"By March, the worst of the winter would be over."

Neil Gaiman.

This quote is a lie, by the way. Here in Cambridge, we're experiencing Actual Snow and everyone is falling into a state of icy panic. We have fraught discussions over how many pairs of socks we should wear, whether the buses and trains will be running, and if our boss will let us go home early. We're not designed for snow. Especially in March.

And it is March! I've been conspicuous by absence round here, I guess. So let me catch you up on things in my favourite manner: by making a list.

1. THROWN TO THE WOLVES won an Evernight Reader's Choice award! It was voted Best Romance on the Go, so thank you very much, lovely readers. And IMPERIAL DEMON was runner-up for best lesbian romance, so thank you again! If you hop on over to Evernight's site, you can use the coupon code WINNER2017 to get 25% off any Readers' Choice winners and runner-uppers. I'm always slightly shocked to win any kind of accolade, and it wouldn't happen without people taking the time to vote for the books, of course, so thank you again! Kisses.

2. Nero and I had an AMAZING holiday in Japan and spent loads of time with @pocketrex, which was also AMAZING, and we met so many lovely cats and ate so much fantastic food, and saw so many incredible sights, and I loved it, and we're going back next summer. If you want a glimpse of our adventures, the best thing to do is find my pictures on Instagram.

3. I'm doing much better mental health-wise. I'm still having some black days here and there, but the constant, aching anxiety I was dealing with before Christmas is under control. There's still work to do, but I'm out of deep water.

4. I'm working on the next Blood Canticles book, Chaos Songs. I'm so happy to be back with Lola and Tris! My plan this year is to focus on Blood Canticles and the Luporum. The Luporum was always going to be a trilogy, and that hasn't changed. Blood Canticles, I think, has two more books after Chaos Songs. Work has started slowly, because I'm still trying to get back into the daily writing rhythm that my anxiety and depression busted, but I have so many ideas and plans for Chaos Songs that have been brewing since before I even finished IMPERIAL DEMONS, and I'm excited about sharing some snippets with you soon!

5. I always name the year after a mythical animal, dating back to the hallowed, ancient times of 2013. Normally I do a big post about it in January, but obviously it's not January anymore, so here's the quick and dirty version: 

2018 is the Year of the Kappa. Partly inspired by our visit to a Goblin Pond in Tokyo on New Year's Eve, partly because the kappa is a creature associated with water, which is the element associated with emotions, and that feels right as I battle against anxiety and depression, and partly because a kappa, to me, is a creature of balance. If he loses the water in the indent in his head, he loses his power. Balance is going to be a big theme for me this year as I work to keep various plates in the air: writing, perfume-making, home life, health, and work life. So even though the kappa has a reputation for trouble-making and, um, drowning people and eating their souls, I feel like he's the right symbol for me this year.

So I think that brings us up to speed. Hopefully I'll be blogging more frequently going forward, but you can always find me on Twitter and Facebook for more frequent nonsense. Happy March!

Evernight Readers' Choice Awards!

Listen up, folks! It's that one time of year I put aside my shame of self-promotion and ask you to get out and vote! On the condition that you only vote if you actually read one of my books and enjoyed it. Don't just vote because I told you to. I feel like that would undermine the process.

Anyway! It's time for the fifth annual Evernight Readers' Choice Awards! Get out there and show your favourite authors and books some love (and get yourself in the running for a prize!). Five of my books are eligible for awards this year, should you be so inclined:

THROWN TO THE WOLVES - best lesbian, best paranormal, and best Romance on The Go

IN COLD BLOOD - best paranormal, best suspense, and best lesbian

LICH QUEEN - best paranormal and best suspense

ON A DARK TIDE - Best paranormal, best contemporary, best suspense, and best lesbian

And IMPERIAL DEMONS - best paranormal, best contemporary, best suspense, best lesbian

And you can vote for any of these titles for best cover and book of the year, as well as voting for Blood Canticles as best series and me as author of the year! Phew. It's been a busy a year, I realise, when I line them all up like that.

