Stuart Aken's Blog, page 203
January 2, 2016
Another 5* Review for The Methuselah Strain!
Had to share this: another reader has added a 5 star review to those slowly accumulating for my science fiction novella. It’s really rewarding when a reader shares well-considered thoughts on your work as an author. Many thanks to the reviewer. Longing For Simpler Times,1 Jan. 2016 By Amazon Customer This review is from:The Methuselah […]
December 31, 2015
Happy New Year!
Filed under: General Tagged: News
Cut The Fat; Make Your Writing Lean: #Tip 23.
We writers like to share ideas to improve our craft. Here, with a slightly seasonal slant, I’m looking at ways to trim our writing. Readers will thank us for removing common redundancies and flabby expressions. At the present time: Empty words; avoid them. e.g. At the present time we all want to wish each other […]
2015: The Blog in Review
It’s that time of the year when we like to review our activities and see what we’ve done over the last 365 days. Was it effective? Did it help people? Has that time been spent usefully? Well, the WordPress.com stats helper monkeys have prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog and I’m sharing it […]
December 29, 2015
Cut The Fat; Make Your Writing Lean: #Tip 22.
We writers tend to share ideas to improve our craft. Here, I’m looking at ways to trim our writing. Readers will thank us. I’ll examine common redundancies and flabby expressions. At the end of the day: Along with many of its flabby cousins, this cliché has ceased to have the miniscule emphatic power it started […]
December 27, 2015
Writing Contest Table Updated.
This is just a note to let you know I’ve finally got around to updating the writing contest table. At present, the update is fairly short, but I’ll enlarge the numbers of listed contests soon. Here’s the link. Please note that from today I’ll be announcing the updates to the table here on the blog: […]
The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill, Reviewed.
Having seen the Daniel Radcliffe film adapted from this novel, I was eager to read the book. In common with many readers, I generally find books much better than the films made from them, but in this case I was disappointed. The narrative is written in the first person and in the style of a […]
December 24, 2015
Cut The Fat; Make Your Writing Lean: #Tip 21.
Writers tend to share ideas to improve their craft. Here, with a seasonal slant, I’m looking at ways to trim our writing. Readers will thank us. I’ll examine common redundancies and flabby expressions. Different kinds: A ‘kind’ is a type of something; by definition it’s different from another kind. e.g. At Christmas, children expect different […]
December 23, 2015
The Amazon Review Policy Elephant in the Room
Originally posted on Jo Robinson:
The whole Amazon review policy debacle that started a while ago is not going to go away, so we should probably make firm decisions as to the way forward as far as how we are each personally going to review books in the future. There’s a great post covering the…
The whole Amazon review policy debacle that started a while ago is not going to go away, so we should probably make firm decisions as to the way forward as far as how we are each personally going to review books in the future. There’s a great post covering the…
December 22, 2015
Cut The Fat; Make Your Writing Lean: #Tip 20.
Writers share ideas to improve their craft. Here, I’m looking at ways to trim our writing. Readers will thank us. I’ll examine common redundancies and flabby expressions. First of all: Whilst ‘of all’ may act as a qualifier, amplifying the phrase, it’s a wordy addition to your narrative and is probably better left out. E.g. […]
