March 25, 2018
What are the world's most dangerous books? My vote goes to dictionaries. My reason isn't that they give you the means to express ideas persuasively, to pretend to a background or education you don't possess, or to understand people and ideas that would otherwise remain mysteries. The most dangerous thing about dictionaries is the way they steal your time.
You innocently pick up a dictionary to look up a word that's been on the tip of your tongue, but before you find it, your eye is caught by another word that you like the sound of, or that you haven't come cross for a while, or maybe one that you've never seen before. You have to check the definition. Perhaps it isn't what you expect, or there are more meanings than you were aware of. Whatever the reason for this word distracting you from your search, you find another word in the definition that you decide to look up, or perhaps the words on either side of it intrigue you–which language are they derived from? Why are they spelled the way they are? Do they have any synonyms? What is the best context to use them in? You're taken from one word to another on a journey through the alphabet, led down the byways of the English language's idiosyncrasies. Before you know it, half an hour or more has passed, and you've forgotten the word you first wanted to look up.
Does it matter? It's the business of writers to know a lot about words, after all. Or is meandering through a dictionary simply another excuse to procrastinate instead of getting down to some writing? Would it be safer to use your spellchecker? Possibly, but if you eschew the delights of flicking through your dictionary, you won't learn anywhere near as much.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 20, 2018
Some places still have snow, but as far as the birds and the daffodils around here are concerned, it's already spring. In fact, when the sun's out, it feels like spring to me as well. My advice to anyone venturing outside to see whether the birds and daffodils are right, is to take a notepad with you. This is a time of year that tends to stir inspiration, and it's a time of change. Without a notepad you risk forgetting the ideas and sensations around you.
You can record things on your phon...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
March 11, 2018
In the UK, it's Mothering Sunday. This is the day when everyone is supposed to worship at their mother church, which is their parish church, or where they were baptised. Traditionally, people in service were allowed a day off to go home, and their
mothers baked
them a cake! Somehow the day has now become joined with Mother's Day, which was invented in the US to commemorate mothers and the hardship they suffered during the American Civil War, and takes place there in May.
However it started...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 6, 2018
We're lucky where I live, we rarely get the extreme weather that's suffered in other parts of the country, but even here there have been a few inches of snow in the past few days–e
nough to persuade most people that they'd rather stay indoors.
Snow can be magical, but it can also give everyday things a feeling of unreality. This got me thinking about how snow and cold affect the senses; how they change the light–especially at night, how sounds can seem muffled or echo, the way the air ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
February 26, 2018
A few days ago, I finished reading a book called
Mother Tongue: The English Language by Bill Bryson. A linguistics study of the English language and the foreign, social and cultural influences on it might not sound much of a page-turner, but I found it fascinating.
There are many facts in it with which to dumbfound your friends at parties, such as how many different ways William Shakespeare spelled his name, but to my mind, what is most interesting is how English has always evolved and ada...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics
February 20, 2018
Dogs have always played an important role in literature, and as the Chinese Year of the Dog has just begun, what better time to look at canine characters?
Without his faithful hound, Argos, to recognise him, who would have believed that Odysseus had finally returned in Homer's
The Odyssey?
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, without a big black dog, wouldn't have left Sherlock Holmes with much to investigate. Every age group and genre of literature from
See Spot Run by...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
February 14, 2018
When was the last time Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known as Pancake Day, was followed by St Valentine's Day? I can't remember if it's happened before. It probably isn't a problem for pancake lovers–sweet or savoury, they're free to indulge themselves, but for sweethearts it could mean some difficult choices. That's because the day after Shrove Tuesday is also Ash Wednesday i.e. the first day of Lent. If your loved one is giving up chocolate, cake or alcohol, what are you going to give them to...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
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.
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.
January 29, 2018
Contest closing dates and submission deadlines can creep up on you all too quickly, even if you start working on your entry/submission in 'plenty of time', and don't suffer from procrastination or writers' block. Life has a habit of flinging banana skins in your path.
I know all too well how it can happen. Two diabetic dogs, one of whom is reluctant to eat anything else, have been gobbling up my time and mental stamina lately. One day, Sophie's jumping up the kitchen cupboards, because you...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
