Claire Farrell's Blog

Sorry for the overly-dramatic title, (couldn’t help myself) but I’ve been working on some stuff all week, and I’m finally ready to, well, say goodbye, I suppose. I am hanging up my pen. This decision hasn’t come lightly, but a choice had to be made, and while I am upset, I know it’s necessary.

For well over seven years, I’ve had the most amazing, life-changing opportunity, mostly thanks to the complete strangers who read my books. I started publishing the little stories I make up because I needed to do something for my family, and it grew into so much more than that. This is the longest I’ve committed to pretty much anything; this was the one thing that was harder to give up than to keep. However, nothing remains the same, and now my family needs different things from me. I had a great run of following my dreams, but stepping back from this is what’s best for my family right now – it’s time to take care of home and health instead.

I’ve thought a lot on how to go about this. I considered unpublishing my work, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Too final for a decision that didn’t come easy! Instead, I’ve decided to set every story of mine for free (which takes time, so do not pay for any of them if you see a price). Going forward, I’ll try to work on the Harbinger stuff and release that for free, too, when the time comes. I don’t currently have a time-frame on that. I might also post the rest of my stuff to Wattpad – cold turkey’s hard and all that.

As for my social media accounts, I’d already pretty much taken a step back from all of them anyway (and my email’s still blocked). I’m not going to close any accounts right now, but that may change, and even if I do use them again, it will probably be in a more personal way, so you might want to unfollow/unfriend anyway. I have a couple of months to decide what to do with this blog, but I am leaning towards shutting it down.

I hope to write again, maybe post to Wattpad, maybe even properly publish again, but if I don’t, then I’ll still have this experience and the readers who took the time to reach out to me over the years to remember. I am beyond grateful to all of you. I’ve never been a people person, so that aspect (you know, actually communicating with humans) was always the hardest for me over the years, but I’ve had incredibly few negative experiences in that time, so thank you for that, too.

The future is unclear. I can’t see past this weekend (which will for sure be spent flaking out on my bed with my kids, playing games and blasting GOT7 songs loud enough to make their poor Dad weep), but life changes so rapidly that I’m still going to hope this farewell isn’t really so final.

I am currently locked out of my email (I’ll spare you my feelings on that), so if you have been trying to contact me recently, please use clairefarrell27@gmail.com instead. Ta, muchly.

So. Remember earlier this year when my little fella went and ruptured his appendix? Yeah, well, his twin decided to try to copy him this month. Thanks to the first fiasco, I was on hyper-alert, and even though he wasn’t really showing signs of anything, I had a gut feeling, so we ended up at the hospital – where they were very unsure but decided to just take the appendix anyway – and had surgery that same night. And then everyone seemed freaked because he was so close to a rupture. One of the nurses said he must have a high pain threshold, and I was like, um, yeah, I’ve been telling everyone who walks in how he doesn’t complain about pain. Thankfully, he didn’t need a draining tube like his twin, so he didn’t have to spend as much time in hospital. Have to keep a close eye on him though because he’s super independent and likes to do everything for himself even if it hurts.

Oh, and while he was waiting to be admitted, we got a call from the school to say my youngest had taken a fall, and they might have to bring her over to the doctor. They ended up bringing three of my kids to us in the hospital where my youngest starting getting dizzy and having blurred vision (and she had an epic cut on her forehead that kept bleeding), so we ended up having to split up in the hospital to have two kids examined. And to top that off, I started throwing up in the hospital bathroom, so I might as well fund a clown school because that day was all-round ridiculous. My eldest came home from school having missed everything, heard the story, and was convinced we were making it up.

We’re all on our holidays this week, so we’re going to spend the day binging the rest of Stranger Things and the usual Halloween-y films we watch every year. Just realising now we’re going to be seeing a lot of Winona Ryder’s face today.

This month, we’ve had a couple of birthdays, an anniversary, and even a wee hurricane. We lost a tree, a trampoline, a fence, a slate or two, and some power, but we gained a couple of days off school/work.

And I made a decision on Sleepwalker. Beta reading didn’t throw up any kind of general consensus (which was pretty amazing – there’s usually something most people can agree on), so I went with my gut, made some changes, and I feel satisfied right now. (That will change in two minutes; I should hurry).

So… Sleepwalker is available now at 99c for a limited time. If it’s not at your usual store by tonight, it will be soon. It’s the first in a trilogy, but the other instalments likely won’t see a release until 2018.

If you helped me with beta reading (thanks!), and you want to read the updated version, then please contact me preferably by email – if not, Facebook – and let me know what file format you would like to receive. I won’t be able to reply tonight/tomorrow morning though.

(Truly terrible) blurb below:

Margo’s got a secret—she just doesn’t understand what it is. But if she doesn’t figure things out soon, she could jeopardise her family’s fresh start.

Dorian’s a weak wolf in a dominant pack, and if he doesn’t find a way to be noticed, he could be separated from his beloved guardians to make room for a younger shifter once he turns eighteen.

Two teenagers are running out of time when a string of murders drags them into danger. If they team up, they might find the murderer—unless he finds them first.

