Daynote - Fri 13 Dec

Happy Friday the 13th to those who celebrate. And for those who worry, it's just a date. It'll be fine.

Back into town again today. More reading and writing on trains and in cafes before and after things. I've been experimenting with taking different trains at different times to get the best balance of 'be in the right area at the right time' and 'don't spend all of my money on coffee and croissants'. Think I've nailed it now.

ON DECK: A solid couple of hours this morning between home and town, and exactly -500 words on SHARD. I confess I may have deliberately cut a couple of extraneous 'that' and 'And' words to get the nice round number. And I think I'm about 45% done now. Still haven't written any really substantial new scenes or words, but most of that is coming up in the second half.

Also, exciting emails and an amazing gift arrived yesterday, which I'll post about soon.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I've been eyeing up various e-ink tablets for the past couple of years, trying to decide if they'd work well with my review and editing process. The latest version of Supernote's tablet, the A5X2 Manta, came out yesterday. It does look perfect for what I want to do, which is to take handwritten notes and to review ePubs and PDFs of book drafts, taking detailed notes on them that aren't an overlay like most PDF reader apps on iPads and so on. Supernote's Digest feature seems like a great implementation of this and I've been really impressed the couple of times I've got to play with one of these devices. It would allow me to read and mark up, but then have a ready-made list of changes (along with referenced text so I could find it in Scrivener) at the end. I kind of already do this, awkwardly and manually, with my Kobo. I'd love to be able to do it with a stylus and more detail in my notes.

But oof, the price and shipping is prohibitive in the UK. Maybe next year, once the early production run bugs are ironed out.

LISTENING: Really enjoyed this episode of The Author Burnout Cure about essential skills for debut authors. I'm not often a fan of 'one person talking for 45 minutes' style podcasts, but Isabel's is an exception. Great advice, delivered really well.

WATCHING: We caught the finale of DAY OF THE JACKAL last night and, well, I did not see the end coming at all. My biggest question was always going to be how they'd finish out the series given the fairly radical departures from the source material and it genuinely took me by surprise, which in the days of pretty predictable streaming pablum designed to be watched with your phone in your hand, is kind of an achievement. Plus, it looked good doing it and very clearly set up a second season, which I'm near-certain they'll get based on the success of the first.

READING: In the last quarter now of JUSTICE OF KINGS, so I suspect I'll finish it today. It's building up to a big speech, I can feel it. After that, I've got a beta read I'm excited to jump into.

LINK: I've linked to this before, but I had cause to find it again yesterday when a friend was looking for resources as they stared down the barrel of their own debut year - how to talk about your book ahead of publication.

UP NEXT: I'll be back in town next week, so there will be more cafe posting in store. The Decisions being made seem to be coming to a conclusion, so I may well be embarking on a novel draft in the last full working week of the year, which is kind of exciting. I'm also determined to finish my SHARD edit before Christmas, so I will likely do both next week - editing on SHARD while I do the detailed micro-outlining I need to launch into drafting SCARLET.