Daynote - Thu 11 Jun 2026

Off to town today, so no woods walk. But a nice day in town planned, including catching up with a writer I met at Cymera who wanted to chat about short story writing.

It's been also been one full week since SOLITARY AGENTS came out! I'm working on a release week roundup newsletter that I'll hopefully post later today.

ON DECK: When I go into town for work, I usually don't have time for a full 90 minute writing session, especially today when I need to shift my timetable by an hour or so anyway. So I've just finished consolidation on the current chapter and got a solid -99 words cut to the end of it. Nice.

LISTENING: I got to say to Adrian Tchaikovsky this past weekend how much I enjoy his podcast with Emma Newman, Starship Alexandria. And the latest episode, on Susanna Clark's PIRANESI, is fantastic.

WATCHING: More of BIG MISTAKES last night, with a significant escalation in the penultimate episode. We almost watched the last one too, but the need for sleep was too great.

READING: Still settling into DECEPTION by Alan Parks (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon), but I'm going slow because I'm still recovering from the weekend.

LINK: I really enjoyed this piece from crime writer Claire McGowan about the power of doing things on your own. I'm often kicking about cities alone these days, on trips for the day job or for writing events, and I some things are pretty great on your own, it has to be said (matinee film showings are my go-to example).

UP NEXT: A big editing/consolidation day tomorrow I think. I'd like to get the current draft fully up to date and my notes written up for the whole of Project DRIFT, so that I can forge ahead a bit next week before I head down to Capital Crime. After that I'm expecting at least one set of edit notes, so DRIFT will have to go back on the back-burner until those are done.

But for now, I've got to catch a train. Onward!