July Accountability

Happy July! I am pleased and proud and tired to announce that the first draft of Imperial Demons is officially done!

Powered by Beastly Beverages' Death Walks Among You tea and many, many peanut butter Magnums, I finally wrapped the monster manuscript up on Monday. Huzzahs! It clocked in at just over 85,000 words and will get longer when I hit the second draft, because I already know there's stuff I need to add.

But I'm not thinking about that just yet, because the first round edits for LICH QUEEN are sitting in my inbox, which means it's time to dive back into Dawn's world. I haven't looked at them yet, but the editor is one I really enjoy working with, so I'm looking forward to digging in and bringing Blood Canticles 3 one step closer to you guys.

So! Where does that leave the to-do list? As you may remember, my resolution for 2017 was not to start any new stories, which I broke when I wrote ON A DARK TIDE, but there we go. I'm not in bad shape despite that little slip-up.

Through Fire (Blood Canticles 3)
Lich Queen (Blood Canticles 3.5)
Mercy's Gate (Southern Gothic urban fantasy book of my heart)
Black Dog (Urban Wolf 6)
Crow Called (Standalone novella)
Flesh and Bone (The Deva Chronicles 2)

My next project is actually going to be an Amber Morgan one, and after that I'd like to crack on with Black Dog. I miss my werewolf girls! I don't really know how long the Amber Morgan book will be, but I imagine it'll take me through the summer and into autumn. I will keep checking in here as I get news on LICH QUEEN, ON A DARK TIDE, and Imperial Demons, which I'm aiming to submit in the very near future. So stay tuned!

2017 Writing Goals

So earlier in the week I talked about my ~life goals~ for 2017, but I didn't talk about my writing plans in any of that. For the past couple of years, I haven't really set myself any solid goals. I've agreed with myself that if something is really tugging at my imagination, I should work on it, and that's worked for me for the most part. It has, however, left me with a long list of unfinished projects between my real name and Amber Morgan, and I think 2017 has to be the year I start tackling that list, rather than adding to it.

So my writerly resolution for 2017 is not to start any new projects. I am just going to finish up works-in-progress, under both names. This is probably going to be really hard to stick to, because I adore starting new projects. Nothing thrills me more as a writer than starting something. I have the same problem as a gamer. I endlessly create new characters in Guild Wars 2 because I love starting with a newly-named, freshly-designed character more than I love actually getting those characters to level 80. Starting to create something is an act full of potential and promise and wild anticipation. Seeing something through to the end is where the hard work comes in. I have the HP Lovecraft problem:

It's not that I'm not passionate and excited about all my writing projects. I'm just easily distracted by Shiny! New! Ideas! That's not a completely bad thing. It's why you have the Blood Canticles series, for example. But it is a bit of a bad thing, and it's why there are no more Ethan books at the moment, and why I haven't finished the next Urban Wolf book yet, despite that being one of my 2016 goals.

So this year, I need to knuckle down, straighten up, fly right, etc. and Finish Some Stuff. My to-do list for 2017 is (in no particular order of importance) as follows:

Through Fire (Blood Canticles 3)
Lich Queen (Blood Canticles 3.5)
Mercy's Gate (Southern Gothic urban fantasy book of my heart)
Black Dog (Urban Wolf 6)
Crow Called (Standalone novella)
Flesh and Bone (The Deva Chronicles 2)

I also want to self-publish AFTERLIFE and DEMONIZED. This is just the Naomi Clark stuff. I also have six novels and short stories in various stages of completion as Amber Morgan. That's fourteen projects open and needing attention, stat. That's definitely a year's work for me. I don't think it's an impossible goal, but it's certainly an ambitious one and it's why I can't afford to be distracted by shiny new ideas or other sequels (like the sequel to IN COLD BLOOD which isn't even out yet, and a sequel to Crow Called which isn't even finished yet and isn't even supposed to have a sequel, goddammit).

