Daynote - Wed 22 Apr 2026

I missed my walk this morning, got up a little late and I decided to lock in on the edit for my short story. It's quite nice to have a little more time to work through a full edit in one go.

ON DECK: Roughly 500 words cut from the short story (not counting the 1,500 words of scenes I cut entirely) and it's in pretty good shape, I think? My natural working length for short fiction is the novelette (technically 7,500 to 17,500 in award categories) and this is, technically, in that bracket. But when I write a novelette I normally bring it in about 13-15k, and this is shorter.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: It's been a really nice exercise, actually, writing a short piece for the first time in a year or more. I used to do short stories and novelettes as palate cleansers between longer projects, but in the last couple of years a combination of drafting deadlines and editing work coming back to me from my editor has meant I haven't really had the space in the schedule to do that.

However, I think I might try to make the space - I love writing short work and I've missed it.

LISTENING: I enjoyed this interview with Ai Jiang on SFFAddicts about writing in multiple genres. It's a really interesting look at the challenges and opportunities in working across boundaries.

WATCHING: More of RESIDENT ALIEN last night, with some extremely goofy moments. We're about halfway through the season and I'm wondering how they're going to wrap it up.

READING: About a quarter of the way through CHILDREN OF STRIFE by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) and I'm encountering some really mind-bending simulation/reality narrative that makes my brain feel like wet noodles. Excellent stuff.

LINK: My news about the acquisition from Solaris was shared in this week's DHH Literary roundup, along with a lot of other amazing news from my agency.

UP NEXT: Back to Project VAULT tomorrow and beginning to reverse-outline and timeline the novel so I can figure out where all these scenes actually fit together, in time terms. It's a fair amount of work. Then, tomorrow night, we're off to see THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD at the theatre in Edinburgh! Can't wait for that, I've heard it's an amazing production.

Onward!