Icy Sedgwick's Blog, page 98

Photo Prompt 77

New prompt available!



If you want to use the prompt, all I ask is that you include a link to this entry and a credit to me for the photograph, and that you post a link to your story in the comments box below so I can see what you've come up with! If you don't comment on this entry, then I can't comment on your story.



The 77th prompt is Covent Garden Sunset.





All photo prompts are my own photography - you can find more of it on Flickr. You can also buy my prints from Deviantart. 20% of all proceeds go to charity - the other 80% go towards my PhD fees!

Am I really a horror writer?

Since the beginning of January, I have posted a Friday Flash for each week of 2012, which is a total of eleven stories. However, of those eleven, only three have been non-horror related (one fantasy comedy, one slice of life, and one historical). The other eight have encompassed zombies, mummies, vampires, Gothic horror, evil puppets and as-yet-unnamed creatures who wear human skins. Is anyone else as surprised by that as me?



Back in the day, I called myself a horror writer. We're talking back when I was about sixteen and didn't know any better. I read Stephen King and Clive Barker, and I wanted to write like that too. Problem was, I didn't really enjoy writing "gore". It just didn't seem to work for me very well. I stuck to my "weird fantasy" stories, writing about games of chess between celestial beings, or jewellery boxes that turned their contents into gold, and eventually put out my Checkmate & Other Stories collection, composed of those stories I'd had published online. Definitely not 'slice of life' or realistic, but not really horror either.



So time went by, and I branched out. I wrote historical stories, and ventured into steampunk, and wound up writing a pulp Western last year. I'm damned proud of The Guns of Retribution, but there's always been a little tug back towards my roots - to the extent that its sequel, To Kill A Dead Man, sees Grey O'Donnell pitted against villains of a more supernatural nature. I hardly think it's a surprise that I'd find myself back within the horror genre, considering I spend my spare time hunting ghosts, and studying haunted house films for my PhD - and that's when I'm not reading about the psychological theories that underpin the horror genre as a whole. My life is pretty well steeped in Bizarro at the moment.



Or is it something deeper? I like to think my "craft" has improved since those first stories were published back in 2008, and I'm in a better place to write horror stories that get under the skin. Perhaps spending so long writing weekly flashes, and working on longer stories or novels, has honed my idea-generating skills to the point that I feel I'm better able to work with horror. Maybe my experiences with strange events, and my research into them, has given me better insights into what ideas will work, and what won't. Or maybe the stressful nature of my life at the moment means that the stress has to come out somewhere - and it's choosing to birth weird ideas from my imagination.



Either way, I want to ask a question. My work seems to fall into two major categories, and then a whole bunch of little ones beyond that. So what would people rather see from me - horror stories, or my historical tales?

Friday Flash - The Jar by the Door

The old stairs creaked with every step. Joseph grimaced, unable to decide what made more noise; the staircase, or his joints. He cursed the building between each laboured breath. Six floors of crumbling apartments above his own dingy quarters – and six floors of irritating tenants. Especially 5A.

Joseph paused for breath on the landing below the top floor – home to 6B. The current inhabitant took one look at the place seven months ago, and declared it perfect for her needs. Her long legs and narrow waist told Joseph she'd be perfect for his needs, but he was old enough to be her grandfather.

He hoped he might catch the leggy blonde stepping out of the shower, and propelled himself up the last flight of stairs. He reached her door, and rapped his gnarled knuckles against the flaking wood.

"Miss? Are you in? It's just me, Joseph," he called.

No reply. How typical. He glared down at the floor in the vague direction of 5A. The crotchety old bag complained about everyone in the building, but she complained about 6B more than anyone else. Suspicious noises, foul smells, dubious company – 5A filed a new complaint every day about the same things. Joseph knew he should have ignored her, but he wanted an excuse to ogle 6B's cleavage.

Joseph raised his hand to knock again when the first whiff caught in his nostrils. He screwed up his face and bunched his fist up to his nose. Perhaps a rat had died inside the wall cavity. Or maybe he'd stepped in something. Against his better judgement, he sniffed again, and retched. The stench of rotting meat and rising damp came from beyond the door.

Joseph stuffed a tissue around his nose and fished his jangling bunch of keys out of his pocket. He fumbled with the correct one, eventually getting the ancient metal bone into the lock. The keyhole protested for a moment, as if aware that it was not 6B entering the apartment, but the door gave. Joseph gave it a hard shove, and stepped inside.

