Daynote - Wed 24th Jul 2024

Me, Adam Simcox and Harry Illingworth at Harrogate

Well, it’s taken me two days to recover from a very full weekend at the Harrogate Crime Writing festival. It was incredibly hot on the Friday and most of Saturday and I am not, as a rule, equipped for the heat. But I had a fantastic time, even if it’s taken me a couple of days to recover. I’ll write more about it in my newsletter, but the above picture (filched from Twitter) with Adam and Harry is indicative of the general vibe. A lot of chatting, a lot of standing around and some really great panels. And I got to meet a ton of people in person for the first time. It was wonderful.

Quick reminder too, with fifty days (!) to go until the book comes out - you can request it on NetGalley if you’re a reviewer.

ON DECK: Back to Ridealong this morning. I got up late, so it was a short session of 385 words, but that’s 385 words I didn’t have yesterday. Back in the day, I used to beat myself up about low word count days, until I realised that was counterproductive. These days any day with words is a win and weekends off is a bigger win. I also got an article written over the weekend that I was asked to do a few weeks back, which I’m glad to have finished.

LISTENING: I was mainly vibing to the latest Hypnagogue podcast this morning.

WATCHING: Honestly I’ve watched nothing except a few Youtube videos since getting back from Harrogate. Partly because I’ve been doing some big DIY and garden jobs in the evening and enjoying the warmer, drier evenings, partly because my wife is away visiting family in the US and we watch most things together. But there’s a load of stuff I’m looking forward to digging into.

READING: Still working on THERE IS NO ANTI-MEMETICS DIVISION, and it’s getting extremely weird. What a fantastic book.

UP NEXT: Looking unlikely I’ll finish Ridealong this week, but I will be trying to get back to my proper morning routine and get a full 90 minutes tomorrow and Friday. Then next week, back onto outlining.

Daynote - Fri 19th Jul 2024

A blurb from Antony Johnston

An extremely early start today (thanks to the train timetables not quite lining up and the only alternative being a very early bus), but it’s all worked out and I’m writing this from the train to York, and thence to Harrogate for the Crime Writing Festival. I’m there all weekend and I expected I’ll probably be wandering about with a big goofy grin on my face.

ON DECK: The train ride has proven fruitful, with a cheeky 1,336 words on the new short story Ridealong. This is a fun one to write, especially as I come up with new ways to horrify myself about notional futures. And just inventing new stuff is doing good things to my brain. One of the best things about developing a sustainable writing routine has been finally getting to the point where drafting has become a real joy, rather than a painful battle of wills with my own psyche. Once you’ve worn that groove in your own life that tells your brain ‘this is an enjoyable activity that makes you happy’ it becomes so much easier to get started and get words down.

LISTENING: Jamming to Living in the Library again. I should probably vary my listening a bit.

WATCHING: Finished off SAS: ROGUE HEROES last night, before my early night. Good stuff, though it feels like it left off right when things were starting to get super interesting. Wonder if there will be another series at some point.

READING: I’d packed my eReader last night, so I started reading THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION by Donald Maass. Really good and thought-provoking piece of craft writing that’s very, very focused on the impact of story. I’m enjoying it.

UP NEXT: Three days at Harrogate, woo! Then back to writing on Monday. I’m loosely aiming to finish Ridealong by the end of next week, but the story will be as long as it needs to be. So far I’ve written four scenes ranging in length from 500 words to 1,400 words, and I have seven or eight scenes left to write, though I suspect they will get longer as I go along. So with any luck I’ll finish the draft on Thursday or so, do a quick edit on Friday and give it to my critique partners. But it might bleed over into the following week, we’ll see. Then, back to outlining.

Daynote - Thu 18th Jul 2024

A blurb from Sunyi Dean

Last day of work for the week today, then I’m off to Harrogate (very) early tomorrow morning. I am so psyched. Got mostly packed last night too, so I’m ahead of the game.

