I find the present tense harder to write in mechanically ... words tend to be longer, and sound more similar. It's harder to avoid that mealy-mouthed repetition of syllables that made most of my older stuff so cantakerous and jerky. Um. Yeah.

But the reward is a sense of immediacy. In my opinion, it lends a kind of suspense to the narrative because each moment seems like the _current_ moment.

But there's really no way around bad narrative, so my struggle goes on :)