Once more into the breach town. I'm really missing my morning walks in the woods, I must say. Tramping up to the station in the dark and rain is not quite the same. And any day that starts under fluorescent light is unlikely to be a great one, in my experience.
Still, it's nice to see the castle and the Scott Monument and all the other things tourists come thousands of miles to see. Every so often I do need a wee reminder that I live very close to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
ON DECK: Doing the old one-two home/coffee shop edit again this morning. No train cancellations for once, which is nice. I got through three scenes this morning, that became four when I split a long-ish scene up with a new interstitial. But I also did a lot of cutting, getting a nice -822 words. Again, a couple of scenes I thought were pretty tight and focused already proved... not to be, on closer examination.
TOOLS AND PROCESS: As I'm editing, I've had cause to double check some of the dates and timelines for the book (especially as I'm removing some scenes and adding others, which change the order things happen in. I'd be completely lost without Aeon Timeline. I've recommended it before, but it's one of those pieces of software that I silently thank the universe for every time I use it. If you write anything with detailed or parallel timelines, it's absolutely essential in my view.
LISTENING: I enjoyed this episode of the Write and Wrong Podcast with Travis Baldtree (of 'Legends and Lattes' fame).
WATCHING: We finished WOLF HALL last night. Spectacular. Some of the best and most cutting dialogue I've ever heard, beautifully acted. More brutal than any CGI-slugfest.
READING: Back to THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW yesterday and this morning. It has very definitely kicked off, narratively. The slow, sinking inexorability of the protagonist's doom is really, really well done.
LINK: Very, very happy to see both my critique partner Nick Binge and my agency sibling Ed Crocker appearing on the Goodreads Most Anticipated Books of 2025 list, for DISSOLUTION and LIGHTFALL respectively. Congratulations to both of them.
UP NEXT: We're very, very close to an agreement on something, but I'm powering ahead with SHARD edits in the meantime. I really, really want to square it away this week and I think I can, if I'm consistent about getting edits done in the morning. It might bleed over a tiny bit into my time off at the end of the year, but I'm fairly determined to take an actual break as much as possible, so I'm going to go hard at it this week with the objective of saving my Xmas break from my own workload. Which is a significant motivation. Onward!