Daynote - Fri 23 May

Steady progress and a three day weekend.

A path through a dense deciduous woodland

A very fine Friday morning and a beautiful walk this morning. Not a breath of wind, so it was quite hot out in the open, but lovely and cool under the trees. Another lone hare sitting in the long grass. And Poppy the Labrador got two stick throws before Flash (another dog) stole it. He does that a lot.

ON DECK: I'm about a third of the way through Part 4, with -114 words cut, and six more chapters ready to go. Solid session this morning.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I had a really great learning session on one of my favourite pieces of software yesterday, helping someone beta-test their planned coaching offer. I learned loads and applied some of it this morning, to my delight. Once the coaching website is live I'll post about it - I think a lot of writers would get something out of it. I'll be less vague once it's available.

LISTENING: A great episode of the Bloody Scotland podcast today, with AA Dhand and Remi Kone. I finished Remi's book last week (we're on the debut panel at Capital Crime together next month) and really enjoyed this episode.

WATCHING: More A HANDMAID'S TALE last night. I'm wondering how they're going to end it, honestly. The first few seasons had a very effective alternating timeline, showing both the fall of the US and reality of Gilead that was the result, with the storylines playing off each other. The latter seasons have been much more about the insidious normalisation and accommodation of totalitarianism, with the main characters caught up in that. No idea where it's going to end up.

READING: A bit more of BELIEVE yesterday. I suspect I'll finish it over the weekend. Just like the other crime novel I read before my debut panel, it's outside my normal reading habits, but it's making me think I should definitely make more regular forays onto unfamiliar ground. You can learn a lot.

LINK: From Julian Simpson's blog, here's a good article on RSS readers and why they're still good. I never stopped using one - I've rotated through Google Reader, Reeder, Feedly and a couple of other iOS based ones I can't remember now, but these days I use NetNewsWire, syncing via iCloud and I'm very happy with it.

UP NEXT: I still think I'll do a bit of work over the weekend, to give myself a bit of breathing room before next week. But it's a long weekend here in Scotland, so I reckon I'll be heading into my deadline weekend pretty well prepared.

Onward!