Daynote - Tue 18 Feb

Not my picture, again, but the same kind of deer that I see most mornings. Five of them today, in fact, standing out in the middle of a field looking a bit non-plussed at the white stuff falling out of the sky. Just a scattering of snow, but it was a chilly walk. Lots of cawing crows and a swooping buzzard through the trees too, for that truly chilly February Tuesday feel.

I really do need to get that camera charged and take some of my own pictures. I see some incredible things on my morning walks.

ON DECK: A very creditable 2,367 this morning, courtesy of another late start (which makes me write faster), late finish (which lets me write longer) and some fairly dialogue and internality heavy scenes, which I can quite often write pretty fast.

The slowest scenes for me these days are the ones set in real places, because I do a lot of checking as I go to make sure I've got the details right. Sometimes that can mean a ten minute hard stop to the drafting to double check the fact that a bus journey takes thirty five minutes instead of forty. But it's important to me to not just guess these things, otherwise I'll end up taking forever to match up timelines and edit everything into coherence. By contrast, when I'm just writing a character's thoughts as they deal with something, it's much more fluid, because you don't need to fact-check a character doubting themselves.

Also got a contract through for something yesterday, which was very, very exciting. I'll hopefully be able to talk about that soon.

LISTENING: I'm very much enjoying (fellow Headline author) Dom Nolan's current round of interviews he's doing for his new book WHITE CITY, and his appearance on Nadine Matheson's 'The Conversation' podcast doesn't disappoint.

WATCHING: Bit of GLADIATORS last night for fun (it's such a Nineties throwback and I love it) followed by a new episode of MYTHIC QUEST on Apple TV, which has a new season I was unaware of. It continues to be very funny.

READING: More of Richard Swan's THE TYRANNY OF FAITH last night, including some stomach-lurching violence. Big city politics is a dangerous game indeed.

LINK: If you're a querying crime writer, here's a wee reminder that Alessandra Ranelli (whose debut MURDER AT THE HOTEL ORIENT comes out next year) is running a Killer Twist Pitch Prize. It's free to enter and the (incredibly generous) prize is a four day pass to Harrogate Crime Festival plus hotel stay, as well as a pitch revision, query review and two coaching sessions from Alessandra. Twelve days left to enter!

UP NEXT: The week continues apace and I'm still feeling a bit wobbly about the sheer number of things I need to do with my remaining word count for PROJECT SCARLET. I'm going to blow past the planned word count fairly soon I think. But the story needs what it needs in the first telling, and no doubt I'll find pages and pages of stuff I can safely excise when it comes time to edit.

Onward!