Daynote - Fri 27 Mar 2026

I haven't been out for a walk this morning, as I will be walking all over town this afternoon for my photoshoot. So this picture is from around sunset on my evening run on Wednesday. It was a beautiful evening. Today, it's a crisp and sunny late March morning though, out of the window, with blue skies and a light breeze. Perfect day for some photographs.

Yesterday the second episode of our scenario for Narrative Damage came out. It's a fair bit longer than the first part, but there's a lot of fun RPG action (roleplaying game, not rocket-propelled grenade).

It's also available as a podcast via the Narrative Damage Linktree. Subscribe for the rest of this scenario, future scenarios with published authors as players and a load of fantastic interviews with RPG writers.

ON DECK: I've got a chunky amount of drafting to do today, a little under 2k on Project VAULT and 1,250 planned on the short story. These are very rough quotas and I'll see how far I get with them before I need to head into town. I'm also way, way ahead of my word count quota for VAULT, so if I'm a bit under I'm not too worried about it. However, I'm also in the final 20,000 words of VAULT, when I tend to up my writing pace anyway, from a dual excitement about the climax of the story and an eagerness to be done with the first draft.

LISTENING: Really pleased to see the Bloody Scotland podcast return for its second season, keeping the great veteran/debut pairing format that makes it such a great listen. The first episode of this season features guest programmer for 2025 and crime writing legend Sir Ian Rankin, paired with debut author Leodora Darlington. Brilliant stuff.

WATCHING: More of LAST ONE LAUGHING yesterday, and it feels a bit unfair they had to start sniping people out of the game because they're all so good at not laughing. Great fun, and it's just as surreal and odd as the first season.

READING: More of NO WAY OUT by Max Connor (aka Neil Lancaster, Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) before bed. It's still in the escalation/stake-setting stage, but I'll be on various trains in the near future and suspect I'll roar through it on those trips. Great fun.

LINK: I enjoyed this talk from the Author's Guild about how to promote books without social media. Something I think about a lot. Hat-tip to Amanda J. McGee for the link.

UP NEXT: Many words and cups of tea this morning, then hot-footing it around various places in Edinburgh getting photographed. I'm not exactly the most natural in the world at being on camera, but I have faith that my photographer Jakub is going to take some brilliant shots.

Onward!