Newspapers covered the windows, with narrow shafts of light penetrating the occasional gap. The sunshine fell across bare floorboards covered in old clothing. Joseph glared at the mess, but realised the smell came from the bathroom. He felt his way through the apartment, stumbling over assorted junk and rubbish. He peered into the gloom and realised that 6B had very little furniture – in fact, there was nothing of her own, simply the battered basics he'd provided.

Something dark and sticky covered the floorboards in front of the bathroom door. Joseph gagged, and forced himself not to vomit. He pushed the door open with his elbow, desperate not to touch anything in this flea pit with his bare hands.

Mental note, I'll serve her a termination in the morning. Just hope she tidies up before she goes, he thought.

Joseph froze in the doorway, jaw slack and eyes bulging. A sticky, red mess occupied the bath tub, all sinews and awkward angles. Crimson handprints stained the wash basin. Three suits hung from coat hangers dangling from the shower rail. More bile rushed up Joseph's throat when he realised they weren't suits – they were skins.

He stumbled backwards, willing himself to look away from the skins hung out to dry. He glanced in the mirror and saw rows of jars lined up on the shelves behind the bathroom door. A multitude of eyeless faces stared back from inside the jars, floating in dark green liquid.

Joseph wanted to scream, but a pain in his chest swallowed the sound. He dropped to the floor, his knees popping under the strain. One hand clutched at his shirt, twisted into a claw as if he sought to tear open his chest and free his burning heart.

Joseph slumped across the filthy floorboards. When his ribs stopped heaving, he looked for all the world like another pile of old rags.

* * *

The short man clambered up the stairs to 6B. He stared at the open door, and sniffed the air. Someone had been here. Not a stranger – no, the funny landlord. The landlord who stared and sprayed the air with pheromones. The short man screwed his eyes up as if to banish the mental image.

He crept into the apartment and sniffed again. No, no signs of life here. Recently, yes, but not now. He closed the door behind him and looked around. Across the room and down the hall, the bathroom door stood open. The short man made his way through the apartment, ignoring the darkness.

He found the landlord prone on the floor, one hand at his chest. The short man smirked, thinking of the man's lust. Heartache after all, he thought.

The short man reached his fingers around the back of his neck and pried the skin away from a glistening spinal column. The skin peeled away easily, and the creature stepped out of the suit. It unfurled its long limbs and stretched, glad to be free of the short man's prison. It crossed the corridor to the bedroom and hung the suit in the wardrobe, beside the tall attractive woman's skin. Oh yes, the landlord liked that skin.

The creature returned to the corridor, and nudged the landlord with one claw. Satisfied he was dead, it gently peeled away its human face, and skittered into the bathroom. It deposited the face in the empty jar by the door, and took up the skinning knife from the cabinet.

The creature stood in the doorway, and looked down at the landlord. Yes, this was very good. The other tenants would let it in now, dressed as their landlord. The tenant in 5A would make a lovely new suit.

Light flashed on the creature's blade. It swayed with joy, humming the opening bars to Eleanor Rigby as it worked.

Photo Prompt 76

New prompt available!



If you want to use the prompt, all I ask is that you include a link to this entry and a credit to me for the photograph, and that you post a link to your story in the comments box below so I can see what you've come up with! If you don't comment on this entry, then I can't comment on your story.



The 76th prompt is Mandrake.





All photo prompts are my own photography - you can find more of it on Flickr. You can also buy my prints from Deviantart. 20% of all proceeds go to charity - the other 80% go towards my PhD fees!

Friday Flash - Finders Keepers

The sun's sliding down the sky towards the horizon and the dying husk of the city lies quiet around me. Only the sound of my horse's hooves on the grass of Victory Park breaks the silence. I'm not worried about the noise. They only come out if they hear humans, and they don't stir much during the day.

A shotgun bounces against my back. I don't like to use it because the noise attracts unwanted attention, but it's better safe than sorry. My bespoke holsters on my thighs hold my claw hammer and machete - much better weapons. Silent yet deadly.

I haven't seen another human all afternoon. Cats and dogs wander around, foraging for food. Sometimes we take the animals back into the fortress. Cats keep the rats away from our supplies, and we train the dogs to help out, but they're safe enough outside. The things only want human flesh.

