The WIP continues apace. Or, at least, it was, reaching 70,169 words yesterday, and completing what I like to call the ‘first phase’. Of course, this isn’t just any old book. It’s a work of fiction, but written in a novel way (pun intended) that requires some specific presentation elements. (sounds rather more grand than …
Continue reading More Words and A Problem
On 28th February I posted a piece about the start of a new novel. I’ve now reached, and even passed, a sort of landmark on the road to completion of the story. I’m up to page 125, 48,079 words in total, which is probably a halfway mark for the book. Of course, there’ll be changes …
Continue reading The Words Continue to Flow
I decided last year to spend time away from creating fiction. Why? Like all human faculties, although the creative function benefits from use, it also sometimes needs rest to be refreshed.So, what did I do? I wrote a few posts for a platform called Medium. You can find those here, if you’re curious. I also …
Continue reading The Words Have Escaped!
The picture above is by Larry Krause, on Flikr It is replicated using the Creative Commons License The story is entirely free and posted just below this brief intro. I have a free seasonal story on my site already, but it’s a humorous piece about New Year, and has been on there for some years. …
Continue reading A Seasonal Short Story for You. Enjoy!
Titles for novels can cause authors much soul-searching. Ideally, we want to give potential readers clues about content, theme, style, and storyline. Not easy with so few words to play with. The best titles are revealed as obvious choices once a book’s been read, so this series is largely for those who’ve yet to read …
Continue reading Why That Title? – Return to Dust.
Titles for novels can cause authors much soul-searching. Ideally, we try to give potential readers clues about content, theme, style, and storyline. Not easy with so few words to play with. The best titles are revealed as obvious choices once a book’s been read, so this series is largely for those who’ve yet to read …
Continue reading Why That Title? – War Over Dust.
Titles for works of fiction can cause authors a good deal of soul-searching. Ideally, we want to give potential readers clues about content, theme, style, and storyline. Not easy with only one to maybe a dozen words to play with. Of course, the best titles are revealed as obvious choices once a book’s been read, …
Continue reading Why That Title? – Partings.
Titles for works of fiction often cause authors a good deal of soul-searching. Ideally, we want to give potential readers clues about content, theme, style, and storyline. Not easy in anything from one to maybe a dozen words. Of course, the best titles are revealed as obvious choices once a book’s been read, so this …
Continue reading Why That Title? – The Methuselah Strain.
Titles for works of fiction often cause authors a lot of soul-searching. Ideally, we want to give potential readers clues about content, theme, style, and storyline. Not easy in anything from one to, say, a dozen words. Of course, the best titles are revealed as obvious choices once a book’s been read, so this series …
Continue reading Why That Title? – Breaking Faith.
Had another couple of reviews of ‘An Excess Of…’ so far this month. As writers and readers will know, reviews are never easy to get, unless you’re willing to spend a fortune on them, but paid for reviews have never struck me as a genuine way to discover the true value of a book.I’ve copied …
Continue reading The Reviews Continue to Come In!
Published on Medium here.
5 Star review from Mojgan Azar December 21, 2021 An Excess of … Stuart Aken’s “An Excess of” is a story about human nature and the conflicts we hold within each of us. The journey takes us from the deck of a sinking ship to the sands of a strange shore and deep into the …
Continue reading And Another 5-Star Review of ‘An Excess Of…’
Here’s another lovely review for my latest novel, posted to Goodreads. Aithal Aithal's review Jan 08, 2022 really liked it This book is not just a story but a very thought-provoking piece of work. Several times, I found myself nodding in agreement. The subject matter is interwoven as the story progresses. Stuart Aken masterfully makes …
Continue reading Another Great #Review for An Excess Of…
I came across this review by Joshua Grant while doing a search for my book on Amazon to check on current progress. Despite the fact I entered the title of my book in its exact form, the search returned 75 pages of titles, none of which (apart from mine) had this exact title. In fact, …
Continue reading Another 5 Star Review.
Picture via Pixabay Humanity is sometimes credited with evolving through competition. While this may be true of the need for early humans to compete with other wild animals for food and shelter, the need to compete with other humans was less an issue in those early times as there were far fewer of us around. …
Continue reading An Excess Of…Competition?
Stuart Aken 