What I'm up to - August 2024

I was expecting August to be pretty quiet, WorldCon aside. Reader, it was not.

New work and submissions

I mean, the big news is my novel is coming out in less than two weeks. But if you follow me on any social media platform or read my blog, this will not be news to you.

One extremely cool thing that happened in August, however, was the announcement going live for Goldsboro Book's new Crime Collective subscription box. I'm still slightly astonished to tell you that my book, A Reluctant Spy has been selected as the launch title for the box. Which is, well, amazing.

In just over a week's time, I'll be heading down to Brighton to the Goldsboro warehouse to sign every single copy. I've been practicing my signature and also trying to convince myself that this is actually a thing I'm going to get to do. It's definitely one of the steps on this journey that I've dreamed about, and here we are. Subscribe to my blog or follow me on social media to see pics from the day.

A few people have asked whether special edition copies will be available directly from Goldsboro, rather than through the subscription box. If you head to this page on the Goldsboro website, you can sign up to be notified if there are any copies left once the subscriptions have gone out. No guarantees though!

I also had a couple of stories out this August. The first was my story 'New Town' in Nova Scotia: Vol 2, which came out just before WorldCon in Glasgow (more on that below). I managed to attend the second half of the launch and signing at WorldCon and got to sign books for the first time! It was awesome.

The next story is 'Best Practices for Safe Asteroid Handling', a novelette in the September/October issue of Analog. As Analog is a print magazine, it actually comes out a couple of weeks before the cover date, so I'm going to count it as an August release. This was a really fun story to write and one with an unusual inspiration, which you can read more about in this blog post. I've also got a post coming on Analog's website in the next couple of weeks going into more detail.

Writing and editing

August was a pretty light month on the making words front.

Before heading to WorldCon (see below) I did some re-outlining for PROJECT SCARLET, the potential next instalment in the Legends series. I finished that before going to WorldCon, which was a relief. After WorldCon I was ill for a few days (not Covid, thankfully) and then took a week off, so pretty much zero words got written between August 8th and August 25th.

But once I was back from my time off, I decided I wanted to clear the decks of half-done projects, so I finished my latest novelette, Ridealong, then dived into the sample for PROJECT SCARLET. Collectively, all of this added up to 12,824 words across the outline, sample and the novelette. Not nothing, but a light month for me.

However, I did finish things, and that matters a lot. Now I have a completed outline for a new book, ready to go to my editor along with the sample (which I hope to finish before my book launch). And I have a new piece of short fiction that I can edit and get out on submission to SF magazines. That's particularly welcome because, while I've had three pieces come out since January, I haven't actually written or submitted anything this year and that makes me kind of twitchy. All three of those stories were written and sold last year.

Publishing and community

Two big things to talk about in August. The first is WorldCon, which was an absolutely wonderful experience. I will probably write a longer con report post at some point, but this was my first ever WorldCon and wow, did it deliver on (and exceed) my expectations.

I've never actually been to the SEC before and I was kind of unprepared for just how large it is. Which was a good thing, considering the over 7,000 attendees from all over the world. I honestly feel like I barely scratched the surface of the con, because there were so many things to see and do, but I ran a workshop on critique groups with my friend Nick Binge and I took part in an INCREDIBLE book hype party with eight other authors from Edinburgh SFF. Not all of us have books actually out yet (including me) but the party had wine, soft drinks, book muffins with our covers on them, the works. And we each got to stand up and pitch our book to the more than a hundred people who came along.

That's something I didn't really realise about WorldCon - when you have seven thousand people rolling around a huge convention for five straight days, it only takes 1.5% of them to say 'oh, that looks cool' and you suddenly have a hundred people in a room. It was an incredible event. Huge thanks to Raine Wilson for being the motivating force behind the event and doing the lion's share of the initial organisation, as well as the other participating authors and ESFF members who pitched in to get drinks, design social media graphics, print flyers, lug around speakers and clean up afterwards. It was a really wonderful book community moment and made me (once again) incredibly happy to have found my bookish people.

