Daynote - Wed 3 Sep

Pouring with rain this morning, so no walk, just another cheeky lie-in and then finishing off pitches. Job done.

ON DECK: No word count this morning as I was doing cleanup and tidying across four different pitch documents, but I'd guess I probably added/removed less than a hundred words. But now all four pitches are away to my agent for future discussion and I'm ready to dive back into PROJECT DRIFT tomorrow.

Last night I also got my final edits back from my editor on SOLITARY AGENTS and, after a tiny bit of cleanup and formatting and tweaking, it's done! Another novel is in the can, at least from a drafting point of view.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I've talked before about how, once you're working with a publisher, there's multiple finish lines - in my case, on this book, there was a pitch, then a synopsis, then a sample, then a first draft, then an edit of that first draft with my crit partners, then a second edit on my own, then a combined structural and line edit with my editor.

Now I've just handed in the cleaned up edit after my editor came back with a couple more questions and suggestions, so the book is 'done' from a heavy lifting point of view, at least for me - but there's at least two more rounds of review. First up is the copyedit, where a third party copyeditor will read the entire book looking for inconsistencies, errors, typos, house style issues and all the fiddly, pernickety issues that can creep in during the long drafting and editing process. Then I'll review that copyedit. Then it'll go out again for a full proofread, which I'll also review. So I'm reading this whole book at least twice more.

Publishing is really making peace with two facts - you have to write a lot of books, and every book you do write, you will read multiple times. This is also why whenever authors and editors see comments from readers about how a book 'could have done with an edit' because they spotted a typo in a hundred thousand word book, all we can really do is emit a kind of hollow laugh.

Anyway, the book is 'finished' from my point of view, so this morning I will have a celebratory cup of tea.

LISTENING: Loved this episode of Off The Shelf with Callum McSorley, one of the McIlvanney Prize longlisters (and former winner!). The Off The Shelf podcast is running a series of interviews with all the longlisters and they're all worth your time.

WATCHING: Another episode of KING & CONQUEROR last night. It is taking fairly extreme liberties with the actual history, but continues to be pretty good fun.

READING: More of TIME WARPED last night and the core plot has kicked off in a big way. It has me thoroughly hooked.

LINK: I very much enjoyed 28 YEARS LATER and the followup, THE BONE TEMPLE looks like it takes honestly pretty zany elements of the first film and turns them up to eleven:

UP NEXT: Back to PROJECT DRIFT tomorrow and into the last week before Bloody Scotland 2025. I'm excited to get back to a draft and really buzzing for heading to Stirling.

Onward!