The hare runs into the fire.

As a quick summary for anyone who is reading this without reading the story, Windclan in my stories believe that every cat born to their clan is born under one of nine guiding winds, each of which highlights particular traits they should strive to embody and use as virtues to lead them in life. Each wind is identified by a colour name.

In our nonfiction world, there are actually a lot of living cultures who associate cardinal directions with colours. There are also many real-world belief systems that associate the concept of wind with messenger gods or other divine beings. The nine winds of Windclan rose out of a combination of these ideas. I also took some inspiration from the astrological zodiac, in the sense that your associated category is defined by the circumstances at the time of your birth.

The nine winds line up approximately with the eight cardinal and intercardinal directions (north-east, north, north-west, west, south-west, south, south-east, and east), with the final being stillness or absence of wind altogether. In the Windclan territory as I write it, some winds are more common than others, and others are more likely to occur at certain times of year as well as the seasons change.

Below I've included the nine winds, their associated virtues, and the expectations of what a cat born under each wind should be like.

Silver wind (north-east) is associated with wisdom. This wind blows into Windclan from the highstones, most commonly in springtime. Cats born under the silver wind should strive to be perceptive and thoughtful.

Red wind (north) is associated with hope and creativity. Also more common in springtime, this wind comes in from the quarry. Cats born under the red wind should strive to be imaginative, courageous, and resourceful.

Pale wind (north-west) is associated with diplomacy, and mercy. It carries in from over the farmland. Cats born under the pale wind should strive to be empathetic, intuitive, persuasive, and forgiving.

Golden wind (west) is associated with justice. This, along with the winds to the south-west and south, are the most common throughout the year. Cats born under the golden wind should strive to be confident, cooperative, and principled.

Black wind (south-west) is associated with piety and duty. This wind, one of the most common, comes to Windclan territory from over the lower paddocks. Cats born under the black wind should strive to be honest, unselfish, and reliable.

Blue wind (south) is associated with steadfastness, and tenacity. It blows in from over Riverclan territory. Cats born under the blue wind should strive to be determined, methodical, and forward-thinking.

Green wind (south-east) is associated with honour. It carries in from Fourtrees. Cats born under the green wind should strive to be dignified, strong-willed, sincere, and eloquent.

White wind (east) is associated with love. It is a rare wind, blowing in cold air from Shadowclan territory in the harshest seasons. Cats born under the white wind should strive to be charismatic, gregarious, and compassionate.

Stillness is associated with patience and caution. It's believed many great leaders are born in a moment of true stillness. Cats born in stillness should strive to be responsible, decisive, serious, and measured.

I found it a lot more interesting as a concept to be assigned a symbol at birth that advises what you should try to cultivate in yourself, rather than the astrological signs that people relate to because it explains something about how they already are. Deliberate acts of self-creation are really compelling to me, whereas over-reliance on labels to summarise or account for the self (especially in a shrug, it’s-just-how-I-am abnegation of personal agency kind of way) is boring and stifling.

Keen readers will notice that several winds share common virtues and overlap in several places, which is intentional, because I think when things are too neat and easy-to-categorise, that betrays it as artificial. Within the framing of Windclan history, I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most common winds (golden, black, and blue), and therefore the most cats, are allocated virtues that encourage especially prosocial and useful behaviours for warriors.

However, I also know for some readers, a behind-the-scenes tour of a work is really appreciated and even a helpful and fun way to think about writing practices, while other readers absolutely love reading lore -- even if it's just floating in isolation and not embedded in a story.

These wolves fight inside me every day as a writer wanting to give people the best possible experience of my work, so I'm interested in what you all think about it!

Hello! Thank you for this message, it’s very lovely.

My return to writing is sort of the silver lining element to a less ideal real-life situation, which is that my position for the last four years has just been made redundant.

I’m doing well despite this, though! I’m already looking for what’s next and I have my redundancy pay to get by on for a few months, and decent savings if that runs out while still on the job hunt.

Hello! Thank you for asking.

1. How many books did you read this year?

I read 29 this year, which I'm pretty happy about. I'd wanted to average about one a week as a goal, but in practice expected to be about half of that. There's still a few more I'll probably read over the next week or so while I'm on break from work, but I'll count those towards next year's tally.

15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

No, a lot of my reading list isn't that recent. I've amassed a long list of books from my time working on my PhD, as I didn't have much opportunity or energy for recreational reading then. I'm slowly working through that backlog, and probably will be for another few years.

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

The book I was most looking forward to this year was The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison. It's the final installment of a spin-off trilogy set in the world of The Goblin Emperor.

Unfortunately, there were a few key elements in the resolution that did disappoint -- but I am always trying to get people to read these books, so I won't say specifics in case others would like to try out the series for themselves! I can still recommend the books, even factoring in this difference of creative opinion. Overall, the series is still among my favourites, and it doesn't typically ruin an experience for me when my vision for a story and the author's choices diverge.

Hello! Thank you for sending these in.

3. What were your top five books of the year?

This is a difficult one, but I think I can narrow it down (in no particular order) to:

What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher (fiction)

Otherlands: a world in the making by Thomas Halliday (nonfiction)

A Libertarian Walked into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (nonfiction)

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield (fiction)

The Reign of Wolf 21 by Rick McIntyre (nonfiction)

It was a good year for nonfiction, as you can see! But there are several other books that could just as reasonably be put in this list, based on how much I enjoyed reading them.

11. What was your favourite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

The second oldest book I read this year (the oldest being a book of Zen poetry from the 1950s) was Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I think a lot of people would be surprised that I hadn't read the novel already, but it was one of those situations where I just never got around to it. It was pretty excellent, though, and it's definitely impressive that the scariest moment of the novel is created simply by looking at a table chart of numbers.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

The two sleeper hits for me this year that I didn't see coming (albeit for different reasons) were My Husband by Maud Ventura and Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill.

My Husband was a surprise for me partially because it hadn't been on my radar, and partially because I'm not especially drawn to literary fiction. It's very hard to give any kind of synopsis for what the book is about, but if you're interested in character studies, it's a worthwhile read.

Our Hideous Progeny was a surprise because I, perhaps unfairly, kept my expectations quite low going in. It's a work reimagined from Frankenstein and, as broad strokes, I've found contemporary reimaginings to be a bit weak and underwhelming, coasting too much on their big name inspiration. But I felt this one sidestepped a lot of potential pitfalls and delivered a story that is enjoyable and thoughtful on its own merits, and which echoed Shelley's work in a clever way.

I wanted to give you all a little update to let you know I'm alive and thriving, and what I'm thinking the future looks like here and elsewhere going forward.

I'm happy to say things have been going very well for me so far this year. I recently graduated with my PhD, and my dissertation is currently being considered for print as a monograph book by a potential publisher. If it goes ahead, this will be my first solo publication, which is an exciting prospect.

Besides this, I've spent the year recovering from all the PhD exertions and life-heaviness of grief by resting a plentiful amount and purposefully rediscovering fun for the sake of fun. After putting in this time to begin again, my love of creating art has been coming back slowly, along with new inspiration. The most joyous thing is that I came to really truly miss working on my own creative projects (of all varieties) and feel the absence of doing art, which is the sign that I've recovered enough that I can start to return to it without risking a burnout.

What this means is that I will begin to pick up things again haphazardly over the next while, although I don't have a more concrete timeline than that. So I guess watch this space!