Daynote - Mon 14 Oct
Mid-October and all's well.
A very fine day today, first frost on the grass and not a cloud in the sky. I was a bit ill on Thursday, Friday and Saturday so I lost a couple of days of writing time, but with the tactical application of Beechams and a lot of sleep, I'm feeling much better now. And my wife is back from the US, which is wonderful. The house has been very quiet for the last three weeks, so it's lovely to have her home.
On Saturday, I was also astonished to note that A RELUCTANT SPY has been out for a month.
ON DECK: A decent 823 words this morning. I've done the easy bits of my edit on the PROJECT SCARLET sample and I'm now threading in some new elements to existing scenes, as well as writing the odd additional short scene. It's not particularly complex but it is taking me a little while to plan and write it. Hopefully I'll finish that work tomorrow and then have time on Wednesday and Thursday while travelling to line-edit the whole thing for consistency and continuity.
Yesterday I also recorded a podcast with Chloe Timms from Confessions of a Debut Novelist, which was a delight. That should be out in the next couple of weeks.
LISTENING: I was listening to a bit of Stan Getz this morning. Lovely stuff.
WATCHING: Now that Valerie's back, we jumped back into SLOW HORSES yesterday. I continue to be fascinated with how they've changed the TV show from the source novel for this series, SPOOK STREET. It reminded me of this great interview with Will Smith (no, not that Will Smith, the other one) who is the showrunner for SLOW HORSES, which is well worth your time.
READING: Read a couple of chapters of OVER THE RIVER last night. Now there's a weird bear. It's getting very spooky.
UP NEXT: I have some work travel coming up, so I'll try to get the heavy lifting done on SCARLET before I hit the road. Trains and lounges are excellent places to do line editing, but not so much heavy rewrite work, in my experience. And then, next week, something new, I think.