Hello again!
I am back, mostly rested, and right back into the thick of things. I ate a lot of gelato, ran on the banks of the Tiber, watched my brother marry the love of his life with my family, saw some very cool ancient stuff and generally had a very nice time indeed. Plus! There were exciting emails.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, as I am wont to do in these introductions. This is The Decrypt, my monthly newsletter on all things writing, publishing, craft and media. I've been on holiday, so there will be photos. But also news and links and all manner of exciting things. Grab some form of refreshment and let's get cracking.
It's been two months since I launched my paid membership programme, and so far it's going pretty swimmingly. I've had friends who have tried their hand at writing paid posts and found it to be an unpleasant obligation that made it harder to write stuff. But I find myself similar to Craig Mod, in that I see it more as a kind of permission slip.
I have a lot of thoughts and things I want to say about writing, publishing, craft, creativity, routine and more. And now I have cash assurances from my subscribers that someone, somewhere, actually wants to read it. That is weirdly freeing. In October, even though I was on holiday for a good chunk of it, I sent an assessment of the actual odds of being traditionally published, then three status reports from different airports and from Italy, as well as a long piece last week on the importance of finishing things and sending them out.
I'm still thinking about the ultimate format and frequency of what I send and to which tier, and I'll be doing the occasional free edition to my whole mailing list so you can get a taste of the kind of thing I'm writing (one of those coming next week). But it's a lot of fun and it seems (I hope), like my paid subscribers are getting a lot out of it. Don't forget, if you subscribe you will also get instant access to the whole archive for your tier.
Aside from writing blog posts, I also had a brilliant time in Italy for my brother's wedding. We went to a former abbey in northern Lazio, about an hour and a half north of Rome, which had lain abandoned for decades before being renovated extensively. Here's a few shots from an amazing few days:
From top left to bottom right: Sunset on the second day, Andrew and Milena on their wedding day, me with my mum and dad, the exterior of the Abbey, my wife Valerie with Aurelio, one of the abbey cats, the landscape of Lazio while I was out on a run
After the wedding we went into Rome and stayed for eight days in Trastevere, a lovely area of the city along the banks of the Tiber full of narrow streets, cafes, bars and gorgeous piazzas. It was amazing and we had a really lovely and restful few days, with a couple of side trips to look at very ancient stuff.
From top left to bottom right - a run by by the banks of the Tiber, Valerie in the Centro Antico, the dome of the Pantheon, Valerie in Trastevere, both of us at the Roman Forum taking a breather
I didn't read nearly as much as I hoped, but I did got a lot of very lovely sleep, expended a lot of shoe leather wandering around Rome and decided definitively that I really want to set a book there some day. And I saw some mindblowingly cool things (the Pantheon is a genuine marvel). Also, the aforementioned gelato. Absolute buckets of it.
This last week has been a return to normalcy, though it was a short week, with a birthday visit to Drift near North Berwick and a very, very nice lunch with my friend Nick Binge, who was in Edinburgh for an event the night before. And next week it will be November! Crikey.
On the work side, it's been pretty light, due to the aforementioned big chunk out of the middle of the month eating pizza and pasta and tiramisu.
Early in the month I did some light edits to Project SUNSHINE before sending it out to my agents, and obviously there was the newsletter work. I had planned to write a few of those in advance, but in the end I was way too busy wrapping things up and packing before the holiday to get around to it, so I did most of the newsletter work while travelling. But honestly it didn't feel like work - it's quite nice to type away on stuff that you find interesting while you're in transit, or having a very nice €2 coffee at a slightly wobbly cafe table on a cobble street.
Since I got back I've been head down on proofs for A TRAITOR'S CALL, my third novel with Headline and a return to the Legends/Jamie Tulloch series. We announced that (plus a fourth book, in a two book deal!) at the very start of October, and got to reveal the cover at the same time, and it's a stunner:
We're well ahead of the game on this book, since the deal was actually done back in December (these things don't tend to get announced immediately) and I wrote the first draft from December through to about March, did my first edit in April and May, then line edits with my editor in August and copyedits at the start of October. It's looking pretty good, which is one of the reasons we've put it up on NetGalley super early. It comes out on May 27th next year, so we've got quite a while, and there's already a fair few reviews. If you're a reviewer with a NetGalley account and you want to read it, now's your chance!
So now I need to crank through the proofreading and find all the embarrassing typos that the NetGalley readers have been kind enough to ignore, so we can fix them before we actually start the printing presses. I mean, not me, personally, but the nice people at Clays who print most of the books sold in the UK.
The proofreading will carry over a bit into November, but then I'll get to draft! I can't wait. I've been doing some kind of editing or another since mid-September and I'm missing putting new words down.
In October, Narrative Damage also released several episodes of a new actual-play RPG I've been participating in, City of Whispers, which is using the Blades In The Dark system. Here's the first episode:
We're continuing to record and release new episodes in this series, so stay tuned!
It hardly seems believable that we're about to tip over into the penultimate month of the year. And yet, here we are. Somehow the linear nature of time continues to surprise me.
The big thing that will happen early on is the paperback release of SOLITARY AGENTS, my second book! It's out on the 5th of November.
It's available at all of your favourite retailers, but here's a few affiliate links if you fancy popping in a last-minute paperback pre-order: Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Amazon.
Otherwise, I'll mostly be writing (woohoo!), doing my day job and biting my fingernails as I wait on some news. As above, Project SUNSHINE went to my representatives and will be going out on submission at the start of the month. There's always a chance something exciting might happen, so I'll be vibrating at a relatively high frequency rate until that resolves, one way or the other.