I've been honoured and humbled to be a winner or runner-up in several categories over the past four years. I never expect it and I'm always thrilled, and I would be grateful for your votes again this year! 

"I hate mornings, and Mondays. And working. But other than that I am entirely happy."

I've been in a real writing slump since September. I've been working on an Amber Morgan project ("working" in the loosest sense of the word, because not much work is getting done), which I really should have finished by now, but my motivation levels have been pretty much non-existent. I've been feeling low as a result - when I'm not writing, I'm not happy. It's taken me a while to figure out the problem, and it's a combination of things really, but yesterday I deleted the last 2500 words I wrote on that wip and felt much better.

They weren't bad words. They just weren't the right words. I'm confident that when I go back to the project, I'll be in a better place and frame of mind to tackle and finish it.

That didn't happen yesterday because I had the first round edits for IMPERIAL DEMONS to work on! YAY! This time last year, I was just starting work on this book. I took a break on it to finish LICH QUEEN, so it feels like a lifetime ago that I started it now. I loved getting back to Lola and Tristesse and re-reading the almighty tome that was never going to end that is IMPERIAL DEMONS. I can't wait to share it with you all, and now the first round edits are in the bag, hopefully it won't be too long before I can! I know some people were disappointed with LICH QUEEN and the switch to Dawn, but it was important for me to tell that story and wrap up that story arc in the series. IMPERIAL DEMONS and the next two or three books (haven't decided how many I'll need yet!) will focus on Lola and Tristesse, and the fallout of their time in Gehenna, and I wanted to clear the slate, as it were, before digging into that arc.

So stay tuned - release dates and cover art are surely not far away!

Meanwhile, are we following each other on Instagram? No? Maybe we should! You can find me there as naomi_jay_clark. Evernight's seventh birthday is coming up and part of the celebration is a Loop Giveaway on Instagram!

Myself and 31 other fantastic authors will be taking part on October 23rd.  Each author will have a prize to giveaway and Evernight is offering a few GRAND PRIZES, including gift certificates and prize packs. If you complete the loop, you’ll have the chance to #win at least 35 different prizes.

I’m giving away a collectible THROWN TO THE WOLVES mug, like so:

So hit me up and look out for the giveaway later this month! Following me also has the benefits of seeing silly pictures of Yuki, and you know that's the real prize.

"Though each path is different, there is only one way."

Moroccan Proverb

So we arrived back from Marrakech last Monday and were immediately thrown head-first into crazy work schedules, broken boiler sagas, and the terrible realisation that it's almost Christmas and we hadn't done any present shopping yet. I also had THROWN TO THE WOLVES released, and running around (online, not physically) organising promo for that took up a big chunk of time. All of which meant, I haven't had time to talk about Marrakech yet.

And I really want to talk about it! We had an amazing time! We rode camels at sunset! I feed many, many cats. We saw beautiful palaces and ate street food on the Night Market, and Kyle was harassed non-stop because of his beard, but in a nice way. It was simply an incredible experience. I feel so lucky to have been on two such different holidays this year. Iceland was an unforgettable place to visit for it's raw, rugged landscape, and Morocco was unforgettable for it's opulent beauty. I took a zillion photos, but I'll spare you the whole zillion. I've tried to pick a few of my favourites instead, just to show you the variety we found in Marrakech and beyond.

The view from our riad - the Atlas Mountains

Mountain creek running through Imlil, where we stayed

Inside the Bahia Palace

Courtyard garden inside the Bahia Palace

Grafittied bamboo at the Majorelle Gardens

Aisha, my valiant desert steed

Some of the many, many street cats we found

Lamps on the Night Market

Inside Medersa Ben Youssef, a theological school

Another example of the stunning architecture in Medersa Ben Youssef

One of the many, many pots of mint tea we consumed

Inside the Museum of Marrakech

Sunset from camel-back

Saadian Tombs

Gardens of the Saadian Tombs

On the souks

Twilight on the souks

Sunset over the Night Market

Delicious lemon-chicken tagine. Not pictured: the cat I shared it with

I'm really just scratching the surface here of the beautiful places we visited. I'm working on uploading all my photos to Pinterest if you're interested in seeing more, but in between boilers/work/Christmas it might take a while!

