Daynote - Wed 13 Aug

It's shaping up to be another warm day (for Scotland), though not half as hot as those poor devils down south. Still, I forged ahead with the writing and skipped my walk again. Hopefully this will be a short, sharp push to the finish rather than a long, sweaty slog.

Chuffed to find that A RELUCTANT SPY is in the Audible UK 2-for-1 sale at the moment, running from today until the 27th of August. Check the sale selection here and add my book to your basket.

ON DECK: A very precise 2,500 words (on the nose) this morning and I finished all of the new scenes I have planned. It's always very satisfying to get both a nice round number and check off a specific drafting task in the same go.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: Now (ugh) I need to move all that new stuff into the Word document I got back from my editor and start on the actual edits. Thankfully the list of things to look at is relatively short, so I'm going to work through it systematically, then do a front-to-back readthrough to trim everything back down. I've added a bit over 5k words to the draft and I've worsened one of the issues my editor pointed out in doing so - basically the point in the book when something starts happening is now even further from the start than it was, so there's a lot of line-by-line trimming to do to get everything as lean and focused as it can be.

LISTENING: I really enjoyed this interview on the Coode Street Podcast with the author China Mieville, talking about the 25 years since PERDIDO STREET STATION came out. Firstly, twenty five years? Sheesh. Secondly, it's a fascinating discussion that covers a lot of ground.

WATCHING: Didn't watch anything last night as I had an errand to run, but we did watch MICKEY 17 while I was on my break last week. It was a film that I very much enjoyed from a singular point of view - loved the characterisation, loved Robert Pattinson being as weird as possible, loved the set design and worldbuilding. But the whole thing kind of didn't quite hang together for me for some reason. In parts it reminded me of a Terry Gilliam film in its absurd grotesquery, specifically BRAZIL, but it also had a lot of CGI action escapades that undercut that tone. A strange film, but I'm glad I watched it.

READING: More of BERLIN WOLVES and it continues to impress.

LINK: Loved this interview with Nick Harkaway on Monocle's 'Meet the Writers' podcast. Lots of Le Carré chat of course, but also a great discussion of Nick's own fiction, which I really enjoyed.

UP NEXT: Edits edits edits. Also an enormous amount of FOMO as my friends begin arriving in Seattle for WorldCon and send me pictures. I have some Regrets about not going, but I'm definitely hoping to make it to the Vancouver WorldCon in 2027. And I'm crossing my fingers that the 2029 WorldCon will be in Dublin.

In the meantime, I'm going to distract myself by getting SOLITARY AGENTS finished.

Onward!