Hannah McDonald | Updates

When Words don't Come...

Hannah McDonald — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Writing is a strange thing.

Some days, the words arrive faster than I can type them. The characters shout, the scenes unfold, the world feels close enough to touch, and I can lose hours without even noticing. Other days, I can sit in front of the screen with every intention of writing and somehow feel like I’ve forgotten how stories work entirely.

Lately, I’ve been in the second place.

I’ve been struggling with writer’s block, and not the gentle kind where you just need a cup of tea and a quiet hour. This has been the kind that makes every sentence feel heavy, every chapter feel impossible, and every idea feel like it slips away the moment I try to catch it.

I think part of that comes from caring too much, which sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. When you love a world and its characters, there’s a pressure to do them justice. You want every choice to matter. You want every emotional beat to land properly. You want the battles to feel earned, the love to feel real, and the ending to be worthy of everything that came before it.

And sometimes, that pressure turns into silence.

So, rather than forcing myself to keep pushing until I hate the thing I love, I’m taking a short creative step sideways.

I’m not abandoning fantasy. I’m not walking away from the dragons, the crowns, the magic, the heartbreak, or the characters who have taken up far too much space in my head to leave quietly. I’m simply giving myself room to breathe.

For now, I’m falling back into one of my comfort areas: military romance.

There is something about that genre that feels familiar to me in the best way. The banter, the tension, the loyalty, the danger, the found family, the people who love fiercely because they know exactly how fragile life can be. It gives me a different kind of energy, and right now, I think that’s exactly what I need.

Sometimes creativity doesn’t need to be forced back into shape. Sometimes it needs a change of scenery. A different rhythm. A new set of voices. A story that reminds you why you started writing in the first place.

So keep an eye out, because there may be a new military romance coming shortly.

It will have emotion. It will have chaos. It will probably have soldiers with terrible coping mechanisms, inappropriate humour, stubborn hearts, and a love story that refuses to behave itself.

Thank you, as always, for sticking with me through every world, every genre, every delay, every release, and every “I swear this book is nearly done” moment.

The words will come back.

They always do.

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Book Three Is Finished — And the Saga Is Far From Over

Hannah McDonald — Wed, 3 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I can finally say it: Book Three of The Horn and Flame Saga is complete.

The Crown of Teeth and Flame will be coming to Inkitt and Kindle on Sunday 7th June, with the paperback releasing on 9th June, and honestly, I still don’t think I’ve fully processed that yet.

This book has been an absolute beast to write. It pushed the characters, the world, and me as a writer further than I ever expected when I first started Aeloria and Caelan’s story. Book Three is darker, heavier, more emotional, and filled with moments that genuinely left me staring at the screen wondering why I keep putting these characters — and myself — through this.

And then, naturally, I kept writing.

Aeloria’s journey in this book changes everything. She is tested in brutal, heartbreaking, and deeply unfair ways, forced to confront truths that will shape the rest of the saga. Caelan has had to grow beside her, not only as the man who loves her, but as someone learning how to survive the fire with her while the world keeps trying to tear them apart.

There are battles. Betrayals. Ancient magic awakening. Impossible choices. Old wounds reopening. And consequences that will ripple far beyond this book and straight into what comes next.

Because the saga is not over.

Not even close.

Finishing Book Three feels strange. I’m incredibly proud of it, but emotionally? I think this story broke me a little. These characters have lived in my head for so long that getting them through another war feels a bit like surviving it alongside them.

And now I’m deep into Book Four.

Which sounds exciting and productive until I admit that I am currently wrestling with the dreaded writer’s block.

I know where the story is heading. I know the emotional devastation waiting ahead. I know what Aeloria, Caelan, Kavren, Nyx, Vaelith, Brakka, Lúne, and the others are about to face. But knowing the path and finding the words are two very different battles.

The truth is, I want to do this next part justice.

After everything these characters have survived — and everything they still have left to lose — I refuse to rush the story just to fill pages. Book Four needs to earn its weight. It needs to carry the grief, the hope, the rage, the love, the politics, the dragons, the magic, and the stubborn survival that has become the heart of this saga.

So yes, Book Four is coming.

And beyond that… there is still more story left to tell.

The Horn and Flame Saga is still unfolding, and some of the biggest moments are still ahead.

For now, though, I’m letting myself celebrate this milestone. The Crown of Teeth and Flame is finished. It arrives on Inkitt and Kindle on Sunday 7th June, with the paperback available from 9th June.

