Daynote - Mon 25 Aug

It's a day off for me today from the day job (an English bank holiday, even though I'm in Scotland), so after a very relaxing weekend spent not writing, I'm going through to Glasgow on an early train to try and sign books in as many bookshops as possible. I did manage to get an express train with very good wifi, but it's also supposed to be quite warm today in Glasgow, so we'll see how I do traipsing around the city.

ON DECK: No word count yet as I left home too early to do my usual morning routine, so I'll be catching time with the SOLITARY AGENTS manuscript as and when I can find it over the day. I'm on page 258 of 481 in the current document (this is standard manuscript format, which often bears not much relation to the actual finished print page word count) although the second number is shrinking, very slowly, as I cut words. 1,233 words left to cut, though I'll likely go over that a fair bit more to give myself more elbow room to add things.

I'm also keeping a keen eye on A RELUCTANT SPY as it creeps up the UK Audible rankings thanks to the current 2-for-1 sale. This morning it just squeezed into the UK Top 100 bestselling audiobooks, which is frankly incredible.

It's literally number 100 of 100 on that chart, but I will absolutely take the win. It's also at number 31 in the Mystery, Crime and Thriller category, which is equally amazing. Huge thanks to everyone who's picked it up and I hope you enjoy both my words and Norman Bowman's excellent narration.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I was chatting to some folks on one of my Discord servers recently about writing rituals and routines and mentioned that I like to try writing outside of my usual context (big monitor, comfy office chair, early mornings) as often as I can. Earlier this summer I had plans to try and do some drafting while travelling around and I found it really difficult to focus. For some reason, I find the opposite with editing - because it's a delineated, specific task with a beginning, middle and an end which you can work steadily on, I find it suits travel really well - you can edit a few pages even on a twenty minute train ride. And chain a few of those together, along with a coffee stop here or there, you're quickly going to make some real progress. Here's hoping that will be the case today.

LISTENING: Loved this interview with Adele Parks on the Quick Books Review Summer Special series. Such a good idea for an interview topic.

WATCHING: We finished DEPT Q. over the weekend (pretty good) and caught up on ALIEN: EARTH yesterday (excellent, the third episode has a lot more room to breathe and works very well).

READING: I finished BERLIN WOLVES last night and it kept me up far too late. Excellent stuff. One of my jobs today on the train is to write a blurb for it.

KIT: When I was in Sweden earlier this summer, I got annoyed with the Frankenstein cable bag of adapters, USB plugs and cables I had to cart along, so I started researching a good 'all-in-one' adapter. The MOMAX Universal Adapter kept coming up, so I grabbed one and it's excellent. Solidly constructed, loads of adapter combinations and lots of USB-A and C ports.

LINK: I was really happy to be featured in the Bloody Scotland newsletter last week, marking three weeks to go until Scotland's crime writing festival kicks off. Dawn Geddes from the Bloody Scotland team asked me about being a Crime In The Spotlight reader, my relationship to the festival and what I'm most looking forward to.

UP NEXT: A day of signings and negotiating public transport in an unfamiliar city, plus some editing over the course of the day. Then back to the routine tomorrow and, hopefully by the end of the week, a finished edit of SOLITARY AGENTS. Let's see how it goes.

Onward!