The shadows lengthen across the grass. Dusk is coming, bringing the end of my patrol. I guide my horse around the pond at the far end of the park. Napoleon slows to a trot as we pass the flowerbeds. The flowers are flattened, the colours mashed into one another like someone emptied a paint box. Someone has been here.

Napoleon whinnies and taps on the ground with his hoof. Three taps – the signal that one of the things is near.

Sure enough, twigs snap and the bushes rustle. A man, or at least what used to be a man, lurches out of the undergrowth. Blood foams around his mouth, and his eyes ooze thick white pus. Bite marks run down his forearms. I've seen it before. If they get hungry enough, they sometimes try to eat themselves.

It heads straight for me. I whip the claw hammer from my holster and swing it down in an arc. The claw meets his temple with a sickening crack. I rip the hammer upwards, tearing open his skull. I don't want him going down with my weapon embedded in his brain. That would mean getting off Napoleon, and I have no intention of setting foot on solid ground until I get back to the fortress.

The thing collapses backwards, blood and brains spattering the footpath beneath him. A noxious smell fills the air and I try not to stare at the hole in his head. I pull out a small towel and wipe the hammer before putting it back in the holster. Napoleon whinnies in relief as we head home.

We took over the prison on the edge of town. The prisoners escaped when the plague first took hold, and we moved in shortly after. The Keepers came first, those survivors who stockpiled supplies in strong rooms and taught themselves how to farm, and rear animals. Then came the Finders, the people trained in martial arts, the ones who brave the Outside. Sad thing is, we're rapidly running out of survivors to find.

The prison looms ahead of me. The guards on the gate let me past the outer checkpoint. They check my arms and legs for bites, before letting me inside the fortress.

Keepers are hard at work harvesting potatoes in the prison allotment, while Finders practice their drills in the exercise yard. Finder Scott pauses, his leg in mid kick, frozen an inch before the punch bag. We exchange waves, and he mimes for me to give him a report later. I climb down from Napoleon, and a Keeper runs over to lead him to the stables. I pause to pet the fortress cat who just deposited a mangled rat at my feet.

"Finder Ganz, how was your patrol?" asks Gentleman Rhodes. The gentlemen and women run the fortress. They're the closest thing we have to government.

"Quiet. No survivors, but killed three Things."

"Good work. You may have the evening off from practicing drill."

"May I pay a visit to Professor Bream?" I ask.

Gentleman Rhodes' face softens, and he nods. I salute, and he walks way, heading to the allotment. I turn and walk into the main building. Professor Bream's laboratory is down in the basement, in the maximum security wing. We have doctors here, but no one like our pet geneticist.

Keeper Madison sits in the corner of the lab, practicing the violin. She's good. The concerto lends our fortress an air of class. No world that could produce music like that could truly end.

Professor Bream sits tapping on his laptop. We got a generator going for the electricity. One of the Keepers converted the generator to run on horse manure instead of diesel.

"Ah! Finder Ganz. How was your patrol?" asks Professor Bream.

"Fine. Is it ok to see the specimen?" I ask.

"Indeed, indeed. Go right ahead," he replied.

Professor Bream goes back to his work while Keeper Madison launches into a frenzied fiddle piece. I leave the main lab and go into the cells. Three of them hold Things in various stages of decomposition. Bream's gene therapy mustn't be up to scratch yet.

I stand before the fourth. Another of the Things sits inside. The face may be a bloodied pulp, but the eyes are despondent as it stares at the floor. A mangled chicken carcass lies discarded on the floor. It looks at me. Most Things would rush at the plexiglass, battering their heads in their attempt to reach a human. Not this one. It holds my gaze, and looks away. Tears prick my eyes as I put my hand on the toughened glass.

"We will find a cure, Daddy," I whisper.

International Women's Day

It seems only fitting that today should be the day that my paperback copy of Short Stack dropped through the door! Today is International Women's Day, and Short Stack features ten pulp stories by lady writers, including yours truly. I blogged about it here, but it's always nice to show off your work! It's currently available for Kindle, but the paperback will be out soon.



In honour of the day though, I want to just give some appreciation to all of the lady writers I know, talk to and admire; all the working mothers just trying to get through the day; all the women struggling to love themselves in the face of the continual media onslaught; all of my female friends who make a point of being themselves; and all of the women who've fought through the ages to give us the opportunities we have today.

