Daynote - Fri 28 Mar
A long day after a great night.
Dragging myself through some appointments in town today after a phenomenal launch for Nick Binge's new novel DISSOLUTION, at Leith Arches. Unlike the traditional Q&A, reading and some wine from plastic cups (a tried and tested formula, but also one that could stand to be challenged occasionally), Nick had an amazing evening with communal art, a raffle and a whole lot of great discussion with fellow authors, readers and fans.
Leith Arches is a really great venue and the whole thing was put together by the fantastic local indie Argonaut Books.
With all proceeds going to Alzheimer's Scotland, it was a wonderful and affirming event, which reinforced once again for me how strong the bookish community is in Scotland.
ON DECK: I am between two appointments and halfway through an absolutely monstrous chicken sandwich, but after I've put that away I'll spend an hour or so on my edits. No word count yet, positive or negative, but its finally time to tackle the first draft text (everything up to now has been second or third draft. Wish me luck.
Edit: I got 1,016 words cut in a cafe and a couple of train rides, for a total of nearly 4k cut this week. Happy with that.
LISTENING: I'm a big fan of the American writer, walker, memoirist and photographer Craig Mod, who has lived and worked in Japan for the past 25 years and built a very singular career based around long walks, in Japan and elsewhere. I'm about halfway through a pair of long interviews he's done with Tim Ferriss that are really, really great. Most of it isn't new to me as I've been following his work for some time, but he's still a very engaging interview subject. Here's the first episode.
READING: More GOGMAGOG on the train last night. This continues to astonish me in just how weird and yet wonderfully coherent and compelling it can get.
LINK: Just in case you missed it, I got to announce my first ever book festival panel yesterday! I'll be appearing at Capital Crime 2025 on Friday 13th June.
UP NEXT: More editing! It's going to be this way for a while. But PROJECT SCARLET is coming together. Onward!