Cuts Both Ways || Shadows & Ink 2025-09-22

Hey,

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I used to do these weekly and I’ve slipped. Bad Ed!

#Last Wee While

Okay, so I’ve been heads down busy for the last bit.

It took me a lot longer than I expected to, but I FINALLY finished edited the 9th Marshall book, CUTS BOTH WAYS, at the end of August, then going through the dev edits and my final read of it.

This was tricky for two main reasons:

First, it was previously written to be the first novel in a new series, starring DS Alex Shepherd and DI Sam Winter; note how they’re both gender-neutral names? Alex was a laddie, Sam a lassie. And they weren’t even in the same force, let alone the same team. It’d been submitted to publishers to see if they were interested; nobody was, or rather the only one who was gave a pathetically low offer back that wasn’t worth anyone’s time. Not being bigheaded or anything, but in publishing, you’ve got to know your worth and when it’s worth your time to even sell a book – after all, as some wise person gave me the title, it’s the hope that kills. Long-term readers will recognise this as OPERATION HIGH CONCEPT. It’s a bit more thrillery than your usual Marshall, but it’s still full of lots of stuff, and just might feature Shunty again.

So that was a bit of a nightmare, not simply a case of replacing Shepherd with Marshall, but in making the story work in Marshall’s already well-established world. So bringing in characters that make the story make sense and giving a long-standing plot line full closure, though the repercussions will be felt for a few more books to come... At one point, I had Corcoran and Palmer from Senseless in it,

Second, I wanted to use this to set up Winter for her own books, which were to be edited and revised versions of the Seattle-based Max Carter novels, so I had to make sure I knew where she was going as well as where Marshall had been. Her story’s not going to be the same as Carter’s, but it’ll be slightly similar, but I want to make sure her life’s more robust and defined, so it was a case of setting a lot of stuff up for her too.

But that all combined to be a blooming nightmare and took me a lot longer than I expected, but it’s done and it’s on preorder now:

https://geni.us/EJM09m

Also, the final proof came back for something I’ve been keeping a wee secret. I’d thought about doing it as a surprise drop, but sod it, it’s on preorder:

https://geni.us/EJPS15m

Yes, Cullen and co are back (obviously one of them isn’t) in THE BROKEN LINE, a brand-new story. It’s been a few years since the last adventure, so what’s Cullen up to? What’s he not up to? This was a fun wee story to do, something different to the Marshall books and the previous ones in the series, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it when it comes.

#This Week

Big tasks just now are:

Figuring out the outline for Marshall 10, AKA THE ONE SET IN JEDBURGH. I know the story and the location, just need to roll up the sleeves and get it all planned out. Attempting to do this in time for 30th April release...

The other one is, as above, sorting out the first two Sam Winter books, which will be in the opposite order. So NO CURE FOR REGRET (AKA GONE IN SECONDS) and NO TIME TO GRIEVE (AKA TELL ME LIES) (AKA I HATED THOSE TITLES). NTTG was the working title and it’s going back to that.

And I’m doing a crazy process of translating the books into screenplays to then edit and turn back into books. Why? Because it’s pure way of doing things, lets me reduce everything back to the metal before I embellish where needed, plus there’s tons of descriptions of Seattle that aren’t needed whereas bits of Edinburgh will be. But the first pass of NCFR is going pretty well, actually, about halfway through a first pass before some post-Bloody Scotland cold/sinusitis hit me and knocked me for six (a cricket term). So that’ll be the main focus this week, then I’ll do the other one.

I’ve got a hankering to do the third Shunty book and I think I know what it’ll be, but it won’t be long. And it’ll take place before Marshall 9.

Feels like I’ll finally be at a position of equilibrium between sorting out old stuff and just ploughing on with new, which was the focus for this year. I’ll hopefully have done four new books in amongst editing four old Cullens, a recent unsold manuscript and three rights reversion jobs. And there won’t be anything whispering in my ears after this, other than new projects or old projects I didn’t find the time for.

#Stuff

I’ve been working my way through Irvine Welsh’s Mark Renton series, which is way more complicated than any of my timelines, I swear...

It all started with Trainspotting, one of the biggest influences on my writing (oddly enough), but he’s published a prequel (Skagboys), a sequel (Porno, filmed as T2 Trainspotting, one of the most stupid titles ever) and another sequel that comes before that (Men In Love), plus another sequel years later (Dead Men’s Trousers) and a Begbie solo outing (The Blade Artist). But Renton, Begbie and especially Spud all feature heavily in Glue, which features a few characters who’re heavily in Porno, plus Juice Terry has his own novel, A Decent Ride.

So, my reading order is:

1. Skagboys

2. Trainspotting

3. Men In Love

4. Glue

5. Porno

6. A Decent Ride

7. The Blade Artist

8. Dead Men’s Trousers

I’m about halfway through Glue just now and here are some random thoughts:

Trainspotting is less a novel than a collection of a short stories that hasn’t aged incredibly well, especially given how good Skagboys and Men In Love are next to it. The plotting and character development in those are just incredible, whereas Trainspotting... it took a lot to get that film from that material I think. Heavy on character, but light on plot, maybe.

Skagboys made Sick Boy come across even worse than Begbie. Like, it’s not even close. Begbie’s just a nutcase, but Sick Boy’s … sick to the core.

Men In Love might be the best of them and features some incredible Begbie stuff (lions ay Longleat, especially, and his 99 flake). Could’ve done with a stronger ending, maybe, and Renton kind of got a bit lost as it went on.

A better order might’ve been splitting Glue into the sections so the 1980-ish stuff is read before Trainspotting, then the 1990-ish stuff is read after Men in Love and before Porno.

Glue features the best Spud story.

There are some barbaric sections and some hilarious sections in the books, often adjacent – it proves you need the light along with the dark...

It’s quite hard for me to get so excited about reading books these days but by golly have these got me looking forward to the time when I can catch up with whatever stuff they’re up to.

And that’s all from me. I’ll try and remember to bother myself next week!

Cheers,
Ed