When in doubt...werewolves

If there's one thing you probably already know about me, it's that I love writing about werewolves. In fact, I just love werewolves. So, having just finished a really tough-to-write book about werewolves, I decided to go for a palate cleanser and write a short story about werewolves.

To summarise: werewolves.

Well, actually, I did the edits for my next Amber Morgan release first, but then I moved onto this story, which will definitely stay as a short story and not turn into a novel at all. I'm aiming to have it all wrapped up within the next two weeks, and then it'll be on to Blood Canticles 3. Huzzahs! Just to prove this is definitely a werewolf story, here's a snippet.

Apocalypse Ready?

The universe is huge. 400 million stars are born every day. Thirty-three light years from us right now, there is an exoplanet covered in burning ice. There's a giant cloud of alcohol in Sagittarius B. There's a hell of a lot going on out there, and if I believed in gods, I'd definitely believe they have way too much to think about with all that to worry about me. And yet it's hard not to suspect you might be the butt of a cosmic joke occasionally.

I decided back in April/May to take up running in an effort to deal with a few things. Firstly was my general health - I'm in a very sedentary job, I love food, and I have a fiance who's an amazing cook. Secondly was my body image, which has been poor all my life, but has dipped down to pretty unhappy lows over the past few years. I spent most of my twenties working on not being an anxiety-ridden wreck, and I've mostly succeeded, but some things stick around. The third thing was my doctor re-diagnosing me with exercise-induced asthma. I say "re-diagnosed," because I was diagnosed as a child, but didn't get much support from the people who needed to support me (school PE teachers) and I grew up believing I was just lazy and unfit, and that asthma didn't play a part in that.

But my GP said otherwise, and then he said I needed to go do regular exercise so he could properly measure my lung capacity and figure out what dosage of corticosteroids I need. Ugh. Anyway, I dutifully bought a home stepper machine and got to it. Turns out stepper machines are deadly boring, so I decided to give running a crack. It would be a stretch to say I enjoyed my first attempt, but I was proud I did it without dying, so I went out again the next week. And got shin splints.

If you've never had shin splints, they're not like...life-ruining or anything, but they are really, really painful and you definitely can't run while you're recovering. In fact, even walking was tricky at first. I just had to lay on the sofa taking anti-inflammatories for a couple of days and try to avoid stairs, or high heels, or moving. But I needed to keep up the exercise regime, so I started going swimming a couple of times a week in addition using the stepper.

And the swimming aggravates my rotator cuff syndrome. Basically, the ball-and-socket joints in my shoulders get inflamed, and whilst this is manageable, it's also painful, and it triggers other problems in my arms, wrists, and hands. It doesn't really take much to trigger an episode. Carrying a heavy bag, cold weather, sleeping on the wrong side, thinking "wow, it's been a while since my last episode!"...That would be fine, if I could just stop doing EVERYTHING while the problem passes, but since I can't take a month off work and sit quietly not using my arms every time it happens, I have to just take anti-inflammatories, do my physio exercises, and carry on.

So running was out, swimming is not ideal, and the stepper is boring. And over the past nine days, I wrote a 21k short story, and that was a really bad idea because hammering away at a keyboard for days on end in the day job and at home does not help settle the rotator cuff flare-up, but apparently I don't learn lessons. The universe is laughing at me. The universe does not want me to be healthy. The universe wants me to be chowing down painkillers and knowing my place on the sofa.

To which I can really only say, "no, YOU fuck off, Universe." Because I am making progress. I can run again now, which is great because I did weirdly miss it over the past few weeks. I mean, I've made a running playlist on Spotify. I only make playlists for things I'm really committed to. I've got the Zombies, Run app, and it makes the experience actually kinda fun. I went out on Saturday for a run round Milton Country Park and accidentally got swept up in a 2k race. I managed to extricate myself eventually, but I still got congratulated for my great effort by one of the stewards on my way out, so I feel pretty smug about that.

Note to self, avoid the Country Park on Saturday mornings.

Anyway, yes, I am making progress. I've lost a bit of weight and I don't wheeze and choke going up the stairs with the laundry basket much anymore. That's pretty cool. I don't think I could outrun a zombie yet, but I could probably outrun an old lady running from a zombie. Unless it was one of the old ladies I saw doing the 2k on Saturday. They were all pretty hardcore. Either way, it's encouraging after so many years to feel like my body isn't the enemy.

