Daynote - Wed 9 Oct
Editing is still forward motion.
Last night I went to an absolutely fascinating talk by the team from the Saving Wildcats project about the effort to breed and release Scottish wildcats in the Cairngorms. It was really brilliant and well worth going to. Plus there were lots of video clips of the cats and their kittens (19 so far that they've counted for sure, which is a lot more than predicted!) out in the hills. So cool.
ON DECK: Unlike yesterday when I was writing a new scene for PROJECT SCARLET, today was carefully unpicking and reworking three existing scenes, so my aggregate word count was 31 words. It's easy to feel a bit deflated when I stick that in my spreadsheet, but in this case the word count isn't the outcome - it's the three edited chapters that now do the job they're supposed to be doing in the story.
LISTENING: I thought this was a superb interview with Christine Boyer about her debut novel BLACK MARIA and how it was informed by growing up in rural Pennsylvania.
WATCHING: Really enjoyed this interview with screenwriter Julian Simpson on Youtube.
READING: Between the wildcats and the going to bed early, I didn't get any reading done yesterday. Sigh. So it goes.
UP NEXT: I have some new scenes and small snippets to write to fill out the rest of the SCARLET story since I gutted a whole narrative thread out of my sample, which will be a bit harder, but I'm making solid progress. I think I'll have the drafting/editing done by Friday-ish, then I'll be doing several front-to-back readthroughs to make sure it all hangs together. I've also got a podcast recording to prep for. But my main focus as we roll towards the weekend will be cleaning and tidying the house to welcome my wife back from the US, where she's been for the last nearly three weeks. I can't wait to see her.