2010 is almost here, and to mark the New Year and the new decade, icon is running a microfiction competition. We want you to write a story in just 100 words on the theme of “stories for the end of the decade”. It can be about the decade we’ve just finished or the one that’s coming – all we ask is that it’s 100 words long and connected to architecture, urbanism or design. Try it – it’s tougher than it sounds! (This paragraph is already 87 words long.)

Email your stories to will@icon-magazine.co.uk by Monday 7 December. We’ll publish the best in the February issue of icon. But that’s not all – one lucky winner, selected by the icon editorial team, will get a year’s free subscription to the magazine and a copy of Thomas Pynchon’s new novel Inherent Vice, a suspenseful tale set in 1970s Los Angeles.

So get writing – love, loss, boom, bust, augmented reality, zombies, we want your stories.