Daynote - Mon 24th Jun 2024
My book is showing up in interesting places.
Got some very exciting stuff in my inbox on Friday. I've talked before about how publishing involves a lot of waiting for the writer (where stuff is happening, it's just not visible to you) but the flipside to that is sometimes everything starts happening at once. I suspect I'm entering one of those phases now.
On Saturday I was ecstatic to be tagged by I.S. Berry, the author of The Peacock and the Sparrow, one of last year's big spy novel debuts, and an ex-CIA case officer. We sent Ilana a proof copy of A Reluctant Spy and she posted about reading it from the very glam locale of a Cunard cruise ship.
As we get closer and closer to publication (80 days today!) posts like these are so amazing, and not just for the deluge of serotonin they provoke in my brain. Authors like Ilana are widely followed by thriller fans and other writers in the field and every post and recommendation like this is solid gold for awareness. The number one issue debut authors face is awareness that we and our books even exist, so I'm truly thankful that established authors are taking the time to read and talk about my book. It's incredible.
ON DECK: Inching forward on the sequel outline today, a dismayingly small word count but I also realised I needed to change the order of a bunch of scenes for pacing and suspense-building purposes, so I'll take it as a win.
LISTENING: Listening to the Hypnagogue Podcast again and also cueing up the latest episode of Music For Programming which is also excellent for writing.
WATCHING: Watched two things this weekend - the beautiful, fantastically acted and utterly harrowing THE END WE START FROM and then last night the latest really wild episode of DARK MATTER. That series sure is escalating rapidly towards the end.
READING: About 70 pages from the end of Flesh and Blood and it's awesome. A corker of a redraft and I suspect it's going to sell fast. Then a very brief re-read on one of my own projects and, finally, I'll be pulling down the shutters on beta reads (crit partners excepted) and reading some published fiction. Can't wait.
UP NEXT: Crawling towards the end of this outline. I'm travelling for work this week so I may end up with some more writing time in transit, so I might just square it away in the next few days.