And of course, there's writing to get back to. I haven't touched any of my WIPs since before we went away - there just hasn't been time yet. But this is my last week at work for the year, and I'm looking forward to a week off over Christmas to catch up and make some solid progress on Through Fire and Lich Queen (formerly known as Pale Queen). It's good to go away. It's also good to come home and share the memories. Hope you've enjoyed seeing some of them!

THROWN TO THE WOLVES is in the wild!

Hello, friends! I'm safely back from beautiful Morocco, and just in time for THROWN TO THE WOLVES to be released. We had an amazing holiday, and I have probably several blogs' worth of stuff to talk about and photos to share, but today it's werewolf girl day.

Tomorrow (4pm EST/9pm GMT), I'll be hosting a slot at Evernight's Heat Up Your Holidays party, and I'll be talking a lot about Paige and Kata, so please come and join me if you can! I'm also more than likely to be giving away a few ebooks, if you like that sort of thing...

Before that, you can buy THROWN TO THE WOLVES at all the usual places - Amazon US, Amazon UK, Evernight, and All Romance Ebooks, for starters.

And if you want a glimpse of the story, you can read on for an excerpt!

Paige went to Romania looking for inspiration for a book. She found herself caught in a horror story. Attacked and left for dead by a vampire, Paige finds herself at the mercy of Kata, a beautiful, enigmatic werewolf. Their attraction is instant, but Paige's fate hangs in the balance. She may yet be turned into a vampire herself. Soon it's clear to Paige that the only way to save herself may be to return to the woman who attacked her...even if it means placing both herself and Kata in the greatest danger.

Clickety click!

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

So another Friday is upon us! November, and thus Anti-Nano, is over and December is here, bringing me a broken boiler (bad) and a holiday to Morocco (good). Hopefully the boiler will be fixed before we go away next week. Otherwise, barring the odd crucial piece of office work that I actually can't do without either driving myself mad or killing someone else, we're all set to go. If I survive, next Wednesday, we'll be off enjoying these gorgeous views:

And hopefully I won't be attacked by a monkey! I can't wait. I know it's not been that long since I was on holiday in Iceland, but I think I've definitely earned this one (today I've certainly already earned a holiday and I've only been at work about an hour). And of course, it'll be Kyle's birthday while we're away and this just seems like a spectacular place to celebrate.

In the meantime, I've completed the first and second round edits for THROWN TO THE WOLVES and am hoping to hear about a release date and cover art soon (hopefully before we go away!). Pale Queen and Through Fire are coming along nicely, and I've scheduled a snippet from Through Fire for next week. I'm also debating changing the title, but that's by the by.

So now it's just a question of not killing anyone (metaphorically) and hanging in there until next week. The weekend promises to be a whirlwind of house work and teaching my younger brother how to look after Ket, and Monday and Tuesday will be mad, but then...but then...Escape!

Wednesday Snippet - THROWN TO THE WOLVES

So it's already getting hard to find snippets from Through Fire and Pale Queen that aren't spoilery. Luckily, I have a solution this week! I'm working through the first round edits for THROWN TO THE WOLVES, so this seems an ideal time to share a teaser from that. Here's the blurb in case you haven't seen it, and you can read on for a sneak peek!

Paige went to Romania looking for inspiration for a book. She found herself caught in a horror story. Attacked and left for dead by a vampire, Paige finds herself at the mercy of Kata, a beautiful, enigmatic werewolf. Their attraction is instant, but Paige's fate hangs in the balance. She may yet be turned into a vampire herself. Soon it's clear to Paige that the only way to save herself may be to return to the woman who attacked her...even if it means placing both herself and Kata in the greatest danger.

