Do you sometimes struggle to find the ‘right’ word for your writing? I do. Perhaps, in improving myself, I can help other writers. Today’s words: Luxuriant/Luxurious, Down in the dumps, Iktsuarpok. Words often misused: English, because of its inheritance of words stolen from many languages, often uses words that superficially appear to mean more or …
Continue reading The #Write #Word? Post 7
This wonderfully written novel explores the relationship between two very different women. One is a divorced mother struggling to cope with the loss of a child, and the other a very young single woman coping with a major change in her chaotic life. The main characters are drawn with a vivid clarity that ensures the …
Continue reading I Used to Be, by Mary Brown: #BookReview.
Do you sometimes struggle to find the ‘right’ word for your writing? I know I do. Perhaps, in improving myself, I can help other writers. Today’s words: Final Ultimatum, Alternatives, Zeugma, Redundancies: words serving no purpose. In speech, they’re spacers, giving the speaker time to think. But in writing they slow the reader’s progress. Final …
Continue reading The Write Word? Post 6
A touching story of love, betrayal, loss and redemption. Tess Burnside’s tale is told in simple form, perhaps a little too simple in terms of language. I found the repetitive use of ‘she’ to start multiple sentences a little wearing and would have preferred more variety of sentence structure to avoid this. But the characters …
Continue reading The Rift, by Tess Burnside: #BookReview.
An unusual novel, this. The protagonist is a young Muslim boy facing a future he finds unattractive for many reasons. At first, I wondered if this book was meant for children, but that opinion was quickly squashed by the complex language and general tone of the story. The book is aimed, I imagine, at parents, …
Continue reading Mo, by S Pearce: #BookReview.
This little book, like all of this author’s output, is direct, straightforward, and full of common sense corralled by her personal research and experience. Gisela Hausmann is thorough in her search for useful advice for the users of social media, especially those who write for a living. This book is no exception. Eager to pass …
Do you sometimes struggle to find the ‘right’ word for your writing? I do. Maybe, in helping myself, I can help other writers. I’ve been posting pieces titled ‘Looking for the Best Word?’ until I reached post 70, at the end of 2017, and decided a different approach could help remotivate me and might be …
Continue reading The Write Word? Post 2
Help for writers and language learners; these posts look at different aspects of the world of words to stimulate curiosity and enhance creativity. My apologies: This post should have appeared yesterday. No real excuse, except I took a rather longer walk than usual and the day was over before I realised it! This week’s words: …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #69
This short (10,000 words) teaser is an introduction to a new character. However, the story does have a beginning, middle and end, which makes it more satisfying than many such introductory pieces. The future envisaged in this science fiction world is, as the eponymous title suggests; bleak. The character, described as a shape shifter, is …
Continue reading Bleak: The First Mission, by Ian Martyn: #BookReview.
There’s a peculiar, but worldwide, obsession with and respect for leaders of nations. Why? What good do they do? If we look at history, ancient and modern, we find leaders have taken their nations into war, most often to increase the size of the region over which they hold power. Does such action benefit the …
Continue reading Leaders: Do We Really Need Them?
https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/card?asin=B01KOSVE3Y&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_VevnAb9AQT40C&tag=stuartaken-21 Sub-titled ‘A Dottie Manderson Mystery’, this is the first in a series, and introduces the eponymous heroin through a fascinating tale set in England in the 1930s. This ‘cosy crime’ novel, with its measure of burgeoning romance, is a good read; something to entertain and satisfy in front of a burning log fire in …
Continue reading Night and Day, by Caron Allan: #BookReview.
Help for writers and language learners; these posts look at different aspects of the world of words to stimulate curiosity and enhance creativity. This week’s words: Vacant, Personification, I saw it with my own eyes, No time like the present Vacant: - Roget’s thesaurus lists the following headers for this adjective: empty, unthinking, unintelligent, unprovided, …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #68
https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/card?asin=B076QFZY9S&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_YHalAb3WREYPG&tag=stuartaken-21 Subtitled ‘A Handbook for Writers of Commercial Fiction’, this book is precisely what it says it is. As a reader, I’ve tended to shy away from what I saw as ‘commercial’ fiction, but, in practice, I now realise I’ve actually read a good deal of it. As a writer, my fiction veers toward the …
Continue reading How to be a Fantastic Writer, by Danuta Reah & Penny Grubb: #BookReview.
https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/card?asin=B075R4VPNB&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_0NalAb4XD8Z81&tag=stuartaken-21 Subtitled ‘How to Find Readers’, this is another of Hausmann’s writing books crammed with common sense and down-to-earth advice. First, I must pose a question: ‘If you’re a writer, do you belong to Goodreads?’ And, if you don’t, a supplementary question: ‘Why not?’ Goodreads may boast a membership of ‘only’ 65 million, but …
Continue reading Naked Good Reads, by Gisela Hausmann: #BookReview.
You’ll have heard the cry: ‘Work hard and you’ll succeed.’ Almost from infancy, we’re brought up to believe this mantra. It follows us through school, often reinforced by loving and caring parents, and is ingrained in our very personas through repetition and a form of example. The successful, in the terms of our current society, …
Continue reading ‘Work Hard And You’ll Succeed’: The Biggest Lie?
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Antidote to the Novel
Stuart Aken 