Daynote - Thu 21 May 2026

I'm fundamentally not a car person. To me, they've always been mobile boxes that get me from A to B in some specific circumstances. For many, many years I didn't drive at all, because I lived within walking distance of most places I wanted to be in Aberdeen, central Edinburgh, London and central Edinburgh again. But I finally decided to learn in my mid-thirties and was very glad I did. But we still didn't buy a car, using a mixture of rented vehicles and (very kindly loaned) family vehicles for several years.

Until yesterday, when we got our first car! We live in the countryside (though in a very walkable village with good public transport), so this is going to give us so many options that we're fizzing with excitement about it. It's a Honda Jazz, which is, I'm aware, very much a stereotypical middle-aged-man car, but I love how much space it has inside and it's great fun to drive. I'm really looking forward to having more flexibility for book events too. I'm a big fan of public transport, but sometimes trains and buses and cabs getting to and from more distant places can be absolute murder.

So that was a lot of excitement, and a rather large hole in our bank account, but we're delighted with it so far.

ON DECK: I cut a scene this morning which dropped word count by 500ish words, then did a bit more line editing for a total of -631. However, that scene will likely have to go back in at some point, just heavily edited. Slow progress, but progress.

LISTENING: Loved this episode of Page One Extra with fantasy and crime author RJ Barker - I've heard RJ interviewed several times (as well as hosting the excellent Writeopolis podcast) and he's never less than hilarious.

WATCHING: More of THE BOYS last night. What a weird, semi-absurdist show it is. Kind of amazing it got made to be honest.

READING: A whole bunch more of SLOW GODS by Claire North (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) last night and it's escalated pretty dramatically. I remember a similar drastic escalation in NOTE FROM THE BURNING AGE and it worked just as well there as it does here.

LINK: Today marks just TWO WEEKS (!) until my next book, SOLITARY AGENTS (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) comes out! And we're having a launch event in Edinburgh on launch day! Please do book a ticket and come along, I'd love to see you there.

UP NEXT: Very likely our inaugural trip in the new car (aside from driving it home from the dealership) will be to Lidl. Our excitement knows no bounds!

But tomorrow I will hopefully be able to visit family, and get a LOT of editing done in the morning before I head out. Then a weekend of pre-book-launch errands (haircut, new shirt, that sort of thing).

Onward!