Daynote - Wed 27 Nov

A very damp morning today, so I skipped the walk and doubled up my writing time. Still got zero words. Boo.

Yesterday I posted my awards eligibility for the year. If you're a reader/nominator/convention member in the thriller or SF world, please do take a look and consider my work for next year's awards.

ON DECK: I did a re-planning exercise this morning. I'll go into it in detail in my By The Numbers post at the end of the year (see here for previous years) but my word count for this year so far has given me a bit of a shock, so I'm actively planning to go into 2025 with more of a concrete plan. I deliberately didn't plan too much for 2024, with the thinking that it was my debut year and I needed to be flexible. But there's a difference between being flexible and spending half the year swithering between projects, which is what I actually did.

So now I've done a little timeline of all the things I think I might write and in roughly what order, accounting for all the processes I now need to consider like structural edits, proofing, copyediting, production lead times and promo. I also plugged things in to Pacemaker to get an idea of required word counts for the plan I've come up with.

Suffice to say, the year looks a lot shorter once you factor in the ancillary work of 'being an author' versus 'being a writer'. It's really two entirely different but linked jobs.

TOOLS: I've been picking up speed with my Forever Notes setup. It's really working for me now I'm using it in earnest, but boy the initial setup and especially the note interlinking in the 'Journal' part of the system is really quite time-consuming. But I'm sticking with it because it's a really well thought through system that I think will actually work with my brain.

LISTENING: Really enjoyed this interview with Frederick Forsyth on the indispensable Always Take Notes.

WATCHING: Speaking of Forsyth, we watched another episode of DAY OF THE JACKAL last night. It continues to be excellent. We also watched another DUNE PROPHECY, which continues to be intriguing. It struck me that it kind of has the same vibes as the WOLF HALL adaptation if you squint and ignore references to sandworms - it's essentially a court intrigue drama. And a very well done one.

READING: Continuing to enjoy JUSTICE OF KINGS, something very exciting just happened.

LINK: A cheeky reminder that there's one week to go on the Crime Fiction Lover Awards. I'm up for best debut. If you enjoyed A RELUCTANT SPY, please do click through and vote.

UP NEXT: Now that the planning has been done and I've got a word count target to work towards, I'm focusing on squaring away PROJECT SHARD. There's been a slight delay to Key Decisions which has given me an extra week to do that, so I'm full steam ahead. I really want to do the pernickety new stuff edits this week so I can do the whole-book cuts and edits next week with a clear runway in front of me. But it'd be really nice to get it all done. Onward!