Daynote - Tue 19 May 2026

In town once again today, so no walk, though I shall be getting my steps around the town I have no doubt.

I've been working on Couch To 5K for, I dunno, the fourth or fifth time in my life and I'm in the final week as of yesterday, and I finally managed to crack 5k in 30 minutes last night. Though I was sprinting at the end to make it. Still, not bad for a dude who got sweaty and breathless running 30 seconds for a bus a year or two ago.

Also this morning I tried my hand at social media marketing , remixing a popular meme on Instagram. It was fun, though it took absolutely ages. Hopefully it gives folks who have read SOLITARY AGENTS a bit of a giggle, and is intriguing for those who haven't.

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Just sixteen days left until my second book comes out! If you'd like a hardback, please do consider pre-ordering - this is the most impactful thing you can do as a reader, because it sends all sorts of signals to the ordering systems, bestseller lists, booksellers, my editor, everyone who has a hand in deciding what books to stock and when. And if you order from a local independent bookshop, you'll be doing me a solid AND supporting a business in your community too! Win-win!

ON DECK: A tiny bit of editing on the train, and I'm hoping to do a bit more on my lunchbreak and on the way home. I won't post a word count yet because I pasted in part of a previously removed scene and that shot my word count back up by 700+ words, erasing the last week of editing word count progress. But that's okay! I've still got 40,000+ words to edit so I'm fairly sure I'll find more to cut. I really do need to speed up a bit though.

LISTENING: Really enjoyed this interview with Garry Disher and fellow Headline author Dom Nolan over on CrimeTime FM, which kept me entertained on the train into Edinburgh this morning.

WATCHING: We ran out of BOB'S BURGERS to watch so we started a re-watch of ANDOR, because why not. Still absolutely fantastic and you notice a lot more on the second (or, ahem , fourth) rewatch.

READING: More of SLOW GODS by Claire North (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) last night, though I was knackered after running and fell asleep pretty fast.

LINK: The rather incredible Joe Stech (who edited the Think Weirder anthology I was in) has put together this fantastic random SFF idea generator. It's mostly just for fun, but as a series of writing prompts it is actually pretty amazing.

UP NEXT: More podcast recordings, then of course my event with Callum McSorley on Friday - please do book a ticket if you're coming along.

In the interim, I have a lot of editing to do and a steadily reducing amount of time to do it in.

Onward!

🔗

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