I'm not sure what compels people to write short stories. Perhaps it's because they don't take as long as novels. That's not to say they're easier to write, though. A well-crafted short story is a very difficult thing indeed to pull off.
You can be the judge of whether I've managed it ever. A couple of these have been published by the wonderful Spinteingler magazine, so that must count for something.
Because I have a tidy mind, I've arranged these in something of an order. Well, it made sense to me at the time. Get with the clicky for some short-form goodness.
It was the long hot summer of 1998 and the world was not a kind place for aspiring writers without publishing contracts. Some of us had to go out and prostitute ourselves, doing work for money.
So it was that I found myself taking the eight o'clock bus every morning from Roslin to North Bridge in Edinburgh and walking up the Royal Mile, down Victoria Street and onto the Grassmarket. There stood the Bank of Scotland Structured Finance offices and for a month or so I was gainfully employed in their PR department.
To this day I'm not sure why I was employed there. My days consisted mostly of answering the telephones, reading the business sections of the broadsheets in search of any articles concerning the bank and chatting about life with Jill and Louise who shared my office.
Our boss was Sophia, a formidable lady much given to being elsewhere. This suited me fine, as it meant that I had time aplenty to work on rewriting Running Away (see the fiction section for more details) and putting together these few short stories.
My other important job was to go through the applications for the post I was filling as a temp, sorting out who was to be my replacement. To all the hundreds who applied and received my curt letter of rejection, I can only say that you were blessed, not cursed. Working in a bank is not a life for any sane person
Lars is the best. His word is his bond and once a contract has been accepted, it will be fulfilled. You cannot bribe him, you cannot hope to evade him. He is expensive, but then the best always is.
The war has raged for centuries. There has never been a time when it was not so. But things are changing. Rumours are rife of a new weapon, one that could bring the whole fabric of society crashing down.
