Daynote - Fri 6 Feb
A busy Friday of books.
It's another Writing Friday, though I may have somewhat overscheduled myself. No walk this morning, but I'll be tootling around in Edinburgh later today and will doubtless get the steps in.
ON DECK: This morning I'm working on Project VAULT and aiming to get my Friday quota of around 1,900 words in. 177 down so far and half a cup of tea (Update - 2,002 words and 40k mark crossed!). Once I get rolling I can usually comfortably manage my Friday word count in a couple of hours. The key is to block most of the internet, which I'll do right after hitting post on this.
This afternoon I'm having lunch with a writer friend to strategise on some joint projects, then visiting family, then going to a birthday party. And tomorrow I have the Luna Press Publishing annual party after lunch with another friend. My social life is quite often like this - days or weeks of mostly being at home, then intense bursts of hanging out. It can be a lot. I should really space things out a bit better.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: One thing I haven't really done (since going part-time in January ) is to have a full Friday writing day at home, working on drafting in the morning and editing/admin/marketing in the afternoon. That is the plan for the majority of these writing days (with some trips into Edinburgh for events, signings and so on) but so far each Friday has been frenetic in a slightly different way.
I'm sure I will settle into a routine soon, and to be fair the mornings have been great and very productive, but I can see how it would be very easy to fill these days with things that sit in the urgent-not-important quarter of the Eisenhower Matrix - when there's more time available, suddenly you say yes to more things, then wonder why the time you'd intended to use for your existing commitments has evaporated.
LISTENING: I really enjoyed this interview with thriller author Lee Child at How I Write. The host is a very good interviewer (he did another excellent interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky that I thought was equally good) and gives the space for responses that go beyond the usual stock answers about writing craft and practice.
WATCHING: We watched another episode of DOWN CEMETERY ROAD last night and really enjoyed it. I think the first episode was just so incident-packed it was sort of hard to get a handle on, whereas this one had time for some more thoughtful character moments. Emma Thompson was given some real moments to shine in dialogue and expression.
READING: I'm reading RAT RACE by Callum McSorley (Bookshop, Amazon), which has hooked me thoroughly. I've got this tendency to start two or three different books within a couple of days, then dive into one more deeply when it grabs me. And this one definitely has.
LINK: I enjoyed this interview by The Honest Editor with author Teresa Driscoll about the rollercoaster of rejection and success that can come with a publishing career. It's always good, I think, to note when an 'overnight' success is actually ten or twenty or thirty years in the making. Sure, there are genuine first book million-seller wunderkinds out there, but they are absolutely the exception, not the rule.
UP NEXT: Hopefully a mostly-relaxed weekend, then next week I'm off to London for some semi-secret bookish stuff. And, of course, next Friday I'll be back in Edinburgh, for the first of two teaching sessions at Napier University. Cannot wait for those, they're always a huge amount of fun.
In the meantime, I'll also be trying to hit the 50k mark on the current draft. Wish me luck.
Onward!