Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Thursday, December 19, 2024,
In :
Coming Soon
The Smashwords end of year sale is now on, which means it's time for me to make a few decisions, and put some changes into effect.
I transferred my books to Draft2Digital earlier this year as a result of the merger of the two indie publishing platforms. Since then, I haven't enrolled any of them in the Smashwords sales because authors either had to enrol all their books at the same discount or none. However, this has now changed (possibly because other authors also opted out). Consequently, u...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, March 3, 2024,
In :
Coming Soon
A new edition of
Artists & Liars is now out with three extra pieces. And that's not all: it's also now available in paperback with illustrations by yours truly. You'll find three poems, two flash stories and nine short stories about the art world from every angle, including clumsy cleaners, bashful models, and self-centred divas.
I'm still very involved in the art world both professionally and socially, so in a few years' time
Artists & Liars might get even fatter–or maybe I'll have enough ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, December 19, 2023,
In :
Coming Soon
Was it John Lennon who said that life is what happens while you're making plans for something else? Whoever said it, they were right. This has been brought home to me particularly strongly in the past weeks, in both my personal and my writing life.
For the past month or so I've been working on a few long-held projects. The first is to design business cards, bookmarks and postcards to help promote my books, provide something interesting for readers to collect and to make me look more professio...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, July 2, 2023,
In :
Coming Soon
How did that happen? One minute I'm posting a blog here about the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week sale and the next it's the start of the Smashwords Summer-Winter Sale and three months have passed.
Did I prick my finger and fall asleep throughout spring? If so, I'd like to know what the prince who was supposed to wake me with a kiss was up to in the meanwhile. Maybe I was sucked into a black hole and have only just been spat back out, in which case I shall blame Einstein for the delay. More li...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, January 8, 2022,
In :
Inspiration
I don't believe in 'em–New Year resolutions that is, mainly because I know I'll have fallen short before the end of January. However, I do have a long writing to-do list.
While I was writing the Exiles of Ondd novels, I gathered a big folder of ideas for everything from novels to essays, micro-fiction to monologues, and I want to dive into these. I'm not daft enough to think I can write them all in a year, even if I did think they were all worth it, but I should at least be able to finish s...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, January 1, 2022,
This is such a strange time of year. All the anticipation leading up to Christmas has gone, but the new year has not really got into swing. Many people have been back at work already, but the decorations are still up. Before you can decide what might happen and what you'd like to achieve in 2022, you need to assess where 2021 has brought you.
Personally, I expected to complete
Discord's Shadow far sooner than I did. By the time it was finally launched on 6th November there was little time lef...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, December 18, 2021,
In :
Coming Soon
I don't have a secret door to a fantasy world in the back of my wardrobe, nor can I flip open my phone and ask Scotty to beam me up, but I shall be running away for Christmas. There will be no last minute rush to the shops, nor any family arguments about which old film to watch on TV. I shall be in my own world, or more likely, a someone else's world.
If I'm not scribbling notes and ideas for my own writing, I shall have my nose in a book or two. There will be no shortage of choice as the Sma...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Thursday, November 4, 2021,
In :
Coming Soon
With only a couple of days to go before the publication of
Discord's Shadow, it's now available to pre-order on Kindle and in paperback at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQRY6MS and
B09KNCZR3D respectively, as well as on Smashwords. This has been such a long time coming that I wanted to make it a little more special, so you can also download the first in the series,
Discord's Child, from Smashwords
FREE until 6th November using the coupon you'll find at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ks... Continue reading ...
Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, October 26, 2021,
In :
Coming Soon
Preparing
Discord's Shadow for publication has been rather like getting ready for Christmas: you have a list of things to do and things to get that seems to get longer rather than shorter as the days race by, then just as you're ready to throw up your hands and resign yourself to being too late, they're all done. There are still a few things on my publication list, such as reformatting the manuscript for Kindle and paperback but, at the risk of jinxing myself, they should be easily doable in ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, December 27, 2020,
Christmas rarely lives up to our hopes or expectations, and this year it's likely that it's been further from our wishes than ever. Christmas Day itself is usually quiet for me, but in other years I've had get-togethers with friends and colleagues to remember, and family celebrations to look forward to. In fact, there was a danger that the so-called 'festive' season would not be Christmassy at all.
My recipe for avoiding cabin fever and the seasonal blues is to share a few days with Mr. Charl...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, July 4, 2020,
In :
Inspiration
Last year, I would no doubt have been watching tennis on TV and feeling a little guilty about not writing. From the French Open to the end of Wimbledon, I find it hard to tear myself away. I tell myself the season is short, and it'll have to last me all year, but I still get twinges unless I get a morning's writing in before the matches start. Of course, in England I can usually rely on plenty of rain breaks to catch up with the things I should be doing.
Binge-watching tennis isn't all bunkin...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Wednesday, April 22, 2020,
Spring-cleaning isn't everyone's idea of fun, but with most of us being confined to our homes for the foreseeable future, they could soon be the cleanest and tidiest they've ever been (providing you aren't home-schooling, of course). Once everything in the house and garden has been titivated to the 'nth' degree, what are you going to do?