Thank you to everyone who has followed this journey so far, screamed at the cliff-hangers, fallen in love with these characters, and stayed through every battle, heartbreak, betrayal, and dragon-fuelled disaster.

The saga continues.

By horn, crown, steel… and probably several cups of tea while I fight Book Four into submission.

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When the Story Runs Away With You

Hannah McDonald — Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I think it’s safe to say I’ve fallen completely, hopelessly, ridiculously in love with writing The Horn and Flame Saga.

When I first started this series, I knew I was excited about it. I knew I loved the characters, the world, the dragons, the war-unicorns, the politics, the danger, the romance, and all the messy emotional chaos that comes with writing epic fantasy. What I perhaps didn’t expect was just how much it would take over my brain.

And by “take over,” I mean I have raced ahead at a slightly alarming speed.

Every spare minute has been writing. Or editing. Or thinking about writing. Or crying over something awful I’ve done to the characters. Or immediately writing more because apparently I enjoy hurting my own feelings.

Book One is done. Book Two has consumed me. And somehow — because clearly I have no chill whatsoever — I’ve already made a start on Book Three.

There is something so addictive about reaching the point in a story where the world feels alive. The characters stop feeling like names on a page and start feeling like people who follow you around demanding attention. Aeloria, Caelan, Eldruin, Lúne, Vaelith, Rusk, Brakka, Trixiebeth — they all have opinions, problems, traumas, bad decisions, and, apparently, no respect for my sleep schedule.

I keep telling myself to slow down.

Reasonable author brain says: pace yourself, edit properly, breathe, make notes, don’t try to write an entire saga in one caffeine-fuelled blur.

ADHD hyperfixation brain says: absolutely not, the dragons are talking and we must continue.

That’s one of the strange joys of having ADHD. When I love something, I don’t just casually enjoy it. I fall into it headfirst. I live there. I think about it while making tea, while trying to sleep, while doing completely unrelated things. The story becomes a constant hum in the background, and all I want to do is get it out of my head and onto the page before I lose any of the emotion, the dialogue, the twists, or the scenes that keep ambushing me at random moments.

It’s exhausting, but it’s also wonderful.

There have been days where I’ve genuinely spent every waking hour inside this world. Writing battles. Reworking chapters. Planning betrayals. Fixing continuity. Crying over scenes I knew were coming but still wasn’t emotionally prepared for. Then immediately opening the document again because I needed to know what happened next — which is ridiculous, because I’m the one writing it.

I am trying to curb my enthusiasm just a little before it runs away with me completely. Mostly because I want to do the story justice. I don’t want to rush past the important moments just because I’m desperate to get to the next dramatic disaster. These characters deserve the time, the care, and the emotional damage — apparently lots of emotional damage — that their journey needs.

But honestly?

I love this world so much.

I love writing it. I love discovering it. I love the fact that it has become bigger, darker, more romantic, more brutal, and more emotional than I expected when I first began.

So yes, I may be slightly consumed by it.

But sometimes, when a story grabs hold of you like this, all you can really do is hold on, keep writing, and let it drag you into the fire.

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Bringing the New World to Life

Hannah McDonald — Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One of the things I’ve been doing while planning my new fantasy series is creating images of the characters, creatures, dragons, unicorns, cities, and all the strange little beasties that live in the world. Not because I need everything perfectly nailed down before I write — let’s be honest, my brain will change half of it at 2am anyway — but because seeing them makes them feel real.

There’s something magical about finally looking at a character who has been rattling around in your head for weeks and thinking, yes, that’s them. Or seeing a creature you’ve invented suddenly staring back at you like it has always existed somewhere in the corner of the world, just waiting for you to write it into being.

This series has honestly got its claws into me already.

I love Aeloria. I love Caelan. I love Nyx, Kavren, Eldruin, Sable, Rusk, the elves, the dragons, the politics, the danger, the messy forbidden romance, the terrifying ancient magic, and the fact that every time I think I’ve worked out the plot, another betrayal or emotional gut-punch wanders in and makes itself at home.

It’s been a long time since a story has grabbed me this hard this quickly. I’m already attached to these characters, which is probably a terrible sign because it means I’m absolutely going to put them through hell. Sorry in advance.

Writing fantasy is a bit terrifying, though. There’s always that little voice in the back of my head whispering, Please don’t accidentally write a crappier version of Game of Thrones or The Witcher. Because when you’re dealing with kingdoms, dragons, elves, politics, war, magic, monsters, and morally questionable people making spectacularly bad decisions, those comparisons are always looming somewhere in the distance.

