Daynote - Wed 5 Feb

I popped into Edinburgh last night for dinner with a friend that I haven't seen for nearly three years and it was marvellous. It can be a bit disheartening in your forties to realise how quickly a year or three can go past when you and/or your friends are busy with life (and boy howdy I've been busy, as have they) but it's also wonderful to get back in touch.

I did get back quite late though, so no walk for me again. The deer in the woods will be forgetting what I look like.

ON DECK: A very solid 1,885 this morning and I'm over the 60,000 word mark for the draft as a whole, which feels really good. But I am fully out of micro-outlined road, so that's the next task.

I do have a call later today about a lecture I'm delivering later this month, but otherwise it's a quiet one most of this week. Which is very welcome after last week's very busy evenings.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I've been doing a load of podcasts recently, so I decided to invest in a boom arm and proper microphone. Unfortunately the one I got from Amazon (a Rode PSA1) was missing the bit that actually lets you attach the microphone. Thankfully their spare parts supplier was able to send it on to me.

Of course, I now need a bracket thingy to actually hold the microphone. Audio equipment is the absolute epitome of 'oh, you think you only need one thing, but you actually need three things' as a tech rabbit hole. But hopefully by the time I line up my next podcast recording, I will have a functional setup.

LISTENING: Really enjoyed this second episode of SFF Addicts with Richard Swan, talking about working in a shared universe between multiple books. In Richard's case this is the world of Sova where his first trilogy and his new trilogy (starting with GRAVE EMPIRE, which came out this week!) are both set.

WATCHING: I was in town last night, so no telly, but yesterday I did enjoy this long interview with Rick Steves, the American travel writer.

READING: A lot more of Eve Smith's THE CURE on the way in and out of Edinburgh on the train, and I nearly missed my stop on the way back, which is as good a recommendation as I think it's possible to make for a thriller.

LINK: Although I absolutely disavow the use of AI/LLMs in creative work (and really don't understand why the hell you'd want to use it - no wait, I understand the arguments, I just think they're absurd) I try to keep an eye on what's happening in the sector because I think it's important to know what's going on. I've found Ed Zitron's reporting on this very useful. This piece on why the Chinese LLM 'Deepseek' is such a potent threat to the major Western investment bubble in data centres, GPUs and 'AI in everything' push we've seen from Big Tech is excellent and well worth your time.

UP NEXT: I'm going to keep pushing on the draft, but I also need a tiny bit of time for outlining this week as I'm about to come out of the part of the book that's clearest in my mind and into slightly hazier parts of my outline.

So far, everything has clicked together plot and scene-wise in a very satisfying way, but it would be very easy for me to barrel forward into the next bit and end up going in circles. Which I really don't have the remaining word count to do.

Anyway - time to write some bullet points. Onward!