April 25, 2011
I once heard of someone who had lost a whole year's work - poetry, short stories, essays - everything. It had been in exercise books and notepads left in a rucksack in a car parked outside the writer's new house when he was moving in. Thieves broke into the car and stole the rucksack. The writing was of no value to them, and would no doubt have been dumped, but he never found it.
I can't imagine how awful such a loss would be. Rewriting everything exactly as it had been would be impossible, that's why I always keep copies of everything. Not only that, but I keep a record of what files work's in, where I've sent it and the result on index cards. It should be foolproof, yet yesterday I wasted a sunny afternoon searching for an article that was published years ago when I still used a typewriter. I hadn't bothered to put the article on my computer, when I got one, as I had a copy of the magazine it appeared in, so it seemed like unnecessary work. I thought I kept all the magazines with my work in them together, but of course, this one has vanished, and where is the carbon copy that should be in the file?
It isn't the end of the world, but it is irritating, so my advice is not only to keep a hard copy of your work and back up computer files on a cd, a memory stick, or better still, both. Then those sneaky cousins of the tooth fairy, who steal keys, spectacles, earrings and anything else that you had in your hand a minute ago, won't be able to spoil your day.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
April 17, 2011
When it comes to tweeting, I'm a novice. I first started looking at Twitter a few months ago, and was impressed by how many really inventive and literary tweeters there are out there - and how prolific they are! So far, I'm following Gayle Beveridge, Simon Sylvester, Nanoism, and Henry Leland (Olde Yeller Cat), and the list is growing all the time.
This week I was thrilled not only to gain a new follower, but to be retweeted for the first time. The tweet was an extract from one of the so...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
April 11, 2011
I've been torn in several directions today. It's been beautifully sunny spring weather, and I would have loved to just lounge around outside, but I really needed at least to make a start on clearing the weeds in the garden to prove that there are actually some flowers in the borders, and then there was this blog to write. I still had two library books to read that had to be returned this week as well. Who could really blame me if I sat in the garden and read? The answer is: no one except ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
April 3, 2011
... and that I need to put a space between words. I'm going to quit now before I get anything else wrong.
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
April 3, 2011
Why is it that you can proof read something umpteen times, yet as soon as it's irrevocably published a typo jumps out at you? I do, of course know that 'i' comes before 'e'except after 'c', so why didn't I type it that way in my last blog?
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
April 3, 2011
Strange how little it can take to change your whole outlook on life. This week I'd been struggling under a pile of things that I thought I ought to do and work that I had to do, rather than what I wanted to do. The harder I tried to get everything done, the more it seemed was left. Would I ever be able to get back to writing the follow-up to Discord's Child? Was it even worth trying?
Then I recieved some news I'd been waiting about a month to hear. Nothing earth-shattering, but it mad...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 27, 2011
Good news! One of my poems has been selected for the Norwich Writers' Circle competition anthology, which goes to show that if you send a story or poem off to a competition and it doesn't win, it isn't the end of the world. Only one entry can win, after all, and that doesn't mean that the rest of them are rubbish.
If the judges offer any comments, go over your work again, bearing them in mind, and make any changes you feel are appropriate, then select another competition and send it out ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
March 20, 2011
To some, being a writer might seem rather dull. While they negotiate the dangers and irritations of the daily commute, battle with angry customers on the phone and struggle to resist the temptation to eat all the biscuits at the afternoon meeting, you are stuck in a chair at home with nothing more exciting to do than stare at a blank screen or chew the end of your pencil. Wrong! My work as a writer regularly takes me to foreign lands and strange cultures, where the journey alone is full of...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 13, 2011
If you ever want proof that fact is stranger than fiction, I recommend watching the David Attenborough series about Madagascar. The wildlife there is far more peculiar than most of the aliens dreamed up by science fiction or fantasy writers - giant lemurs that dance and skip across open spaces on two legs, miniature ones with huge eyes to see in the dark, chameleons, millipedes and more. All of them are fantastic, but they have all evolved to take advantage of the environment.
Watch man...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
March 6, 2011
I've spent a lot of time this week staring at a blank page. There can be little more frustrating than knowing what you want to write but not finding the right way to put it on paper. It doesn't happen when I'm writing non-fiction. Then, I simply make a start and keep going until it's done. Luckily, the April issue of Writing and Writers' News dropped through my letterbox, so I had an excuse to procrastinate - until I read the interview with R. J. Ellroy and the article about Robert Louis ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