But I’m trying not to let that scare me off.

I want this world to feel like mine. Grittier, messier, more emotional, probably ruder, definitely bloodier, and with characters who love hard, fight harder, and make terrible choices for very understandable reasons.

I’m so excited for this series. I already love it more than is probably sensible, and I really hope readers will love these characters and creatures as much as I do.

Now I just have to actually write the bloody thing.

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Am I Typecasting Myself with Military Thrillers?

Hannah McDonald — Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I think I may have accidentally typecast myself.

Not in a bad way. Not in a “someone stage an intervention” way. More in a “oh look, here I am again throwing soldiers into emotionally devastating situations with rifles, trauma, banter, and questionable survival odds” kind of way.

And honestly?

I love it.

Military thrillers, military romance, military horror — they are very much my comfort zone. Which is a slightly concerning sentence when that comfort zone usually involves mud, blood, bad decisions, gallows humour, monsters, warzones, and people trying very hard not to admit they have feelings.

But there is something about that world that keeps pulling me back in. I love the intensity of it. The loyalty. The structure. The way characters are forced to operate under pressure. The way humour becomes a survival mechanism. The way love, friendship, fear, courage, and grief all hit harder when nobody knows if they are making it home.

It gives everything sharper edges.

A romance is never just a romance when the characters are in uniform, carrying trauma, living by rules, and risking everything. A horror story feels even worse when the people facing the monster are trained professionals who should, in theory, know what they are doing. A thriller becomes more tense when every decision has consequences and there is no time to fall apart.

So yes, I love writing military books.

But I also fancy a change.

There is a little voice in my head at the moment whispering, “What about something medieval?”

Which, naturally, immediately sounds exciting and awful in equal measure.

Medieval settings have so much potential. Castles. Mud. Swords. Brutal politics. Dangerous journeys. Ancient forests. Superstition. Monsters in the dark. People making terrible decisions by torchlight. It has all the ingredients I already love: danger, loyalty, violence, romance, survival, and the constant threat of someone being stabbed dramatically in a courtyard.

So really, it makes sense.

Except then comes the giant creative elephant in the room.

How do you write anything medieval and dark without accidentally creating something that feels like a budget version of The Witcher or Game of Thrones?

Because that is the problem, isn’t it?

The second you put a grim warrior on a horse and send him towards a village with a monster problem, everyone thinks of The Witcher. The second there is a castle, a noble family, a throne, a betrayal, or someone brooding in a fur cloak, Game of Thrones starts looming over your shoulder like an unpaid creative consultant.

And I do not want to write “The Witcher, but worse.”

I definitely do not want to write “Game of Thrones, but with fewer dragons and more panic.”

That is the challenge. Finding the thing that makes it mine.

Because medieval fantasy, like military fiction, is full of familiar ingredients. Swords. Kings. Mercenaries. Witches. Curses. Plagues. Prophecies. Monsters. Betrayals. Battlefields. None of those things are the problem. The trick is in how they are used. The voice. The characters. The emotional core. The atmosphere. The particular flavour of misery I decide to inflict on everyone.

Which, let’s be honest, will probably be significant.

I think the way through it is not to try to avoid every comparison. That is impossible. Every genre has shadows. Every story sits near something else. Readers make comparisons because it helps them understand the mood and shape of a book.

The real goal is to avoid copying the bones.

No chosen-one prophecy just because fantasy books often have one. No throne war unless there is a genuinely fresh reason to care. No monster hunter who feels like he has wandered in from someone else’s franchise. No court politics unless I can make them sharp, personal, and horrible in a way that belongs to my world.

Maybe the answer is to lean into what I already do well, but change the setting.

Instead of rifles and radios, swords and signal fires.

Instead of modern soldiers with gallows humour, maybe hardened sellswords, exhausted knights, battlefield medics, prisoners, scouts, or castle guards who have seen too much and still have to keep going.

Instead of military command structures, feudal loyalties.

Instead of NATO patrols, border marches.

Instead of monsters in the mountains with modern weapons failing against them, something ancient crawling out of a forgotten keep while everyone realises steel may not be enough.

That does sound very me, actually.

Maybe I am not trying to escape my usual themes completely. Maybe I am just changing the armour.

Because at the heart of it, I do not think I write “military” purely because of the guns and uniforms. I write it because I like people under pressure. I like loyalty being tested. I like love when it is inconvenient, dangerous, and badly timed. I like characters who use sarcasm because honesty would hurt too much. I like survival stories where the enemy outside is terrifying, but the emotional damage inside the group might be just as dangerous.

