R.D. Ronald

The best writers tend to look the roughest in photos. At least that's the excuse I use for why I look so bad in mine.

I'm the biggest critic of my own work, but sometimes you nail a chapter so good that you have to take a step back and admire that bitch.

Today I plan to smile a lot, only so people who know me will be freaked the fuck out.

To whomever swapped my tattoo cream for toothpaste........ well played.

Jack laughed behind him, a mirthless sound from a man who had been on the wrong end of life's ironies too many times.

After a week he was moved to a different wing and into a shared six-by-eight with a grizzled old con called Alf. He had faded tattoos that stained most of the visible skin on his hands, arms and neck a dull blue, sharp eyes and a thick beard that made his mouth look like an axe wound on a bear.

Strange how things turn out. Two birds, one stone and all that.' McBlane chuckled at his own impromptu joke. 'But things have worked out for the best and now we all get to work together,' he said, and a smile spread across his face as easy as a politician's lie.

Consider and then act, don't react. A worthy opponent will calculate his move to entice a response from you. Make your own play.

Scott glanced at his watch but didn't register what it said. The notion of time had become as absurd as the quietly glowing trees.

Sometimes he missed the numbed, walking-underwater feeling feel that the cocktail of narcotics used to give him. But if a situation went down in here, he was going to need all of his wits to get out of it.

That's why Twinkle likes the place so much, Scott thought, looking around at the faded wood veneer tables, and the faded souls drinking at them. Misery was soaked through the place like the old beer soaked through its carpets.

Deciding to wait, Scott sat down with a pint away from the bar at a corner table and lit a cigarette. The clientele in there on Sunday afternoon were the same as most other afternoons. From middle-aged to old men, drinking and cursing at the world like it was the last bus which had just left the stop without them.

Sometimes truths are what we run from, and sometimes they are what we seek.

Remove the comma, replace the comma, remove the comma, replace the comma...

The guard looked down at the scarlet bloodstains blooming on his chest. He appeared to think of something that he needed to say, but as his lips began to form the words, his knees gave up the strain of supporting his ruined bulk. He collapsed to the floor, his throat issuing a final sound like a bubbling casserole.

We were left with nothing because of a love like acid that ate its way through our entire family.

Just been poisoned by my gran. Nothing says Christmas better than familicide and anaphylactic shock.

This faulty light fitting at the front door with the dangerously flickering bulb looks rather festive. Who says I don't do Christmas?