Housekeeping

Hello, folks. *blows dust off blog* It's been a bit quiet round here since the release of IMPERIAL DEMONS, I know. I've been a bit quiet. Normally I would have sent out promo packs to fellow authors who generously offer blog space, and I generally try to be "present" online without constantly screaming HEY I HAVE A NEW BOOK OUT PLEASE LIKE IT!!!

But I'm not feeling very normal at the moment. I'm going through what I think of as a quiet patch of depression. That is to say, I'm standing at the edge of a stormy sea, aware I could be sucked in by the tide, rather than being out in that storm, helpless while the water closes over my head. I've suffered from depression on and off for...most of my life, I guess? I was undiagnosed as a teenager, but once I got diagnosed at university, I could look back and say "oh, that's what that was." Sometimes I need counselling and medication, and sometimes I get by without either of those things and just ride the storm out.

This time, it crept up on me slowly. I knew I was getting more anxious and irrational in my thoughts throughout September and October, but I blamed that on the approaching anniversary of my dad's death. But the feeling didn't pass once October did, and suddenly I found myself in the toilets at work, the day after IMPERIAL DEMONS came out, sobbing over nothing, and thought, "yeah, you probably need to talk to someone."

So I talked to my doctor and I'm taking medication, and I'm now at that nice point where I recognise that my thoughts aren't facts, and I can observe them rather than let them consume me. The storm is still out there, but I'm safe on the beach.

The downside is I really, really cannot write. Forget the romantic notion that suffering is good for art. For me, that's never been true. My writing started to lag in September, was almost nonexistent in October, and despite my resolution to write every day in November to finish an Amber Morgan book, I've done...virtually nothing again. It frustrates and panics me, and it takes away one of my coping mechanisms for when I feel low. So that's kind of a vicious circle. I want to write because I feel sad, but I feel too sad to write. My brain is...blank. Simple tasks feel beyond my strength, and writing isn't a simple task no matter how much I enjoy it. It takes time and care and love, and I don't have the energy or motivation for those things right now.

So in short, I'm not doing very much at the moment and I'm saving my energy for stuff I can't avoid, like going to work and remembering to put my clothes on the right way round (I did forget one day, but luckily I realised my top was on back to front before anyone else got to the office).

Nevertheless, there is stuff happening that I want to talk about. People who follow me on Facebook and Twitter may already know, but for those who don't, Ragnarok Publications recently announced they will be closing their doors temporarily. I don't know what will happen long-term (though I wish the team all the best), but short-term, UNDERTOW is one of the books that will be pulled from sale in December. All the rights will revert to me then.

I won't lie. I'm gutted. I'd just started to think there was still a chance to keep the Shoregrave/Ethan Banning dream alive. I'd had some positive talks with the new Ragnarok team when they took over, and felt like Ethan, at least, had a shot.

Now...now I don't know. In a way, the depression is helping me decide, because when I weigh up whether I have the energy right now to either self-publish AFTERLIFE, DEMONIZED, and UNDERTOW, or try to find new homes for them, the answer is hell no. I've been trying to keep the series afloat for a long time now, and honestly, whilst I love Ethan Banning to death, I'm basically flogging a dead horse at this point. Part of my heart will always tell me I need to go back and write more stories in this world, with these characters, but after years of telling myself "maybe," I think it's time to tell myself "no."

So that's that. As from December 1st, UNDERTOW will no longer be available. I will leave the Ethan Banning Files short stories available on Amazon and Smashwords, but AFTERLIFE and DEMONIZED will not be republished and I don't intend to write anymore books in this series.

Phew.

Okay. That's it, really. I'm hoping to ease back into writing a bit at a time, and in my ideal world, I'll finish that Amber Morgan book before we take off to Japan at the end of December. Realistically, that probably isn't going to happen, but let's call it a soft goal. In the meantime, I'm off to check my jumper is on the right way round.

