[This was sitting in a browser window, unsent. Daft me.]
Hey!
Well, it’s been two weeks since my last missive and I’ve actually done a heck of a lot of work in that time, despite thinking I wouldn’t.
#Last fortnight
I ended up finishing off the initial pass of the second Winter book, which read a lot more cleanly but I suspect isn’t anywhere near done. But it’s in the right direction now.
After that, I attacked the edits to the first book, No Cure For Regret (which is named after a Mogwai track, No Medicine For Regret, but that looks bad on a book cover), and it took a bit of effort. A lot of effort. But that underpinned the approach I’ve taken, based on converting the books into screenplays to edit, then to later expand into novels again.
Why would I do this? Because a screenplay is a lean and precise document, but it’s concise too — a lot of information is stored in that document’s notation, which I unpack later. The fact it’s packed tight means if, say, I have you have to completely remove the moustache-twirling villain and his sidekicks, then it’s easier to cut. Because some of the stuff is sketched in (if in a very expensive pencil), it’s easy to adjust and kill those darlings, so when you have to change the time of day for about a quarter of it, it’s pretty quick and easy. That Stephen King thing of “killing your darlings” is much easier if it’s some screenplay stuff, than if it’d been carefully written narrative.
One of my biggest lessons learnt from my writing career is, what’s the point of carefully writing it if it’s wrong? Exactly. Wise words from a bloody idiot.
The stories are much different now than where I started them. Simpler, purer and more elegant, maybe. More social, less thriller-y, even if there’s a rattling pace to them and a cat-and-mouse chase going on.
Spent today working on my publishing plan for 2026, which involves a lot of books in the first half of next year. Police Scotland 15 moves up to 28th Feb, so it can make way for Winter 1 in April or May, then Winter 2 six weeks later – book 3 will be in November, but if the first two do well, then it might come forward… And a couple of Marshalls, at least.
#Next week
The docket for the next week is to do a final revision for No Cure For Regret, ready for spending November and early December converting the first two books into narrative and then editing the narrative, before some well-needed time off before Xmas.
Feels like I’m in control of 2026 now, so no doubt something will happen to mess it all up!
Hope you’re well — catch you next week.
Cheers,
Ed