Photo Prompt 75

New prompt available!



If you want to use the prompt, all I ask is that you include a link to this entry and a credit to me for the photograph, and that you post a link to your story in the comments box below so I can see what you've come up with! If you don't comment on this entry, then I can't comment on your story.



The 75th prompt is Face in the Fountain.





All photo prompts are my own photography - you can find more of it on Flickr. You can also buy my prints from Deviantart. 20% of all proceeds go to charity - the other 80% go towards my PhD fees!

Friday Flash - Lonely Shadows

The shadow sat among the tall grass beside the old Chesham mausoleum. It pattered its fingers against the ground, tapping out a half-remembered rhythm. A blackbird stopped pecking for worms nearby, and shot the shadow a filthy look. It flew away, heading for quiet ground near the pond.

Even the birds leave me alone, thought the shadow. It looked around the cemetery at all the silent graves and stifled a sob. All of the other shadows found new owners. Even its owner's reflection found someone else within months.

A little girl tottered around the corner of the church. She skipped between graves, singing a tuneless song about piglets. The shadow remembered the unbridled joy of skipping. It smiled despite itself.

"Ellie, don't go too far!" called the little girl's mother. She and another woman knelt beside a grave near the chapel.

Ellie stopped so suddenly she swayed in her little pink shoes. She stared at the mausoleum. The shadow started when it realised she wasn't quite staring at the mausoleum itself. It raised trembling fingers and waved from one side to the other. Ellie's eyes followed the progress of the hand.

"You can see me," said the shadow.

Ellie nodded. The shadow looked beyond the little girl. Her mother and aunt were occupied tidying a grave. One of the new ones, thought the shadow.

"Hello, Mr Shadow."

"Erm, hello." The shadow coughed, its voice creaky from lack of use.

"Whose shadow are you?" asked Ellie. She plunged her fists into the pockets of her red coat.

"Mansell Cribbington's."

"That's a funny name."

"It is an old name, my dear girl," said the shadow. It looked at the gravestone one row away from the mausoleum to check the date of death. 1876. It bit its lip - had it really been so many years?

"Have you been sitting here long?" asked Ellie.

"Since Mansell died." The shadow pointed at the gravestone.

"All by yourself?"

"Yes." The shadow looked at the ground. It focussed very hard on a stalk of grass wafting in the afternoon breeze.

"That's sad. Can't you find a new owner?"

"I'm not entirely sure that I would know how." The shadow stared at the grass.

"I used to be scared of my shadow but Daddy says it's just from of the sun."

The shadow snorted. Ah, the naiveté of youth! Having said that, Mansell believed something similar, but it didn't stop the shadow from having a mind of its own.

"Are you scared to leave here?" asked Ellie. She glanced across to her mother.

"Yes. Yes, I rather suppose that I am."

"I keep asking Mummy for a puppy but she won't let me have one."

"Dogs are marvellous creatures. Mansell had three English Setters."

The shadow remembered how the dogs barked and snapped at it when they first arrived. The novelty passed, and soon they ignored the shadow altogether. He passed many an enjoyable hour watching their exploits.

"Could I be your new owner?" asked Ellie.

The shadow looked up to see Ellie standing over it. She reached out a pudgy hand, her fingers brushing the edge of the shadow. It rippled at her touch and she giggled.

"I don't know. I don't think I can have an owner any more. I'm too old."

"Can you be my pet?"

The shadow turned sideways, its head appearing in profile. It wrinkled its nose at the suggestion.

"I am no one's pet, dear girl. However, I suppose I could be a companion of sorts."

"Our house is really big, and it's really old. Mummy gets migraines so she keeps the curtains shut." Ellie twirled in a circle.

"Very well." The shadow smiled to think of such darkness.

Ellie reached out and took hold of the edge of the shadow. She folded it edge to edge, folding it over and over until she could fit the black square in her pocket. The little girl skipped away towards her mother.

The shadow slept in the folds of her coat, so eager to leave the cemetery that it didn't notice that Ellie cast no shadow of her own.

