Daynote - Thu 26 Mar 2026

Absolutely gorgeous morning today, and a lot less windy. Still very much feels like March, but the sun on my face in the morning is doing me the world of good.

Some exciting emails yesterday with event invites for later in the year. It's going to be a busy one!

ON DECK: A really solid writing session this morning, with minimal procrastination for once. Got 1,102 words on Project VAULT and 436 on the short story, which I'm very pleased with. Not sure why I locked in so effectively this morning, but it meant I got out for my walk a little early and the morning went much more smoothly.

LISTENING: I've just discovered the relatively new Beyond The Plot podcast and have been enjoying this interview with Isabelle Broom. I listen to a lot of writing and publishing podcasts and I really enjoy the ones that take a fresh tack and look at things beyond the basics of a writing career. It's a fine line to tread, because real proper inside baseball publishing and author career stuff is not as accessible as the more high level discussions, but I find it endlessly fascinating.

WATCHING: More of RESIDENT ALIEN last night, which continues to pretty seamlessly blend pretty dark stuff (alien abductions and trauma) with very funny stuff (people misunderstanding each other, Alan Tudyk doing very funny voices and faces). It works though, because of the characters.

READING: A couple of chapters of NO WAY OUT by Max Connor (aka Neil Lancaster, Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) and the escalations continue to be escalating. Haven't quite hit the midpoint yet but I'm anticipating it's going to get wild.

LINK: Really pleased to see my friend CL Hellisen's Crossfades duology, previously only available as Audible originals, has been picked up by Tor UK for print. Fantastic news and I hope many more people get to read these books.

UP NEXT: Writing Friday coming up, so I'm hoping to make a good chunk of progress tomorrow morning. And then off to town for a photo shoot!

While the author photo that my wife Valerie took up against our garden shed on the day I found out I was going to be agented has served us very well, it's also five years old now. I mostly look the same (I think?) but it would be good to have a few options and an author picture where I look a bit less like a stunned but very happy deer in the headlights.

Onward!