Daynote - Wed 19 Mar

Off into town this morning for some office working and a lunchtime appointment, so no morning walk. But it's another clear and frosty mid-March day.

ON DECK: Editing on PROJECT SHARD today, which is going well. I'm most of the way through task number 3 of my 4 main editing tasks. Each task has a bunch of places I need to address it, but I'm reasonably confident I'll finish task 3 tomorrow and have task 4 done by the weekend. Today's writing got me an aggregate 332 words, between cuts and additions.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I'm continuing to marvel at the Supernote. To the point of giggling slightly with how fun it is to use. I've just realised I can use the keywords functionality to note every time I introduce a new named character, which will be critical information once I begin culling them. I have far too many.

LISTENING: I thought this interview with the novelist Ben Okri on Always Take Notes was fascinating. I'm not a literary fiction writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm always interested in hearing how that world works, especially when you're encountering it as a self-confessed outsider, as he describes himself.

WATCHING: More PARADISE last night and it's got that thing happening in 'mystery box' type shows where the first half of the season is all setup and 'wtf is going on here' and the second half of the season is all revelation after revelation and 'WTF IS GOING ON HERE'. Good stuff, in other words.

READING: I'm editing, so I'm reading my own book, PROJECT SCARLET. So far I've only read the heavily edited first 20k words. I haven't got to the raw first draft stuff yet. Hope it holds up.

LINK: Delighted to see that the SFF event 'It's Strange Up North' is returning this year. As an author-planned and led event, this was a real bright spot last year and a counterpoint to the whole 'authors can't move the needle themselves' canard.

UP NEXT: More editing. But right now I have a train to catch. Onward!