Go to Scotland, no obligation
Inside Ed’s Head 2023-10-02
Meh Goad, it’s October already. Good luck if you’re doing one of those portmanteau month things, like Stoptover or Rocktober or Oktoberfest. I really hate portmanteaus. Absolutely despise them!
# Music
Anyway, I went to see Gang of Four last night with my idiot brother (coincidentally, I’m *his* idiot brother). So here’s one of theirs – someone’s already uploaded a load of the gig to YouTube!
Please send me evenings and weekends! Also, David Pajo was playing guitar for them, unknown to me beforehand – he played in Slint, whose Spiderland is in my top five albums ever. His scratchy guitar playing seems so obviously inspired by the late Andy Gill (one of the first victims of the covid pandemic, having contracted it in Nov 2019 while touring China).
# Last Week
Sorry there wasn’t one last week, I took it off and just collapsed into a sweat ball of spent exertion after finishing writing Fenchurch 10. Then editing it. I hauled it over the line by mid-afternoon on the Sunday afternoon, before watching my beloved Newcastle absolutely destroy Sheffield Utd 8-0. Away. As I was writing it, I absolutely hated this book, but going through the edits of it, I think I really quite like it now. Must be all the weird chemicals flowing through my body have had a weird effect on me. Anyway. It’s done and being edited, but I think I’m in a happy place to let Fenchurch go.
Whether he’s alive at the end, you’ll just have to wait to find out...
And all I did was sit around catching up on reading, walking 10km minimum a day, then swearing as I put up some IKEA shelving units in a spare room to tidy things away. Books and graphic novels and CDs and DVDs and all sorts of stuff. Pretty satisfying to have almost finished sorting that room out, plus it’s also letting me fix storage elsewhere in the house. The joys!
# This Week
Okay, so this morning I started work on OPERATION HIGH-CONCEPT. As I worked at it, I had a feeling of elation, which is very unusual. Possibly something to do with the new chemicals flowing through me because of my ticker. Who knows! Anyway, I’m tackling it in a very different way to previous books and trying to spend a lot of time getting the outline working really well before I start writing. There are a few new tricks I’m trying to employ this time to make the outline better and make the whole thing internally consistent throughout. And also easier to write, without the horrible pain I had with Fenchurch 10. I’m aiming for 60 chapters, managed six today, with a breakdown of some of the key plot points from the previous “beat sheet”. Those will be a few key chapters, so I’ll have a load of chain links lying on the grass, then I can start hooking them together so the story stays correct, but the detailed connections start to be embellished and enriched by the detailed character work I’m doing. Trying to also come up with another three story ideas to put into a series bible, so if these books go somewhere then I’ll know where they’re heading and make sure this novel features any set-up points I need, without going into the sort of stupid setup stuff that certain superhero films have done recently.
Anyway, that’s me. Over and out. Hope you have a great week and I’ll be back next Monday with some more noise. And if you’re at Chiltern Kills this weekend, please come to my event!
Cheers,
Ed