Monday Check-In: The Final One

So after feeling like a slacker last week and posting a Friday blog about how slacky I was, I promptly sat down and added 2k to Pale Queen that night, thus feeling much less slacky. Huzzahs! Apart from that the weekend was writing-lite. I added another 600 words to Pale Queen yesterday evening, but lost most of Sunday to watching Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, and then ranting about how I would have improved Suicide Squad to Kyle for hours. I might blog about that. I've got a lot of Feelings, idk.

I can't even remember what I did on Saturday apart from prep and ship perfume orders, which worries me slightly.

Oh! I lie - I went to the theatre with my BFF to see Lady Chatterley's Lover! I don't know how I forgot that as there was a good meal involved, and also a hell of a lot of nudity (on the part of the actors).

Anyway! Plans for this week on the writing front: pick up the pace, basically. I'm happy with the progress I'm making on Pale Queen and Through Fire, but would really like to be further along with both before I go away next Wednesday. I'm also still waiting for edits on THROWN TO THE WOLVES, which, probably, will come through while I'm in Morocco knowing my luck. That doesn't matter, as there's a two-week turn around for first round edits with Evernight, but I always like to get them done well before the deadline if I can. In among all this, I have to prepare for going on holiday, by which I mean I have to prepare my boss for me going on holiday, because as of last week she'd forgotten I was going on holiday. When I got back from Iceland, I had many emails from her along the lines of "thank god you're back, I barely coped, also my luggage is in Atlanta." Hopefully this time while I'm away, she won't have that problem.

Anyway! That's pretty much that. See you Wednesday for a snippet!

Friday Check-In: The Ambitious Edition

Ambitious because I'm gunning to write 10k this weekend. I did it the weekend before I went away to Iceland, so I know I can do it. The issue is always whether I will. We have a builder and our landlady coming round at some point because there's a hole in the living room ceiling, but aside from that, I don't have anything else on the agenda. So writing should happen! How much writing is yet to be determined, but if I can get 80-10k down on either/or Through Fire and Pale Queen, I will be pretty happy.

This week I've concentrated on Pale Queen and ideally I'll spend one day on that and the other on Through Fire, but as always I try to be flexible with myself. If one story is really coming out easily and smoothly, it's counter-productive to stop and work on the other.

It's only three weeks now (less, in fact!) until Kyle and I jet off to Morocco for his birthday, and part of my desire to nail 10k this weekend is to get as much writing in as possible before we go. I'm expecting edits for THROWN TO THE WOLVES either this month or in December, too, and it would be nice to focus on those without mentally panicking that I'm not on track with my works in progress. So we'll see! I hope everyone has a great weekend whatever you're up to! See you on the other side!

Anti-Nano Rides again

Happy November! Good luck to everyone doing Nanowrimo this year. May the words come fast and often. As usual, I will not be doing Nanowrimo but, as is now tradition, I will be joining in spirit with Anti-Nano.

For newcomers, Anti-Nano is my way of tapping into all that gooey writerly energy and enthusiasm in November without over-taxing my knackered wrists, arms, and (currently possibly cracked) finger bones. My rotator cuff problems mean I can't really commit to a daily writing schedule, especially in the colder months when the weather aggravates the various joint/muscle complaints I have. But I do set myself a personal goal every November and I try to check in here on Mondays and Fridays, with snippets as per usual on Wednesdays, to keep myself accountable and hopefully give you guys something to read.

So! The goal this year is sort of nebulous. I want to write 1k a day on Through Fire, which is pretty doable...starting next week. This first week of November, I'm running a sale over at Common Brimstone before closing for a couple of months. So I'm currently swamped with perfume orders and foresee spending pretty much every evening this week and all weekend working on those so I can close the shop next week and focus 100% on writing for a few months. So whilst I'd like to get some words down this week, I'm not going to stress too much if I don't.

I'd also like to start on Pale Queen, the companion novella to Through Fire. I'd also also like to start redrafting In Cold Blood, and I'd also also also like to start prepping AFTERLIFE and DEMONIZED for self-publishing. I think the best plan is aim for 1k a day on Through Fire in the week, then allow myself the weekend to work on other projects. I also have an Amber Morgan story on the go, but that's fairly low down the priority list right now. Oh, and I'll probably also have edits for THROWN TO THE WOLVES at some point this month.

