Seeing as the blogging fell away a bit in the second half of last year due to Life Stuff TM, I thought I’d kick off the year with a modified version of one of my semi-regular State of the Mel posts. 2016 was, as it seemed to be for most people, a bit of a slog of a year. But even though it had its challenges, ending the year with a new tiny torti in residence to fill the gap left by the Fuzzy Girl (while still working on convincing the big torti that this is a Good Thing TM) and an ankle that is well on the mend post op means onwards and upward! So here’s to a 2017 filled with more good things than challenging ones and happiness and health and good reads for all. And for those who might be new around here or those who follow along…the rest is a bit about me and what I’m working on.

Who am I?

I’m Melanie Scott (most commonly answering to Mel). I write books. Specifically I write fantasy (dark and urban) as M.J. Scott and contemporary romance as Melanie Scott.

Selfies are good. Have a selfie. I’ve been growing my hair a little and my hairdresser go fancy. Note to self, learn how to curl own hair 😀

M.J writes dark fantasy (the Half-Light City series which is now finished and The Four Arts series which began with THE SHATTERED COURT) and urban fantasy (The Wild Side series). Currently working on THE FORBIDDEN HEIR, the sequel to THE SHATTERED COURT with the aim of that being out this year.

Melanie writes the New York Saints series. Book 1 in that series THE DEVIL IN DENIM came out in August 2014. Publisher’s Weekly picked it as one of their Top 10 Fall 2014 romances, so that was pretty cool. The rest of the series are ANGEL IN ARMANI, LAWLESS IN LEATHER, PLAYING HARD and PLAYING FAST which are all available. The first three books came out in Germany in late April/May. Read more here.  The next contemporary project is currently secret squirrel status but stay tuned for an announcement March/April.

My agent is Miriam Kriss at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. She’s the gal to speak to if you have queries about rights to any of my stuff.

More specifically I’m of the female persuasion, I have a day job that I don’t tend to talk about much online and so far have survived four and a bit decades living in Australia, home of many things that the rest of the world believes will cause instant death (to be fair, some of them do but they don’t tend to hang around cities so I’m cool with them). I live in Melbourne which is down south where coffee is weirdly popular (I do not drink the stuff), Australian rules football is the sport of choice for many (I do not really do football) and the weather is temperamental (we like four seasons in one day and always having to pack an umbrella). Here in Oz, it’s Summer. Which started cool (like much of Spring which seemed to forget how to Spring) but is heating up. Le sigh. I am Team Moderate Temperatures, so I like spring and autumn). Not Team Winter or Team Summer (too pale skinned to love sunbaking though I do love swimming and the ocean so Team Vampire Strength Sunscreen). If I’m ever really rich, maybe I’ll just follow Spring around the world. My caffeine of choice is Coke Zero. Coffee makes me sick (hence I do not drink it) and tea just doesn’t caffeine me well enough. Besides writing, I like geeky things, movies, TV, ballet, knitting, embroidery, various other crafty things, food, photography, watercolours, stationery, music, baking, project life, naps, travel and books. I also have my girly moments (nails/make up/perfume/sparkly things/bags/shoes). I like to talk about all these things here on my blog.

I am an experienced cat butler. My current feline employers are the Big Torti (formerly known as just The Torti…a relatively sane for a calico/tortoiseshell girl who like rattly mice and glaring out windows at birds and other cats who have the temerity to wander into her line of vision) and, a recent addition, the Tiny Torti (who so far is very sweet, fearless and kind of nuts but we’ll chalk the last bit up to being a kitten. She communicates via chirps and a sound that sounds more like a bird whistle than anything else…side note – has anyone ever had a cat who makes a noise like ‘meow’ because none of mine have). Both tortis are utterly gorgeous. See Proof 1 and Proof 2.

The Tiny Torti joined the household this week and turns 11 weeks old today so she is indeed tiny. The Big Torti is still considering her views on the matter but seems to be leaning toward maybe deciding small kitten beasts are acceptable. So kitty harmony will be restored soon. The previous employers (if you go delving into the archives) were the Fuzzy Girl (a slightly less sane, built like a teeny Garfield (low slung but not chubby), tad un-coordinated, very chatty fluffy grey and white girl who liked naps, tummy rubs, telling everybody everything that has happened every second of the day and falling off the sofa in her sleep), the Orange Cat (a very sweet but neurotic red burmese boy who also liked telling you what was happening only at a far louder volume than the Fuzzy Girl) and the Grey Cat (possibly the most sane of my cats, a fluffy smoke tabby moggy girl who chirped rather than meowed but was otherwise a well behaved glamour puss). I hang out with friends of the writer and non writer variety and I am slightly prone to klutziness. Like break-ankle-getting-up-from-couch klutziness. Maybe this is why I knew the Fuzzy Girl was meant to be my cat.

