Hello! (he said, hoarsely)
It's been a busier month this month, with the launch of my membership programme, some actual drafting and some extremely fun (if draining) events. Culminating in one of the most surreal nights of my life thus far.
But, let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is a newsletter, and that means structure. So get yourself ready for The Decrypt, my monthly newsletter on all things writing, publishing, craft and media. Might be a long one, so you may wish to get yourself an autumnally appropriate beverage. Let's get into it.
I started the month with a fairly major new iron in the fire, which was setting up a paid membership programme to support my writing. I've been mulling doing something like this for a while, since my approach to marketing has been to steadily do more of what I enjoy and less of what I don't. And I love writing, in all its many forms. So why not see if people were willing to get more writing from me, in exchange for a membership?
I've been inspired both by the success of writers like Craig Mod and the interviews I've been reading over at How I Make Money Writing. And I've made near-daily writing a bit of a thing on this website of mine for a while anyway, so this felt like a logical next step. Plus I paired it all with a snazzy website redesign.
I was a little unprepared for the response, but I was incredibly gratified when several people signed up immediately. And ever since, every so often I'll get another signup email and realise that someone else has placed a small bet on me, my writing and my future. It's an instant morale-boost every time, let me tell you. It is not yet the kind of money that means I could quit my job or slow down on the novel writing, but it is the beginnings of something, and that's really exciting. Income diversification is a very good thing in any situation, but especially when you're a writer trying quite hard to build a multi-threaded career. Check out the details here and sign up if you'd like my weekly roundup, my twice-a-month craft newsletter and, at the top tier, the opportunity for quarterly Zoom calls, signed copies and more!
A day after I started that, I got the news that I hadn't made the shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize this year. The competition was stiff, so I wasn't all that surprised, but it was a real honour to be on the longlist and another morale boost when I really needed one back in early July.
On 8th September, SOLITARY AGENTS was released in hardback in the US! Always nice to see posts from readers on the other side of the pond.
In mid-September, I also passed an amazing milestone - two years as a published author. I wrote up how that felt at length, but it paired very interestingly with a piece I wrote for Goldsboro Books to go with the Crime Collective edition of A RELUCTANT SPY, which they very kindly allowed me to re-publish on the two-year anniversary - On Possibilities and Sacrifices. It's been a wild couple of years.
The next thing on the list was Bloody Scotland - I had a panel on the Saturday, and an invite to karaoke with Chris Brookmyre on the Thursday night. And how do you turn that down?
Bloody Scotland was amazing fun, even though I ended up going on my own since Valerie had an awful cold. I was fighting something myself and singing along at the karaoke didn't hugely help, but I got just about enough sleep to make it through the whole weekend. This is one of my favourite festivals and there were some real high points - the amazing awards ceremony on Friday where Frances Crawford scooped both awards, my panel on Saturday which I hugely enjoyed, then more karaoke at the Curly Coo pub, which was absolutely packed this year.
The day after I got back from Stirling, I had a call with Fiona from Braemar about my appearance that coming Friday, where I learned we were being invited to a Gala Dinner after my event. A dinner where the guest list included the Queen. Yes, the actual queen.
A hastily-acquired new suit and a few days of rest later, we headed up the road to Braemar for a truly remarkable 24 hours at the Braemar Literary Festival.
My event went really well and the Gala Dinner was amazing, especially getting to hang out in the hotel bar with several leading Scottish authors. And getting photobombed by Hugh Bonneville. And shaking the Queen's hand, twice. As I noted in my post about the event, if you'd told me five years ago that making up stories about spies and spaceships would take Valerie and I here, I wouldn't have believed you.
We had an amazing time, although by the time we left on the Saturday my slightly sore throat had become a lot worse and I was laid up on the sofa until yesterday. Turns out you can't Lemsip your way through multiple festival events in a row. I've finally stopped coughing all night, which is a sincere relief. Hopefully recovery will continue into October.
As expected, with a bunch of events and a week off in the middle, it's been a lighter month for the actual writing. Although I have managed to do some actual drafting in September, which was very welcome after spending most of August on edits of various sorts.
I started the month by working on something new for me - a treatment of a creative idea in another medium, which is tentatively called Project SUNSHINE. I also got started on a writing sample for the same piece of work. I decided to work on these because I essentially had two weeks in hand after finishing my edits on Project VAULT, which I'd expected to still be doing into September. So, rather than launch straight back into DRIFT, I took the time to get my membership programme launched, write a bunch of posts and experiment with the SUNSHINE treatment and sample.
It's very, very easy, when you're working to publishing deadlines to always be focusing on the next contracted work, but I've learned over the years that I can squeeze in new work, experiments and side projects on occasion and that doing so is a big part of keeping my overall motivation and energy levels up. That's what's behind my experiment here - trying something completely new in order to exercise different creative muscles, broaden my long-term opportunities as a writer and give myself something that's just for me.
Once I'd finished the draft of that treatment, I jumped back into Project DRIFT, but progress was pretty slow, happening around and between events and while I was fighting a cold. Still, over the course of the month I worked for about 20 hours and I got about 9,400 words drafted between the treatment, the creative sample and DRIFT. And that's 9,400 more words than August!
I'm also only about 16,000 words under my word count for the whole of last year, with three months left in the year. So it seems likely that I will exceed that count in 2026, which I'm delighted about. Especially because things have felt very bitty and distracted since I finished the draft of Project VAULT. It's easy to lose sight of incremental and cumulative progress when you're only thinking about the last few days worth of scrappy, low word count scrabbling. But you stack enough of those days in a row and you're talking about real numbers.