So yeah. My current goal is to finish Lich Queen since that's coming along well and shouldn't probably turn into a huge unwieldy fantasy epic like Through Fire is threatening to do. Next Wednesday, I'll be back to sharing snippets and putting Dawn through hell. Join me, if you're into that sort of thing!

“Those are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves.”

Angela Carter

So I've been saying for a while now I want to write the next Urban Wolf novel this year, Black Dog. And if you check the nifty word count metre in the sidebar, you'll see I have indeed started. Admittedly, I started a couple of years ago and subsequently stopped, but that's beside the point. The novel has a beginning.

And there's also an Urban Wolf spin-off with a beginning. Again, started a couple of years ago and then stopped. That was a thing I did for a while. I think I've mentioned the spin-off previously too (In Cold Blood). Well, now I've finished and submitted my latest Amber Morgan project, I'm ready to dig back into my werewolf girls' world. My only problem is, I don't know which one to work on first.

I don't think it especially matters which one I go with, in terms of the timeline of the Urban Wolf world (ie, you'd be able to read either first without getting spoiled for the other - different characters, different part of the world). But there are developments for Ayla in Black Dog that are explained by the main plot of In Cold Blood, and it's a question of "do I want the readers to encounter This Thing first in the spin-off or Black Dog? Do I want readers to discover This Thing right alongside Ayla, or do I want them to be ahead of her?

I'm leaning towards working on In Cold Blood first, because I think it will be a novella rather than a novel, and it kind of follows on neatly from BLOOD HUNT in a way. I need to re-read both WIPs before making a firm decision, but either way, I'm back in the Urban Wolf world right now. And that's one of my favourite places to be.

"The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf merely slept."

Jack London - White Fang

My writing policy last year was to write what I felt compelled to write, not try to stick to a pre-determined list. It worked really well - 2015 is, I think, officially my most successful year as a published author. Huzzahs! So obviously I'm sticking to that policy this year. At the moment I'm finishing an Amber Morgan project...and then will probably move onto another Amber Morgan project...and then maybe another. I don't know for sure, but all the ideas at the forefront of my mind right now are Amber ideas.

That's not to say there aren't Naomi ideas. There are! But I think they all need a less pantsy approach than I normally take with my books. There's Blood Canticles 3 (probably titled Through Fire), which will probably require two POV characters and needs a whole new world built for it. I'm still putting together that second world (if you've read DARK DAYS, you know what that world is!), and I don't feel ready to start writing until I've nailed down a few more details.

There's the languishing Mercy's Gate, which I started in 2014 (then called Nightmare Moon). It's the book of my heart. The Book/Series that I most want to write and find a home for, and that alone is making it weirdly hard to write. I need it to be exactly so, which to be honest isn't a great frame of mind to write a first draft in, because first drafts are not for exactly so in my opinion. First drafts are just for getting the bloody thing out of your head. But I've been stalling for over a year now and I need to gather my courage, put aside my internal editor for a bit, and just write the damn book.

And, maybe foremost in my head right now, there's a new Urban Wolf book. I loved writing COLD NIGHT MOON so much, it made me go dig out the Urban Wolf novel I started a while back, then shoved away for reasons I don't quite recall anymore. The working title is Black Dog, and I do think this will be the next Naomi project I tackle. It's going to be a tough one - sixth book in the series, time to really, really explode the world and set Ayla some new challenges. I've had a Big Idea for ways to progress the Urban Wolf series for a while now (in fact, I even started a spin-off called In Cold Blood that was going to help me do it), but other projects took precedence and Black Dog ended up almost forgotten. COLD NIGHT MOON reminded me that I still have a lot of stories to tell for my werewolf girls (including that spin-off, which introduces a whole new cast of werewolf girls!).

So I think I can safely say that Black Dog is next on my to-do list. Time to unearth all my werewolf folklore encyclopedias!

Oh, and I'd like to introduce you to my new writing assistant. She's not as good as Fergus yet, but she's showing great promise. Meet Yuki.