Today’s #PictureOfTheDay and #writingprompt: 06/Sept/21

On 06/09/202101/09/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Photography11 Comments

These pictures are here to entertainment, bring joy, and, if you wish, inspire you to create something with words or images. Whether that is a poem, story, play, novel, memory, essay, painting, drawing, sculpture, or another photograph is entirely up to you. But don’t feel obliged: you can simply enjoy the pictures. I’ve deliberately left …

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Today’s #PictureOfTheDay and #writingprompt: 05/Sept/21

On 05/09/202101/09/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Photography7 Comments

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Today’s #PictureOfTheDay and #writingprompt: 04/Sept/21

On 04/09/202101/09/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Photography3 Comments

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Today’s #PictureOfTheDay and #writingprompt: 03/Sept/21

On 03/09/202101/09/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Photography2 Comments

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Today’s #PictureOfTheDay and #writingprompt: 02/Sept/21

On 02/09/202101/09/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Nature, Photography12 Comments

These pictures are here for your entertainment, joy, and, if you wish, inspiration to create something with words or images. Whether that results in a poem, story, play, novel, memory, essay, painting, drawing, sculpture, or another photograph is entirely up to you. But don’t feel obliged: you can simply enjoy the pictures. I’ve deliberately left …

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Today’s #PictureOfTheDay and #writingprompt: 01/Sept/21

On 01/09/202130/08/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Photography12 Comments

These images are here for your entertainment, joy, and, if you wish, inspiration to create something with words or images. Whether that results in a poem, story, play, novel, memory, essay, painting, drawing, sculpture, or another photograph is entirely up to you. But don’t feel obliged: you can simply enjoy the pictures. I’ve deliberately left …

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The Time has Come!

On 14/08/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Progress, Reading, Romance10 Comments

I wrote it last year. Started the long, and somewhat convoluted, process of editing, both as self-editor initially and then with my publisher’s editors, early this year. We now have a launch date for my latest novel. So, I suppose I’d better let you all know what it’s called, especially now this information was released …

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Dealing with Difficult Themes in #Fiction

On 31/07/202131/07/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Progress6 Comments

Word cloud Via Wordart In writing science fiction, two areas of uncertainty arise before the start. Assuming it’s not Space Opera, the first barrier is the large number of readers who believe all sci-fi involves space wars, forgetting that at least two of the most brilliant works of literature were also science fiction: Aldous Huxley’s …

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Time and the Conways, by J.B. Priestley: #BookReview.

On 23/07/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Literature, Reading, Review2 Comments

Stage Play script. This exploration of family unity, loyalty and dishonesty is structured through three acts to use time as a clever ingredient of viewing, and attempting to predict, the future. It depicts a typical upper middle-class family of the era, showing the inherent snobbery, their patchy understanding of the world they occupy, and how …

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Translation: Illuminating Cultural Difference.

On 20/07/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Grammar, Progress, Romance8 Comments

Just short of a month ago, I wrote a post about Helen, a Chinese woman, translating some of my stories into her language. My hope was that would place my work before a wider readership. But there has been an unexpected and positive additional outcome.I’m no linguist. But I’ve travelled, both within the land of …

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The Nature of Photographs, by Stephen Shore: #BookReview.

On 18/07/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, opinion, Photography, Reading, Review4 Comments

136 pagesPhotography Criticism & Essays This is a primer intended for students studying photography at university, but it has something useful to say to anyone interested in what photography truly is and how it can affect our view of the world. It sports numerous photographs to illustrate the textual points made, and explains how photography, …

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Wild Horses on the Salt, by Anne Montgomery: #BookReview.

On 06/07/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Reading, Review6 Comments

345 pagesWomen’s Action & Adventure/Romance/Contemporary Fiction Having enjoyed Anne Montgomery’s ‘A Light in the Desert’, I thought I’d give this new novel a try. I’ve never been to the USA, and frequently find novels set there both self-congratulatory and full of references that are meaningless to me as a UK reader. But the previous novel …

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Pride of Place: a #Poem

On 26/06/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, opinion, Poetry, question6 Comments

Pride of Place I wonder why it may bethe casean accident of birthshould create such loyaltyto a place you had no say in choosing. You were at your birthof course.But did you choose your parents?Did you select the place, the mannerof your entrance to the world? It is possible you are loyalonlyout of love for …

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The Latest on the New Novel

On 02/06/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Progress9 Comments

Picture via Pixabay. Yesterday I received the final edit notes for the new novel. This was the copy edit part, where a super-observant editor with an excellent grasp of the rules of English, goes through the entire book with a fine-tooth comb and picks out all the nits and knots: spelling, punctuation, syntax, grammar, etc. …

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Crimes and Impunity in New Orleans, by Sherrie Miranda: #BookReview.

On 14/05/2021 By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, opinion, politics, Reading, Review2 Comments

353 pages: Women’s Crime Fiction/Coming of Age Fiction/Women’s Contemporary Fiction (It should, perhaps, also be included in ‘Political and Historical Fiction) Subtitled ‘Shelly’s Journey Begins’, this book is a prequal to the authors debut thriller ‘Secrets and Lies in El Salvador’, which I’ve also read and reviewed. Both books are well worth anyone’s cash and …

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