If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

What word would it be? I can think of many, but in the last few years the word that annoys me most is ‘impact’. Everything ‘impacts’. In most cases, the word used should be affect, but because the person saying whatever it is they’re saying (this is usually the news) they use impact for everything.

Impact, in meaning, is about ‘force’, not how someone or something is affected.

The floods – how many people were ‘impacted’? No. How many people were affected? Which means, how many people did this have an effect on, or make a difference to? Nothing to do with force.

So, rant over. Next week, I’ll go back to doing a short story. Promise.

The best coffee and pastry shop in Adelaide. Mari’s café. Today, Mike was going to ask her out to dinner. Stefano’s, to be precise. A Michelin star restaurant. And dancing at the new club after dinner. They’d show the young folk real dancing, real passion in the steps and movements.

Today, the flirting stopped and the courting began. He didn’t count their youthful attempt at pairing up. Too long ago; they were both inexperienced and heading in different directions. That was then, and this was now. It was time to get serious.

Mike ran his hands down his smartest summer shirt, flattened the silk tie he’d bought in Singapore when on shore leave, and fluffed his white hair the way that first caught her attention. He checked his eyes, put a couple of bright-eye drops in, and checked for flaws, stains or missing buttons in the hall mirror.

That was…

Lost. Again. Moving to a new city was a pain in the proverbial. I’d have to stop and ask for directions. Again.

Why did I do it?

For the job, the career, to keep moving. It wasn’t really about work, just the need to keep ahead of those I didn’t want to see again. Ever. I call myself a wanderer, but if I looked closer, I’d have to relabel it as runner.

What am I running from?

Family. Not everyone loved their family, not every family deserved love. A black sheep needed to stay away when the family and their businesses and activities didn’t fit the general acceptance of the community.

Anything else? Yes, and that’s why I’m hiding in this laneway, waiting for that man to get far enough distant that I can put those running shoes on and skedaddle out of here. He wasn’t the same as the…

I’m thrilled to be able show you this fabulous cover (designed by the awesome Jenn Rackham) for my upcoming cosy urban fantasy!

Alex Blackburn is not a witch.

So how the hell did she summon a demon?

More importantly, how is she going to get rid of it?

When Alex Blackburn returns to small-town Rifton to settle her grandmother’s estate, she doesn’t expect to uncover Gran’s secret affair or to accidentally summon a giant centipede from the netherworld.

With a pet-eating demon on the loose, Gran’s things to dispose of, and only two weeks off work, she doesn’t have time to waste. Getting rid of the creature is her first priority.

Shelby Saunders, grandson of Gran’s lover, might just be the one to help her. If she can convince him the demon is real.

Can two people who don’t believe in magic conjure enough of it to send a demon…

A little bibliophile humor today in honor of the birthday of Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), author of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.

See more of Tom Gauld’s cartoonshere.