It's been over a year now since I left my job to become a full time bum, sorry, writer and, recently anyway, this blog is all I seem to be able to write. Sitting about me are the first third of a novel, a tenth of a philosophy collection, several articles and short stories along with various collections of notes describing potential future projects. Lots to be done and yet the words refuse to come.

Looking back through the various work it either seems crap or written by some stranger, someone I don't know. I'm supposed to working on a teen-fantasy series because apparently, 'that's where the interest is' and though the ideas come freely to form notes upon notes, the actual text remains elusive.

I wrote the following short story to fit a specific competition word limit so it's significantly shorter than most of my stuff. Posting it here means I can't enter it in any more comps as it has technically been 'published' but screw it, there's more where this came from.

I'd had the basic idea ages ago but it wasn't until I found a particular book in my favourite second hand bookshop, ELEPHANT BOOKS, LEEDS, (GO THERE! BUY STUFF!) that the whole thing fell together. I would REALLY appreciate any comments or criticisms people have:

Unfortunately I've had to remove this story from the site for copyright reasons, basically someone wants to publish it so I have to give them exclusivity. Hope those who read it for free liked it, the rest of you can catch it in paperback :)