All of that can exist in a medieval world.

It just needs to be built carefully.

So yes, maybe I have typecast myself a little. Maybe readers expect soldiers, warzones, monsters, romance, trauma, and somebody making a terrible joke at the worst possible moment.

But maybe that is not a cage.

Maybe it is a signature.

And maybe the next challenge is seeing what happens when that signature gets dragged backwards through time, handed a sword, shoved into a crumbling fortress, and told there is something moving in the woods.

Will I write it?

Possibly.

Will I overthink it?

Absolutely.

Will I spend half the time worrying it sounds too much like The Witcher or Game of Thrones?

Almost definitely.

But the idea is there now, rattling around in my head, wearing chainmail and causing trouble.

So we’ll see.

Maybe it is time to swap bullets for blades.

Just for a little while.

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Finally Finishing the Book I Still Hate

Hannah McDonald — Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There comes a point in every writer’s life where you stare at a manuscript and think, I have rewritten this so many times I no longer know if it’s good, bad, genius, unhinged, or a war crime against literature.

That point, for me, is now.

After what feels like a million rewrites, false starts, plot overhauls, character changes, dramatic deletions, and several moments where I genuinely considered launching my laptop into the nearest body of water, Dust of Babylon is finally finished.

And yes, in true me fashion, I still hate it.

Not in the casual, “oh, every writer is self-critical” kind of way. More in the “I got this far, changed everything, fixed it, broke it again, fixed the broken fix, then decided I hated the entire thing anyway” kind of way.

This book has fought me from the beginning. It started as one idea, became another, mutated into something much darker, dragged Iraqi folklore into the desert, threw in British military horror, black humour, monsters, secrets, and enough dust, sweat, blood and bad decisions to choke a camel.

And somehow, despite all that, it exists.

That is the bit I’m trying to focus on.

Because perfection is a trap. Especially with a book like this. I could keep rewriting it forever. I could move a chapter, sharpen a scene, change a line, rethink a relationship, tweak the monster, question the pacing, decide the whole middle section needs setting on fire and starting again.

Again.

But at some point, the story has to leave my hands.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I’ve decided to stop wrestling with it, stop picking at every scar, stop convincing myself one more pass will magically make me love it. Dust of Babylon is going out into the world, whether I feel ready or not.

Maybe readers will love it. Maybe they’ll hate it. Maybe they’ll see all the things I can’t see anymore because I’ve been trapped inside this desert nightmare for too long.

But it’s done.

It’s finished.

It survived me.

And now I’m releasing it, closing the file, and moving on before I decide to rewrite the whole bloody thing again.

Dust of Babylon is coming.

God help us all.

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Rewriting the Same Book… Again

Hannah McDonald — Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

So, apparently, I enjoy suffering.

Yes, it is happening again. The folklore horror. The Iraqi desert. The 2003 setting. The book I literally blogged about last week. The one I thought I had finally beaten into shape.

I got to Chapter 70 this time.

Chapter. Seventy.

And then I sat back, looked at the whole thing, and thought…

Nope.

Still not right.

Again.

There is a very specific kind of writerly despair that comes from realising the book you have spent weeks, months, or possibly several small lifetimes working on still does not feel like the book it is supposed to be. It is not that there is nothing good in it. That would almost be easier. If it was completely terrible, I could throw it into the creative bin and move on with my life.

But that is not the problem.

The problem is that there are good bits. There are scenes I love. Characters I want to keep. Lines that make me think, “Actually, that’s not bad.” There are pieces of atmosphere, horror, military tension, and folklore that feel exactly how I want them to feel.

And then the rest of it just sits there looking at me like an accusation.

This book is supposed to be a folklore horror set in the Iraqi desert in 2003. It is supposed to feel hot, claustrophobic, ancient, brutal, and wrong in the bones. It is supposed to take the reality of soldiers operating in that environment and twist it with something old and terrifying from folklore. Not just “monster jumps out, everyone screams,” but something with weight. Something that feels like it belongs to the land, the dust, the ruins, and the stories people whispered long before the war arrived.

And that is probably why I keep rewriting it.

Because when horror is based on folklore, especially folklore I have taken the time to properly dig into, it cannot just be a creature feature with a different coat of paint. It has to feel rooted. It has to feel respectful. It has to feel frightening for the right reasons. The monster cannot just be scary because it has claws and teeth. It has to carry myth, atmosphere, and that horrible sense that the characters have walked into something they do not understand and absolutely should not have disturbed.

