Daynote - Mon 9 Feb

The light is definitely coming back. Three and a half minutes per day in February. On Sunday I sat in my kitchen with sun streaming through the window and could actually feel my spirits lift in real time. I had a busy but fun weekend, including the excellent Luna Press Publishing annual party. It was brilliant to see so many other authors and have a good old natter.

And this morning I got out into the woods (without a hat for the first time this year), saw loads of roe deer, saw the sun through the trees and was surrounded by birdsong. And Poppy the Labrador had a Very Good Stick to show me at the beach.

ON DECK: A very decent 1,227 words this morning. I'm belatedly realising I've accelerated through the 'parts' of my novel too quickly, so I'm probably going to grab a few chapters and shift them backwards. This makes no real difference to the narrative flow, it just means the 'Part Two - Blah blah blah' pages come a bit later. But I'm on part 3 of 5 with less than half of my planned word count, so I think I will, structurally speaking, shift everything backwards.

LISTENING: I was on a lot of trains this weekend and wandering about in Edinburgh, so I listened to a load of really good podcasts. This interview with Scottish crime writer Louise Welsh on CrimeTime FM was fantastic. And I also loved this interview with Jennie Godfrey on Quick Book Reviews. Then, this morning I listened to Denise Mina, who's programming Bloody Scotland this year, appearing on the superb A Kick Up The Arts.

WATCHING: I was out and about most of the weekend, so didn't watch much aside from GLADIATORS (nail-biter of an Eliminator finish this week!) and an episode of an animated series on Apple TV called WONDLA, which I can't remember if I've already talked about. It's very pretty and has some excellent cliffhangers and an amazing voice cast.

READING: I'm still working on RAT RACE by Callum McSorley (Bookshop, Amazon) and having a whale of a time. I was cackling out loud in a pub at one scene on Saturday night.

LINK: I've long been fascinated by the work of hard-to-describe writer/book producer/long-distance walker Craig Mod. I really enjoy his (multiple) newsletters and his view on the world, and also admire how transparent he is about how he makes a living. He's just posted his Year Seven review of the membership programme he runs which funds his work and it's, again, absolutely fascinating. I was always slightly sceptical of the idea of a thousand true fans, but Craig does seem to have found a hyper-specific niche producing work that a sizable number of people didn't realise they wanted until he started doing it.

UP NEXT: Prepping for a very brief trip to London this week, then teaching at Napier University on Friday, as well as trying to get 5k words on the WIP, draft a new presentation for next week's workshop AND write a short story that is due before the end of the month. It's going to be a busy one. Thankfully I have two long train journeys to help with that.

Onward!