I'm having a four-day weekend in which to come to terms with my 30th birthday. I may or may not do this by getting drunk and shouting at young people.

In the mean time, please enjoy these Fennec foxes kissing! (Yes, I still really really want one).

To Do:

Publish UNDERTOW. I wanted it out in March, now it's looking more like late April/early May. But it is coming, I promise.

Finish Descent. No clue on this one. Me and this book are not friends right now and I'm reluctant to force myself to work on something I'm not happy about when there's no deadline bearing down on me. For me, writing has to be fun first and foremost or it's not my best work. I could force it, but I don't have to, so I won't.

Write first Common Brimstone newsletter. This should be fun and relatively straightforward! I'm probably going to be offering either some freebies or some shop discounts to subscribers, and the rest of it is going to be general rambling which I'm exceptionally good at, so.

Prepare SILVER KISS for resubmission. Happily this is just a case of reformatting. Unhappily, reformatting is dull. Still, hopefully it'll be worth it eventually!

In unrelated news, it turns out you can keep Fennec foxes as pets in the UK. They're classified as "small exotic pets." We've been talking about a dog for ages and had agreed that when we move, if the house is right, we'd look into it. Now we're kinda leaning towards getting a Fennec fox instead...I mean, look at them.

I really need to remember to do these posts at the start of the month...Anyway. April's card is the Queen of Cups.

I've signed the contract so I think I can reveal it now!

WOLF STRAP is coming to Evernight Publishing in May! And better, it's going to be part of Evernight's Free Reads series, which means (obviously) it's going to be available for the low, low price of absolutely nothing. Huzzahs!

I thought long and hard about what to do with the Urban Wolf series and I'm really happy to be re-homing it with Evernight. They have a great, growing line of f/f fiction in all genres and I'll be proud to see Ayla and Shannon join those ranks. I'm also delighted to be able to offer WOLF STRAP to readers for free as an introduction to the series. I haven't yet submitted SILVER KISS or DARK HUNT, but I fully intend to now WOLF STRAP has been accepted, and I fully intend to continue the series too.

In case you've already read WOLF STRAP and are wondering if there'll be any significant differences between this and the original version published in Queer Wolf, the answer is (probably) not. I did re-edit it slightly before submission - I originally wrote this story six years ago, and I don't know any writer who would be happy to let a story go out to the public again after six years without one last tweak. I made only minor changes - word choices mainly. I haven't received edits from Evernight yet, so there may be more changes to come but I'm pretty confident they will be minimal and mostly stylistic. I think WOLF STRAP is a good, strong story and I don't anticipate it needing extensive editing.*

I'm hoping to hear about a solid release date and have some fancy new cover art to share with you soon, so stay tuned!

*Hubris!

On Monday Mum and I went to Northern Ireland. This sounds like a pretty small thing, so let me backtrack a little before I spam you with photos.

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1. Are you homeless?
2. Are you about to commit suicide?
3. Is the person approaching you about medical research in a limo?
4. Does the person approaching you about medical research know far more about you than they should?
5. Has the person approaching you about medical research offered you money just to talk to him about medical research?
6. Has the person approaching you about medical research offered you vast amounts of money just to hear more about medical research?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you may want to reconsider taking part in medical research.

If you choose to go ahead with taking part in medical research, here are some further questions to consider:

1. Does the information video you're being shown include any severed heads?
2. Is the doctor in charge of the medical research a wealthy eccentric who has been "forced" to conduct his research in secret by ignorant government bodies who don't understand how important his work is?
3. Does the man who initially approached you about taking part in medical research get an erection at the sight of severed limbs?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes and you still choose to take part in medical research, you're a twat and you're going to die and you deserve it.

So I had my gibbous cervix scraped clean of squamous cells last Thursday. Now I have to wait four to six weeks to see if they got everything or if there are still some ululating icky bits remaining. As such experiences go, it was fine. The nurse complimented me on my knee-high socks and on how lovely and smooth my legs are, and then Kyle and I went home and spent the day snuggled on the sofa eating chocolate and watching Gordon Ramsey's Hotel Hell. Don't judge me. I love Gordon.

And since then...well...We had an adventure of sorts Friday night (not suitable for repeating here), and as a result Saturday was a write-off. I spent Sunday packaging up the perfume orders I was planning to send out on Saturday, so Sunday was creative but not in a writerly-way. I've got three days at work this week, then I'm off until 8th April! I shall be visiting Ireland with my mum, who currently has a concussion, so that should be interesting.

My aim is to have UNDERTOW published before I go on holiday, which is entirely doable. I don't think it's reasonable to have a first draft of Descent finished by the end of March, so I guess it's the end of April now. I'm annoyed, but between various health issues and ~adventures~, there's not much I can do. There's only so many hours in the day and sadly I have to dedicate most of mine to my day job and, you know, sleeping and eating.

But hey! It's still the Year of the Unicorn and there's good news on the horizon for Urban Wolf fans, so let's move on. Happy Monday, everyone!