Five Creepy Ocean Stories To Shiver Your Timbers

As you know, I've been taking a short break from Imperial Demons over the past couple of weeks to write On A Dark Tide, a short story I've been repeatedly (and probably annoyingly) referring to as the creepy ocean story. It's nearly finished! I reckon I can have it done and dusted over the Easter weekend, and be back to work on Imperial Demons by Tuesday.

My jokey reference to it as a creepy ocean story got me thinking about other creepy ocean stories. It shouldn't be a surprise that I love reading and writing about the sea. UNDERTOW and THE SEA WIFE are both born of that love, although they're very different. On A Dark Tide is more akin to UNDERTOW, inspired by that idea that the deep, vast ocean is concealing a very alien and inhospitable world from us - and that maybe we don't want to uncover it's secrets.

These five books share that theme, and were all incredibly formative reads for me growing up. I make no apologies for three of them being Lovecraft stories. If you want creepy ocean stories, HP Lovecraft is your man. Enjoy!

1. DAGON
 

DAGON was one of the first stories Lovecraft wrote as an adult, back in 1917. Told from the point of view of a morphine addict recounting a horrific experience he had as a merchant marine, it's classic Lovecraft, encapsulated into a short but striking story. Adrift in an unknown region of the ocean, he finds "a slimy expanse of hellish black mire" thrown to the ocean's surface by a volcanic upheaval. Upon exploring the landmass, he discovers an inhumanly large monolith covered in hieroglyphics that suggest a terrifying truth about humanity. As he studies the monolith, an enormous creature emerges from the waters. Insane with fear, the man escapes, but is cursed to madness as fear of the creature consumes him.

This was the first Lovecraft story I ever read! It set me on a long and happy path of trying to make everyone I knew read Lovecraft (only partially succeeding). It's short enough that his sometimes purple prose doesn't grate on you, and leaves enough to the imagination that you can't help being fascinated by his submerged civilisations and cold, distant gods.

2. TELLING THE SEA

On a rather different note, we have TELLING THE SEA by Pauline Fisk. I must have read this dozens of times as a child. It's the story of Nona, who moves with her mother to a coastal village in Wales to escape an abusive partner. Isolated and lonely, Nona deals with her troubles by sharing them with the sea. But as life grows more complicated and no answers seem to be in sight, Nona does more than just talk to the sea...And soon her life is danger as the waters lure her in.

This is a YA book dealing with some heavy topics - domestic abuse and suicide, chiefly. I don't think I truly appreciated as a child how well those topics were addressed, but it's a book that's stayed in my memory my whole life. The setting and Nona's strange, difficult relationships, and her sanctuary in the sea, make this a one-of-a-kind book.

3. THE CALL OF CTHULHU

Maybe the ultimate watery horror? In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming, as we all know. Francis Wayland Thurston, our narrator, retells his discovery of notes left by his deceased grand-uncle, which slowly unfold a disturbing tale of sinister cults, dead sailors, and a peculiar bas-relief sculpture that conjures "simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature."

CALL OF CTHULHU, for many people, is the Lovecraft story, and if you don't know any of his other works I can almost guarantee you've heard of Cthulhu somewhere. He was in the Ghostbusters cartoon, for goodness sake! Lovecraft himself thought the story "rather middling," but it's spawned an ongoing mythos that other writers and creators have been tapping into and expanding ever since Lovecraft's time. The idea of a slumbering alien god waiting at the bottom of the ocean is captivating, especially in light of things like the bloop (now explained, sadly) and the elusiveness of animals like the giant squid.


4. SEA DRAGON HEIR

Oh man. If you want your high fantasy ripe with incest, have I got a book for you. Twins Valraven and Pharinet are heirs of a royal family cursed many hundreds of years before. Any woman married to Valraven was destined to become the Sea Wife, a being capable of commanding the vast powers of the sea dragons. Growing up, Val and Pharinet become lovers, and an intricate web of magic and betrayal engulfs them and everyone around them. 

I love this book, but it's definitely not for everyone. The nature of the sea dragons (are they real or just metaphors for the family's magic?) and the complex political intrigue make this an outstanding first book in the series. The rest of the trilogy drifts away from the ocean and the incredibly sinister dragons, sadly.





5. THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH

If I had to pick a favourite Lovecraft story, it would be this one (just edging out AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS). Our narrator, touring across New England, hears tales of ruined, strange Innsmouth, and decides to take a detour to the mysterious town. There unfolds a harrowing saga of malign underwater empires, and an ancient pact between men and monsters. It's part of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle and, yes, it absolutely did influence UNDERTOW, because it's great.

If I had to recommend you one book off this list, it would be this one. It's creepy ocean story personified, and still my go-to audio book when I can't sleep at night. I just love the story so much. For my money, it's better written than THE CALL OF CTHULHU, and tells a more complete tale. Get your creepy ocean story fix now!

DEMONIZED - The Shiny New Cover

First, the obvious thing. I found this cover before I saw the redesign for UNDERTOW, so I know there's no...cohesion between this, UNDERTOW, and the Ethan Banning shorts, but hopefully I'll be able to update the shorts in the future to match one or the other. And this cover is, I do believe, stunning, so I'm trying not to get hung up on aesthetics too much. And, you know, never judge a book, etc.

But if you do want to judge a book by it's cover, you could do worse than judge DEMONIZED by this one.

Ta-da! Once again, this is by the amazing Erica Petite, and I love it. I've got Strong Feelings about how Ethan should look, and I know that the Ethan in my head will never be the same as the Ethan in your head, or anyone else's, so when I went looking for new cover art, I resolved to focus on mood and how evocative the art was, rather than try to find the perfect cover model. This cover has the mood I want, 100%. I snapped it up without thinking twice.

As with AFTERLIFE, I don't have a release date set yet for DEMONIZED, but hopefully it'll be before the end of the year. AFTERLIFE will be the priority, because it's much longer and, well, it's really where Ethan's story starts, so that makes sense. News will come as I have it to share, I promise. In the meantime, enjoy the new covers! And if you can think of anything cool you'd like to see added to the updated books, let me know. I want to offer something extra for people who may already have read both books, if I can come up with something. Money is precious and I like to think if you part with yours for one of my books, I make it worthwhile.

So...missing scenes? Flash fiction or short stories? Q&As? Facts about Yasmin and Ethan's world? I'm open to all ideas!

"Our creations must be shared to be art."

So if you've wandered over to my Facebook page or Twitter feed lately, you might have seen that UNDERTOW has been given a makeover. Just in case you missed it, here it is again in all it's glory!

This was a complete surprise to me, and I'm pretty blown away by the job Ragnarok's graphic designer, Shawn King, has done. It's also pretty timely, as just a few short days before, I decided to do something I've been dithering over most of this year. I'm going to self-publish DEMONIZED and AFTERLIFE.

For those who don't know the long, dull, irritating saga of Damnation Books/Caliburn Press, the short version is that I had some books with them, they were a categorically awful publisher, and now I have those books back and they still owe me royalties. Two of those books, NIGHT AND CHAOS and THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE, are now available through Evernight. The other two, AFTERLIFE and DEMONIZED, are not available anywhere.

But you need to read both these books to get the best of UNDERTOW and Ethan's story, I think. UNDERTOW stands alone, but Ethan's road to Beacon's Point begins in AFTERLIFE. The reason I've held back on doing anything with them for a while is that I didn't really know what to do with them. AFTERLIFE is an urban fantasy novel, the first in a planned series. DEMONIZED is a novella (around 20k). Whilst I probably could submit AFTERLIFE to either Ragnarok or Evernight and keep my fingers crossed that they'd want it, I don't feel like it's quite right for either publisher. And DEMONIZED is definitely, definitely not right for Evernight and too short for Ragnarok.

Self-publishing seems ideal, especially because I'm at a point where (thanks to Common Brimstone) I can invest a bit of money into decent cover art, something that's always held me back in the past. So soon, hopefully before the end of this year, both DEMONIZED and AFTERLIFE will be available again, and you can read Ethan's entire story, as well as my debut novel, and get the whole Shoregrave/Ethan experience.

