Daynote - Tue 8 Apr
My first book club visit and a much better mood.
Well, my day took quite a turn, yesterday, after a very grumpy daynote.
I was so grumpy, in fact, that I completely forgot to mention that I was going to my first ever book club visit, with the 'Three W's (Wine, Words and Wisdom) Book Club, which rotates around the houses of members in East Lothian.
I had a brilliant time meeting the members and hearing their thoughts about the book, as well as answering lots of questions about how I do my writing, the publishing industry and how I did my research on all the spy stuff (spoilers, I mostly made it up).
Thank you to all the members for being so welcoming and asking such great questions (and especially my stepmother Fran, third from the right, who organised me coming along).
This came after I learned the news earlier in the day that A RELUCTANT SPY has earned out in three and a half months, so it's safe to say I experienced a complete 180° mood swing over the course of the day and turned up to the book club in a very jovial form.
I'm very, very happy to do book club visits by the way, in-person in South East Scotland and anywhere in the world virtually. If you'd like to invite me to your book club, please head over to my contact page.
ON DECK: Back into the writing this morning and forging ahead despite the loss of a chunk of my notes yesterday. I found as I started editing, even though the notes weren't in front of me, I could mostly remember the cuts I'd intended to make once I got into it, so I got a decent -736 words this morning.
It is interesting though, having the Supernote edit notes in front of me definitely helps with that 'ugh, where do I even start' feeling that can overwhelm me a bit when I first open a new chapter. I'll keep using the Supernote, but I'll never do another software update mid-project again.
LISTENING: I enjoyed this interview with Alex Hay on The Conversation with Nadine Matheson. Nadine really consistently has great guests on (and I'm not just saying that because I was recently one of them).
WATCHING: No TV last night due to the aforementioned book group, but I did enjoy this new trailer for the game EXODUS, which is made by a team of mostly ex-Bioware developers and looks like a very worthy spiritual successor to the Mass Effect series. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
READING: I finished GOGMAGOG last night. What a luscious, strange book, with a fairly unexpected cliffhanger ending. I think I'll read a couple of other things before diving into the second half of the duology, because I need to let it percolate a bit. But if you enjoy deliciously odd imagery and very distinctive authorial voices, it's worth taking a look at.
LINK: I enjoyed this piece by author D.V. Bishop on balancing burnout with progress in the writing and publishing game.
UP NEXT: More editing. I'm still ahead of target, but I'm irked by my mostly-wasted day yesterday, so I'll be looking to eke out an extra 200 or 300 words of cuts per day this week to make up for it. I'll also be starting to feed the novel through my critique group in big chunks, so for the first time since a few of them read the sample (the first 20,000 words or so) last year, other people will be getting eyes on the new draft of PROJECT SCARLET. Exciting and a little nervewracking at the same time, even though I trust my critique partners deeply.
Onward!