Daynote - Thu 16 Jan

This is not a beach in East Lothian, because I don't carry a phone or camera with me on my morning walks, but this was definitely the vibe. One of those mornings where half the dog walkers you meet are just stopped, staring at the sky. It was beautiful.

ON DECK: I've finally reached the exciting bit of the current chunk of PROJECT SCARLET, and I always start to write faster when I get to an action scene. That netted me 1,726 words this morning and a total word count of just over 35k, which is right where I want to be, approaching the end of Part 2.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I'm on several writer Discords and a perennial conversation is about what to use to manage websites and newsletters. I've been happily using Ghost for both since late last year very happily. It's a paid product, but affordable and has saved me a huge amount of time and manual effort compared to my previous solution, which was using the (great) Markdown-based blogging tool Blot.im and the (also great) Markdown newsletter tool Buttondown.

Because I post a lot and write a monthly newsletter, it made sense for me to consolidate on Ghost, since I was about to pass into the paid tier of Buttondown and they cost the same for sending newsletters alone as Ghost costs for both site and newsletter. And it is a lot easier than manually copying and pasting Markdown between Blot and Buttondown, which was fraught with chances for user error.

If I was operating on low/no budget, I'd probably be using something like Jekyll and Github Sites for free (as I have in the past), but I'm on the nerdier end when it comes to blogging. A great alternative for a cheap/free static site is Carrd.co. I think for most writers, the cost and capabilities of something like Squarespace or Wix is overkill.

If you do want to blog a lot, and/or write a newsletter, then I can't recommend Ghost enough.

LISTENING: I really enjoyed this interview with TM Logan by Victoria Selman on Crimetime FM.

WATCHING: If there's one thing I enjoy it's someone using their in-depth professional knowledge to do a deep dive into something faintly absurd, which is why this incredibly detailed analysis of how a battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment would set about defending Helm's Deep with modern weapons and defensive tactics was a lot of fun. Warning - it does not end well for the Uruk Hai.

READING: I hit the halfway mark on MK Hardy's boat book beta read yesterday and it is so good. I am very, very invested in what happens next.

LINK: If you're a published writer based in or around Edinburgh or Midlothian, the Pentlands Book Festival has an open call for speakers. I'll be submitting, so maybe I'll see you there!

UP NEXT: I hit my rough writing goal of 6k for the week this morning, so I'm in the 'all gravy' zone of writing. Hopefully I'll nudge over 7k and possibly even 8k tomorrow for the week on PROJECT SCARLET. It's lovely just barrelling ahead on a single project and getting serious progress made.

Onward!