Typical!

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 gristle.  Naturally, my dentist was closed and won't open again until tomorrow, so I've spent two days looking like a witch from a Brothers Grimm tale or a pirate every time I smile.

Unless I want to scare next-door's cat (and sometimes I'm tempted) my best policy is probably to refrain from opening my mouth and to find a positive way to use the experience.  I think I feel a story about the tooth fairy coming on, or maybe a blog...

Posted by Karla Sally Dearsley.

 

Naming Names

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 

 

Tempus Fugit

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.

 

Why Blog?

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.

 
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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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