The Decrypt - April 2026

Somehow we're about to tip over into the fifth month of the year. That doesn't seem right. And yet, here we are. Still, the buds are out on the trees in the woods and the words are flowing at a moderately sustainable pace, so I'm feeling pretty good about it.

And, of course, it's the last day of April, which means I'm got another edition of The Decrypt for you, my monthly newsletter on all things writing, publishing, craft and media. I've got a finished first draft of a novel in one pocket, a short story (for the first time in ages) in the other pocket and a whole bunch of good news to share. Grab yourself a refreshing drink of some kind and let's get into it.

I had a busy month, with a lot of travel, starting with a day in London for my day job at the start of April where I got to meet up with a couple of writer pals for a really nice dinner and catchup in the excellent Eagle pub in Farringdon.

It's always so nice to meet other writers and one of the great joys of the last few years has been making new friends all over the UK (and Europe! and the US!) so that I have a growing number of people I can message to say 'hey, I'm in your city'. It's brilliant.

Speaking of writer friends, I spent much of the middle of April in Edinburgh, dogsitting for my critique partner Nicholas Binge and looking after this fine fellow, who I think we can agree is very photogenic:

It was a nice few days of dogwalking, reading and writing, although not as much as I'd hoped. But I did make a decent amount of forward progress, all things considered. And, in the middle of that trip, I got to do a couple of cool things.

First of all, I was invited to the Cymera Festival programme launch at the Leith Walk Polis Box, which was a very fun photocall followed by a trip to the pub. That's me on the left, lurking at the back.

I'm really looking forward to my first time chairing a panel at this event, and I've been lucky enough to get an absolutely amazing one:

I mean, it's only three of the best writers currently working in the genre. I'm not nervous, you are.

One thing that will make me feel slightly less of an imposter is the news that I was finally able to shout about on the same day as the Cymera launch, which is that my debut science fiction novel SHARDS OF STARLIGHT has been acquired by Solaris Books!

As you'll know if you've read any of my short fiction, SF is a great love of mine both as a reader and a writer, so I'm extremely excited to be debuting with my big spooky generation ship novel. And I'm lucky enough to know a whole bunch of writers who are published by Solaris and speak very, very well of them, so I can't wait to join that particular stable.

Phew! And there's more!

On the 16th, I was lucky enough to be invited to the wonderful prose open mic event Edinburgh Sparks, where I got to read the opening chapter of SOLITARY AGENTS. I was then interviewed by the fantastic Alessandro Valenzizi, who I first met at Napier University while guest-lecturing on the Creative Writing MA and then saw pitch last year at Bloody Scotland. It was a brilliant night.

And now it's the last day of the month and I'm heading to York for a launch event with Alessandra Ranelli and Kristin Perrin, put on by Criminally Good Books at the Merchant Taylor's Hall. I'm really looking forward to it!

Crikey, quite a month.

April was a slightly less productive (in first draft terms) month than March, although overall I feel like I was actually working harder. That's the thing about steady first drafting. Over the course of a full month, you can rack up some pretty big aggregate word counts if you're consistently hitting 1,500 words or so a day (which I was in March).

Whereas in April, I drafted for about 2/3rds of the month, then spent the last third doing edits, finishing off a short story, making a timeline for the novel in progress and, finally, embarking on a full front-to-back readthrough. However, word count is only one gauge of progress, which you can see in my other major metric, hours spent. I worked on writing stuff for about 46 hours this month, even though the raw word count was less than last month at around 27,000 words. That also included my longest writing day in quite some time - around 6 hours of drafting that got me 6,400 words in one day. I was very, very close to the end of Project VAULT and just wanted to get it done, but I finally gave up around 10pm, then wrote the actual final few chapters (another 3,100 words) the following day.

It's always quite a moment, finishing a first draft. As I reflected on the day itself, I'm pretty sure this is my eleventh finished novel-length manuscript. Every book feels different when you finish it. Some feel nearly ready, clean and well-structured. Others (more often than I care to admit) feel like unsalvageable messes that I have no idea how to fix.

But what they all have in common is that I finished them. They are complete stories. Flawed, badly structured, repetitive, nowhere near what I envisioned - maybe? It's hard to tell when you're drafting. But they are finished. And a finished, completed narrative is something that can be considered, analysed, restructured, reworked and polished to a high shine.

Finishing feels great, even if it's just the first, biggest step in a much longer process. It's still a huge morale boost and a fresh reminder to myself that I can do this, and it's the thing I love the most.

May is going to be a quieter month, which is, honestly, a good thing, because June and July are going to be very busy (my book launch, Cymera, Capital Crime and at least two other book launches in June alone!)

Don't forget to book yourself a ticket for the launch:

In May, however, it's all going to be podcasts and book launches with fellow writers. I'm recording with the amazing In My Good Books podcast in mid-June, and at the end of the month I'll be recording another scenario with the Narrative Damage crew.

On the 12th of May, I'm hoping to see Frances White in conversation with Hannah Kaner at Waterstones West End, though I really need to get my arse in gear and book a ticket. That same week, I'm also hoping to see Nick Binge talking with Gareth Brown about his new Tor novella ABYSS, which I was lucky enough to beta read.