Which all sounds lovely and artistic until I am seventy chapters deep and suddenly decide I hate the entire thing.

Again.

At this point, I am starting to think the real monster in this book is not lurking in the ruins. It is the rewrite.

There is nothing quite like opening a manuscript and knowing full well that a normal person would probably say, “It’s fine. Finish it. Move on.” Unfortunately, writers are not normal people. Writers will look at a nearly complete book and decide, with the calm madness of someone who has had too much tea and not enough sleep, that the entire structure needs changing. The pacing is wrong. The dread arrives too soon. The characters know too much too quickly. The creature is too visible. The ending has not earned itself. The middle sags. The beginning is doing too much. The tone is not quite there.

And then, before you know it, the whole thing is back on the operating table.

Again.

I would love to say this is a neat, organised process. That I have a beautiful plan, a tidy chapter outline, colour-coded notes, and a calm sense of creative direction.

I do not.

What I have is a manuscript glaring at me, a notebook full of increasingly dramatic scribbles, and the sinking feeling that I may be about to rebuild the whole thing from the foundations up.

The most frustrating part is that I still believe in this book. That is the annoying bit. If I did not care, I would stop. But I can see what it could be. Somewhere underneath all the false starts, messy drafts, overworked chapters, and abandoned versions, there is a nasty, atmospheric, military folklore horror that I really want to get right.

I want the desert to feel endless.

I want the ruins to feel cursed before anyone even steps inside them.

I want the soldiers to feel real: exhausted, sweary, professional, frightened, brave, ridiculous, and human.

I want the horror to creep in slowly, like heatstroke, until nobody is completely sure whether they are being hunted, haunted, or punished.

And because I want all of that, “good enough” is apparently not good enough.

So here I am, rewriting the same book again for what feels like the millionth time.

Will my folklore horror set in the Iraqi desert in 2003 ever see the light of day?

Honestly?

I hope so.

It may crawl out of the ruins battered, bloodied, and several drafts later than planned, but I do think there is a book in there. A good one. Maybe even a properly terrifying one.

It is just being incredibly stubborn about letting me find it.

So, for anyone following along with this chaotic writing journey, yes, it is still the same book. Yes, I am rewriting it again. Yes, I did get to Chapter 70 before deciding I hated it. And yes, I am questioning every life choice that led me here.

But I am also not giving up on it.

Not yet.

The desert still has teeth.

The ruins are still waiting.

And apparently, so is another rewrite.

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The Pros and Cons of Using AI to Edit Spelling and Grammar When Writing Books

