David Goodman's Blog, page 11

Daynote - Sat 24 May

It's the weekend before a deadline, so I've been doing a bit of writing today, since the long dry spell has finally broken and it's both windy and wet outside (but oddly warm).

ON DECK: A really solid session today - I got -389 words in total, but I squared away sixteen chapters and finished Part 4 of PROJECT SCARLET. Now there's just Part 5 to do, which is a snip at 32k words.

LISTENING: Great interview with Simon Scarrow over on the Writer's Routine podcast. It never fails to fascinate me how ...

Daynote - Fri 23 May

A very fine Friday morning and a beautiful walk this morning. Not a breath of wind, so it was quite hot out in the open, but lovely and cool under the trees. Another lone hare sitting in the long grass. And Poppy the Labrador got two stick throws before Flash (another dog) stole it. He does that a lot.

ON DECK: I'm about a third of the way through Part 4, with -114 words cut, and six more chapters ready to go. Solid session this morning.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I had a really great learning session on ...

Daynote - Thu 22 May

Finally got out for a walk today, which I'm very glad about. The temperatures have dipped slightly and there's a few wee clouds in the sky, so I think our 10+ day high pressure holiday of blue skies is coming to an end. But it was still lovely. I saw a hare in the long grass purely because of its ears. Bit of a giveaway, those ears.

ON DECK: I finished Part 3 of PROJECT SCARLET today, racing through ten short chapters, with a net word count of -189. I also had time to start working through crit n...

Daynote - Wed 21 May

I've never written more than a sentence or two on a typewriter, which I suspect is true for the vast majority of writers under the age of, say, fifty years old. But they remain weirdly prevalent in stock photography collections.

I was up a bit late last night running a Delta Green one shot game with some writer pals. It was a lot of fun. We... uh, contained the incident, so it was technically a success. But I got up late and skipped my walk again as a result. Definitely need to get out tomorrow,...

Daynote - Tue 20 May

It was cold and cloudy this morning and I was really enjoying the edit, so I kept going. I try not to do that for too many days in a row, because missing more than a day or two makes me grumpy. But it paid off this morning.

ON DECK: Today's longer writing session got me a very decent -528 words cut, eight scenes fully edited, and I'm now halfway through Part 3, so bang on target for this edit. It's starting to come together in a really satisfying way. And I'm past the halfway point for the novel ...

Daynote - Mon 19 May

You know, despite the image at the top of this post, I'm not sure I've ever actually edited with a red pen. Maybe waaaaay back when I first started. But there's something about the idea of a red pen that persists, like floppy disc icons for saving.

No walk this morning as I was absolutely knackered from a day of clearing out, cleaning and sorting out our conservatory, which has been a spider-webbed dumping ground since we moved in. It was a lot of work, but very glad I did it, as we now, finally,...

Daynote - Fri 16 May

Stayed up too late watching ANDOR last night (ooft) so no walk this morning. But I did get a good amount done!

ON DECK: I finished Part 2 of PROJECT SCARLET this morning, with a net word count of -61 and four more chapters put to bed. They were slightly longer than the chapters I've been working on the rest of the week, as this is the big action sequence that ends the second part of the book. But it feels good to have two of the five parts of the book done, with two weeks to go on my deadline.

LI...

Daynote - Thu 15 May

No haar coming in from the Firth of Forth this morning, just absolutely glorious sunshine. My cat woke me up at half four because he can't read clocks and just goes by the sunrise, so I ended up sleeping a little late and nearly skipped my walk as a result, but I'm very glad I got out. Pictured is a particularly nice spot about a third of the way through my walk where I often pause for a moment on sunny days.

Here's roughly the same spot a few years ago, in the depths of winter:

That's why I never...

Daynote - Wed 14 May

No walk this morning, since we had people coming early to do some work on the house, but a good writing session anyway. Slow-but-steady progress.

ON DECK: I got -202 words this morning, which was more of that 'flux' editing, back and forth, cutting a line here, adding a paragraph there, cutting another two paragraphs elsewhere. The progress in this kind of editing isn't really measured in words, because you bounce up and down inside the same 1-2k range, but more in the number of finished chapters...

Daynote - Tue 13 May

Overcast today, but a nice walk on the beach. No birds of prey this morning, but a couple of good stick throws for Poppy The Labrador.

ON DECK: Now that I've made a big cut, I'm able to charge forward with my edit, chapter by chapter. However, I'm in a 'flux' period of editing, where I'm not steadily losing words anymore (since I've already lost the bulk of what I need to lose). Instead, I'm cutting, then adding, then cutting, then adding again. Today's net word count was 25 words added, but that...