I also got some Very Good News yesterday which I can’t talk about yet. But wow, it absolutely made my day, week and probably month too. More soon.

ON DECK: A cracking 1,117 words this morning on Ridealong. As I predicted, I’m speeding up a bit now that I’ve got started properly. Also a couple of calls yesterday, one admin, one creative/editorial, which is where I learned the aforementioned Very Good News. I also agreed a direction of travel for what I’m doing after I finish Ridealong, which is putting together an outline and sample for a future project. I’m actually really excited about it, because brainstorming on the call gave me some amazing ideas. This is one of the really amazing benefits of developing working relationships with critique partners, agents and editors - having smart, creative people to bounce ideas off. Ultimately they’re my books still, but they are unquestionably better at the end of the process now that I’m working with amazing teams of people.

LISTENING: More Bicep. Also started listening to Shell Game, a new podcast from one of the hosts of the (now sadly ending) Longform podcast. In this season, he’s investigating AI voice agents and how weird stuff is getting as they become widely available. Fantastic SF idea fodder but also deeply unsettling.

WATCHING: More SAS ROGUE HEROES last night. Still wildly OTT, but starting to dig into some of the earlier tragedies of the first few years of the unit. Pretty good show.

READING: Still reading THERE IS NO ANTIMEMETICS DIVISION. It’s become… quite abstract? Absolutely fantastic though.

UP NEXT: Tomorrow morning at my usual writing time I’ll be halfway to York. I love writing on trains. Something about a wee seat and a table and snacks and the scenery rushing past outside just puts me right in the zone. So I’ll see if I can get a good couple of hours before I transfer to Harrogate.

And then the whole weekend is going to be Harrogate. I have no real idea what to expect, so I’m just diving in and seeing what happens. Once again, if you read the blog/follow me on social media and you see me there, please say hello!

Daynote - Wed 17th Jul 2024

My book launch - 12th Sept, Blackwell’s Edinburgh, 7pm

Hey look at that - I have a book launch! I’m going to be in conversation with my friend, critique partner and fellow novelist Nick Binge, author of the fantastic ASCENSION. We’ll be talking about my book, my writing practice, being a dual career author and more! Grab a ticket and a book if you’d like a signed hardback copy as well. I’ll be banging on about this for weeks, but if you’re thinking of coming along, please do pre-book as soon as you’re able to, it helps the events team at Blackwell’s to plan. Book here, from as little as £3 a ticket!

ON DECK: Hurrah, I started work on a new story today! I finished the outline for Ridealong yesterday and cracked the first (short) scene this morning, putting down 402 words in a little over an hour. Pretty slow, for me, but the first scene in something new is often a bit slower as I feel out the character, decide on tense and POV, fiddle around with the first sentence and paragraph a bunch. I’ll speed up as I get into it. A couple of calls later today for both admin and creative stuff, both of which I’m looking forward to. Then tonight I will start gently packing for Harrogate!

LISTENING: Back to Bicep this morning.

WATCHING: Watched a bit of SAS: Rogue Heroes last night. It’s a lot of fun, though the a slightly OTT caricature with some interesting music and characterisation choices. Great production values though.

READING: Back on THERE IS NO ANTI-MIMETICS DIVISION last night. Continues to be really quite unsettling.

UP NEXT: More work on Ridealong, which I should think will keep me occupied through into the weekend and probably a decent chunk of next week as well. I’m hoping to have a draft for my critique group by our next meeting. It feels really good to be drafting again.

Daynote - Tue 16th Jul 2024

A blurb from I.S. Berry

I posted this on Instagram yesterday, but I figured I’d do it again here, because why not? I.S. Berry is a former CIA case officer and award-winning author who wrote a phenomenal book called The Peacock and the Sparrow and she very kindly read my book and provided the above blurb. It came through on Thursday evening and absolutely made my week. Again, it’s so cool to hear from authors you really admire in this way.