There is some VERY EXCITING NEWS coming in just a couple of days. So exciting, in fact, that I considered delaying my September newsletter to add it in. But my instinct for a rigid schedule won out, so you'll just have to wait.
In any case, please stay tuned to the blog, your email inbox and my social channels for cool things, very, very soon.
I'm not doing any events in October, though I am doing more Narrative Damage recordings, going to Italy for a wedding and turning 45! So it's going to be a very busy month, just not on the book front. And I'm hoping that the Italy trip will, post-wedding, be quite relaxing.
In November, I'm heading down to London for the London St Andrews Book Festival, an annual event put on by Scots In London. I'm appearing with fellow spy author Charles Cumming on Saturday evening, in conversation with Nicola Meighan. I'm really looking forward to it! Although I'm also glad to be getting a bit of a break before heading off down the country again.
A slow month on the media front, but still a few gems.
Reading
Back to proof-land:
- LONDON STATION by David McCloskey - I'm still reading this, very slowly, mainly because of the travel and events this month. But it's still fantastic. The dissection of British class politics is very good indeed and Artemis Proctor continues to be one of my favourite fictional characters ever. I was delighted to see in a Spybrary interview this month that she has apparently been cast for a TV adaptation. I'm afire to see who it's going to be. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
- CRY PILOT by Joel Dane - I'm still also reading this! Man, I am slow this month, when it comes to books. It's also still excellent! I will hopefully finish both of these books in October. And possibly some other ones too. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
- JOE COUNTRY by Mick Herron - A book I actually finished! And I was feeling very smug about it too, just in time for the new season of SLOW HORSES, until I realised that this season is mashing together elements of this book and the next book. Oh well. Regardless, this is another great Slough House book, though the scope of it is quite claustrophobic and downbeat compared to previous instalments. But I loved it. (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon)
Watching
Finished a bunch of things in September:
- We finished SILO season 3, which heavily backloaded the action and plot development but in a pretty effective way. It looks like the final season will be a bit of a barnstormer and have a lot of narrative threads to tie up.
- We finished THE TESTAMENTS, and overall it was an excellent season of TV, offering a new perspective on a bunch of characters and circumstances from THE HANDMAID'S TALE but with an excellent, closely-knit core ensemble. Structurally, I felt like it was very well paced too.
- We also started watching THE LEFTOVERS (which also features Ann Dowd, aka Aunt Lydia from HANDMAID/TESTAMENTS) and which is, phew, pretty full-on TV. Only a couple of episodes watched so far but we're enjoying it.
- We watched MAYDAY on Apple TV, which I thought would be a fairly hum-drum Ryan Reynolds vehicle, but was actually a very funny and innovatively shot slice of Cold War drama-comedy about a Blackbird pilot shot down inside the Soviet Union. I described the visual style to Valerie as 'Combat Wes Anderson' and I stand by that. Recommended.
- We also watched H IS FOR HAWK and likewise really enjoyed it. I haven't read the book, but Valerie has, and she felt it was a pretty faithful rendering. Claire Foy was superb.
- We also watched GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE, which was hilarious and actually a pretty effective piece of speculative fiction, with time loops, AI, predestination and all kinds of things threaded along a very effective core plot. Sam Rockwell carries the film, but the ensemble cast along with him are all excellent, with Juno Temple and Haley Lu Richardson particularly strong.
Playing
Staying down in cowboy town...
- I've continued playing RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2, though I'm going through it very, very slowly. Not a lot of gaming time this month, but when I do fancy some, a bit of poker playing, the odd mission and a lot of riding around in the wilderness has been about my speed. Sometimes a bit of comfort gaming is what you need.
Clickety-click, here's some links:
- Why you're not writing - a good overview of common reasons you slow down or stop your writing practice.
- How to make a bestseller from the Guardian - it's a clickbaity title, but it's also a good overview of many of the mechanics of the industry.
- A good piece from Micaiah Johnson about SF fandom and writing careers - Is there a wrong way to chase your dreams?
- The makers of Scrivener are putting many of their webinars on Youtube for free! Very well worth a watch if you're a Scrivener newbie or a veteran.
- Simple web tools for doing useful things, with no registration, ads or spyware.
- Eleven unapologetic ways to ask to be paid, from The Itch Of Writing.
- Very pleased to be included in this article on Crime Fiction Lover about series to read if you like Mick Herron's Slough House series.
It's kind of hard to believe that we're entering the final quarter of the year already. I am enjoying the average temperature dropping a little, and the nights drawing in. I like the long days in the summer, but I'm an autumn/spring boy at heart, when things are in flux and the woods and sea are startlingly different from day to day.
I've been travelling so much (and ill when not travelling) that I'm feeling a little bit dislocated and I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks of being at home and getting out for my morning walks (as soon as I stop this damn coughing). The leaves have started to turn dramatically since I was last out and I want to get into the woods before they're entirely bare and grey for the winter.
October is going to be another busy but fragmented month, with no events but hopefully some writing, some reading and a long trip in the middle of the month that I'm really looking forward to. I've got copyedits to do, friends to see, family to hang out with and more, and I'm fairly sure I'm going to blink and find myself at the end of another year.
In the meantime, though, I'm doing what I can, as well as I can. Perhaps 2027 is the year I will say no to a few more things. Probably not though.
I hope you're heading into spooky season with warm jumpers, soup and fresh, cold air on your mind. I know I am.
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.