Hannah McDonald — Sat, 9 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

AI editing tools can be an absolute lifesaver when writing books. They can also make you want to launch your laptop into the nearest body of water. As someone who is terrible at spelling, I genuinely do appreciate having something there to catch the obvious mistakes. The missing commas. The words that are nearly right but not quite. The repeated phrases that somehow slipped through because, after reading the same chapter seventeen times, my brain has decided it knows what the sentence *should* say rather than what it actually says. When AI is good, it is brilliant. It can tidy up messy sentences, spot spelling errors, smooth out grammar, and help make a chapter feel more polished. For indie authors especially, where budgets are not always friendly and professional editing can be expensive, AI can feel like having a helpful little assistant sitting beside you going, “Actually, that sentence has gone completely feral.” But there are definitely downsides. One of the biggest issues I have found is that AI has a very annoying habit of switching things into American spelling and grammar. I write in British English. My characters are British. My books are full of British Army banter, British slang, and characters who would absolutely say “arse” instead of “ass.” So when a tool quietly changes “realised” to “realized,” “colour” to “color,” or starts rearranging punctuation and phrasing in a way that feels more American, it can completely pull the voice out of the book. The problem is, when spelling is already not a strong point, those changes are not always obvious. Sometimes I do not spot them until a reader kindly points it out. By then, I am staring at the screen wondering how many more rogue Americanisms have snuck into the manuscript like little grammatical spies. Then there is the hallucination problem. AI does not always just correct what is on the page. Sometimes it gets creative. Too creative. It starts adding things from previous chats that have nothing to do with the current book. Suddenly a character is referencing something from an entirely different story, a plot point appears that never happened, or a sentence pops up that makes absolutely no sense in context. And then there are the mystery paragraphs. You ask for a spelling and grammar check. Just that. Nothing fancy. No rewriting. No “make this better.” No “please add a dramatic monologue about the emotional weight of war.” Just check the spelling and grammar. Then the AI comes back with three extra paragraphs you never asked for, full of information that adds nothing, improves nothing, and occasionally damages the pacing so badly it feels like the chapter has tripped over its own boots. Gemini, in particular, has been the worst for this. It will confidently wander off and start adding whole chunks that nobody requested, nobody needed, and nobody in their right mind would keep. There is also the very specific joy of AI refusing to check the sexy chapters. Apparently, some scenes are too graphic for a spelling and grammar check. Which is both frustrating and, depending on how you look at it, possibly a compliment. There is something deeply ridiculous about sitting there thinking, “I am not asking you to judge the scene, I am asking whether I have spelt ‘desperately’ correctly.” So instead of saving time, I end up doing the strangest kind of editing imaginable: proofreading the proofreader. I check the AI’s corrections. I check whether it has changed British spelling. I check whether it has softened the character voice. I check whether it has added something unhinged from another project. I check whether it has randomly inserted a paragraph that sounds like it escaped from a completely different book. And at some point, usually several hours in, I do find myself wondering whether it would have been quicker to sit there with a dictionary and a thesaurus and do the whole thing myself. That is the strange thing about AI. It can be incredibly useful, but it is not a replacement for the author’s eye. It does not understand your characters the way you do. It does not always respect your voice. It does not always know when to leave a sentence alone. And it definitely cannot be trusted to quietly polish a manuscript without supervision. For me, AI works best as a tool, not a final authority. It can catch mistakes. It can suggest improvements. It can help when my brain has stopped seeing errors because I have been staring at the same paragraph for too long. But every change still needs checking. Every “improvement” needs questioning. Every suspiciously polished sentence needs holding up against the character’s actual voice. Because writing a book is not just about clean grammar. It is about rhythm, tone, personality, mood, and the little imperfect choices that make a story feel alive. AI can help tidy the room. But I still need to make sure it has not redecorated the house while I was not looking.

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NATO Standard Nightmares Is Out Now — and Thank You

Hannah McDonald — Fri, 8 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is something very strange, very exciting, and slightly terrifying about releasing a new book.

NATO Standard Nightmares is now officially out in the world, and honestly, I am so proud of this one. It is gritty, sweary, dark military horror packed with British Army gallows humour, awful conditions, terrible decisions, forbidden romance, and the sort of creeping dread that makes you want to shout, “Absolutely do not go into those mountains.”

Set during a NATO deployment to Kosovo in 2000, the book follows Sergeant Mark “Rhino” Davies, Corporal Victoria Lawson, and the rest of Section 4 as they head into the Accursed Mountains. What begins as a miserable but routine peacekeeping patrol soon becomes something far more sinister. There is mud, banter, military chaos, loyalty, tension, and something waiting out there that does not care about rank, rifles, or rules of engagement.

Writing this book was an absolute joy. I loved building Section 4, their brutal humour, their bonds, their flaws, and the way soldiers can be ridiculous, infuriating, brave, and heartbreaking all at once. I also loved taking professional, battle-hardened people and putting them in a situation where all their training may not be enough.

But the best part of releasing a book is knowing that people are actually reading it.

Every read, every comment, every vote, every message, and every bit of encouragement genuinely means the world. Writing can feel very solitary, so seeing people connect with the story, come back for updates, and care about the characters is honestly incredible.

I especially want to say a huge thank you to my regular readers on Inkitt, @rumnat2001, @margarethowe, and @Sh4286.

Seeing familiar names pop up again and again is one of the loveliest parts of sharing my work. Your support is noticed, appreciated, and never taken for granted. Thank you for sticking with the stories, the characters, the chaos, and the nightmares.

NATO Standard Nightmares is out now, and I am so grateful to everyone who has read it, supported it, or taken a chance on my work.

New nightmares have landed.

And this time, they are NATO standard.

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Almost at the Finish Line: Werewolves, Squaddies, and a Lot of Bad Decisions

Hannah McDonald — Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’m almost at the end of writing my werewolf horror, and honestly, it’s been an absolute beast of a project — pun very much intended.

This book started with one of those simple horror questions that immediately gets out of hand: what happens when a British Army patrol, already cold, tired, wet, and fed up, discovers that the thing stalking them in the mountains isn’t just an enemy combatant, a smuggler, or something they can neatly write up in a contact report?

What happens when the thing in the treeline has teeth?

