Daynote - Mon 20 Apr 2026
A very happy Monday to you.
I take photos of this particular curve in the path quite often, because the light in that corner of the woods is nearly always beautiful. Especially on fine spring days like this.
A small PSA - I've decided I'm not going to post my daynotes on social media (Bluesky, Instagram) after today - if you enjoy them, you can still find them on my website. You can even use RSS to have them delivered right to you!
Why? I have a very strong desire to compartmentalise a bit more and spend less time looking at my phone. And posting my daynotes is often the first opportunity in the day for me to slip into a cheeky little doomscroll. So I'm not going to do it anymore. Also, bluntly, when I looked at the actual traffic, the social posts accounted for maybe a tenth of it. I'm happy to lose that little bit of traffic if it means I can have a more deliberate relationship with the broader internet. I'll still post my monthly newsletters and the odd longer post I write, but I'm not going to post the daynotes on social media anymore and I feel pretty good about that.
ON DECK: A solid 1,363 words this morning, all of it on the short story I'm working on. I'm close to the end of that, so I think I will continue with it and hopefully have it entirely done in the next couple of days.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: On Friday and Saturday, I wrote a combined 9.5k words and finished the draft of Project VAULT, which was a very satisfying moment. It's my 11th completed novel draft and I never get tired of the feeling of having finished a novel-length piece of work. It's always reassuring to prove to yourself that you can still do it.
LISTENING: I was really chuffed to see my episode of 'Confessions Of A Book Collector' with David Headley went live over the weekend.
This was a really great conversation and I loved talking about writing, books and genre affiliations with David.
WATCHING: A bit more of FOR ALL MANKIND over the weekend. I've seen some people say this season is straight-up Expanse prequel fiction and I can definitely see that. But the core of the alt-history story is still in there. Particularly enjoying the alternate-universe Apple Newtons.
READING: I finished NO WAY OUT by Max Connor (aka Neil Lancaster, Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) over the weekend and the ending didn't disappoint. Here's the blurb I sent over to Neil:
NO WAY OUT blends cutting-edge espionage, brutal crime syndicates, murky politics and the searing heat of the California deserts into a heady brew. It's a rare combination of gritty spy thriller, heart-stopping conspiracy drama and (despite the American setting) very British banter. And it's clear that the exceptional Josie Chapman has a future in espionage as bright as her author Max Connor, whether you know his secret identity or not.
Onwards to CHILDREN OF STRIFE by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon), which I'm already enjoying greatly. It's a big ol' book though, I suspect I'll be working on this one for some time.
LINK: A great piece from (a critique partner of mine!) Molly Templeton at Reactor on learning to read generously. Hat-tip to Cat Hellisen for the link.
UP NEXT: A couple of days on the short, then I'm heading into the first edit on Project VAULT. It's going to be a chunky one - reworking an entire POV, fixing a whole bunch of timeline issues and developing two under-cooked storylines, all while trying to cut 10-15k out of the overall word count. Fun times.
Onward!