[Guest Post] Tony Noland on Ideas

Last week, I threw open the doors of the Blunt Pencil (sounds like a pirate tavern, doesn't it?) and invited Beth Trissel to talk about the importance of research. Today, I'm pleased to welcome my very good friend Tony Noland . I've been kicking around the concept of a series of posts intended to explore the initial idea that sparked the beginning of a story, and Tony has very graciously agreed to join in! I'll be sharing the particular story he's talking about at the end of the post. So, without any further ado, over to you, Tony!



* * *

If you were to have your life's work taken from you, how would you react? I'm talking about the main thing that drives you, your chief source of joy and delight in life, what gives you your self-identity and self-respect. If you found out that you had to give it up, knowing that you would lose all your friends, all your status in the community, everything that mattered... how would that feel?



This is no fiction, of course. Every day, people are forced to give up careers, activities and relationships through the vicissitudes of life. Even without global upheavals like war, famine or zombie apocalypse, everyday changes in the job market, family turmoil, health crises... these can make any of us face terrible decisions with major impacts on our emotional well-being.



But what if it was a thriving career as a superhero you had to give up? And, just to make the stakes even higher, what if you had to give it up for a stupid, embarrassing, humiliating reason?



In writing "Grey Ghost Gone", I wanted to explore the emotions in that scenario. When playboy billionaire Harold Rentnick is forced to make that hard decision of giving up his superhero career as the Grey Ghost, his biggest loss is emotional. He misses using the superpowers and the crimefighting excitement, but what he really misses are his friends, his romantic attachments, his sense of belonging.



The costumes, powers and codenames aside, this story is a tragedy for a very human reason. Mr. Rentnick had no one to fully share himself with. People wear masks to protect themselves emotionally, but an inevitable consequence is isolation. He kept his life so compartmentalized that when tragedy struck, he had no one he felt he could to turn to, no one to lean on. In fact, he was so concerned with preserving the dignity of the Grey Ghost's image, and of maintaining that mask, that he went to great lengths to deliberately cut himself off from the friends who tried to help. With secret identities and life challenges of their own, I have no doubt they would have understood and they would have supported him in transition to a new life.



Instead, he isolated himself and lived only with his grief and loss. He was reduced to bitterness and solitude, convinced that he was worthless and had no reason to go on. This, because there was no one in his life who might have told him differently.



In this story, superheroes are people, with human needs. My hope is that readers can find something in it to connect with, even if they don't have a magic ring.



**~**~**

"Grey Ghost Gone"

by Tony Noland

Harold pulled into his garage, killed the engine and took off his sunglasses. Six more hours until sundown, as if it mattered. Nothing mattered, not anymore. The life of Harold W. Rentnick III was never much to speak of, but his night-time secret identity as a vigilante super-hero used to make his days bearable. Not long ago, he lived for the night, was anxious to leave this plush prison and go out to prowl the mean streets. Now, he just sat alone at home watching CSI reruns and movies from his Netflix queue.



True, home was a 34-room mansion on a secure estate, but so what? Harold knew that he was a boring, unlovable lump. It was his alter ego, the Grey Ghost, whom everyone liked to be with. When he was behind the mask of the Ghost, he could be clever, funny, charming, flirtatious... free. People liked him when was the Ghost. People only tried to hang out with Harold because he was rich. Whether they were from families that were rich, super-rich or don't-bother-asking-rich, it was all about money. There was no one he could trust, with whom he could be himself. Money was like a disease that kept him apart from everyone else, a disease for which he knew no cure.



In the end, it was all worthless. He hated being Harold. He'd trade every cent of it to be able to be the Grey Ghost again; even if he had to start over from nothing, he'd do it tomorrow. But it was impossible.



He got out of the Benz and went into the empty house. The super-strength and ESP, he missed those, of course, but more than that or any of the other powers, he missed being cool and mysterious, being admired. He missed hanging out with RocketMan and Raptor, just kicking ass and patrolling together through the watches of the night. He even missed his on-again, off-again dating with Electra, crazy jealous as she was of that partnership he'd had with the Blonde Bombshell. He missed all of his friends.



But he dared not put on the magic ring that gave him his powers, not even once for old time's sake. The pain was just unbearable when he took the ring off, and he couldn't stay as the Ghost for more than 72 hours without dying of thirst.



The ring was upstairs, on his dresser in that little wooden box, the same one he'd found in that cave in Bolivia. The carved piece of bone was dense and smooth, and he'd been captivated by its beauty and power from the moment he saw it. When he first put it on though, he'd realized he had something unique in all the world. It had taken him a while to figure out the powers that came with the ring, but it was a chance to completely reinvent himself. How ironic that the same aspect of the ring's power which had made him feared and hated in the criminal underworld was also the very thing that forced him to retire last year.



