Daynote - Thu 8 May
Character lists and cut counts.
Missed my walk again. I'm getting into bad habits with going to bed late, for no particular reason except that I lose track of time. This often happens when I'm working towards a deadline, because I get tired. As I've said before if the choice is get sleep or get my daily walk, I now always choose sleep. But if it's been a couple of days since I had a decent walk I definitely start getting twitchy.
It's always extra vexing when it's a stunning day. The pressure to maximise every nice day in Scotland is deeply culturally ingrained in me. 'Go outside, it's lovely weather' is the rallying cry of many Scottish parents.
ON DECK: Did alright with the edits this morning, with a cheekly -267 words cut. There's still not a lot to cut, but I'm also in the very polished first 30k words. Every chapter has had at least one edit pass now, but these have had four or five, so the cuts are hard to find. But I'm also fixing minor continuity errors, so it's going pretty well.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: While searching my manuscript this morning, I discovered that I apparently started (and didn't complete) a character list at some point. Since I'm near the start of the book, I've got the character list open in a Scrivener Quick Reference window to one side of my screen. So now, as I edit, every time we meet a new character, I'm noting down their essential characteristics. This will help immeasurably later, when I'm working with my editor, copyeditor and proofers, because we can all use it as a reference. Handy for audiobooks too, and other stuff that might lie in the future like TV casting.
I used to do the whole detailed character sheet thing, but keeping them up to date is a pain and they take forever. A simple list with one or two lines of description works much better for me.
LISTENING: I really enjoyed this new format of The Conversation with Nadine Matheson - twenty minute Coffee Break episodes. The first one is with Helen Monks Takhar.
WATCHING: An episode of ANDOR last night, which was mostly setup, but ramped the tension up nicely. I've heard the next two episodes are this season's equivalent of 'Never more than 12' and 'One way out', so I'm looking forward to diving into those.
READING: More of beta reading my friend's fantasy novel yesterday, including my favourite activity, which is nitpicking specific detail (in this case sailing terminology).
LINK: The excellent Bloody Scotland festival has launched a 'Prime Suspects' membership programme to support the festival, including advance booking, a drinks reception at the festival and more. Looks great.
UP NEXT: You guessed it, more editing. Onward!