Browsing Archive: January, 2013

Handle with Care

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, January 28, 2013,
Sooner or later it's bound to happen. Someone discovers that you're a writer and presents you with your manuscript asking for your opinion. It would be easy to see this as an imposition. After all, you have your own work to get on with and someone else's project is yet another reason to procrastinate. Instead, take it as the compliment it is.
How you tackle the task you've been given depends on how experienced the writer is, how long or complicated the manuscript is and how well you know the ...
Continue reading ...
 

Thank You

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, January 20, 2013,
It's wonderful hearing from people who like what you do. I've been fortunate to have received positive feedback and kind words from people who call themselves my fans this week (imagine that–me having fans!). They aren't family members or people whose opinion I've solicited, but readers who took the trouble to let me know that they appreciate my work.
Before I put everyone else off by blowing my own trumpet, the main point I wanted to make is that a little praise goes a long way. Everyone l...
Continue reading ...
 

Yes!

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, January 13, 2013, In : Competitions 
You can wait ages for work to get from acceptance to publication then, like buses, several come out at once.  This week I received the latest wonderful edition of The Binnacle Ultra-Short.  Included are the winning prose, poetry and humorous entries in the annual competition along with a host of pieces receiving honourable mentions, including one of mine, 'Plucked from Obscurity'.  The edition is in paperback form, plus a box with each work on a separate business-sized card, which you can mix...
Continue reading ...
 

A Level Playing Field?

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, January 8, 2013,
A friend recently complained that when he did a search on Amazon for Discord's Child, my novel wasn't listed.  I couldn't understand this as a Google search for the title finds it straight away on both the Amazon.com and .co.uk sites.  I tried the Amazon site myself and discovered that if I used the title alone, or my author name (K. S. Dearsley) Discord's Child was top of the list.  However, if I prefixed the title with 'book' or 'novel', as my friend had done, it didn't appear at all.  Inst...
Continue reading ...
 

The Feelgood Factor

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Thursday, January 3, 2013, In : FantasyFiction 
It's no good having a fragile ego if you're a writer.  It isn't like being a mathematician or a scientist, there are no absolute right or wrong answers or ways to do things.  All the rules can be broken as long as you know that you're breaking them and have a reason for doing it.  The problem is that writing is subjective.
Some readers will happily ignore the occasional grammatical error or typo if there's a cracking plot, or will forgive a slow pace or digression if the language is beautiful...
Continue reading ...
 
« Back to posts
 

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.

Blog Archive

Make a free website with Yola