Daynote - Tue 18 Aug

A little warmer this morning, but a nice breeze off the sea. I do love this walk. I've probably walked these woods and then down to the water a couple of thousand times (at least) since we moved here (and before that, when I grew up in the same village). And it's different every single time.

ON DECK: An excellent morning of edits - about 12 pages done, though that included probably forty or fifty amends as I both responded to my editor's line edits, added stuff and chopped stuff away. I'm also reviewing my editor's (and critique partners') more general notes as I go, to see if the pages I'm working through need to be addressed.

Generally pleased to find that I'm objectively enjoying re-reading the book too - it's never guaranteed but it's always a relief to find you don't hate it.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I am pretty lucky with this book that the edit notes from everyone concerned are very light, so I may in fact just do a single combined pass. But to do that I need to read all the edit notes and break them down into a tasklist with instances, so that as I'm working through, page-by-page, I'm able to deal with the line edits, tweak things I spot myself AND do the medium-to-heavy lifting. I had planned to do two passes, but I think I'd rather do one, slow, all-encompassing pass than go through it multiple times. It kind of helps, I think, because I'm able then to hold the whole story in my head at once.

LISTENING: Fascinating interview with literary agent Amanda Harris over at Always Take Notes, with lots of interesting stuff to say on the underlying economics of publishing.

WATCHING: More of SILO again. The (spoilers) present day timeline is a very interesting development and it's intriguing to see how they're linking the two together.

READING: A bit more of CRY PILOT by Joel Dane (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) last night and I'm hugely enjoying it. One of those SF books that hits you with ten or fifteen new ideas and neologisms per paragraph and yet somehow remains comprehensible and works at the plot and story level too. Great stuff.

LINK: A very good primer from Kate McKean on the things during the publishing process that it's actually okay to freak out about (and, conversely, the things that seem worrisome but absolutely aren't).

UP NEXT: More editing, surprise surprise. I'll need to get my edit notes and emails in order, which is fiddly prep work I shouldn't put off, because it makes the actual editing much faster. But thankfully there's only one actual BIG chunky change I need to make and it's all concentrated in one bit of the book. So I'll just keep plodding gently forward. Only about 380-ish pages to go.

Onward!