Daynote - Fri 13 Mar 2026
Another Friday of writing.
It's the second Friday the 13th in the space of a month. Which, I'm sure, must happen mathematically on a very predictable schedule. But feels ominous. However! I shall not be inhibited by date-based fears. It's Friday, it's stopped raining and I've just had a very nice cup of tea.
ON DECK: A good, solid day of writing ahead, working on two projects. I'll start with my usual Friday quota of draft words (currently 1,900 - 2,000 words or so), then edit my output from a couple of weeks ago for my crit group, then plan what I'm going to write next week. Now that I'm in the swing of this 'look back/look forward' coda to my writing week, I'm finding it is very, very effective. It feels good to both consolidate the work behind me and lay out the plan for the work ahead of me. It definitely makes the whole project feel like it's on firmer ground.
This afternoon, I'll be doing a bit of time-sensitive admin and marketing stuff for a brain break (listening to a few podcasts as I do), then I'll make a start on the short fiction project I outlined last week. Looking forward to that. When you work on a long novel project, even if you're a relatively fast drafter like me, it's still weeks and weeks of work on the same thing. And I haven't written any new short fiction in ages. We'll see how it goes.
LISTENING: A fascinating interview with Mike Mason of Chaosium about TTRPGs and the Call of Cthulu universe over on Narrative Damage (and cross-posted to the Page One Podcast).
WATCHING: We watched a bit of RESIDENT ALIEN last night, which has apparently been cancelled, but we're two seasons behind so plenty still to watch.
I was also absolutely fascinated by this behind-the-scenes video of the conceptual and build process for the PROJECT HAIL MARY sets by Adam Savage. Really interesting to see how 3D printing has become a key part of the visualisation and planning process.
READING: Got to a particularly bleak part of THE INFINITE STATE by Richard Swan (Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Amazon) last night and, hoo, boy, this is a darkly realistic space fascist empire, let me tell you. I'm about ready for some rebellion.
LINK: A double Friday reminder - my next novel SOLITARY AGENTS is now available on NetGalley, and the reviews so far are stellar. And we've also got a launch event in Edinburgh on release day, Thursday June 4th. A little under three months to go! Book your ticket here.
UP NEXT: It's the weekend, so I'll be taking it very easy to try and encourage my foot to cooperate so I can get back to walking (and maybe running) next week. Then next week I'm hoping to crack 80k on the book draft. We'll see how it goes.
Onward!