Daynote - Mon 15 Sep

With excellent foresight, I took today off work to recover from Bloody Scotland, so I'm moving a little slowly this morning. And I'm doubly glad I took it off, because it was an extremely emotional weekend and it's going to be a busy afternoon (see below, I'm going to be on the radio!) in Edinburgh.

The above shot was from about this time yesterday morning, when myself and Tariq watched our mutual friend Marco Rinaldi win the 2025 Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland. It was a perfect end to an incredible weekend.

ON DECK: Absolutely zero words today. Giving myself a day off, which I think is fair enough given lack of sleep etc.

But later today I'm heading into Edinburgh to BBC Scotland (!) to appear on Len Pennie's Arts Mix on BBC Radio Scotland. Pretty nervous since it's live radio but I'll do my best to stumble through it. Wish me luck!

I got this photo from festival director Bob McDevitt this morning, as I walked up to the stage on Friday night. I think it's a pretty accurate reflection of my current internal state, which is delighted disbelief.

LISTENING: I had a few late night walks around Stirling going to/from the hotel so I actually listened to a fair few podcasts this weekend. I'm really enjoying Sean Watkin's new podcast The Incident Room, especially the first episode with Heather Critchlow, Sarah Mellor and Rebecca Miller. Sean, of course, was one of my fellow McDermid Debut Award shortlisters and Heather, it turned out, was one of the authors Valerie and I had dinner with on Friday night in Stirling, courtesy of my editor Toby. It's a small world.

WATCHING: We got back from Stirling late afternoon yesterday, then watched the penultimate episode of KING & CONQUEROR to switch our brains off for a bit. Good murderous fun.

READING: Haven't read a word of anything all weekend, although I did buy a copy of my RED STAR DOWN by my fellow Bloody Scotland panelist DB John. It's a pretty chunky hardback though, so it might take me a while to work up to it.

LINK: In all the excitement of Friday, you might have missed my one-year roundup of what it's like being a published author. Gotta say, winning the Debut Prize was a pretty nice capper to this particular 365 day period.

UP NEXT: Time to get myself put together and head into town. I might tuck myself in a cafe and do some critique reading to calm down, then I'll be on the radio sometime after 3.30pm today.

Then, tomorrow, back down to earth with a bump and back to the drafting.

Onward!