Due to said ankle breakage, I had an ankle reconstruction about three months ago to fix stuff that was Buggered TM when the ankle broke but which went undiagnosed for too long. Which was annoying but as the ankle is now much happier and I can do things like walk and swim without it hurting as it did previously, I will call that a win overall.

My teeny tiny garden is often neglected even though I like growing things.  Though somehow I have missed the ‘plant tomatoes’ step of summer this year. Maybe I still have time. I have managed to keep  a new crop of various house plants of the ‘surely I can’t kill one of these variety’ mostly alive for the last year (well, I seem to have lost a couple of succulents but everything else is, touch wood, okay). I am team Iron Man and Team Captain America (though post Civil War, more firmly Team Cap is Right), team Buffy, team Thor, team Ollicity, team Baymax, team genre, team animation, team Outlander, team Winchester, team X-Files, team BB-8, team Rey, team Jennifer Jones, team Austen, team Minions, team Star Wars in general (and team Carrie Fisher was a Queen), team fantasy, team happy endings are the best, team chocolate (preferably dark), team margarita, team ginger beer, team science, team musical, team music in general, team my heart belongs to Number 10, team reading is sexy, team thinking, team virgo, team colour and pictures make me happy, team baking, team movement is good even when you don’t want to, team glow, team don’t be a douche and team life is better with folks who make you laugh.

More about the books, please?

The Half-Light City series is an alt-world dark fantasy quadrology. It has fae and vampires and werewolves and magic and follows a bunch of characters through a particularly troublesome time in the Half-Light City which houses many races and many problems. All four books SHADOW KIN, BLOOD KIN, IRON KIN and FIRE KIN are available at all the usual places.

The Four Arts series is also an alt-world dark fantasy series (at this stage I think it’s a trilogy but heck, I thought that about the Half-Light series initially). It has witches and demons and religious differences and a heroine trying not to get her life ruined by all of the above. It began with THE SHATTERED COURT in April (also available as an audiobook). As mentioned above, I’m currently working on the second book which is called THE FORBIDDEN HEIR.

The Wild Side series is an urban fantasy trilogy which follows the adventures of Ashley Keenan who is trying very hard to be a normal boring human accountant but all the pesky werewolves and vampires in her world make that difficult. The first two books THE WOLF WITHIN and THE DARK SIDE are available at all good ebook retailers. Likewise, THE DAY YOU WENT AWAY is a free short story prequel that you can find at all the usual ebook sellers plus on Wattpad.  I am hoping to write the final book, BRING ON THE NIGHT, this year.

The New York Saints series is a contemporary romance series about three guys who buy the New York Saints (the worst team in MLB) and the women who complicate the process. As mentioned above, THE DEVIL IN DENIM and ANGEL IN ARMANI, and LAWLESS IN LEATHER, PLAYING HARD and PLAYING FAST are all out.  Playing Fast will be out on August 30. The Devil in Denim, Angel in Armani and Lawless in Leather are also available in audiobook at Audible for US folks. The first three books are also available in German translations.

What are you working on?

I continue to try to figure out how to WRITE ALL THE THINGS and DO ALL THE OTHER STUFF I LIKE. I’m currently writing THE FORBIDDEN HEIR and other books that fall under the heading of sekrit squirrel business which can’t be discussed publicly. But I still haven’t received either my clone army or my allocation of minions so while there are plenty of books in the pipeline, the order of said books will depend on time and brain space. If you want to be updated about things as they happen, sign up for my newsletters. M.J here and Melanie here.

Tell me more…

Places I hang out include here on the blog (but hey, you knew that already). I love me some twitter and @melscott will find me there. I tend to be most active on twitter but you know, internet procrastination for the win, so I hang out elsewhere.

M.J’s facebook page is www.facebook.com/AuthorMJScott and Melanie’s is www.facebook.com/WriterMelanieScott. I get my fix of pretty things, recipes, geekiness and ideas for stuff on Pinterest where I’m mel_writes. If you want to keep up with the blog you can subscribe in a blog reader with the RSS feed via the button on the top of the page (or directly in Bloglovin if you’re a Bloglovin user using the button in the sidebar).

I like to take pictures, so if you like looking at pictures, my Instagram handle is melwrites. I also post various pics on Facebook and Twitter. I take most of my pictures with an iPhone 7 (previously a 6/5/4) and also break out my Canon DSLR. I also dabble a bit with art (mostly watercolour) and various crafts and pictures of what I’m dabbling with get posted in the same places.

And that about wraps it up for me. Until next time…if you have any questions, find me at one of the places above or drop me an email via either of my websites.