Hello! Michelle Paver here...

In past newsletters I haven’t said much about the Wolf Brother books, and yet I get so many fascinating messages about them. Many are from children meeting Wolf, Torak and Renn for the first time; your searching questions send me delving back into my files for the answers.

Lots are from readers who grew up with the books and are still enjoying them as adults. I love hearing how the stories have helped you, and inspired you to do all sorts of astonishing things: art, writing, archaeology, conservation, woodsmanship, wolf research; dealing with the complexities of a neurodiverse or LGBTQ+ life; or simply finding time to be in Nature. (You’re too numerous to list, but recent readers who spring to mind are Holland, Mel, Joshua, Alice, Liam and Kai.)

And believe me, hearing from you isn’t merely gratifying. When I’ve had a bad day tackling publishing hassles (and some publishers can cause lots), hearing from you reminds me why I write. So I want to thank each and every one of you. Your messages mean a lot.

Something that was hugely important in Torak’s world was ritual; the clans had all sorts of customs for warding off evil and bringing good luck. And in that, I don’t think we’ve changed very much. Because by “ritual” I simply mean doing something which may have no practical use, but might still have an effect, because you believe in it. Like taking a lucky charm with you to an exam.

I’m not superstitious, but I definitely have my writing rituals, and I wouldn’t be without them. Every time I start, I put on a ring set with a small white opal; I bought it years ago in a secondhand shop, and I only ever wear it when I’m writing. Also, and whatever the weather, I open the window a few inches, to let in the air from the woods. And I check that my seal amulet, who lives on my desk, is swimming upwards, not down. (He’s only the size of my thumb, and beautifully carved from reindeer antler; I bought him in eastern Siberia from the Chukchi man who’d made him, while I was researching Viper’s Daughter.)

The point of all this is to remind me that when I sit at my desk, I’ve left everything else behind and entered my writing space: that now it’s time to write. And although it might sound odd, it works. In fact, it was crucial in curing my writer’s block and enabling me to write Rainforest.

You see, for the past two years my writing time has been drastically cut. If I’m lucky, I only get a few hours in the morning, because I spend my afternoons caring for my elderly mother, who has Alzheimer’s. And much as I love her, this doesn’t make writing any easier. For instance, on the morning I triumphantly finished the first draft of Rainforest, I was desperate to get stuck into the re-write, my head teeming with ideas for making the story better – and yet half an hour later I was taking Ma for a brain scan. Which was a bit confusing, to say the least.

That’s why those writing rituals really help me get back into writing mode. So if any of you are struggling with writing, or with keeping focussed on something else which matters to you, you might want to try something similar; see if it works for you.

I’ll leave you with a picture of that seal of mine. Once, he was part of a reindeer roaming the Siberian tundra. Now he lives on my desk. He’s come a long way.

Stay steady, and happy reading!

Michelle

P.S. Rainforest is published on 9 October, but you can pre-order a signed copy today on my website, where you can also pre-order a copy of The Witching Hour too.

And I welcome messages or questions from readers: just go to my website and click on "Ask Michelle Anything".