Awesome!

I guess that still leaves the question of "will there be more Ethan books?" I do get asked this from time to time, and honestly, I don't know the answer. I would love there to be. I love Ethan and his fucked-up life. I love the setting of Shoregrave, and I could write a million stories there quite happily. So where are the problems?

1. Time. My writing time is limited and I have other series I would like to finish before I die or my arms fall off.

2. Audience. The Shoregrave/Ethan books have never sold well. BLOOD WITCH sold more in its first quarter than AFTERLIFE, DEMONIZED, and UNDERTOW have ever sold since 2009. A lot more. Is it worth me taking my limited writing time and dedicating it to something not many people want? That's a big question, more complex than it seems on the surface, and I really, really am not saying "I refuse to write these books because you bastards don't buy them." Maybe I'll go into that deeper in another blog.

3. Wretched Psychological Scars. I was writing the sequel to UNDERTOW in October 2012 when my dad died. At first I threw myself into carrying on writing to distract myself from that, but by May 2013, I was an utter, utter mess and I had to stop...well, everything, really. I pretty much had a mini mental breakdown, hid in the house for two weeks crying, and then decided to quit writing forever. Obviously I didn't, but every time I think about that book, I think about that part of my life, and I just feel anxious and sick. I will never finish that book as a result. I don't even want to revisit the plot and see what I can salvage of it.

So if I do go back to Ethan's series, I need to start over on that sequel. And that feels quite daunting, and I'm not ready to do it. Maybe one day I will be. I certainly hope so.

So, that's it, in a nutshell. Good news = new cover! AFTERLIFE and DEMONIZED coming back! Bad news = Ethan/Shoregrave future still uncertain. Overall, I'll say this is a win.

PSA The Second

I am delighted and relieved to announce that as of today, all three of my Damnation Books/Caliburn Press titles are back where they belong - with me. Last week was a long, weird, and stressful one, but I don't think I need to go into details here. The bottom line is, DEMONIZED, NIGHT AND CHAOS, and THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE have all been pulled from sale, the rights officially returned to me, and I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Well, except for some missing royalties. But that's allegedly being looked into.

So what next? Am I going to re-home these stories? I definitely want to. I think NIGHT AND CHAOS will be the easiest to deal with. It's a dark urban fantasy with romantic elements, and I'm hopeful that (after a bit of re-working, because I wrote it almost seven years ago and I like to think I've improved since then), I can find a place for it.

THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE? I don't know. Depending on your viewpoint it's either a short, sweet paranormal romance (ie, no sex), or a short urban fantasy. Either way, I don't know of many publishers that would take it as it is. I don't think expanding it or jamming in a few sex scenes will serve the story particularly well or improve it, so I'm probably going to just put it aside, at least for the time being. Maybe down the line I'll consider self-publishing it.

DEMONIZED? Ethan. Oh Ethan, you adorable disaster. I don't know. I just don't know. I have both AFTERLIFE and DEMONIZED back in my grubby hands now, and I just don't know what to do with them. It's a sad but unavoidable fact that people don't love Ethan as much as I do. UNDERTOW is well-reviewed and favourably compared to works like The Dresden Files and Constantine, but it sells poorly. Is it worth putting valuable time and energy into something nobody but me wants?

The short answer is, I don't know. The long answer involves a lot of weeping and railing against the injustice of the cold, uncaring cosmos. But I'm not trying to allocate blame for Ethan's under-performance. There is none to allocate for one thing, so we'll leave it there.

The important thing as far as I'm concerned is that my works are free of Damnation Books and I can close a frustrating and disappointing chapter in my writing career.

I advise writers to think extremely carefully before submitting to Caliburn Press or any of its imprints. I advise you to google "Damnation Books warnings" and read everything you find before making a decision.

If you're an author experiencing difficulties with Damnation Books, I'm happy to talk privately with you. Give me a shout!