David Goodman's Blog, page 10

Daynote - Thu 5 Jun

Well, this is a very early daynote, for reasons that will become clear shortly. I've not even gone out for my walk yet, though I will in a bit once I've finished posting a string of very exciting news.

Firstly, it's paperback publication day for A RELUCTANT SPY!

But it's also the day I'm allowed to talk about this - my debut novel has been shortlisted for the McDermid Debut Award at the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. Lots more details at that link.

AHHHH.

ON DECK: A ti...

Daynote - Wed 4 Jun

Windy and occasionally rainy today again, so a bit more time to plot and plan. Which sounds vaguely sinister, but is basically me typing a sentence, staring out of the window, then typing another sentence, for about two hours.

ON DECK: I've finished two pitches and I think they're ready to roll, at least on the pure pitch side. I haven't done a synopsis for either yet - that's the bit that takes a lot longer. That's because I want to run the core ideas by some folks before I spend the day or two ...

Daynote - Tue 3 Jun

Bit windy and rainy today, so I skipped the walk. But I got nicely stuck into a couple of pitches.

ON DECK: 540 new words today, across two pitches. I track word count against pitches and outlines mostly just to give myself a sense of progress, but it's essentially marketing material rather than prose. Although quite often things I write in the pitches and outlines end up in the book in some form, whether as jacket copy, online marketing or just phrases and concepts in the novel text itself. So w...

Daynote - Mon 2 Jun

A new month! How on earth did that happen?

I got out for a lovely walk this morning, and saw a bunch of deer for the first time in a while, as well as hares out in the fields. It was a fine, slightly blustery morning with blue sky and high cloud, and it felt very good to get moving again after a month pushing towards a deadline.

ON DECK: I was outlining and writing pitches this morning, which is where I do most of my staring out of the window and thinking about plot and how to express it concisel...

The Decrypt - May 2025

Hey hey hey - another month has somehow passed! Welcome back to The Decrypt, my monthly newsletter on all things writing, publishing, craft and media.

It was another jam-packed month, although that jam-packedness almost entirely manifested as me, sitting in front of my monitor, typing. That's right, it was a heavy editing month. But, as of Thursday, I finished another book.

Grab a drink and settle in, this one's going to get crafty.

...

Daynote - Fri 30 May

I got out for my first walk this week, which was very welcome, but I also forgot to take a photo, so instead here's a representation of what I did with my writing time this morning, after handing in PROJECT SCARLET yesterday.

ON DECK: It's always a bit odd, the day or two after finishing a book. I'm not done done with the book. It'll boomerang back to me a minimum of three more times, possibly four, for various stages of editing and production. But the big main effort of actually writing the book...

Daynote - Thu 29 May

In a very fortunate turn of events, it was pouring with rain this morning, so I got to double my usual writing time and skip my walk and not even feel all that guilty about it. Hooray!

ON DECK: I finished the linear edit of PROJECT SCARLET yesterday, so today was for tidying up, adding a few missing things from my tasklist and formatting the final submission document once I'd compiled it out of Scrivener. That got me an additional 442 words, and a finished book. Hooray!

It's now winging its way to...

Daynote - Wed 28 May

Stayed up bit late and skipped my walk again. Whoops. I am bad for this on deadline. But! I got to the end!

ON DECK: An excellent session this morning - I'd forgotten how thick and fast the chapters came at the end of this book, so I flew through them in the edit. I added 49 words overall, but got to the end of the draft. A very satisfying feeling to be pretty much done, two days ahead of my deadline.

Now I'm unsure whether I want to add the epilogue scenes I've been thinking about doing. I have ...

Daynote - Tue 27 May

Trust me, my desk doesn't look like this. But it's a nice thought, isn't it?

No walk this morning, despite the sun shining - got too involved in the edit.

ON DECK: I ended up adding 77 words this morning, but I also got nearly twenty (quite short) chapters ready to go. This is the big finale of PROJECT SCARLET, so there's a lot of POV-switching and a fairly frenetic timeline, but thankfully it seems to be mostly hanging together thanks to my earlier continuity editing.

LISTENING: I really enjoyed t...

Daynote - Mon 26 May

It's a Bank Holiday here in the UK, but it's also a deadline week, so I've been up working on PROJECT SCARLET.

I also posted a new (well, updated) story/hype reel yesterday, since it's ten days until the paperback of A RELUCTANT SPY comes out.

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ON DECK: Four scenes down and -119 words cut this morning. I think I'll aim for about the same again later today. And I might take my laptop with me to an ...