Daynote - Wed 15 Jan

I took the picture above about quarter past five last night, on my evening walk. About a week ago, it was pretty dark already at this time. I kind of love how quickly the light starts to come back in mid-to-late January. It's always reassuring to have it confirmed that orbital mechanics are still functioning as expected.

ON DECK: A great morning's writing today, nailing two scenes with a combined 1,645 words. I'm still doing a lot of on-the-fly research (mostly checking positions of real world places as I manoeuvre various characters around) so it started pretty slowly, but once I got going I had a great time. It was one of those days when I felt like I could probably have kept going for another hour or two, but sadly my writing time in the morning maxes out at 90 minutes, because I've learned that writing plus a walk is far, far better for me than two or three hours of writing.

My writing is also, I think, going better this year because I'm making a real point, after a very restful Christmas holiday, of trying to maintain much better sleep discipline - I've been getting up at half five for six years now, but have, uh, not been so consistent in when I go to bed. Turns out, six years of chronic sleep deprivation adds up. And it also turns out that if you actually go to bed when you planned to, everything is easier the next day. Who knew, right? Seems fake, but I feel better than I have in years and the writing is more focused and more productive. Like most things in my life, I know what I should be doing to feel better (sleep more, drink more water, exercise, stay off my phone) but somehow when I actually do those things and they work, I'm shocked.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I'm in a Discord server (I'm in several, actually) with the writer Jules Arbeux and they recently posted this wildly helpful resource site called Resources for Writers. It's a very comprehensive and structured guide to all the baseline knowledge you need if pursuing traditional publication and must have been a phenomenal amount of work for Jules. If you're writing your first book and thinking about looking for an agent, check it out. Full disclosure, Jules links to one of my articles about edit letters.

LISTENING: I enjoyed this episode of The Conversation talking with fellow '24 debut Rhiannon Barnsley.

WATCHING: This near-future SF short film about a specially armoured rally car crossing a hostile border is a) really well done and b) mostly built in Unreal Engine by one person. It's kind of crazy.

READING: More MK Hardy boat book last night. More tension and escalating weirdness. Very good.

LINK: I enjoyed this /r/PrintSF thread about SF books featuring 'slow moving apocalypses' (Will McIntosh's SOFT APOCALYPSE has been on my TBR for a while). The novel that I got my agent with (called THE BURNING LINE) would very definitely fit into this subgenre. Not found a publisher for it yet, but hope never dies.

UP NEXT: I think this is going to be another 6 or 7k writing week, which is awesome. PROJECT SCARLET is continuing at pace and I'm now a little over 3k ahead of my planned schedule. Feels good.

Onward!