As the Grey Ghost, all forms of metal and other inorganic matter passed right through him. Bullets, knives, shrapnel... none of it could touch him. It wasn't exactly full intangibility, but it also let him walk through brick walls, go in and out of locked vaults, stuff like that. It scared the hell out of the crooks. It never occurred to him to think about his teeth.



Harold walked down the back hall towards the kitchen. For more than twenty years, he'd been a super-hero, one of the best. Then, last spring, it all came to an end. He remembered going out on patrol after having a cavity fixed at the dentist, the first one he'd ever had. His new filling fell right through his mouth as soon as he put on the ring. He hadn't noticed until after that night's work, but when he took the ring off, that stabbing pain was horrible. It meant he'd had to endure a redrilling session to set a new one, which had also fallen out the very next night. Of course, he didn't feel the pain as the Grey Ghost; as soon as the magic ring came off, though...



After replacing the filling for the fourth time, the dentist said he'd have to pull the tooth and set a crown if the fillings kept coming out. Harold considered what it would mean to have endured the drilling into his jawbone to set the pin, only to have to go back and do it again and again when his intangibility kicked in. That wasn't a volitional power like the flight or the X-ray vision... it just happened when he put on the ring.



Harold thought of the needles jabbed into his jaw, the smell of burning bone during that last session in the dentist's chair, the metallic taste of the most recent filling. With his jaw still aching, he made the hardest decision of his life. He'd given up his life's work, his passion, the only thing that made life enjoyable. He sent a secret coded message to the mayor and to Fellowship of Protectors, telling them of his decision to retire, citing "medical reasons". Every single one of them expressed concern, offered support, asked if he needed help. The Diamond Devil and Ms. Crusher even offered to meet up in real life.



He didn't answer any of them. None of his friends - the Grey Ghost's friends - knew who he really was, and he wanted to keep it that way. He couldn't bear to let anyone know that behind the mask of the Grey Ghost, the spookiest, cleverest hero of them all, he was just Harold Rentnick, a worthless billionaire.



From one of the kitchen cupboards, Harold took a tall glass. From the refrigerator, he took a container of orange juice. From the butler's pantry, he got a fresh bottle of Grey Goose vodka. It had been his favorite brand since he'd picked his nom-de-heroique. He smiled at that private joke one last time. In his pocket was a rattling bottle, a full prescription of sleeping pills. Unbuttoning his shirt, Harold went out onto the deck where the hot tub waited.



* * *

If you enjoyed that, Tony posts weekly fiction on his blog , and you can pick up his Blood Picnic anthology from Smashwords , Barnes & Noble ,  Sony , Kobo and Amazon ! You can also follow him on Twitter @TonyNoland .

Word counts can be your friend

I was talking to Helen Howell, Adam Byatt and Larry Kollar last night about word counts, particularly since I was pleased I'd managed to put in 1800 words on my sequel to The Guns of Retribution . It sounds like a lot, but I've been working on a schedule of 500 words per day. It's a manageable amount, so that if I have to miss a day, I can catch up the following day with little effort, but I'm more inclined to write since it's "only" 500 words. If I want to write more, then I do, but I usually stick to my word count.



Why am I doing this? Well I'm aiming at a total word count of 30,000 as it's a novella, and I figured I could write my novella in just sixty days if I wrote 500 words every day. As I've said, 500 is a small enough amount to make it manageable, and it's a large enough amount to make a daily dent in my target. I've never skipped more than two days in a row, and as such, I'm still on schedule to finish the first draft by the end of March. It also means that I have time to work on the sequel, as well as working on my PhD and writing a weekly Friday flash. WIN!



I'm only really talking about it for the benefit of the people who say they don't have time to write. If you're the type who feels like you've not really done any work unless you've sat down and blitzed 2000 words in one sitting then no, you possibly don't have time. But if you're happy to chip away at your target on a daily basis, then you'll find 500 word instalments add up in no time. I'm already at 19,000 words! Since I've found 500 words easy enough to manage, I'm intending to up my limit to 1000 words when I come to write my next novella.



So give daily word counts a go and see how much more of that novel you manage to get down.