Daynote - Fri 10 Jan
Continued brrr.
It continues to be pretty chilly here in Scotland. No snow where I live in the South East of the country, but plenty further north. Mostly it's just pretty frosty. I didn't get out for a walk this morning as I had an early appointment, but I'm back home now and warmly ensconced for the day.
Last night I appeared on my first radio show, on the 'Hoot and Holler' drivetime show with Ed McKeon. Ed's show features interviews with writers about the music they listen to, as well as interviews with musicians about the books they read. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed meeting Ed and chatting on the radio. You can listen at the link above for the next couple of weeks.
ON DECK: I got some writing done before I headed out to my appointment this morning, a cheeky 1,141 words and most of another scene written. This was another research-heavy session, but I made good progress above. It's also mostly chess piece positioning for an upcoming action sequence, which I can sometimes find a bit frustrating to write because I'm champing at the bit to get to the exciting bit. But the secret for me is realising the lead-up to a set piece can sometimes be just as exciting, if you lean into the slow-building tension of knowing what's coming.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: I've been farting around with various audio tools as part of my podcasting adventures recently and I just upgraded to the latest version of Rogue Amoeba's amazing Audio Hijack tool. It's fantastic for grabbing audio from different applications, combining streams and so on. It's basically a recording Swiss Army knife. Highly recommended.
LISTENING: I really enjoyed this Crimetime FM episode with US author Wes Browne, who writes literary crime set in North Carolina. Fantastic interview.
WATCHING: We watched the last episode of WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS last night. Perfect, wonderfully meta ending. In my teens I used to do sound crew stuff for youth theatre groups, and it was always an intense month or so when a show was on. I can only imagine how it must feel to end a six or seven year run of a TV show. And it's so cool that they were able to use the mockumentary format of the show to talk about how that feels.
READING: Continuing with MK Hardy's 'boat book' beta read and having a great time. I'm hoping to finish it over the weekend.
LINK: Very excited to get an email this morning confirming I'm now live on the Scottish Book Trust's Live Literature author directory! The directory is a key resource for anyone organising literary events, courses and more across Scotland, because it lets them know who might be available to speak, run courses or otherwise get involved. I'm really excited to be listed, because I really enjoy public speaking, running workshops and teaching and I'm hoping this will give me opportunities to do more of all three.
UP NEXT: Just chugging along on the PROJECT SCARLET draft. And very happy about it too.
Onward!