I’ve always loved military horror because it takes trained, capable people and puts them in situations where training only gets them so far. There’s something terrifying about watching soldiers — people who are used to danger, discipline, weapons, routine, and command structure — slowly realise that none of the usual rules apply anymore. The map doesn’t help. The radio doesn’t help. The brief definitely didn’t mention this. And the ammunition they were issued suddenly feels very, very inadequate.

A huge inspiration for this story has been the legendary Dog Soldiers. It’s one of those films that absolutely nails the tone I love: brutal horror, proper tension, dark humour, and a group of soldiers who respond to the impossible with a mixture of fear, sarcasm, aggression, and stubborn refusal to die quietly. It understands that British squaddies facing monsters wouldn’t suddenly become poetic heroes. They’d swear, take the piss, argue about the plan, make a brew if they could, and then fight like absolute bastards.

That spirit has definitely influenced the way I’ve approached this book. I didn’t want glamorous monster hunters or polished action heroes. I wanted tired infantry lads. I wanted bad weather, aching shoulders, mud, cheap jokes, old rivalries, and the kind of gallows humour that only appears when everyone knows the situation is completely sideways but nobody wants to be the first to admit it.

At the centre of the story is Sergeant Mark Davies — Rhino to his lads — a hard, battered, deeply controlled infantry NCO who is used to being the immovable object in every room. He’s the sort of man who can deal with bullets, bad officers, exhausted privates, and a deployment that was miserable before it even began. But then the patrol pushes into the Accursed Mountains, and the enemy stops behaving like anything human.

The werewolves in this book aren’t romantic. They aren’t elegant. They aren’t brooding creatures of moonlight and tragedy. They are huge, fast, grotesque, intelligent predators — all muscle, claws, wet fur, amber eyes, and too many teeth. Worse still, there’s a military horror twist at the heart of them: this isn’t just a monster attack. It’s infection. It’s transformation. It’s the awful realisation that the thing trying to tear through the wall might have been a man only hours before.

That idea has been one of the most enjoyable and horrifying parts to write. Because once the soldiers realise what they’re fighting, the fear changes. It’s no longer just, “Can we survive the night?” It becomes, “What happens if one of us is bitten?” And in a trapped, freezing, isolated patrol with no reliable backup, that question is poison.

Writing the final stretch has been intense. There’s a strange feeling when a book starts closing in on its ending. You know the characters so well by then that every decision feels heavier. Every injury matters. Every death has weight. Every joke lands differently because the reader knows the lads are using humour to hold themselves together.

And that’s what I’ve loved most about writing this: the contrast. The horror is vicious, but the humour is very human. The soldiers are terrified, but they’re still soldiers. They still bicker. They still insult each other. They still cling to routine, rank, bad language, and muscle memory because that’s what keeps them from falling apart.

I’m not quite done yet, but I can see the finish line now. The final chapters are coming together, the body count is where it needs to be, and the monsters are very much not done with them.

This book has mud, blood, bad weather, worse decisions, British Army banter, and werewolves that definitely were not mentioned in the patrol brief.

Almost there.

And honestly?

I think the lads are going to need more than silver.

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The Bane of Writer’s Block: When Fifty Chapters Suddenly Feel Wrong

Hannah McDonald — Mon, 4 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a very specific kind of pain that only writers understand.

It’s not the blank page. The blank page is rude, yes, but at least it’s honest. It sits there, empty and smug, waiting for you to do something with it.

No, the real horror is when you’ve already written the thing.

When you’ve spent weeks — sometimes months — building chapters, shaping scenes, dragging characters through emotional devastation and plot twists and dramatic turning points… only to wake up one morning, look at the whole thing, and think:

I hate it.

Not mildly dislike it.

Not “this needs a polish.”

Not “maybe chapter twelve drags a bit.”

Full-body, soul-deep, dramatic writer despair.

The kind where you stare at fifty chapters and suddenly convince yourself the pacing is wrong, the tone is wrong, the characters are wrong, the entire book has betrayed you personally, and the only sensible solution is to burn it all down and start again.

Which is exactly where I’ve been.

Writer’s block is bad enough when the words won’t come. But sometimes the worse version is when the words did come — lots of them — and you realise they’re not the right ones. That’s a horrible little creative trap, because it feels like wasted time. It feels like failure. It feels like you’ve walked miles down the wrong road and now have to turn around in the rain.

But I’m trying to remind myself that it isn’t wasted.

