Reaching across with his left hand, he probed at the flesh around his hip. Benn screwed his eyes shut and lay still, listening to his breathing.

The story forms part of a compilation of stories by various authors: Glimpse.Ī grid of shadows lay across the bed, rigid lines of moonlight that sliced the crumpled sheets into squares. It’s called Switch, a short story from the Lords of Misrule world. I was re-reading a story I wrote a few months ago. However, this tweaking nature of mine (not twerking, the world’s not ready for that) was once more made apparent this morning. This is hardly a revelation, and I know I’m not alone in this mindset. In other news, experts have concluded that squares have more corners than circles. I want to write good stories that read well, just like the books I enjoy reading. I don’t want stray, commas, cluttering up my text repetitive pronouns superfluous descriptions or long, winding info-dumps that are being choked to death by adverbs. I’m not interested in typing up any old tripe and hoping for the best. Hitting the big-red ‘publish’ button is hard.

Big red button of doom