Daynote - Thu 7 May 2026

No walk this morning, because it was a bit grey and cold and I felt like I wanted to make a bit more progress on the novel edit. I will probably feel grumpy about not getting out later, but I'll make up for it tomorrow.

Yesterday I decided to start re-posting my daynotes on Bluesky - it's a couple of extra clicks and, unfortunately, cutting out all social media posting chopped my traffic by more than a third, rather than the 8-10% I expected (that's the difference between tagged 'organic social media' traffic and the untagged, untracked 'direct' traffic that has dropped a fair amount).

Still not going to do Instagram anymore though, it's a pain in the arse posting links to Stories and Instagram itself is a black hole for my attention. But for those who don't use RSS, you will be able to see new posts on Bluesky. Eventually I'll automate it as well. For the nerdy among you, the CMS that I use for both my website and my newsletter, Ghost, unfortunately locks basically all useful automation behind their second tier, which costs three times as much as their starter tier. It's one of the few things I find annoying about it.

As for people who do social media very well, I was very, very chuffed to hear yesterday that my friend Alessandra Ranelli is an instant Sunday Times Bestseller.

Absolutely delighted for her. Anyone who follows her will know how hard she's worked, first on the book, then on the marketing.

ON DECK: I'm still adding words to Project VAULT, to the tune of 1,257 this morning. But now I've added the new scenes I needed to write, so from here on in it should all be line-level cutting. I may even be able to cut a whole scene or two, later on. I'm about 4,500 words over where I want to be, so I'm hoping and expecting to cut perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 words over the length of the whole book, while adding 1,000 or 2,000 more. Hopefully, it'll all balance out at the end.

LISTENING: Absolutely loved this episode of the indispensable Print Run podcast, interviewing Laura B. McGrath about her book MIDDLEMEN. It's a fascinating discussion about how agents do their work across genres and their changing role in the publishing process. Recommended.

WATCHING: A bit of FOR ALL MANKIND last night. I'm wondering how hard this storyline on Mars is going to go.

READING: Continuing with CHILDREN OF STRIFE by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) and just having the best time. It's getting absolutely bananas now.

LINK: I dunno, man, every time I read another article about largely getting off the modern 'social' internet I find myself nodding along like one of those nodding dog things you put in the back of your car. This interview with Sam Kriss is no exception. I appreciate the irony of putting this link at the bottom of a post where I just said I was going back to posting these on Bluesky because of a 35% drop in traffic. Uuuuuuugh.

UP NEXT: A full day of writing tomorrow, thank goodness. This will be my first time working on a novel edit during a Writing Friday and I'm very curious about how much I'll be able to get done.

Also, off to see PROJECT HAIL MARY tonight. Can't wait.

Onward!