Though you're miles and miles away...

Inside Ed's Head 2022-12-13

Cheesy, sure, but Phil Oakey could write a poignant lyric, couldn’t he? This definitely presaged the modern age – how the computer has broken down the physical distance and made everything remote very close.

Last week

I’ll get on with the writing stuff in a minute, but this weekend was away to Newcastle Noir crime festival. I had such an amazing weekend with a load of friends I mostly met online first and maintained the friendships by social media and messaging. It’s weird, but also the normal. I think there’s a definition of Millennials like me (which I never quite understood – born at the millennium surely?) if an analogue childhood but a digital adulthood. I had my first email address at eighteen when I went to university, but I had been online a few times.

Anyway, I chaired a panel with Mari Hannah, Simon McCleave and Tim Sullivan. All three had backgrounds in screenwriting but also write police procedurals. All the careful prep I’d done was kind of blown out of the water by how engaging and entertaining they were. You know you’ve done your job as a moderator when the authors talk between themselves (in a good way). I’ve started enjoying doing this kind of work. Odd that!

Anyway! The writing. I managed over 30k of WHERE THE BODIES LIE, which is way more than I expected when I started. I’m on the home stretch of it, but it’s a weird one – this book is taking on a lot of life of its own and growing in ways I didn’t expect. I’m really enjoying being stuck into the world and just interacting with these characters. So, it’s getting there!

This week

Well, I’m bloody knackered after Newcastle but trying to get on with the book. And yeah, I did send this a day late so apologies! I hope I can get it finished by the 19th/20th so I can get it off my desk and into editing. Though I’ve got some tweaks to make.

That’s a principle I have – don’t go back and fix stuff as I’m writing, unless it’s in the scope of what I’m writing, as otherwise I’ll make a mess of things and get lost. When I go through all those little tweaks, it’ll be done!

Anyway. I had fun getting back from Newcastle, getting the train to Berwick (at 13:00, I caught the 11:30 train...), then picking up the hounds from the kennels. Seeing Al going back was heartbreaking – he was worried he was going back in for good. But he was so happy to see me. And him and Bessi have been great together since, mucking about a lot more in the garden. I was a bit worried he’d be too strong for her but she’s more forceful when they’re running together. And there are some early signs of her being better with non-greyhound dogs. Fingers crossed!

All this snow has been joyful... Not. I live in the snowy part, the hills south of Edinburgh. It gets really white. So my usual walking route is off limits. Today, I took a less-favoured route along an old Roman road down from the house and it was gorgeous, though there were some old chaps out shooting, which was less so.

Anyway, this week is another head down, thumbs up from me. Hope you have a great one!

Cheers,

Ed