Daynote - Fri 15 Nov

For various reasons I haven't been out on my morning walk for a couple of months and it's been driving me crackers. Thankfully said reasons are now no longer a factor. Can't wait to get back into the woods next week.

ON DECK: In the meantime, I've been doing a bit of critique reading. Some mornings, I crack open an active project, look at it, and my brain nopes out, which it did this morning. I used to go into a big existential angst spiral back in the day when this happened and sometimes fall off the writing wagon for days or weeks. These days, I just redirect it into admin and stuff I've promised to other people.

I think this is one of the little benefits of being a working writer with a strong writing community. You've always got something else you can do in your writing time for those days when the brain just isn't braining. This morning, I did some crit reading for a friend, for example. The issue only comes if that becomes a habit or pattern and you end up doing nothing but writing-adjacent work and never get back to the words. But I'll be back on it on Monday.

Last night I also booked accommodation for both Harrogate and Bloody Scotland, so that makes three crime writing festivals I'll be at next year, including Capital Crime! It may seem early, but rooms are already scarce in both places, so if you're thinking about it, I'd book a refundable room sooner rather than later.

TOOLS: Retooled my Things 3 structures, mostly to heavily simplify them. I tend to get over-focused on putting things in little boxes (i.e. having very granular areas and projects and lists) and the extra friction this adds means I stop putting everything in the system, which undermines the system as an external reference for all the shit I need to do. Now I've got three big areas (Personal, Home and Writing) and most tasks go straight into the areas, only rising to become projects if they are multi-step (i.e. an actual project). Seems to be working well.

LISTENING: The Page One Podcast guys have started doing little 15 minute craft/industry chats under the name 'Draft Notes' and they're great. Here's the latest one.

WATCHING: We've been watching the new season of WOLF HALL, called THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT and wow. It's just as compelling as the first season. There's a part of my brain that says 'people standing around mostly just talking in period costumes shouldn't hold my attention this much' but the actors are universally superb. Mark Rylance in particular.

READING: I started properly on THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW by I.S. Berry last night. Ilana very kindly blurbed A RELUCTANT SPY and now that I'm actually getting the chance to read her book, that blurb means even more - the prose and sense of place is superb.

UP NEXT: I'm in a little waiting period (likely at least a week, possibly three or four weeks) and there's two other projects I can work on, one short, one novel-length. But the amount of actual work on both is roughly equal (a heavy rewrite of a short story versus a medium-sized rewrite of some aspects of a big novel). I'll probably work on the novel first, since my agent is waiting for that. I might get lucky and finish it before Decisions Are Made on PROJECT SCARLET. We shall see.