Make a river through the sand ’til you're called by secret name
Status Report 2022-11-07
I wrote this yesterday and didn’t have any music in my head (for once). Then I saw on Twitter that Mimi Parker of Low had passed away on Saturday.
I never got to see Low, sadly, but I was absolutely blown away by their recorded music. Not many bands can claim to be truly original, but they can. Listen to how sparse the sound is, they’re barely a three-piece, so there’s so much space there, musically at least, leaving room for the gorgeous vocals, with Mimi and her husband, Alan Sparhawk, to sing their glorious harmonies. It’s strange when you only have a parasocial relationship with someone who passes but you still have a big sense of grief about – Bowie, Prince, Iain Banks, I could go on. Anyway. RIP, Mimi – your music will last forever.
Last week
A bloody busy week!
Finished my edit of THE TURNING OF OUR BONES, which I actually enjoyed. It’s a long book with a ton of stuff in it, but I think it’s got something my other books don’t, maybe. I like Marshall, I like writing him, and that’s a good feeling. And the Shunty stuff is a good continuation of what happened to him in FALSE START.
Speaking of which, some good early feedback on that. Hope you’re enjoying it – let me know how you’re getting on with it in the comments.
And if you somehow missed it, here’s the link:
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/2y7f9jsbem
After that, I did the copy edit for Fenchurch 9, which I’m just glad to see the back of! Copy editing is the worst part of the process. It’s tightening up little bits (and occasionally finding massive blunders e.g. Fenchurch 4) at the point where all the creative spark and motivation for the book has long since left the building – I’m always hungry to work on the next thing.
After that, I found myself at a bit of a loose end on Friday, so I did some admin, then some gardening. It’s weird to have to mow twice in a week in November, but I did. Hopefully that’s the last of it! I started building a new bed in the back garden, gathering loads of stones from the woods and wheeling them over. I did the same with the two circular beds in the summer, but this is four segments of an outer ring around one. I managed half of a quarter of the outside on Saturday and the same on Sunday – there’s a lot of work to be done, then I’ll need to fill the beds in. I’ll get in with the mower and strimmer, then kill a lot of weeds and probably some bark or chips or something. Needs to be a nice set of beds with bushes. Anyway, it’s good getting out and doing some work like that, especially as the weather’s so grotty.
Finally, I’ve been working on the issues with DIE ON MARS with Al, my agent. We’ve got it into a place where it’s something really cool and fresh with lots of promise... But it’s not the same book. At all. Bugger.
This week
Going through the outline for WHERE OUR BODIES LIE, the second Marshall book. Weird doing this again without anyone having read the first book. Well, not nobody but... It was interesting doing it with the first two Fenchurch books, back-to-back, such a long time ago. This time, I’m finding it less pressurised, which is good. I’m enjoying it – there’s a long prologue, eight chapters, which might be a difficult way to start the book. I could split it off as a prologue for the mailing list’s readers club, but I’m not sure. Both books have a TV show thing, where they open with dramatised backstory, then cut forward in time to the present day. I think I owe it myself to stick to my gut feeling and see how it goes. The third book doesn’t have any of that malarkey, mercifully.
Want to get a decent review done of the outline here, hopefully get some edits back which I can use to correct and beef up the plot. The core emotional story needs punching up, which has been my focus so far – think it’s pretty interesting. Don’t want to make Marshall too comfortable now, do I? He’s not going to go through stuff anywhere near as bad as Fenchurch has, don’t worry!
Some more work on DIE ON MARS too, I think. It’s good to spitball these ideas and learn a lot of writing theory which I can use in my other books. I’ll be thrashing it out into whatever else it’s become, while scratching my head as to what to do with the 80k book I’ve written, of which none of it’ll be reusable. But I think something special has come out of the ashes of the old one.
A lot of the news this week has made me a bit worried about what Elon Musk is doing to Twitter, so I’ve set up a Mastodon account – @edjamesauthor@mastodon.scot – so if you’re there come and follow me. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s a decentralised version of Twitter, so it’s hosted on thousands of servers and federated at a Twitter level. I’m on the Scottish server, but you can join any one you wish. And it can’t be taken over by childish billionaires to ruin. Might be flash in the pan, but might not.
Substack chat
On a related note, I’m also adding a new addition to my Substack publication: subscriber chat.
This is a conversation space in the Substack app that I set up exclusively for my subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.
To join our chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app (messages are sent via the app, not email). Turn on push notifications so you don’t miss a chance to join conversation as it happens.
How to get started
Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Chat is only on iOS for now, but chat is coming to the Android app soon.
Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.
That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.
I’ve already started my first chat thread so come on over and say hello!
Anyway. Have a great week, y’hear?
Cheers,
Ed
Found it!!
Garden looks great - good job. 😊