"Me, Robot" republished online - plus an article and a challenge...

An unfathomably long time ago (that'll be nearly four years), the short story publisher The Fiction Desk accepted, and subsequently published, my short story "Me, Robot" in their fourth volume "Crying Just Like Anybody". It's a process I recall well: from the moment I pinged it off to them, to the immensely satisfying moment it appeared in print a few months later.

Now in 2016, the writer Chris Fielden has re-published the story in full on his website (a site chock full of magazine listings, competition listings, writing advice, and services: invaluable for both the emerging and established writer). Alongside my story, you can read my advice-for-writers article: "How to Research, Write & Publish a Short Story", using my experiences with "Me, Robot" and The Fiction Desk as case study examples.

Additionally, as an added "bonus": within my article, whilst making a somewhat meandering point about writing "rules", I inadvertently challenged the reader to write a short story consisting "mostly" of that most frowned-upon, horribly-overused, tool-of-telling-rather-than-showing, word type that, as writers, we're always being told to cut out of our work: the adverb.

Thus "Mike's Not-Entirely-Serious Wantonly-Rule-Breaking Adverb-Writing Challenge" is born. (Who knows what beast I've helped unleash upon the unsuspecting literary world.)

Having had a crack at my own challenge (you can read my effort, "Giving it the Adverbals", alongside other writers' adverb-riddled efforts on the same page), I would say that there could be a point to the exercise after all: try this once, you're not going to want to write another adverb ever again.

If you're a writer (or even if you're not) and fancy a go, please do. All efforts will be published on Chris's site.