No walk this morning - I stayed up too late, got up too late, then spent half my writing time sharing exciting news on social media. But the pic above is related to the exciting news - it's the Scottish Borders.
That's because I'm teaching at the Cymera Writers' Retreat 2027, next March! I'm mega, mega excited about it.
More info on the Cymera website and my blog post.
This was the exciting news I was referring to yesterday. And boy am I excited. I can't bloody wait!
ON DECK: As noted, not much in the writing way this morning, due to the socials for the above, though I did a tiny bit of outlining, adding a few bullet points. This is a very slow and painful process and I spend a lot of time muttering 'no that's stupid' to myself, deleting a bullet point and writing another one. So I can sometimes write ten or fifteen bullet points as I explore the different ways the story might go (at a high level) but only keep one or two in the end. Still, it's a lot easier (in my experience and opinion) than writing 50,000 words and then muttering 'no that's stupid' and deleting it. Your mileage may very much vary on this front.
LISTENING: I greatly enjoyed this first part of a two-part interview with Nick Harkaway over on The Le Carré Cast about his new Smiley novel THE TAPER MAN. Nick is always an excellent interviewee and the specialist nature of this podcast (plus Nick's status as Le Carré's son and continuing writer of his books) makes it a fascinating interview.
WATCHING: We started on the second season of BLACK DOVES and it was as much of a hoot as the first season. Absolutely chock-full of amazing characters and fantastic action setpieces.
READING: More of THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE by Richard Swan (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) and things are getting distinctly ectoplasmic.
LINK: I'm a fan of the writer Meg Elison (her BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE is an excellent piece of post-apocalyptic storytelling) so I was very intrigued by her plan to revert, digitally speaking, to the year 1999. It sounds both incredibly inconvenient and incredibly appealing.
UP NEXT: More outlining, probably for the rest of the week, I think. And I'll start gently packing for my trip down south for the London St Andrews Book Festival. Make sure and book your tickets before they're gone - me, Charles Cumming and Nicola Meighan will be talking up a storm about all things espionage.
Onward!