Stuart Aken's Blog

Subtitled ‘A neuroscientist’s guide to a healthier, happier life’, this book is just that. An extraordinary piece of work that, read well and applied to everyday life could be a life-changer for you. It already is for me. In just 8 chapters, this book demystifies both the workings of our most complex organ and our …

Continue reading How To Make Your Brain Your Best Friend, by Rachel Barr: #BookReview.

F.R.I.G.H.T. – A short Story for you entertainment: F.R.I.G.H.T. Foster sneered at the novel in front of him. ‘Writers! Shoot the bloody lot if I had my way.’ He leered at the scientist perched on the corner of his desk. ‘Who told him?’ The scientist inclined her head. ‘Not you, was it?’ She bridled, crossed …

Continue reading F.R.I.G.H.T. – A Short Story

A Land Despoiled, a short story for you. This one would be labelled ‘Sci-Fi’ or possibly ‘Dystopian fiction’, but I see it as the fruit of my imagination on passing through an area entirely dominated by the acid yellow flowers of oil seed rape. A Land Despoiled No one had been this far south for …

Continue reading A Land Despoiled; a Short Story

Here’s the next short story in my intention to give you one each week for the whole of 2026. I have a couple of anthologies of short stories, too, for those who love such collections. The one that would be most relevant for those who enjoy the one below would be ‘Ten Love Tales‘, a …

Continue reading A Perfect Solution: A Short Story

Here’s this week’s free to read short story for your entertainment. This one was entered for a contest and published in the resultant anthology, ‘To Hull And Back 2016’. An Eztraordinary Ezperience ‘If you don’t help me, I’ll make you sorry.’ There it was again. Every time he switched on the computer, the same threat …

Continue reading An Eztraordinary Ezperience: A Short Story

I last wrote about the WIP on the 8th of August. How is it possible I’ve allowed all those days to pass without a single catch-up piece? At that time, the MS stood at 122,237 words over 282 pages. As I write this, it stands at 120,705 words over 280 pages, having been through a …

Continue reading Is There Progress In The Work In Progress?

What is ‘Outline’? Is it a novel, a collection of essays, a piece of philosophy, an account of the physical, mental and emotional wanderings of the gifted author? It is all these things, and more. Whilst I discovered it was possible to put the book down, it was not feasible to do so without finishing …

Continue reading Outline, by Rachel Cusk: #BookReview

I’m going to attempt to place a short story here every week. Some will have been published, others, like this one, will never have been seen. I’m doing this to give readers an idea of the scope of my writing and as a way to stimulate my writing discipline. I intend to illustrate each with …

Continue reading Side By Side – A Short Story

For a few years now, my wife and I have accepted a challenge set by Country Walking Magazine to walk 1,000 miles in a year. The weekly milage required to achieve this is actually only 19.23, which is hardly a marathon. We both love walking, getting into the countryside and enjoying the freedom and serenity …

Continue reading Walk 1,000 Miles In A Year

Sure, we all know sometimes tech needs to be updated to flow in synchronicity with other tech, and that’s an accepted necessary evil. But why, oh why, these constant changes in style, appearance, and especially, connections to bloody AI? We are the customers, the consumers of your products. We BUY them. Don’t we deserve a …

Continue reading Technology: Why, Oh Why Those Constant Updates?