Reading

It's been another light reading month, with WorldCon and launch prep eating up a lot of time and energy. But I started one book I'm particularly keen to recommend.

• Ninth Life by Stark Holborn - I've talked before in various places about how the first book in this series kicked me out of a years-long reading slump and was a big part of inspiring me to finally figure out how to make writing a much bigger part of my life. The second book was equally good and so far this third one is a tour-de-force. It is playing with form and structure and pacing and paratexts in a way that I really, really love. Highly recommended.

Doing

My week off was very, very nice and almost entirely devoid of screen time, which was very welcome. Probably the biggest thing I did that week was a bookshop tour in Edinburgh. It was great fun and a big morale boost, and I got to meet lots of really lovely, friendly booksellers.

The other big thing I did with my week off was completely reorganising my office. On work days I spend a solid 10 hours a day in there (80% day job, 20% writing and ancillary activities) and previously my desk faced the window, which I belatedly realised was contributing to quite painful eye strain, especially in the longer days of summer. So now I've rotated everything around 90 degrees and squeezed an additional bookshelf in as well, which should make a huge difference. I've been working in there this week and it feels way better.

Planning

I mean... tomorrow it's finally my launch month. It's finally here. So there's a LOT on. I'm starting the month with a week of drafting, to try and get a substantial chunk of my SCARLET sample written before things really kick up a gear.

Then I have a week off for my launch, which starts with a two day trip to London and Brighton to sign stock, followed by the launch itself!

The event is SOLD OUT online (which is still gobsmacking to me), but there should be 4-5 tickets available on the door for latecomers as we kept a few back. And if you can't get a ticket, you are very welcome to join us for celebratory drinks afterwards. We've booked the side room at McGonagall's from 8:30pm.

The next day, Valerie and I will be heading to the Bloody Scotland crime and thriller book festival in Stirling, where I will be reading on Saturday before Frank Gardner's event (1pm at the Albert Halls). I'll be there all weekend, so if you're going and you see me, please do say hello.

After that there's podcast recordings, family birthdays and plenty of other things to hopefully distract me from what I expect to be a fairly brutal post-launch crash. But, as I keep telling myself, launch day isn't the finish line for this book - it's the starting gun. I'm going to be talking about Jamie and the Legends Programme for a good long time yet.

Linking

A fresh wheelbarrow of web for you.

• This review by Adrian Hon really made me want to try the immersive in-person roleplaying game Bridge Command. You even get a uniform!
• Some good advice from Marie Vibbert on how to get onto panels at conventions
• Loved this blog post from George Sandison on how the dynamic between sales teams and editorial works in the publishing world
• A great interview with Sarah L Brooks on the indispensable 'Confessions of a Debut Novelist' podcast.
• This post from Kate Heartfield about her experience of working with the same agent for ten years is a fascinating insight into persistence and the value of creative partnership.
• Rather enjoyed this post on the SFWA blog about alternative writing tools like e-ink tablets and distraction-free drafting devices like the Freewrite.

I told you it was a lot!

And I've no reason to believe next month will be any less of A Lot. I always knew August and September were going to be busy, from the moment I had my launch date confirmed. But I feel mostly like I'm prepared?

In any case, autumn has arrived with a vengeance round our way. The summer seemed to just sort of... give up a few days ago and the mornings this last couple of days have been crisp and clear, with a few lingering moments of warmth in the afternoon. I've been too busy and frazzled to enjoy our garden much in August, but I'm hoping we get a few dry, clear days in September to do a bit of quiet sitting out there. And even in my launch week, I'm going to try and get out for my morning walk and keep working on the next book.

This year has felt both endless and instantaneous. It feels like a bare minute ago that the new year arrived and I thought to myself 'well, here we go'. And here, indeed, we are.

I hope wherever you're reading this you've had a good summer and you're looking forward to shrugging on a jumper or two and crunching some leaves underfoot. I'll see you in a month (or before if you're coming to the launch!) and I hope to have some stories to tell.

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, Instagram or Twitter, or send me a message on my contact form.