One Small Mistake

by Dandy Smith

has a bank balance big enough that it’s a better lubricant than anything Durex could ever make.

Telling stories is my first, most long-lasting love. The best kind because the paper will never reject my pen. It is a lover I can’t quit and when I let it wrap its arms around me, it feels so good, I wonder why I’ve stayed away so long.

if someone told me I had to be unhappy for a year and then it would all be over, I could handle that. But if someone told me I had to be unhappy for the next fifty years, I’d have to make a change.’

‘Because a manuscript is a piece of you. It’s every experience you’ve ever had that makes your voice yours.’

‘Muffins are addictive. Sure you want to start down that dark path, Fray?’ ‘Because they’re a gateway drug?’ ‘Absolutely. One minute you’re biting into a blueberry and poppyseed and the next you’re sitting in your chocolate-ganache-stained pants strung out on gateau and wondering what time of day it is.’

Even as a child, you’re conditioned to believe villains have warts and crooked noses where heroes have white smiles and strong jaws.

But how can you ever truly know yourself, know what you’re willing to do, until it’s a reality and not a rhetorical?

‘Love is always a risk; it’s giving another person the power to destroy you and hoping they choose not to, but when it goes right …’