So yeah, Nebulous, in that I have a ton of stuff I want to work on (as usual) and only the vaguest idea of how I'll manage it all. I think as long as I make steady progress on Through Fire, I'll be happy. I haven't done any writing since before going to Iceland, so Anti-Nano should be a good way to get back into the rhythm of it. Beyond that, we'll see. Wish me luck!

So that was fast...

I submitted Thrown to the Wolves to Evernight on Sunday, and I had my acceptance email, cover art/blurb sheet, and contract all in rapid succession this afternoon! So I can now proudly say that THROWN TO THE WOLVES is coming to Evernight in December! Huzzahs!

As usual, more details as I get them, but here's the (unedited) blurb:

Paige went to Romania looking for inspiration for a book. She found herself caught in a horror story. Attacked and left for dead by a vampire, Paige finds herself at the mercy of Kata, a beautiful, enigmatic werewolf. Their attraction is instant, but Paige's fate hangs in the balance. She may yet be turned into a vampire herself. Soon it's clear to Paige that the only way to save herself may be to return to the woman who attacked her...even if it means placing both herself and Kata in the greatest danger.

I intend to celebrate this evening by working some more on Through Fire, and maybe sneaking in some chocolate somewhere...

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

- Plato, The Republic

So, later than expected (because that seems to be my theme this year), Thrown to the Wolves is finished, polished, and submitted. I like this little werewolfy romance a lot, and I hope to have good news about it soon.

That brings us into October, and Blood Canticles 3. It was always my plan to start on this in the autumn, so even though I'd hoped to get going in September, I'm okay with being a bit behind schedule. This book will easily take the rest of the year to write, unless I get lucky, and my perhaps foolish aim is to write a companion novella alongside it.

See, Blood Canticles 3, tentatively titled Through Fire, will take Lola and Tristesse away from their ragtag group for the bulk of the book, but events in Fort Rosser will continue apace, because that's how the world works. The nasty stuff that happened in DARK DAYS will have knock-on effects for Dawn, Imani, and Rowan that need to be addressed while Lola and Tris are...away. At first I thought about writing Through Fire with alternating viewpoints, with Lola, Tris, and Dawn all being focal characters.

Then I realised I'd probably end up with either a hot mess or a 100k epic working that way, and decided it might be easier to write one novel and one novella. I could be wrong about this route, but it feels like the right path, so we'll see. In any case, my schedule for the rest of the year is now as follows:

Write Through Fire
Write companion novella (Pale Queen)
Try not to make a mess

I am very excited about both these stories. If everything goes to plan, Lola's world is going to explode (metaphorically) and I can show you all kinds of new, horrible, amazing things. I've spent a lot of this year doing research and reading heavily to inform the world of Through Fire, and Pale Queen will hopefully do its own job in building on the magic and lore of BLOOD WITCH and DARK DAYS. I'll try to share snippets if they're not too spoilery. If you want a glimpse at the Blood Canticles world in the meantime, there's my Pinterest board here, and an ever-growing Spotify playlist at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

So! London happened! On Friday Kyle went down (or up, I guess?) for the London tattoo convention, and on Saturday I headed in, having apologised profusely to Yuki for leaving her (she has abandonment issues). We went into Camden for a good old poke around the market, and I was reminded that I hate Cyberdog and everything associated with it. For those who don't know, Cyberdog is a clothing brand, and their Camden shop is basically a rave where you can buy glow-in-the-dark everything and I hate it. It's hot, they play fucking awful rave music, and I hate it. Kyle loves it, so we always visit when we go to Camden, but it's my least favourite part of visiting.

Anyway! We didn't spend long there in any case, and there's so much else to look at in Camden that I don't really mind visiting too much. And actually, our main mission was to find somewhere to eat before the Scandal gig, so once Kyle had bought a glow-in-the-dark t-shirt, we headed off to scout the local restaurants. We ended up at a grill called Q, having been lured in by the promise of sweet tea and whiskey cocktails.

