Defective

The first thing Mixer knew with certainty was that he was hungry. The feeling grew more intense each day until it became unbearable and Mixer began to lash out. Quietly, steadily he ate away at his enemy and, in a few weeks, where there had been two, now there was only one.
History had been erased. The land had been eroded and the global population had crashed. Into this new world came an evolutionary change, a genetic mutation that could make humans perform in ways they'd never done before. Those who survived learned to fear the abilities of those who carried the gene and banished any who displayed the slightest difference. As time went on, the gene appeared to die out. But it wasn't entirely gone.
In a world still largely ignorant and illiterate, nine children struggle to survive, sometimes even against their own.

Freelance writing, editing and the research that comes with that pays the bills and, luckily for me, is often pretty darned interesting. I write mostly about environmental issues. Sewage sludge and its beneficial uses may not sound like your cup of, ahem, tea, but it's all in the way you look at things.
Fiction has always been part of my life. My mum read stories to me every night until I was old enough to read for myself, tucked under the covers with the flashlight. The first thing I can remember writing is a traditional Roses are red poem for my mother when I was about four years old. We had an old manual typewriter and I banged it out on a thin piece of paper. She kept that scrap for years.
Turn-ons: energy efficiency, a great smile, discovery
Turn-offs: working in fake teams, cruelty to spiders, lima beans