I won't find it anywhere. I've added its website to my links page, so readers can see for themselves. In fact, I've added a whole new section to to check out.
Have fun!
Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 27, 2011
Good news! One of my poems has been selected for the Norwich Writers' Circle competition anthology, which goes to show that if you send a story or poem off to a competition and it doesn't win, it isn't the end of the world. Only one entry can win, after all, and that doesn't mean that the rest of them are rubbish.
If the judges offer any comments, go over your work again, bearing them in mind, and make any changes you feel are appropriate, then select another competition and send it out ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
March 20, 2011
To some, being a writer might seem rather dull. While they negotiate the dangers and irritations of the daily commute, battle with angry customers on the phone and struggle to resist the temptation to eat all the biscuits at the afternoon meeting, you are stuck in a chair at home with nothing more exciting to do than stare at a blank screen or chew the end of your pencil. Wrong! My work as a writer regularly takes me to foreign lands and strange cultures, where the journey alone is full of...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 13, 2011
If you ever want proof that fact is stranger than fiction, I recommend watching the David Attenborough series about Madagascar. The wildlife there is far more peculiar than most of the aliens dreamed up by science fiction or fantasy writers - giant lemurs that dance and skip across open spaces on two legs, miniature ones with huge eyes to see in the dark, chameleons, millipedes and more. All of them are fantastic, but they have all evolved to take advantage of the environment.
Watch man...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
March 6, 2011
I've spent a lot of time this week staring at a blank page. There can be little more frustrating than knowing what you want to write but not finding the right way to put it on paper. It doesn't happen when I'm writing non-fiction. Then, I simply make a start and keep going until it's done. Luckily, the April issue of Writing and Writers' News dropped through my letterbox, so I had an excuse to procrastinate - until I read the interview with R. J. Ellroy and the article about Robert Louis ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
February 27, 2011
Yippee! Drollerie Press want to publish my fantasy novel, Discord's Child, under their Kettlestitch imprint. They contacted me a few weeks ago, but I didn't feel I could let the world know until the contract had been signed.
Discord's Child follows what happens when a young woman's inability to feel the energy within all things, as everyone else in her community can, leads to her family being exiled. They seek help in the capital city only to find themselves caught up in a life and death st...
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Posted by Karla Sally Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction
February 20, 2011
Why is it that when something breaks down or goes wrong, it always happens at night or the weekend when all the professionals such as plumbers, roofers, chiropractors and dentists are closed?
On Friday evening I broke my front tooth. I'd like to be able to say that I did it battling hordes of ravening orcs or swinging from a vine through the rainforest canopy, but the sad truth is I was eating a sausage. It was a vegetarian sausage, so I can't even blame biting hard on a piece of bone or gri...
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Posted by Karla Sally Dearsley.
February 13, 2011
Shakespeare might have written 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet', but if he'd called Romeo and Juliet 'Fred and Elsie' would the effect have been the same? What you call your characters is tremendously important, and can be particularly full of pitfalls for writers of speculative fiction.
Fans of the SF and fantasy genres are used to unusual names and can easily cope with the likes of Obi Wan Kenobi or Galadriel, but if you're sending your story to a competition where the judges...
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Posted by Karla Sally Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction
February 6, 2011
February already! Christmas seems an age away, but I'm blowed if I know where January went. Somehow I always think I can fit more in. I have set up a website and a facebook page and started tweeting (all of which were easier than I thought, despite being instant death to anything involving technology). I've also had a story highly commended in the Sunpenny Open Short Story Competition, which should be published later this year, and a publisher has expressed interest in my fantasy novel, D...
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Posted by Karla Sally Dearsley.
January 30, 2011
There must be thousands of writers' blogs, so why am I adding to them? I suppose I could blame the compulsion writers feel to write, whether anyone reads what they put or not. There's also the desire to share. Perhaps my experiences as a writer, good and not so good, might inspire, inform or at least make someone else feel they aren't doing so badly.
I aim to include any nuggets and writing tips that might be of interest to other writers, the occasional short piece or extract from my own wo...
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Posted by Karla Sally Dearsley.