I missed September’s post. Not much to report anyway. I will be sending out a free novella in the newsletter within the next week, so if you’re interested in that, make sure you’re subscribed. This one is Magic Thief, and it’s in Ari’s POV. It’s set around the same time as Crossroads, and they share a couple of connections.

I had planned on Ember’s story, Faery Dust, after Magic Thief, but I’m going to either scrap it or put it off. Timeline no longer fits. It’s a shame because I heart Ember & Finn’s family.

I’m still working on the Harbinger trilogy. I’ll have to make a decision on that soon, but I’ve no news right now.

Keeping this short because it’s getting pretty chilly in here. (Not complaining because I totally heart October, too).

I’ve sent out a bunch of beta reading copies (if you were supposed to get one and didn’t, let me know), and I’m tired of the stuff I’ve been working on, so I thought I’d blog before the kids go back to school next week. I know the beta reading came out of nowhere, but it was a last-minute decision partly based on himself being sick of me whingeing (Why is this word so hard to spell? It never looks right.) about the story forever.

I probably should have posted this sooner, but I’ve been having a hard time judging whether this story’s even ready for beta reading – and there’s been a lot going on around here – but I’m just going to throw it out there. So… I’m sending out a call for beta readers for a new story in the Evans Pack world. New main characters, still a young adult paranormal romance type of thing, and, erm, it’s not in the best shape of all time right now, but I’m too close to it to figure out whyyyyyy.

I’m looking for a limited number of readers who are willing to give relatively detailed, honest feedback on the plot, preferably within the next three weeks, and are capable of side-loading a file I send them onto their ereader. Some apps apparently can’t do this, so be aware of that. I need a mixture of people who have read the original Cursed series and those who have not. I’m hoping to be sending copies of this thing out by the weekend, but we’ll see how it goes. If you’re interested, then please either email me or private message me on Facebook, and I’ll get back to you during the week.

I’m not interested in editing/proofreading, or anything like that. I just want personal opinions, what works for you, what doesn’t, that kind of thing. If the thought of offending me or hurting my feelings (you won’t, I swear. I don’t even have feelings) stresses you out, or you’re one of those lucky people who loves everything they read, then this might not be for you.

Squeezing in a quick post before the rest of the month runs away on me. Spoiler alert: My progress sucks.

I’m a little busy, so I’m not getting as much editing done as I’d like, but I should have expected that! I’ve had a couple of lock myself away weekends in an attempt to catch up, but now my brain is all squishy and in desperate need of a Netflix binge.

We’re over halfway through the holidays, and we haven’t gotten too sick of each other yet. Although if I get asked who would win in a fight – seven random Marvel characters vs seven random DC characters vs seven random characters from random universes – one more time, I might cry.

Lately, when I sit down to work, my youngest will usually have left little scribbled messages on my notes. I can’t get mad because they’re cute and sweet. Anyway, the other day I was looking through some old notes for research I’d forgotten, and she’d actually corrected my handwriting with a red pen. A future editor, perhaps?

So I might be a little bit stressed out right now. Small, tiny, wee bit more than usual. Maybe? Perhaps.

Work stuff defo contributed. For those who have been asking for a million years, (sorry!) some more of my stuff is now available in paperback. I do not like them, but they’re there. Six individual books in the Chaos series, and then one giant monstrosity bundle for the three Lost Souls books. It was not a fun experience, but here’s hoping I learned something for next time

It’s June. It’s hot. It’s two weeks out from the school holidays. I am nervous. My children hate their school more than each other right now, but even so, I may not survive this summer.

It’s probably a bit early for an update, but I can’t see me magically doing anything of note for the rest of the month *cough* new Fire Emblem game *cough*, so here we are.

I’ve been editing Sleepwalker this month, mostly adding new scenes based on changes to the rest of the trilogy, but I wanted to write a bit to break up the day, too. A couple of years ago, I had a dream that inspired a story (loosely connected to Chaos), so I got up, went Yaaas, let’s file that in our folder of random ideas that we never look at again, and tried to forget about it. The idea never went away, but I couldn’t figure out the ending, so I didn’t touch it. Because I didn’t have an ending, I thought the story would be a quick novella that I’d blast out whenever I got stuck on editing. That was three weeks ago, and I now have the longest first draft I’ve ever written on my hands. Thanks, brain.

And I’m not the only one writing in the house right now. My kids always write stories and stuff anyway, but kid #2 is taking it very seriously right now. It’s a werewolf novel, with chapters, and word count targets, and she’s completely devoted. She gets extremely irritable if anyone disturbs her because she’s desperate to know what happens next. It’s adorable. She came home today all excited because there’s a writing competition at school. “I don’t really want to win first place because you only get a trophy. But if you come in second, you get book vouchers. Book vouchers.” She’s so my kid.

Kid #4 is about as sad as I am over Chris Cornell’s death, (Can’t Change Me is one of his favourite songs), so we’re going to spend the rest of the day listening to his music.

Stay well, and enjoy your weekend.