Love Don't Come Easy

Status Report 2022-04-11

Hey,

Hope you’re okay out there. Today’s my last double-drug day (a week ago, I switch down from 3 to 2) and next Tuesday is (hopefully, all being well) my zap date. I’m largely asymptomatic, which means my heart feels normal most of the time but gets a bit funny when my drugs are due. Nothing like the horrible stuff last time. And I’ve heard some horror stories about people in England having to wait years for even a referral for it. I feel so grateful I live in a country that properly funds public healthcare.

This week’s music is inspired by a brilliant audiobook I’m listening to, free with Audible. Come and Get These Memories by Eddie and Brian Holland, 2/3 of Holland-Dozier-Holland, who wrote so many Motown smashes.

Some of you will know that I was a bass player in a few (unsuccessful bands) and James Jamerson was just the best. This is probably my favourite of his basslines. It just propels the song along.

I’m not even going to be a troll and suggest the Phil Collins version is better.

Last week

Back to SCI-FI BOOK 1. Had two edits come back, which made me rethink a good chunk of the story. You’ll maybe remember the genesis from earlier missives, but it was previously two prequel novellas and it felt like a novel. So it grew to fill the gap, but some of the connective tissue wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been. And it’s bonkers how much the geopolitical situation has changed in the time since I wrote the first draft.

And it had a huge character development piece missing, which I could hook together more concretely. It was all there, just needed bringing out — the same was true in GUILT TRIP. Some stuff I can plan and put in there, but others you discover as your write. After all, an outline is only as good as the execution, so it’s there to accelerate things or, rather, to prevent things slowing me down so I can focus on the writing and only the writing, then if things crop up I can weave them in.

So, after committing all the edits, I took a few days to go back to FANTASY 1. Can’t remember if I’ve talked about this or not (assuming I have), but it’s something I worked on last year, did a full outline but it didn’t go anywhere. Except to the main character’s garage. I picked out an incidental detail and that helped flesh out the core mystery. And then I let it sit and ferment for a bit. But I’ve done a few days work on it, distilling a lot of things down and realising that what I had was something loosely similar to an Iain Banks book, one of his family ones like THE CROW ROAD or THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE, so that’s been my focus. Reading up on him — I think THE CROW ROAD is the novel I’ve read the most in my life and it’s still standing up really well. When he died, I cried and I only met him once at a signing at Edinburgh Book Festival, but he had such a profound influence on me. I’ve read every single book, especially the sci-fi stuff.

This week

I’ve started going through a final edit of SCI-FI BOOK 1, which I should finish this week. We’ll see what happens with it, but I’ve written a book I really like. Unlike my usual stuff, I think it’s pretty original. Now, you’re going to come back and say I’m original, but police procedurals are quite stifling in a way. There’s in a format, a formula and the bad guys either get caught or they don’t (and there are probably only a handful where they don’t). The joy is in the execution, in making each scene come alive with weird and wonderful characters. But I’d like to do stuff that’s a bit different and less constrained – don’t worry, I’ll keep doing police procedurals as long as people buy enough of them!

After that, I’ll see what I fancy doing. Probably touching up the series bible for the new series and finishing the pitch for FANTASY 1, which is in a good place now and needs a bit more focus to get a treatment together. I want to see it all hang together first. And I’ve a tendency to rush things, which I’m trying to resist. I want to keep it in that nice place in my head where I feel positively about it and new ideas keep coming for it.

And that’s just made me think of this brilliant documentary from about ten years ago, when Ian Rankin was writing STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE, Rebus’s comeback novel (and probably the strongest one):

It’s about an hour and a really interesting watch. Hope you enjoy it.

Have a great week, you.

Cheers,
Ed