The lift lurched to a halt between the 28th and 29th floors, pitching Cara to the floor. The impact caused her watch to stop at exactly 11:53pm. She swore, but a stopped watch was the least of her worries. In a normal lift in a normal building, she’d try to contact someone, and wait for […]
Blog
Terry Deary wants to abolish libraries
Newcastle City Library Last week, I spotted a tweet from Neil Gaiman, calling Terry Deary selfish and avaricious for his attitude towards libraries. He’d included a link to the Guardian’s website, so I clicked through to have a look. What I saw shocked me. Deary appears to have a thing against libraries because they’re losing […]
#FridayFlash – Rainy Day
Celine sits on the station platform, waiting for her train to York. She fiddles with her hair and taps an irregular rhythm with her feet. The announcements board says the train is on time but it cannot come soon enough for Celine. Her Boyfriend promised her a day out in York, a city she has […]
NaNoReMo update
At the end of January, I announced that I’d be reading Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto for NaNoReMo. I’d chosen it due to its privileged position within the canon of Gothic literature, and because many of its themes and motifs appear in later novels, and by extension, within the gothic mode of filmmaking. It’s […]
#FridayFlash – We Could Be Heroes
“Ere, Simon, how do you know you can die?” “What?” “I said, how do you know you’ll die? Or that you even can?” “What are you on about now?” “I was just thinking. You could have superpowers or something, so how do you know you even can die unless you try it?” “Don’t be stupid, […]
#FridayFlash – Broken Bracelet
In the days following The End, a lot of people learned the value of what they’d lost. Law, order, social niceties, even electricity – all gone. Those disenfranchised by the old system turned feral, and formed the Riot Boys. The police, overrun and overworked, just gave up. It got worse. Even death offered no eternal […]
