Daynote - Mon 26 Jan
Somehow, the last week of January?
Another day in the office today, so no walk. But a pretty morning in Edinburgh and a large coffee will see me right.
ON DECK: 1, 370 words before catching the train this morning, and I cracked 30k total on the draft of Project VAULT. The scene this morning was a lot of fun to write, which meant it went pretty fast, just over an hour.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: I tend to, pretty predictably, have a confidence wobble with a book draft at two very distinct points. The first one is at the 30k mark (see above for where today's word counted ended up!) and the second is at 75k.
I'm lucky enough to have some wonderful critique partners who gave me a bunch of exquisitely well-timed feedback over the weekend that reassured me that this book is going in the right direction, which helps with the overwhelming feeling of having burned 25-30% of your total word count, having put a whole bunch of plot in motion and having no real idea what's going to happen or how on earth you're going to get it all to hang together.
The next wobble, at 75k, will hopefully be offset by experience (this happens pretty much every time) and me having the opportunity to write this entire book front-to-back with no gaps. That continuous draft helps a lot with the confidence, since I've got the whole structure in my head and I don't have to spin back up after a break.
LISTENING: I really enjoyed this interview with former-CIA-turned-novelist Karl Wegener, talking about his new Cold War spy thriller, THE WEB OF SPIES.
WATCHING: Didn't watch much over the weekend, just a bit of GLADIATORS. Those new events are poised perfectly between utterly daft and actually quite compelling.
READING: I finished off EXCESSION (superb) and I've started on PAGANS by James Alistair Henry (Bookshop, Amazon) as my paperback copy showed up a few days early. It's a fascinating alternate history crime novel, set in a Britain that was never Christianised or unified. The tag line is 'Two cops, one killer, hundreds of gods', which is an absolute belter. Whoever came up with that should take the rest of the day off.
LINK: An excellent post from scriptwriter, novelist and games designer John French on building a creative routine. This almost precisely mirrors my own experience.
UP NEXT: Mooching about in town today, then home until Thursday, then on Friday I'm off to Manchester for Stockport Noir this weekend, which I am fizzingly excited about. This is my first time going to one of the smaller, one-day festivals in the UK and I'm really curious to see what it's like. And being on stage with absolute genre legends like Abigail Dean, Ruth Ware and Sam Holland is only a little bit daunting.
Onward!