Daynote - Thu 7 Nov

Back to it this morning, and the sun is shining, which is helpful for my mood. For various reasons I'm not getting out for my morning walks at the moment, but we're still having some sunny late autumn mornings, which is a consolation.

I was very pleased today to see that SHOTS Magazine, which is a very popular crime and thriller ezine, posted my article about the power of outsiders in spy fiction.

ON DECK: A slim 20 words in aggregate this morning, with a lot of drafting and a lot of cutting. I'm trying to work out how to structure and re-order some scenes, as well as reinserting a viewpoint I'd previously cut. That was fine and easy with new scenes from that viewpoint, but now I also have existing scenes that I switched to another character. So I'm trying to decide whether to switch them back (which I'd need to do manually, since they've been heavily edited) or just let the sample get a bit longer and write some new ones. Decisions, decisions.

TOOLS: I'm an aspirational note-taker - I have hundreds of fragmented notes spread out across Apple Notes, Obsidian and Notion (as well as squirrelled away in other apps I've tried over the years like Noteplan, Bear, Agenda, The Archive etc). A while ago, I tried to split out my writing-related notes into Obsidian, which worked pretty well, except I haven't maintained it and it's now a complete mess, of course. And sometimes I need to find historical things that I've left in Notion. And increasingly, I jot random stuff down in Apple Notes because it's there and syncs between my devices. So, it's a mess.

The older I get, the more I'm attracted to simplicity. I've thought about consolidating everything in Apple Notes for ages, but have been hesitant because of some of the more powerful features in apps like Obsidian. And I've never really known where to start with reorganising everything. So I was delighted to come across the Forever Notes framework, which is a way of setting up your Apple Notes (or any note-taking app that supports tags, internal links and smart folders) to make it much easier to find things.

As with all of these things, there's a time and effort cost to doing the consolidation work, but I think I'm going to give it a go.

LISTENING: Really enjoyed this Crimetime FM interview with Dominic Nolan, whose new book WHITE CITY comes out today. Dom and I share an editor (Toby Jones at Headline) so it's extra fascinating to me to hear another writer's experience of working with him.

WATCHING: We finished AGATHA ALL ALONG last night (excellent) then caught up on BAKE OFF (soothing).

READING: Bit more DEATH IN THE ARCTIC. Still no idea who the killer is.

UP NEXT: Heavy edits on SCARLET tomorrow, possibly a bit over the weekend, then finishing it up next week. It's definitely taking longer than I'd hoped, but then it often does.