I'm viewing myself as a second draft right now. The basics are all there and they mostly do what they're supposed to, but it can be improved upon. If you consider that 90% of your body is stardust, that's some pretty good material to work with even if the Universe does occasionally laugh at you.

Wednesday Snippet - In Cold Blood

So after a few days of vacillation, I decided the next project should be my Urban Wolf spin-off, In Cold Blood. I'm really loving Crow Called, but I'm wary of starting too many new projects and not getting round to my ongoing series in a timely fashion (those being primarily Urban Wolf and Blood Canticles). Although I'm working on breaking away from "must do" lists when it comes to my writing, I still need some semblance of focus, and my focus for 2016 is getting Blood Canticles 3 and more Urban Wolf books out into the world.

So without further ado, here's a little look at In Cold Blood. And there will be many more!

“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.

Wednesday Snippet - Crow Called

 So I am currently flip-flopping between two projects. Crow Called and an Amber Morgan short story. Experience tells me this is a bad idea and eventually I'll have to focus solely on one or the other, but right now I'm sort of in flux. I can't really seem to commit, and rather than worry about it and do nothing, I've decided to just work on whichever story is foremost in my head at the time. Yesterday it was the Amber Morgan story. Today it's Crow Called. Thanks, brain. 

Anyway, since it's been a while, I thought I'd share a bit of the Banshee Book. Enjoy!

Chaotic Good

Now that the dust has settled, it's time to move forward. I said on Tuesday that I thought NIGHT AND CHAOS would be the easiest of my three Damnation Books titles to re-home, and I figured I may as well start working on that now before I commit to any bigger writing projects again. So yesterday I pulled the manuscript and did a read-through.

I haven't really thought about this book for years. I could probably have given you a brief summary of the plot, but there were huge chunks I'd totally forgotten about, and because I was never happy with the last chapter, I've always had it my head that this isn't a particularly good book. So I was kind of surprised to start reading and feel like...wow, this is cool. This is good! It's dark, it's full of motifs and themes I adore, and I love Ryan, my bad-tempered heroine. Why did I never write the sequel???

Well, obviously I never wrote the sequel because my experiences with Damnation Books soured me on NIGHT AND CHAOS. And I was kind of blinded by panic as I was re-reading yesterday, because I'd left all these little clues in the text as to what might happen in that unwritten sequel, and they didn't make any sense to me anymore. How am I supposed to write the sequel if I don't know what the sequel is??? Still, my memory awoke as I read and revisited some of the original research I'd done, and I think I know more or less what I had planned for the trilogy overall.

I finished my read-through last night, made some minor revisions, and the temptation was to just submit it there and then. I'm excited to have this book back! I'm in love with it again! Why wait?

But last night I was severely sleep-deprived and we had new episodes of Ghost Adventures to watch. And, whilst that final chapter isn't as bad as I remembered, I still felt like I'm capable of better. So I decided to sleep on it. And this morning I decided that I definitely should re-write the ending before submitting it. I also decided I should work in an MKUltra reference, because I have my priorities straight.

So the plan is to polish up that tricksy final chapter today and submit. And then it's all in the hands of fate...Well, my publisher, anyway. Wish me luck!

The Inevitable Return of the Great...Wednesday Snippet

So this Monday I found myself at a loose end writing-wise. My current Amber Morgan WIP is finished and needs to be edited before I submit it. I thought I was going to finish off another Amber short story next, but when I started writing, I found myself writing about banshees and vampires.

This was not the plan.

However! I'm kind of enjoying it. Actually I'm enjoying it a lot. Having been eyes deep in MC romance since November, getting stuck into some good old-fashioned urban fantasy is really appealing right now (and this is one of the reasons I like having a pen name and writing totally different genres under that pen name - it keeps my creative juices flowing so well to switch projects up this way).

So I figure I'm just going to see where this story takes me and keep writing as long as I'm having fun with it. And because I love you or something, I'm bringing you along for the ride. So here's a Wednesday snippet from what I believe will be called Crow Called. Enjoy!