Daynote - Fri 5 Sep

Whoops, didn't get out for a walk this morning either. Still, there's always next week. Which is going to be a busy one because ONE WEEK from now I'll be on my way to Stirling for Bloody Scotland!

Speaking of Bloody Scotland, I was really pleased to see three folk I know on the McIlvanney Prize shortlist - Tariq Ashkanani is a friend I met through ESFF and the Page One Podcast, Callum McSorley was on a table with me at an event last December and we've bumped into each other repeatedly since then and Liam McIlvanney was my first year tutor at the University of Aberdeen way back in 1999! Absolutely stoked for all of them.

I was also very chuffed this morning to wake up to this LOVELY review on the Quick Book Reviews podcast.

It's a fantastic interview podcast as well as featuring the aforementioned quick reviews, and this episode's interview with Julie Leong is no exception.

ON DECK: Slow progress this morning with 298 words, as I'm operating with a fairly loose outline and having to stop and start to figure out the next few scenes in more detail. It's fun, but it means I get the odd lower count day when I'm spending most of the writing session writing bullet points in the Scrivener notes.

LISTENING: Loved the second part of this conversation with Michael Idov about Le Carré's OUR GAME over on the Le Carré Cast.

WATCHING: More KING & CONQUEROR last night. Continues to be daft as a brush and have some very abrupt time skips, but minute-to-minute I'm still enjoying it.

READING: More TIME WARPED last night. It's an absolute cracker.

LINK: I'm not entirely sure how Phoebe Morgan manages to zero in quite so precisely on publishing topics I want to know more about, but here she is with an excellent post about how the bestseller charts actually work over at The Honest Editor.

UP NEXT: Got some critical writing-related admin out of the way, which is a big relief, so now the decks are cleared for a restful weekend of sorting myself out, then it's Bloody Scotland week ahhhh. I'm going to try and keep my progress going on the PROJECT DRIFT draft but I will also give myself a break when it comes to going to Stirling. I am so excited.

Onward!