Oh man, a much better Monday today - got out for my walk and I could breathe properly. Very much a relief after the long tail of illness last week. I'm still not quite back at 100% (lingering cough/sinus stuff) but I'm mostly there. What a relief.
Lovely walk in the woods too, saw loads of deer. It was grey and very autumnal (though not particularly cold) but with a nice breeze at the beach.
ON DECK: I'm in a slight holding pattern at the moment - I got the okay from my editor to start working on my next project (which I'm christening Project BALTIC as of now), but I don't want to crack on with that right before heading off on holiday. So I'm fiddling around with other stuff for the next four days. This morning it was a slight rework on the Project SUNSHINE treatment before I send it to some friends. Not much words actually written or cut, but it was good to go over it again with fresh eyes.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: I'm really liking all of the new features that have been introduced over at Pacemaker recently, including sprint timers. And I'm currently beta-testing a very useful tool that I hope they'll introduce soon. It's such a good tool for tracking and managing your word counts and writing time. Can't recommend it enough.
LISTENING: I really enjoyed this episode of SFFAddicts on working with editors, including freelance developmental editors and in-house editors. It's a really good look at the differences and the benefits of both, with Ed Crocker, James Logan and Diane M. Pho.
WATCHING: Greatly enjoying SLOW HORSES as we caught up over the weekend. I can see why they merged two books to make this season - it's a really interesting compression of storylines (while also allowing more capacity for side stories/background).
READING: Still working on LONDON STATION by David McCloskey (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) - I didn't quite finish it over the weekend, but I'm nearly there. And it just keeps escalating in ways I don't expect, which is always good.
LINK: In case you missed it, I announced a new two-book deal on Friday! Very excited to be writing two new Jamie Tulloch novels for Headline, with the first one due out next May.
UP NEXT: I'm probably going to work on the outline for Project BALTIC this week, or maybe I'll re-outline for Project DRIFT before I mothball it for a few months while writing BALTIC. Can't decide.
Either way, I'm off on (actual) holiday shortly and I can't bloody wait. And for once it's not just a brief break at home between events.
Onward!