While you’re there, take a look around – Steve has recently released his first novel, Crimes Against Magic, and right now it’s only $3.99 on Amazon (or £2.62 on Amazon UK)!

Now, away I go for my physical trip…which sounds rather sinister when I put it like that, but really isn’t.  I would mention that I’m going to Coldstone, but in this context I’m not sure it helps things get less sinister!

But it got me thinking.  I have so much on my computer that I don’t back up regularly and I really should.  We’re currently preparing to be hit by Tropical Storm Isaac (which may or may not turn into a hurricane) and if my computer got damaged I have backups of some things, but definitely not all.

So today that’s what I shall be doing.  We have an emergency kit to rival most zombie apocalypse kits – no joke lol – and now I shall add my writing and photographs being backed up too.

The moral of the story is: don’t pull faces at your husband for keeping regular backups of your website.

I temporarily forgot how the Story A Day challenge was a tool for me, to get my brain back in writing gear, and instead I forced myself to work on a challenge story instead of the project that I was doing this all for!

Which means, for now, no more Story A Day stories because I’m really eager to get back to my WiP!  The ideas I’ve had basically mean I’m changing the whole world-building for the novel.  This is no small task and I’m wondering if it hasn’t sunk in yet just how much work I have ahead of me because instead of feeling nervous, I’m really excited by it   Which is why I know I need to work on that instead of the challenge for a while.  My brain is back in writing gear, my enthusiasm is soaring and the fun is absolutely back in writing for me!

I will be writing some more Story A Day stories, I enjoyed doing them and still have a couple of ideas that I want to get out at some point.  But for the time being, they won’t be every day because I really need, and want (woo!), to work on my WiP.  And that’s the most important thing, to get the novel written

Wish me luck!

Enjoy! …hopefully

Made From Magic.

There’s always a guy with an eye patch.

“Do you guys buy them in bulk?” I asked.

The guy who was guarding me ignored my question and continued looking ahead. He stood with his back facing the door, arms folded behind him. He was stocky, about 5’9” – short for a werewolf but I doubt anyone ever told him that. That must have been one hell of an injury to take the eye of a were.

Suddenly he stepped aside. A moment later the door opened and a thinner, more classically handsome man, walked through. He was greying at the temples and had equally grey eyes. The door closed behind him and the werewolf resumed his place in front of it. But this guy was no wolf.

He circled around me. I kept him in sight for as far as my head would turn. They’d bound my hands behind the chair and my head was restrained with a strap.

Eventually he came into view again. I had a sudden image of him making faces behind my back and I burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.

He frowned at me. “You have a strange sense of humour. For someone in your predicament I’d have thought you to be more…” He paused. One hand circling as if winding something up in order to find the right word.

“Can we move this along?” I said, bored of his time wasting.

His mouth snapped shut and his gaze hardened. “Very well. I’ve never known someone in such a hurry for torture.”

At a flick of his wrist the floor in front of me vanished. The spell was one I didn’t know. One that only he, or those he deemed worthy enough to tell, would be able to use. And one that I’d been waiting for him to cast.

I whispered a few words under my breath and the werewolf sprung forward. His eye widened in horror as he realised his fate. As he fell into the hole at my feet I finished the words of the second spell I had on my lips and my sorcerer captor stood as still as stone, his hand half way through a flourish. A spell that I’ve no doubt would have hurt like hell.

I worked my hands out of the rope I’d loosened hours before, and undid the strap at my head and the one at my feet.

“Now,” I said. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

I reduced the intensity of the spell enough so that he could talk.

“We bound your hands!” He cried out. “You can’t cast!”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t work like that.”

I flexed my wrists, they were stiff after being bound for so long.

“You’re an abomination!” He shouted.

“Perhaps.”

He was probably right. I didn’t come from a magic user family. I came from a spell gone wrong; I was made from magic, not born into it. The same rules that they had to live by, didn’t always apply to me.

“But that’s why you wanted me here, right?” I asked, taking a step around the hole towards him.

His eyes followed me and he clenched his jaw. He didn’t need to answer, I knew it was why they’d brought me here. It was what I’d been counting on.

“The thing is,” I said, flexing my arms above my head. “I wanted me here too.”

“Why?”

He tried to watch as I walked behind him, mimicking his movements from earlier. I stopped at his back and said a spell that pushed him forward towards the hole.

“Because I don’t like you,” I said.

It wasn’t the whole truth but I’ve seen too many Bond movies to stand around talking about my reasons for killing the guy before I do it. As he vanished over the edge, his scream echoed around the room.

Well, that was the easy part. Now to get out of here.

Death By…

As I lay there with a knife sticking out of my chest, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was me who’d told everyone to be careful. Me who’d said “That cat will kill you if you don’t watch it!”

And now it was me who lay dying on the floor. Cup and saucer smashed on the hall tile, cake plate and cake thoroughly decimated. Cake knife in chest.

The cat sat looking smug on the stairs she’d just used as a racetrack. Casually licking one paw as if the speck of dust that dirtied her fur was the only care in the world.

It’s funny the things that go through your mind at times like these. I felt miffed that I wouldn’t get to have that last slice of chocolate cake, the one I’d secreted away last night before anyone else saw it. I noticed a cobweb on the underside of the stairs, dust clinging to it, and wished I had a duster handy to wipe it away.

I wished I hadn’t paid that damned overdue bill yesterday morning.

I tried to turn and see the hall table. The phone sat out of reach, taunting me. Next to it, the clock’s hands clicked to 4:30pm. No one would be home for hours.

As I turned my head back I saw a chunk of cake that had scattered near my shoulder. Teasingly close. The cat stretched and pawed at the bottom stair, claws extending in maniacal splendor. Then with a flick of her tail she sauntered back upstairs.

I sighed at the cake and gurgled a little. At least no one else would get to eat it either.