My big event in November is going to be an appearance at the London St Andrews Book Festival, along with fellow spy author Charles Cumming, in conversation with Nicola Meighan:
It promises to be a very fun evening and I'm really looking forward to the festival generally and a visit to London. If you're in the South East and fancy an evening of spy shenanigans, make sure and book your ticket, as well as checking out the rest of the fantastic programme.
I was too busy strolling through the streets of Rome to do much in the way of reading, watching, listening or playing, but I got one or two things down.
Reading
Spies, spaceships and fantasy lawyers:
- LONDON STATION by David McCloskey - I finished this on the flight to Italy and had an amazing time with it. In common with a couple of McCloskey's other books it has a distinct uptick in the batshit factor in the final hundred pages or so, and this one was a particularly good curve. Also Artemis Aphrodite Proctor is, hands down, probably my favourite on-page character of this decade. Highly recommended. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
- CRY PILOT by Joel Dane - Hoo boy I am still reading this, not because I'm having trouble with this particular book, but just because I've been struggling to read in general. But it's starting to get colder and darker and my yearning to read books is returning. So this will be one I finish in November, hopefully. It's still an excellent, crunchy and fascinating bit of military SF. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
- PLANETFALL by Emma Newman - I read this while we were in Italy and enjoyed it a lot. It's a really interesting exercise in point of view and narratorial voice, and the core worldbuilding is fascinating. I did get a little frustrated at the very slow drip-feed of the core mystery that drives the book, but the ending was cracking. It's the opener for a series and I'm definitely intrigued by the other books. If you like deep-space colony books with social dynamics at their core, give this one a go. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
- THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE by Richard Swan - This is the third book in Richard's first trilogy (the second trilogy is well underway and he's sold a third trilogy in the same world) and it's a return for everyone's favourite fantasy lawyer, Vonvalt. I am having a great time with it, but it's also a chunky book, so it will probably be on my bedside table for most of November. I'm also really looking forward to diving into the second trilogy. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
Watching
We didn't watch much in October, but we loved what we did:
- We watched WILDWOOD at the cinema and absolutely loved it. I'm a big fan of the output of Laika, the animation studio behind this film, and this was no exception. I was transfixed throughout by the visuals, loved the script, thought the story was excellent (and surprisingly epic) and I thought it was a refreshingly nuanced and emotionally literate film. It is not a film for young kids though - it's a PG in the UK and for good reason. But wow, catch it in the cinema if you can.
- We watched most of SLOW HORSES, but haven't quite caught the last couple of episodes. That's high on the agenda for November, as I've heard the finale is excellent. It continues to be one of the most solid shows (and excellent adaptations) around and I'm enjoying it greatly.
- We of course are watching BAKE OFF and CELEBRITY TRAITORS, which are a lot of fun, but I can't really say much about either - one is about baked goods, the other is about betrayal. Good, daft fun.
Playing
Still down in cowboy town...
- Yep, still playing RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2, and still going very, very slowly (I'm still at Horseshoe Overlook, for those who know the game). It's held up so well as a game, considering it's an eight year old game. Looks gorgeous, plays well, and I'm finding dialogue and random side missions on my third or fourth playthrough that I've never encountered before. Smashing game.
- I have, of course, like every other forty-something gamer, put in my pre-order for GTA VI. Can't wait, to be honest. They are huge, daft sandbox games, but this one looks like it's trying to do something a little deeper narratively. We'll see!
I spent a fair bit less time on the internet this month, but still found a few luscious links for you.
- I loved this deep-dive into the character of Ricki Tarr on the Le Carré Cast - I'm a big fan of niche podcasts doing really specific episodes and this one is a treat.
- This is a great piece from Jennie Godfrey (THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS) on being sober for nineteen years. I've just passed ten years sober myself and though my reasons were different, a lot of things in this post resonated with me. Worth a read.
- A great interview with VE Schwab on SFFAddicts on her latest book and career so far.
- Loved this story by one of my favourite short fiction authors, Rich Larson - In The Hours Preceding The Fall of Tau-Sants. An excellent piece of eye-popping SF. Great stuff.
- A great interview with Charlotte Mursell, publisher at Orion, over on the indispensable Always Take Notes. It's always fascinating hearing both about people's routes into publishing and their take on the current landscape.
- Another excellent SFFAddicts interview, this time with Stephen Graham Jones. That man has a seemingly bottomless supply of Very Alarming Anecdotes and the one he tells in this episode is an all-timer.
- Jeremy Maluf's yearly post about his 'onebag travel' setup has had a big update this year (because his bag got nicked) and is a gearhead's dream.
We've had named storms sweeping through, temperatures dipping and rising again, then the clocks going back. Winter is not quite here, but it's definitely in the post.
Of course, I spent much of my birthday month in mid-twenties temperatures in Italy, so the return to grey and wet Scotland could have been kind of depressing. But I actually didn't find it that way. The autumn sun in Italy was very welcome and we had a brilliant time, but it was also very nice to come home to cold water out of the tap, warm jackets, a cosy house and two cats who vocally told us they'd missed us very much.
As ever I'm fighting the feeling of running out of time, which always happens to me when the nights draw in and the days get shorter. It's especially daft because I'm actually ahead of schedule on most of the projects I'm working on and there's two months to go in the year, which is a good chance to make some serious progress before the curtain finally falls on 2026. But even if I did nothing else for the rest of the year, I think I'd be happy with my progress. It's good to remember that, especially when it's been a tough year, physically and emotionally. It's fine to rest and it's fine to slow down a little as the rain falls outside the window.
I hope you've had a chance to get away at some point this year, or take a small break or two. And if you haven't I hope the next few weeks will let you wind down a little and start getting into the spirit of things for whatever festive season celebrations you have ahead of you.
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.