Cheers!

The food was amazing - the kind of soul food you know is contributing to your eventual heart problems, but is just too good to say no to anyway. I had fried chicken with cornbread waffles and maple butter, and Kyle went for buttermilk chicken with sweet potatoes, and oh my god, I wish I was eating it all again right now.

Heroic amounts of carbs were consumed.

Adequately fuelled for the gig, we headed to Islington, planning to find a pub near the venue and kill some time before the doors opened at 7pm. We got to Islington about 5pm, walked past the O2 Academy and saw the queue was already stretching around the block, so figured we'd better join in. As it turns out, because Kyle has an O2 phone for work, we were allowed to jump the queue a bit, so that's worth knowing if you're going there for a concert, I guess!

I had no idea what to expect from the concert crowd. Scandal are a Japanese band (I hesitate to say girl band, because they're all in their late twenties), and I guess I'd made some assumptions about what sort of fans they might have. Some of those assumptions were correct (there were a lot of single men there, just standing at the back of the hall, staring at the stage, not dancing or interacting with anyone), but by and large, there was a really good vibe.

This was somewhat marred by the merchandise vendor who tried to sell me wrist bands I didn't want, and who then asked Kyle why he was letting a woman make financial decisions in a "haha, but I'm not really joking" kind of way. I didn't quite make a scene, but we both made it clear we weren't amused and I really hope he didn't subject every woman he tried to force wrist bands on to the same treatment.

Inside the venue, we were pounced on by a random girl who ran up to us and yelled, "you live in Milton, don't you?" then proclaimed she recognised Kyle's beard and my hair, and that she had seen us walking to Tescos, which...was weird? But she was nice, and it turns out we did vaguely know her boyfriend, so I managed to master my anxiety over strangers running up to me and acting like we're friends.

The gig itself was great - I didn't really know the music, but it was easy to get into and the band were really fun.

 

Afterwards, with our new friends in tow, we headed back to Cambridge prepared to be soundly told off by Yuki for going out without her.

She couldn't decide whether she was sad about being alone or delighted we were home, and settled for just spying on us for the rest of the night and all day Sunday to make sure we didn't do it again.

My plan for Sunday was really to just chill out and finish writing Thrown to the Wolves, and hopefully submit it. Instead I just chilled out and lazed around on the sofa all day with a terrible head cold. I'm slightly annoyed with myself for not getting on with it, but to be honest, I think I probably made the right choice, as I don't think I would have been producing my best work in any case. This does mean I'm now unlikely to get Blood Canticles 3 started this month, but since the only person I have to answer to as far as deadlines go is me, I've decided to be lenient with myself. Maybe I haven't been as productive as I was last year writing-wise, but I haven't exactly slacked off either, and I probably need to remind myself that two novels and two novellas, with another one nearly in the bag and two re-published works under my belt for the year is nothing to be sniffed at. And in my defence, I was still pretty full of fried chicken and cornbread waffles.

So the plan for this week is now the same as it was last week - finish and submit Thrown to the Wolves. Since I have almost finished writing it, this is a pretty doable goal. I say that confidently, like I haven't been saying it for two weeks now...but this time I mean it! Watch this space.

Wednesday Snippet - Thrown To The Wolves

You know, I don't think I've actually said that the short werewolfy romance I'm working on at the moment is called Thrown To The Wolves. But it is, so there we go. I'm aiming to have it wrapped up and submitted this week, and by my reckoning I'm about 4k away from that goal, which is very doable, even allowing for the fact that I'm out Friday night and in London on Saturday. That's two social occasions in a row, which for me is pretty bold. We're going to see Scandal at the O2 Academy on Saturday night, which should be loads of fun. If all goes according to plan, I'll have Thrown To The Wolves ready to submit on Sunday, then I can spend the rest of the day sessioning Lucha Underground and mentally plotting Blood Canticles 3 some more.

Anyway! Enough talk. Here's a snippet from Thrown To The Wolves.