Inspiration might be in short supply, and it can be difficult to focus your imagination if you're worrying about the current situation. If you're struggling ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, December 28, 2019,
In :
Coming Soon
For a writer, one of the best Christmas presents of all is hearing their work read by a professional voice-over artist. I was thrilled on Christmas Day to open my emails and find that the podcast of my prizewinning story in the Remastered Words contest is now available at
http://www.remasteredwords.com. For a limited time, you can listen to it FREE. There's also an interview with me about the story and my writing. I have to say that Sam Burns @Wysiwyg88 has really done the story proud
If poet...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, December 24, 2019,
In :
Coming Soon
How did it get to be Christmas time? So many things still undone and the days so short! Never mind, they are going to get longer again now–time to look ahead to what 2020 might bring.
It seems a lot of theatre companies agree with me, because there are some excellent opportunities coming up for playwrights. In addition to the BBC's annual call-out for dramas, which can be for stage, radio, film or television, which ends on 6th January (
https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/send-a-script), there...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, July 27, 2019,
In :
Inspiration
I have to say thank you to all the people who listened to my attempts to speak Spanish with such patience and good humour while I as in Bilbao. As always, while I was away I jotted down a diary of what we did. It wasn't intended for publication, only to jog my memory, but the friend I was with said ominously that she would like to see it. I'm not sure about that, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to put an extract on here, so be warned. What follows is the written equivalent of being invited to a sl...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, December 31, 2018,
In :
Inspiration
Where did this tradition of making resolutions at the new year come from? Frankly, I haven't a clue, other than the link with new beginnings, but it's very hard to escape it. Perhaps the reason so many resolutions are broken before the end of January is because they are half-hearted to begin with, made for form's sake rather than a true desire for change.
I'm not going to suggest what promises anyone should make themselves, and if you're heartily sick of being asked what your New Year's resol...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Thursday, February 8, 2018,
Those who were born before the millennium might remember a time before computers adorned every desk, even word processors were a rarity, and electric typewriters were the serious writer's best friend. Actually, that's wrong–Tippex was a writer's best friend. More than three mistakes on a page–tippexed or not–and you were advised to start again. Worse still, because you couldn't save your files in umpteen different places or print off a pristine copy whenever you needed it, you had to ma...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Thursday, February 1, 2018,
My apologies to everyone who downloaded Discord's Child from Smashwords since the Christmas sale, expecting to find a code at the end for a free copy of Discord's Apprentice. I stuffed up! I wondered why it hadn't been used, despite my banging on about it for the past month. I was beginning to think that no-one loved me. Now, I know why, and I wouldn't blame anyone for being angry–I'm angry with myself. It was only when I reopened the file for the novel to remove the code, as it was no long...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, January 22, 2018,
In :
Competitions
Wow! We're already three weeks into 2018. Time for a round-up of a few free contests.
Playwrights can enter the Drip Action Theatre Trail 2018 for plays of 30-40 minutes. There's £250 first prize, plus £150 for another seven plays chosen for performance. The closing date is 31st January with entry by post. Check
http://www.dripaction.co.uk for details. Papatango is looking for full length plays for its contest, closing on 28th February. In addition to production and a share of the box o...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, January 7, 2018,
I know it sounds rude, but all my readers can BOGOF this month! If you buy
Discord's Child from
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ksdearsley you'll find a code number to get
Discord's Apprentice FREE, valid until 31st January. In other words, you can Buy One and Get One Free.
Actually, there's a growing trend that makes me feel like adding an 'F' and telling some publishers to bog off. I find it very disturbing that more and more publications are charging writers to submit work to th...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Thursday, December 21, 2017,
In :
Coming Soon
You might think that my middle initial, 'S', stands for Scrooge, as I don't generally give Christmas presents (note: that's 'give', not 'gift'). I like going around the shops looking for ideas, I'm happy to wrap even awkward-shaped items, and I love to see a heap of presents under the tree, but the problem with presents is that they're often bought out of desperation to find something–anything! Even when the recipients like them, they often have no use for them. Instead of giving people thi...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, July 21, 2015,
You may have read in a previous post that
Discord's Child is currently available free in Smashwords' summer promotion, which runs until 31st July. I have mixed feelings about providing work for nothing.
Generally, I feel that it's letting the side down. Most authors struggle to get work published and make a living from it. As enjoyable and rewarding as writing is, it is work. No one would suggest that nurses, teachers or accountants should work for nothing, simply because they get satisfa...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, July 4, 2015,
In :
Coming Soon
I'm off on holiday next week. If I don't melt in the predicted heatwave, I might find myself a shady spot in which to enjoy a glass of something long and cold while I read or people watch. To celebrate and give everyone else a chance to enjoy a summer read, I've enrolled Discord's Child in
Smashwords' summer promotion which lasts until 31st July. You can download the novel free by using the coupon number you'll find on the page.
I hope to return inspired by Renaissance and ancient archit...
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