Daynote - Mon 2nd Sep 2024
Hey, it's me, in the FT!
Well, this was very nice to wake up to! My novel has been included in the September thriller roundup from the Financial Times, and in the first slot too! Review here.
This is my first national press review and I'm really, really happy with it. I've been crossing my fingers that we'd get a few reviews before the launch date. Newspaper reviewers are, of course, absolutely deluged with new books every month, so it's never guaranteed that you're going to get any coverage. But by the good offices of my publicist Ollie at Headline, we've started out really strong. I'm hoping there'll be a few more in our near future!
ON DECK: More drafting this morning - got up a bit late, so I got 569 words on the PROJECT SCARLET sample. And, as I often do before starting, I re-read my draft from Friday and discovered it was nowhere near as bad or as clunky as it felt when I was writing. I often do this - a quick skip back a scene or two, then a quick line edit to get my head back in the game. It's especially useful when I've ended on a big scene beat and have to start cold in a new scene.
I'm hoping for a nice solid week of drafting this week. I'll also hopefully pick up speed as the week goes on. If I can clear 6-8k by the end of the week I'll be pretty happy, because that means I'm in with a decent chance of hitting my target for the sample before release day (thanks to a couple of long train journeys going to and from Brighton to sign all the Goldsboro special editions). Trains are my happy place for drafting.
LISTENING: Listened to the latest edition of the Hypnagogue Podcast this morning. Excellent stuff.
WATCHING: I caught ALIEN: ROMULUS at the weekend. Really enjoyed it. It is definitely worth seeing on the big screen. Various critics have carped about it being a Gen Z remix of better films but I disagree. It is pretty heavy on the callbacks (visually, in plot beats and a lot in dialogue) but those callbacks are executed very well and with the exception of one line which I thought was overdoing it, were mostly just easter eggs for the superfans.
The one thing it really had going for it was that it was a competent, well-executed piece of cinema. So many of the more recent Alien franchise films (and big screen SF in general) have suffered real issues with pacing, nonsensical plotting, awful dialogue and so on. ROMULUS has a likeable cast, examines and re-examines some of the persistent themes of the earlier films and looks absolutely gorgeous while doing it. Heartily recommended.
READING: I'm still working on NINTH LIFE (read a bit in the sun over the weekend) and still agog at how good it is.
UP NEXT: Sample drafting for the rest of this week. And with ten days to go until the book comes out, a steady drumbeat of promo activities. I knocked off a few small writing tasks related to promo over the weekend, which felt great. And I'll be doing that this week too.