Daynote - Mon 14 Jul

Well, that was a hot and busy weekend. I headed into town on Saturday for a bunch of things - a pre-Harrogate haircut, lunch with a friend, then wandering about bookshops to sign copies. I found several copies at Waterstones Cameron Toll and Waterstones Gyle, both of whom told me that it had been selling well. It was particularly cool to sign at the Gyle - I grew up in West Edinburgh, so revisiting a place I haunted as a youth and finding my own book available was pretty amazing.

After that I headed back into town and went to the cinema to see 28 YEARS LATER with another friend. More on that below.

On Sunday I'd planned to go to Glasgow for the day for more signing, but that plan fell through. Hopefully I'll be heading over to the West Coast for a signing day in early August. The weekends of this summer are filling up rapidly.

ON DECK: No writing this weekend while I was on the go, unfortunately, but I made up for it this morning with a very decent 1,637 words on PROJECT DRIFT. I've got some long train journeys and hotel stays coming up (see below) so I will try to write a bit more around that. But I'm also going to be very, very busy this week so I won't beat myself up if I don't manage it.

LISTENING: I'm rather enjoying 'Adventures in Publishing-Land', the new joint venture between Marco and Tariq of Page One and Nadine Matheson of The Conversation. Their latest episode is excellent.

WATCHING: I saw 28 YEARS LATER at the cinema on Saturday and hoo boy that sure was a Danny Boyle film. A really, really interesting mix of folk horror, post-apocalypse, family drama and absurdist creepiness. It was a lot of fun to watch in the cinema and I'm glad I made the effort to see it on the big screen - those wide-screen shots of a forest-cloaked, Rage-haunted Northumberland were quite the thing. Really interesting to see a society on the cusp of changing radically as the people who remember the old world die off and the British Isles remain cut off from the outside. I'm fascinated to see where the sequels take it.

READING: Some blurb-reading this weekend on a novel that's not out yet, which I've been greatly enjoying I suspect I'll finish it on my way to Harrogate. Not sure I'll take the paperback of

LINK: I enjoyed this interview my friend and critique partner Shauna Lawless did with Grimoire Ink Reviews about her new novella DREAMS OF CHAOS.

UP NEXT: It's HARROGATE WEEK! I am SO EXCITED. Also a little nervous, as this is the week that I'll find out who's won the McDermid Debut Award. But first a couple of days of day job and regular drafting, then an event with Arcadia Abroad on Wednesday, then I'm off to Harrogate on Thursday morning. Four days of panels, awards and being too hot in the Big Tent await. This year, I promise, I'm going to pace myself.

Onward!