Starting Today

May 28, 2012
Visitors to my website can now be sure of finding something new on a regular basis, apart from this blog. I'm adding the lyrics from Iyessi songs. 
For anyone who hasn't read Discord's Child, the Iyessi are people living in a remote region of Najarind where sensitivity to the elements and music are of paramount importance. Ro is a young woman who cannot feel the elements as others do and the disharmony this causes leads to her and her family being exiled.
As music is an integral part of Iyessi life, it seemed impossible not to create songs for them, so I wrote lyrics to go with each chapter of the novel. One day, maybe I'll have music for them too!

Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction 

 

Telescoping Time

May 20, 2012
At last, I've had a chance to read my copy of Telescoping Time, the anthology of chosen entries in the Earlyworks Press Science Fiction Challenge. The stories had to 'make a realistic contribution to the debate about how humans and extra-terrestrial species might prepare for contact and learn to co-operate rather than destroy each other through fear or prejudice, by accident or design.' I'm proud to say that my story, 'Haze', is among the chosen. 
Many stories and books have been written, and...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews 

 

No Contest

May 6, 2012
I had to cancel my cover competition.  The last minute rush I had hoped for never materialised, and without entries there is no contest.  It was really disappointing.  I'd expended a lot of time, effort and money promoting it only to receive less than a handful of entries.  In fact, I received a better response to my post on a Kindle forum announcing the flop.  Initially, I was inclined to think it was a total waste, but I'm beginning to see there are things I can learn from it.
My advice to ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions 

 

Rain and More Rain

April 29, 2012
England is currently in the middle of its monsoon season–the ideal time to get some writing done.  You can't do the gardening, or go for a picnic, so there's no excuse not to concentrate.  Actually, there is.  Letting your mind wander as you listen to the rain beating on the windows can be far more creative.
You could start by writing a description of the weather.  How fast is the rain falling?  What does it sound and feel like? How do people react to it?  How do they move?  What are their ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Theatre Magic

April 22, 2012
This week I was fortunate enough to see Ladies in Lavender at Royal & Derngate, Northampton.  For anyone who's never seen the film, it's a gentle story set in Cornwall in the 1930s, which follows what happens when two ageing spinster sisters find and take in a young violinist who's washed up on the beach.  There's no sex or violence and no bad language.
It would have been easy to overwrite the play, but it was beautifully understated.  This can only work on stage or film if you have actors ca...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

More Rejects

April 15, 2012
One of life's more annoying facts is that it's usually the phrase/sentence/paragraph that you're most pleased with that you end up having to cut from your final draft.  In fact, always be suspicious of your finest lines.  What makes them memorable is usually that they are different from the rest of the piece and indicate a change of style that creates an (often inappropriate) jolt.  They're often descriptive so they could slow down the pace as well.  Hardening your heart and killing your 'bab...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Cover Contest

April 10, 2012
The first entries in my contest to find a new cover for Discord's Child are beginning to come in.  For those of you creative people who haven't started work on it yet, there's still time.  The closing date is 30th April and the full details are here.  You could win £20, so get designing! 
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions 

 

Don't Call Us...

April 8, 2012
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss old-fashioned rejection slips.  Most of the time they would be nothing more than an impersonal compliments slip, but at least I could put they to some other use.  I could scribble ideas for my next great work on the back of them, or shopping lists, or I could fold them into wads to stop cupboard doors swinging open, or to prop up table legs.  I could do origami with them, make paper planes, scribble doodles....  If they arrived on a bad day at least I ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

How to Win

April 1, 2012
Writing is supposed to have therapeutic qualities.  Setting things down on paper is meant to help get them out of your system. I'm not sure how true that is.  Reading through what you've written afterwards might make you see how ridiculous you or your worries were, on the other hand it might keep old grievances alive.
For writers, there's always the benefit of being able to use your outpourings on paper in future work.  Writing about arguments can be particularly satisfying.  You can make you...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Sound Advice

March 24, 2012
In An Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope writes: 'The sound must seem an echo to the sense.'  He continues:
'When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.'
It's still great advice, and I endeavour to follow it.  More than that, I find that it isn't only the words that change tempo, but the speed at which I write them.  If I'm writing somethin...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 
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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.

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