Most of my writings fall into the novel or 'storybit' category. Novels need no explanation, but storybits are, by my definition, fictional skits written for the purpose of fleshing out Role Playing Game characters and can take many forms. In this particular space, however, I want to concentrate on the few short stories I have managed to write to completion (short stories are harder for me than longer works), the odd extract from my longer work and occasional essays which are, as I say in my 'bio', purely my own opinion.

I hope you enjoy at least some of what you find here and if you don't, I hope you will contact me to tell me why. I may or may not agree with you, but constructive criticism is nearly always of great use. To kick off then …

Essays

Putting Fingers to Keyboards: A shortish essay which may, or may not help fledgling writers and at the least puts my own approach to the task firmly in black and white.

Words on Horror: Another short essay which is more of a muse about just why I love horror. This was written with one of my MUSH characters in mind, namely, Herbert West.

Short Stories

The Midgard Pig: which was written for a short story competition. It didn't get a placing and has been just lying around on the HDD ever since.

Jessica: Also written for a short story competition and more successful as it got me second place in the local section and won me my first six weeks of fencing for free, which ain't bad.

Wargod: Written on a rainy day in Ireland. This is my story of doom. I've sent it to three magazines, all of which went bust shortly after I sent it. Sure, it's not brilliant, but that's a real drastic way to get out of writing a rejection letter ... I gather some university rag in Idaho or somesuch published it in the end, so at least it got printed, even if it didn't pay any of the phone bill.

Light My Fire: An Irish womens magazine had a competition which I wrote and entered this for. About three sentences into it, it really got away from me and I knew I didn't have a chance in hell of winning or getting a placing - womens magazines really don't want this kinda dark, weird stuff - but I still kinda like it.

Extracts