It's always great to receive a positive review. This one is quite short, but says the things an author loves to hear. You can find the original here. # Ten Tales for Tomorrow Stuart Aken Rating: 5 Shrimps! Stuart Aken’s short story compendium Ten Tales for Tomorrow explores several possible futures. Speculative fiction often has …
Tag: Space
Futurology or Science Fiction?
Is my fiction futurolgy or science fiction? Judge for yourself with a click here.
The #Writing’s Done. What Now?
I’ve spent the better part of three years on a project, writing a novel each year, and found the void at the end of that process strangely debilitating. So, what do I do know? Fantastic Books Publishing launched Blood Red Dust, book 1 of the Generation Mars series, on 18th October 2016. War Over Dust, …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
It’s done! It’s out! It’s available to buy (and review)! Right now! Okay, so an overindulgence in apostrophes. I’m excited. Delighted. Eager. The book is no longer a Work In Progress, so this is the last post in this series. There’ll be more on the book, of course: I’d like everyone to read it, after …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
As there's still nothing new to report re the WIP, and therefore no true progress on the book, I thought I’d continue along the lines of last week’s post. This time, I’m looking at the content; in particular, the inclusion of sex and nudity in my work. So, if you’re at all prudish, narrowminded, easily …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Much like the swan paddling upstream, most action on the WIP is happening beneath the surface for now, so I thought I’d post a piece on the process of writing the book, the reasons behind some decisions. As I recently had a rather unusual review of the first two books in the series, highlighting the …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
We’re in that quiet-on-the-surface period, when the publisher is frantically busy behind the scenes but very little shows on the surface. So, briefly, regarding progress: the book’s with the publisher and proceeding through the various steps that take an author’s words and make a book of them. The cover’s well on the way to being …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
‘Tis done! The final version of the MS ran out to 76,749 words in 41 Chapters. Great when you get back an acknowledgement from your publisher’s editor saying, ‘Excellent! Next time you see it, it’ll be a book!’ The next stage will be the cover, which I’ll post here as soon as I’ve seen it. …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Well, it’s back with the publisher. The finished MS ran out to 75949 words, though whether that will be the published total depends on how the editor sees my changes. I’m expecting to have the book back for some minor tweaks and the odd typo, etc. But I’m relatively confident the MS I delivered on …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
And the tale continues. This book’s been subject to a number of interruptions during its creation. Not least was the collapse of my iMac, it’s replacement with a Windows 10 PC, and the appallingly drawn-out and unnecessarily complex issue of transferring files from iCloud to MS OneNote. I’ve dealt with corrupted files along the way, …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
As a general rule, authors dislike dealing with the edits sent them by their publishers. It’s often a battleground between competing egos. However, I welcome the chance to correct those things that escaped my attention by being too close to the creation. I’m on the third pass through the MS, having already done the full …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Now the serious editing has started: I received the publisher’s editing notes on Monday and I’ve been beavering away at them ever since. Both the creation and my editing of the book were interrupted by several events over which I had no control. And my final editing session was done under pressure of knowing I’d …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Now the WIP is with the publisher, and I’m awaiting the response, the result of their edit, the cover and design suggestions, I thought I’d review my Science Fiction activity to date. ‘Ten Tales for Tomorrow’, was self-published in January 2011. It’s a collection of mostly dark, sometimes humorous, speculative fiction. There’s variety here; everything …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Well, that’s it! The book is with my publisher. At 67,269 words, it’s the shortest of my novels. But it’ll be a damned good read (not that I’m in any way biased, you understand). The final part of the editing process for me was a read-through, aloud, from a print run. Many authors neglect this …
Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Six chapters to go, and the MS stands at 68,660 words, a record low word count for one of my novels! Thursday, I was driven to hospital by a kind and friendly volunteer from a local service that provides rides for people on such missions. I won’t bore, or distress, you with details of the …
Stuart Aken 