Daynote - Mon 24 Feb

A gorgeous morning today - a tiny bit chillier than last week, but after the high winds and drizzle of the weekend, starting the week with sunshine and fluffy clouds was very welcome indeed. Plus I got greeted at the beach by two tail-wagging labradors fresh out of the sea (morning Flash and Poppy) who really wanted to show me their amazing sticks.

ON DECK: A solid writing morning today. I got 1,881 words, which was a little less than the roughly 2k I managed in bits and pieces on Friday. But it was a good scene that I enjoyed writing, unlike the teeth-pulling of Friday. So I'm pretty happy with it.

No events during the week this week, but on Saturday I will be off to the Luna Press birthday party, which I'm really looking forward to. And this will be the 9th anniversary of the founding of the press, which is quite something.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I had a pretty rough time writing on Friday. Napier University was great and I really enjoyed my second workshop with the MA course there, but I drank way too much coffee before and after, the weather in town was awful and I ended up getting 300 words here, 400 words there on transport and while waiting and then a bit once I got home. As a result, while I got the words I needed to, I never really warmed up and got into it.

I have definitely experienced a good writing flow when I'm out and about, but it seems the common factor for me is time - whether I have a good chunk of time at home or if I sit in a library or cafe and get into it, if I have at least an hour, I'll get going and feel good about it. But when I'm wired on too much coffee, a bit damp from drizzle and distracted by keeping half an eye on the train timetable, it's pretty hard to get into that flow. But then, this is why I try these things out from time to time. I think it's always a good idea to try out new contexts and lengths of time and other factors to see if something works for you or not. So I can now definitely verify that 30 minute bursts, when damp and distracted in train stations, don't work for me.

Stay tuned for more extremely obvious writing process insights.

LISTENING: I loved this episode of The Real Writing Process with M R (Mike) Carey, writer of HELLBLAZER, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS and the excellent Ramparts trilogy among many other things. Fascinating stuff.

WATCHING: More of THE DIPLOMAT over the weekend. Rory Kinnear is excellent in it. Also watched THE GORGE (a film with an, uh, abrupt tonal shift at the midpoint, that I enjoyed but Valerie didn't) and RENFIELD, which was tonally consistent, that tone being joyously OTT.

READING: I'm approaching the end of THE TYRANNY OF FAITH by Richard Swan and it's really excellent. A much broader scope than the first novel in the series and a bigger cast of characters, but held together very well by Richard's intricate plotting. I think I will read something else before jumping into the third part though, because I want to let this book sit in the back of my brain for a bit before I finish the trilogy.

LINK: I enjoyed this Bluesky thread at the weekend about the (return of) sprayed edges in the book production world - apparently they were big in the Fifties and Sixties (because they hid the yellowing of cheap paper) but used toxic dyes, so the practice went away, but they came back in the early 2000s for a special edition paperback of WICKED. Fascinating to see how a single book reintroduced a production trend that's still going twenty plus years later.

UP NEXT: A week of drafting lies ahead. I cracked 90k this morning, so I'm very definitely in the final furlong of this book's first draft. There's only really one big set piece left to write, but to get to that point I need to do some more chess piece positioning and start the buildup to the final big scene. And along the way, there's a bunch of smaller exciting things that also need to happen.

I have a habit of getting a bit fixated on finishing the draft and putting in longer hours towards the end, but we'll see how things shake out.

Onward!