An early start this morning, heading into Edinburgh for a combined day job office day, kilt pickup and last minute shopping. Then I need to come home and finish packing. Then we have a heinously early airport run tomorrow. So I'll be getting plenty of walking in today, but no trips to the woods or the water.
ON DECK: I'm going to do a bit of outlining and newsletter drafting today, getting my Sitrep for this week squared away and my next Vector newsletter drafted. I was thinking about my Sitreps while I'm off, eating pasta in Italy and I figured I could pre-write them, with an extra-large helping of links and such. Or perhaps paid subscribers will get lucky and get a holiday photo or two.
LISTENING: I enjoyed this new episode of Spybrary, interviewing Paul Burke, podcaster and author of SPIES ON SCREEN (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon). Paul is joining Spybrary as their Head of Fiction but has also written a fascinating look at spy movies and TV shows that he talks about here. I met Paul at Bloody Scotland this year when he chaired my panel and it was lovely to put a face to the very familiar voice.
WATCHING: We're going to Italy, so naturally we had to watch the (new and updated) Rick Steves video about it.
Not sure I agree on his somewhat simplistic take on the transition from republic to empire but this is an excellent overview of the city's big (and small) attractions.
READING: Read a bunch of LONDON STATION by David McCloskey (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) while on lunch break and waiting for stuff yesterday. And I've got trains in and out of town today, so I might just finish it before we go. No idea what I'm going to take with me to Italy. The instinct is to take something dense and worthy, but enough of that kind of book have lain unread on various holidays over the years that I think I'll take some fun stuff instead.
LINK: Tickets are now live for my next event! I'm on the Masters of Espionage Panel (very flattering) with Charles Cumming, interviewed by Nicola Meighan, at the London St Andrews Book Festival on Saturday 21st November.
Note that this event is in London (Knightsbridge specifically), not in St Andrews (the town in Scotland), despite the name. That's because it's being put on by Scots In London. I'm really looking forward to it - grab your tickets sharpish.
KIT: I recently discovered this very nice bit of open-source software called Textream, which is a teleprompter for Macs that sits right under the notch camera (on a laptop) or the centre of the screen on a desktop and can, optionally, use voice recognition to advance or pause a script while you're speaking. It's really good and the perfect solution to making awkward video intros for me and my fellow authors. And it's free!
UP NEXT: Time for me to run for my train shortly and get about my (very busy) day. Then come home and be even more busy. Then a wedding. Then a holiday. Hooray!
Also, trying not to refresh my email because Frankfurt Book Fair is on. Thus far in my career nothing has happened at Frankfurt for me, but I live in hope of repeating the time my phone exploded during London Book Fair because of my TV auction. We'll see I guess! Going to focus on my todo list for the day.
Onward!