Hey!
It’s me. I know, yet again I’ve neglected this. But here I am. Hope you’re doing as well as you can in this weird year.
What have I been up to?
#Marshall10
Well, since I last wrote, I’ve done an outline and screenplay draft of this.
How is it going? Well, it’s going pretty well, actually. I pasted in the outline and it was 100pp in the screenplay app, which is now 383 pages of script. What this means is I’ve tested the story and it mostly works, with a few little niggles I need to rework. A few chapters needing to be added, a few tweaks here and there, but nothing major. As I was going, I added 9 chapters to it, which was mostly splitting stuff or dramatising stuff. The rest of today’s going to be about implementing all of those changes.
Next – once it’s been edited and I’ve made the big changes, it’s turning it into a novel, which is now a tried and trusted process for me. I’d forgotten how much longer the screenplay writing aspect takes, but then I overestimate how long the other bits take because so much work has already been done.
How am I feeling about it? It’s good, I think. Pretty good. I feel like I’ve got under the skin of Jedburgh and I’m bringing the town to life. Also, it’s got a lot of local character to it, but it’s also a Marshall book through and through. But I’m doing something a bit different yet again with this. It’s got aspects of Our Debts to the Past, but it’s also got a few bit twists that take it in some very different directions.
Anyway, it’s pretty much on track for 31st August release. I know it’s been a long time coming, but I’ve done the first two Winter books!
2026 so far
It’s been a year and it’s not even four months. When I go quiet, it’s usually because I’m overloaded, sadly not just with work stuff. I’ve spent a lot of time recently trying to not be overloaded. Just being loaded (not in that sense). And I thought 2025 was a stupid year, this is just a different beast entirely. I’m hoping I can sail through the rest of the year on a blaze of serenity or something, but I know it’ll be frantic and daft. It always is.
2026 plans
After M10 – or rather at the same time as – I’m working on a sci-fi novel I’ve wanted to write for a bloody long time. I’ve got an outline into a really good shape, plus a good chunk of it written as screenplay, so it’s next off the production line.
And I’ve got Winter 3 to rework. It’s sitting as a partial screenplay file which I need to sift through, see what I’ve got and replan. It’s all good, though. Healthy, even.
Once that’s done, I’ll FINALLY have my plate clear. I’m thinking Marshall 11 next, which I’ve got a solid story for. One I’ve been thinking about for a few years now, but which I can now execute on with anger.
Anyway, better get back to the words.
Cheers,
Ed