Daynote - Mon 11 Nov
A very nice start to the morning today - my episode of The Read and Buried Podcast is now live!
I met Frankie at Harrogate Crime Festival this past summer, then spent the intervening months listening to her podcast's fantastic backlog of interviews. I really enjoyed this interview too, especially the question about what I'd have for my last meal.
ON DECK: No actual words written this morning, but I did 1,612 yesterday as I finished a second edit of the sample for PROJECT SCARLET. Hence the postbox above. While pressing send on an email doesn't have quite the same sense of finality and achievement as physically mailing a manuscript, I'm glad not to be trusting sole copies of my work to the postal system like writers of yore had to do.
This morning I was doing basically a bunch of admin - writing up my notes for an edit on another book, writing a blurb for a book I finished last night (see below) and putting together social posts for tomorrow, which will mark TWO MONTHS since A RELUCTANT SPY came out. Which is wild.
TOOLS: I'm really enjoying the setup process for Forever Notes, although there's a slightly laborious interlinking exercise required to use the daily notes part of the system. But I'm just doing a month or two at a time and it's going pretty quick.
LISTENING: Rather enjoyed this discussion with Joe Monti of Saga Press over at the Coode Street Podcast.
WATCHING: We've been watching DAY OF THE JACKAL and we're eagerly awaiting the second batch of five episodes, which I think comes out on Thursday. I'm particularly interested in this show because it's made by Carnival Films, who are the production company that have the tv option for A RELUCTANT SPY. Suffice to say watching this show I've been very much reassured that my book is in the right hands - DAY OF THE JACKAL is excellent. Highly recommended.
While we wait for the second half of that, we're also watching the second season of ARCANE, which is just as visually stunning and well-written as the first. Our enjoyment is somewhat muted by the news that Netflix has already decided not to make a third series. Not sure what the thinking is there, to be honest. I think sometimes there is such a thing as too much metrics.
READING: I finished DEATH IN THE ARCTIC last night and really enjoyed it. If you're a fan of Golden Age murder mysteries but also enjoy the shenanigans of modern murder mysteries like Glass Onion, you'll love this. Tom kept me guessing throughout and the finale was a proper nail-biter. It's out on January 16th in hardback.
UP NEXT: With admin complete and a call not scheduled to discuss SCARLET until later this week, I'll be diving into PROJECT SHARD for a couple of days to make some progress on edits. Then, depending on outcomes of various conversations, perhaps on to something else.