This blurb also featured prominently in a new Instagram reel that I made last week to celebrate two months until the book launches. This reel has gone down really well, with over seven hundred plays and counting. Pretty cool!

I’m going to be posting more of these blurbs over the next two months as we get closer to launch. It feels like it’s simultaneously never going to arrive and is also bearing down on me like an oncoming train. Weird feeling.

ON DECK: I finished the outline for my new story Ridealong this morning, getting 1,130 words down. So this outline is now as long as some short stories. Which is a bit daft? But also, my ‘short’ fiction is quite often actually novelette or novella length, which goes from 7,500 right up to 40,000 words (if you follow awards categories). So a detailed 1,500-2,000 word outline can be expanded into a 10,000-12,000 word novelette. Which is like 10-15% of a novel. So the outlining nearly always saves me a bunch of time.

LISTENING: Back to the Living in the Library playlist this morning, which I’ve had in heavy rotation.

WATCHING: I watched a bit of THE NIGHT AGENT last night for Reasons. It’s pretty good, though some of the ‘technical’ stuff was… not great dialogue-wise. But I can see why it got so popular - it has a relentless pace, memorable baddies and multiple twists.

READING: At the other end of the spy spectrum, I stayed up past my bedtime finishing MOSCOW X by David McCloskey last night. Phenomenal. I thought it escalated a lot in the second half, but the final 50 pages or so were basically escalation squared (though also believable and completely compelling). It’s a very different book to DAMASCUS STATION, his first, with a much slower burn at the start. But I enjoyed it immensely. Recommended.

UP NEXT: Tomorrow I’ll crack on with drafting Ridealong. It’s been an absolute age since I’ve written any actual new, draft, fiction words, so I’m really looking forward to it. I should get writing time on it tomorrow morning, Thursday morning and then on the train to York I’ll hopefully get a good couple of hours. I’m off to the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival for the first time, and I can’t wait. I don’t expect to do any writing while I’m there, but I’m going to meet so many other writers, my editor, my agent and hopefully some readers too! It’s going to be awesome. I’m only booked in to see one panel (the spy one, of course) so I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend floating about, going to some events run by my publisher Headline and just generally having an amazing time. If you’re going, please say hello! I look exactly like my profile picture. Which is very often the first thing people say to me when they meet me.

Daynote - Wed 10th Jul 2024

A blurb from Sunyi Dean

Another lovely blurb, this time from Sunyi Dean, who wrote the phenomenal novel THE BOOK EATERS and is one half of the excellent writing podcast Publishing Rodeo.

ON DECK: I worked on something new this morning! Hooray! Got 728 words drafted, about 80% of an outline for a new short piece tentatively called Ridealong (I don’t generally bother with codenames for short pieces because I don’t work on them long enough, haha). It’s not actual draft words, but I’m feeling out the story, so it is prose of a sort. I think I have maybe two scenes left to outline, then I’ll start drafting. There’s a good chance I’ll have it done by the middle of next week or so. Ah, it feels so good to be coming up with new stuff.

LISTENING: Sometimes when I get in the zone I put my headphones in and then forget to actually play any music. Today was one of those days.

WATCHING: We finished LOWER DECKS last night. Fantastic. It was left open for a fifth season. I really hope it comes back.

READING: Flying through the second half of MOSCOW X. I expect I’ll finish it today. I’m not putting any new books on my bedside TBR stack until I’ve read all the ones already there (this is an attempt to somewhat curb my tendency to hop around and not really commit to any books and thus read ten pages of thirty books and not finish any of them. So the next book up will possibly be a Mick Herron (SPOOK STREET, as I’m one book ahead of the Apple TV series) or perhaps THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION, a short craft book by veteran agent Donald Maass that Sunyi Dean recommended to me. Might read that one first since it’s shorter.

UP NEXT: Finishing the outline for Ridealong and then starting work on the drafting. Very exciting!