Then on the 22nd, it'll be my turn in the chairing seat, this time with Callum McSorley talking about his third novel RAT RACE, which I greatly enjoyed earlier this year. I'm really looking forward to chatting with Callum about his breakneck (and very, very funny) tour of the Glaswegian criminal underworld.

I'm pretty glad May is a month with two bank holidays in it, I have to say. Because now that I've typed all of those out, that's quite a lot of stuff in a month where I'm also on deadline to edit an entire novel. We'll see how it goes!

Reading

Of course as soon as I finished my proof pile, I got some more proofs. But I'm also reading a few other things into the bargain.

• Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky - I'm reading this in preparation for my Cymera panel with Adrian, Fonda Lee and Claire North, and I'm really enjoying it - it has the familiar brain-bending Tchaikovsky scope and hard SF ideas, combined with Adrian's very particular narrative voice. But the thing I love most about his books is that they can be 800 pages long, but still absolutely fly past. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
• The Emotional Craft Of Fiction by Donald Maass - I've had this on my shelf for a while, but haven't had a chance to properly dig into it, and now that I am I'm greatly enjoying it - it's a really interesting look at the emotional underpinnings of popular fiction, in a way that a lot of craft books don't really cover. Recommended. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)

Watching

Space, aliens, travel, robots, more aliens, more space - a very SF heavy month:

• We started on the new season of FOR ALL MANKIND this month, which has evolved from gritty alt-history to full-on Expanse prequel territory now. It's enjoyable as ever, though the alternate-2010s are an interesting decade in this world. It's less soap-opera-ish than a few earlier seasons but I do sometimes feel they could get slightly wilder with their predictions and do some really interesting world-building.
• We resumed watching RESIDENT ALIEN this month too and we're into the final season. It's a shame it's coming to an end (though my perpetually overburdened watchlist is thankful when shows do actually end) because it's got a really big heart and can be surprisingly moving. And Alan Tudyk doing funny voices is never not going to be great.
• I was very glad to see the return of RACE ACROSS THE WORLD to the BBC this month, consistently one of the best shows they put out. Although it does lead me to some pretty strong yearning to drop everything and travel the world. The casting and structuring of this show is the best possible version of 'reality' TV that I can think of, gradually revealing the personalities and relationships of the contestants in a way that makes me root for all of them. A balm of a TV show.
• I watched WAR MACHINE on Netflix while dogsitting and it was enjoyable nonsense, with lots of stuff exploding. It's basically a remake of PREDATOR with a giant robot, what's not to like?
• I also watched ISS, which I enjoyed a fair bit, even if I choose to believe actual astronauts would probably conveniently find their radio stopped working rather than participate in a planetary war like the cast of this film find themselves doing.
• Rounding out my Netflix binge was A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, which was an extended exercise in animal peril (though the cat in question seemed supremely unbothered throughout). Some great performances and chilling visuals though. And I'm a sucker for an apocalypse.

Playing

Another single-game month...

• I've just been gently playing more of STAR WARS: OUTLAWS, which has confirmed my initial opinion that it's a marginally over-stuffed Ubisoft map-hell open world game. But it's a very good example of that micro-genre, because the side quests are fun and well written, the world feels pretty organic and alive and the main storyline is a pretty good heist narrative, complete with assembling a crew for One Big Job. I'm having a great time.

More freshly baked links for your bookmark folder:

• I wrote a long piece early in April about how I made the decision to go part-time at my day job - if you're thinking of doing something similar, hopefully it'll be useful to you.
• This episode of Scriptnotes featuring John August speaking to an audience of screenwriters was both inspiring and sobering.
• Loved this video from The Overview Effekt comparing the different flight profiles of Apollo 8, Artemis I and Artemis II.
• A thought-provoking piece from Molly Templeton at Reactor on (re)learning to read generously.
• Speaking of Artemis II, if you missed a lot of the live coverage, you could do a lot worse than watching this stunning 8K supercut of some of the best video and images.
• Loved this thread from Seanan McGuire about how to be an awards nominee.

Every month, without fail, I sit down and go 'hmm, not sure how I'll fill up all the sections of my newsletter this month, I don't really remember doing much'. Then I look at my calendar, and my daynotes, and my social media and I go 'huh'. And write 2,000+ words about it.

It's become a very affirming exercise, writing this newsletter - a reminder of all the things, big and small, that contribute to a career as an author. And now there's a fairly large number of people reading it, which always feels peculiar if I think about it too hard.

I did a lot of walking this month and spent a lot of time outside, which was good for my brain. And, here in Scotland at least, it's now light in the evenings well past 9pm, which feels lovely, though does mean I stay up a bit later than I should. Since I'm about to head into probably the busiest summer of my writing life so far, I should probably be more consistent about getting enough sleep.

First of all, though, there's a book to finish. I've got a month to do it, so it's going to be all hands to the pumps. But I'm feeling pretty good about it. I hope that if you're working on something you love, you'll get a bit of energy from the increasing daylight hours and the odd bit of sunshine. And if you're currently struggling, remember that nothing lasts forever, for good or bad. And warmer days are coming.

In the meantime, as ever, keep reading, keep writing and keep moving.

If you have a question, suggestion or something else you'd like me to write about, please get in touch over on Bluesky or Instagram, or send me a message on my contact form.