Drizzling steadily this morning, so I skipped my walk in favour of getting on with the proofreading. I'm only notionally brandishing a red pen, of course - it's actually just scrolling very, very slowly through a several hundred page PDF.
Last night, I successfully ran a 10k for the first time in my life. In fact it was just about an 11k.
I've been building up to this for a while and decided to just go for it last night, running twice around the village I live in. It was pretty cold and I had very fast music on and just got into the zone. And I'm absolutely delighted! I've been on a bit of a Fitness Journey™ this year after a bit of a health scare in January and to have gone from a very slow, painful Couch to 5K week one to this nearly-11k run in the space of ten and a bit months has been quite the experience.
The foundation was about a year of weight training at home to fix my dodgy ankle and build up a bit of bodily resilience, but it's been the running that's really given me the cardiovascular fitness I was looking for. Running in your mid-forties is fraught with potential injury, but so far, so good, I think because I'm also continuing with the weight training. I will probably shift the balance further towards weight training at some point, but for now I've become one of those people I never used to really understand, who insist that running feels good and is fun. Turns out those people were right.
ON DECK: A solid 65 pages this morning proofing A TRAITOR'S CALL. I did a double-length session because it was drizzling and miserable outside, hence the higher count. 152 pages to go, but I've had a slight deadline extension (phew) since I'm also now reviewing and integrating the proposed changes from the professional proofreader. So when I'm done with my readthrough, I'll check through theirs and sign off on it, consolidating my feedback and theirs into one document, which will then go back to the production team to be updated.
LISTENING: An excellent episode of The Binge Reading Book Club looking at THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN by Giuliano da Empoli.
WATCHING: We got back into SLOW HORSES last night, which is ramping up excellently. And it was also the first proper 4K/HDR programme we've watched on the new TV we got recently, which was properly mind-blowing (our previous TV was an eight (nine?) year old 1080p TV, so even the crappest of 4K tellies is a substantial upgrade). Looking forward to watching the end of this season, I've heard the finale is particularly good.
READING: Reading through THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE by Richard Swan (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) and finding that Richard has lost none of his touch for interspersing quite thoughtful dialogues on jurisprudence with bone-chilling horror. Excellent stuff.
LINK: Two links today - firstly a good piece from Emma Cowing on why she didn't write her first novel until she was 45 (it's never too late!). And then DV Bishop takes a look at which formats sell and why for his historical thriller series.
UP NEXT: You guessed it, more proofs! I suspect I will finish both my readthrough and checking the proofreader comments by Friday. I've got a load of appointments on Friday but they are either online or local, and proofreading is the kind of work you can do in bursts between appointments. So I'm hopeful I won't need to work over the weekend to meet my deadline (now Monday).
Then! New words! I'm very excited about that.
Also, don't forget, it's paperback release week for SOLITARY AGENTS, my second novel. Get your last-minute pre-order in: Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Amazon.
Onward!