Daynote - Wed 24 Sep
Late nights and exciting beta reads.
Bit of an unplanned late one last night; I got into an urgent beta read for a friend (more on that below) and wanted to finish it. In the past I'd have carried on and just sucked up the sleep loss, but as I get older I'll nearly always prioritise more sleep over getting out for a walk/writing etc. Lack of sleep just makes everything harder. So, no walk this morning and a curtailed writing session, but I've got the beta read done and I'm about to be on a bunch of trains, so I think I'll get a fair amount of drafting done on the hoof.
ON DECK: 154 words this morning, finishing off a scene, but I realised at the end of it that I'd introduced the need for another scene that wasn't in my outline, which also required shifting a load of things about, so I spent about half of my writing session rejigging the micro-outline for the next few chapters (between scheduling a podcast interview with three different people by WhatsApp and emailing my editor about exciting cover-shaped things).
Usually I try to reserve the writing time solely for writing, but some mornings everyone gets on their emails/chats early and you just have to roll with the (very friendly, helpful) punches.
LISTENING: The ever-excellent Behind The Lines podcast with Arthur Snell has a great new episode up interviewing Olena Kryzhanivska, author of the Ukraine Arms Monitor newsletter, talking about the current technical and industrial arms race happening in the Ukraine war.
WATCHING: A bit of BAKE OFF last night, which was very fun.
READING: My reading for most of yesterday was the first three chapters of DARK WATERS by my friend Marco Rinaldi, which won Pitch Perfect at Bloody Scotland this year. It's fantastic (hence why I read it so quickly) and Marco is polishing it up to send on to interested agents while he finishes the draft. One of the fun things about having writing friends is getting to jump in on these kinds of all-hands-on-deck situations where someone needs a quick read because Exciting Things Are Happening. It's a buzz, honestly.
LINK: I really enjoyed this piece on 'purple' prose by Alix E. Harrow. I write in multiple genres and I firmly believe there's room for a bit of lyricism even in the most taut, spare, hard-boiled thriller (indeed, it can really elevate things, in my opinion). But I'm also very much enjoying my current project which is in a genre where there's more opportunity for and expectation of the lyrical alongside the functional aspects of the story.
UP NEXT: A train journey tonight, a day of day job stuff tomorrow and an evening in London on my way back. Then on Friday I have heard tell there may be an exciting cover-shaped thing I can show you...
Onward!