Those fifty chapters still taught me something. They showed me what the story isn’t. They helped me find the wrong turns, the flat beats, the parts that didn’t hit hard enough. They showed me where the story was pretending to work instead of actually working.

Annoying? Absolutely.

Useful? Unfortunately, yes.

So now I’m back at the start, tearing things apart and rebuilding with sharper teeth. It’s frustrating, but also strangely freeing. Once you accept that the draft isn’t precious, you can be brutal with it. You can cut what doesn’t serve the story. You can stop trying to rescue scenes that are only surviving because you remember how long they took to write.

And because apparently one crisis wasn’t enough, I’ve also started a new horror book.

Because of course I have.

This one feels darker, slower, and more psychological than some of my other work. I’m leaning into atmosphere, dread, folklore, ruins, and that creeping sense that something is watching from just beyond the edge of the torchlight. It’s the kind of story that doesn’t rush at you straight away. It waits. It breathes. It lets you hear something move in the dark before you see it.

Maybe that’s why it’s helping.

Starting something new has reminded me why I love writing in the first place. Not the editing panic. Not the chapter-count despair. Not the moment where I decide an entire manuscript is suddenly my mortal enemy. But the spark. The atmosphere. The first glimpse of a character stepping into a world that feels dangerous and alive.

So yes, writer’s block has been a menace.

Yes, I may have dramatically fallen out with fifty chapters.

Yes, I am starting again.

But the story will be stronger for it.

And if nothing else, at least the new horror book seems perfectly happy to sit in the corner, whispering unsettling things at me while I rebuild.

Which, honestly, feels about right.

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Back to the Sand: Writing a New Military Horror Set in Iraq, 2003

Hannah McDonald — Sat, 2 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve started work on something new—and it’s taking me somewhere very different.

My next project is a military horror set during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, told from the perspective of Captain Declan Heyes, SAS, embedded within a Mobility Troop operating deep in and around Basra. It’s a story that’s been sitting in the back of my mind for a while, but I knew if I was going to write it, it had to feel real. Not just in the action, but in the atmosphere, the pressure, and the moral weight of the conflict itself.

To build that realism, I’ve been working from a mix of historical analysis and structured narrative research. Documents like Operation Telic and A Tale of Two Cities have been invaluable—not just for understanding what happened, but how it felt on the ground. The contrast between British and American tactics, especially around Basra and Fallujah, is something I’ve found particularly powerful. The British approach—more restrained, more cautious in urban environments—creates a very different kind of tension compared to the overwhelming force used elsewhere.

And tension is everything in horror.

What really stands out in the research isn’t just the fighting—it’s the strain. Equipment shortages. Communication breakdowns. Units stretched thin. Decisions being made in seconds that carry consequences for years. It’s a perfect foundation for horror, because the fear is already there before anything supernatural even enters the story.

Then you add the environment.

The Shamal sandstorms are something I keep coming back to. They don’t just limit visibility—they erase the world. Sound gets swallowed. Shapes move where they shouldn’t. You lose distance, direction, and sometimes even your sense of what’s real. It’s the kind of setting where something unnatural doesn’t feel out of place—it feels inevitable.

And that’s where this story really shifts.

At the heart of the book is something pulled from real Iraqi folklore—the Ghul, sometimes referred to as the Galla. I took a deep dive into the mythology behind it, because I didn’t want a generic creature. In its original form, the Ghul is a predator of ruins and graveyards, something that feeds on the dead and stalks the living. It doesn’t just attack—it lures, mimics, and deceives. It uses voices. It draws people into isolated spaces. It hunts with patience.

That makes it far more terrifying in a military setting.

Because the environments these soldiers are operating in—bombed-out compounds, collapsed buildings, abandoned urban zones—are exactly where something like this would thrive. The war doesn’t create the horror. It exposes it.

For Captain Declan Heyes and his Troop, this isn’t a clean fight. It’s not something they can outgun or outmanoeuvre. It’s something that learns them, studies them, and turns their own training and instincts against them. Add in the exhaustion, the pressure, and the constant uncertainty of operating in a warzone, and the line between tactical threat and something far worse starts to blur very quickly.

What I’m aiming for with this book is something grounded, tense, and deeply unsettling. A story where the horror grows out of reality rather than replacing it. Where the setting does as much damage as the enemy.

Because at its core, this isn’t just about war.

It’s about what’s waiting in the ruins once the fighting stops.

It’s early days, but this one feels different.

Darker. Slower. More psychological.

And honestly? The deeper I go into it, the more unsettling it becomes.

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