Thought of you as my peak
Status Report 2022-03-07
It’s still absolutely brutal over in Ukraine just now. Trying not to focus on the news too much or lingering for too long as it can hit hard, but I can’t help sometimes.
This week’s music is this:
I got myself confused back in the day between the Velvet Underground and VU albums. One is the third studio album by the band, the other is a much later compilation of outtakes recorded around the same time, a lot of which ended up being re-recorded by Lou Reed for his solo albums. The upshot is I never really got into this album (I love Nico and Loaded, but find White Light/White Heat a bit abrasive). In this world of Spotify and streaming, I can now listen to all of their output as I read a biography of Reed, which I highly recommend (though it’s a bit controversial):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Notes-Velvet-Underground-Life-Reed-ebook/dp/B01057ZSEA/
The No Dogs In Space podcast covered the band’s history last year and I highly recommend that series for a great story and some great music.
Anyway. I finally got into this song quite recently and I love it. It’s right up there with Heroin, Venus in Furs, Sweet Jane and a lot of Reed’s solo stuff. Enjoy!
Last week
First, I finished the pen name series bible. Four books, with lots of character stuff across the piece. It’s been with “James the teeth-kicker” to have a look over and comment from a police perspective, and is now back ready for me to see how many more I’ve lost. But I feel genuinely excited about starting these books. I’m aiming to get the first one out in October or November, with the others releasing every three months after. And hopefully day-1 audiobooks too.
Next, I finished the copy edit LOST CAUSE, which was pretty light, though I’d made a mess of some timeline stuff so I needed a few extra lines in a couple of chapters to tidy up. Feel glad to have finished it, knowing it’s just about done. It’s off to Mare the proofreader and to my advanced readers list (if you want to sign up to it, reply to this and we can discuss!).
SKIN & BONE audiobook is done, so that’s all the books available now on there. It takes a week or so to go through the ACX sausage machine, so hopefully it’ll be available soon.
Had a bit of a wobbler about stuff on Tuesday night and made a few big decisions, like not doing another Dodds book. So naturally, I’m currently eighteen chapters into the first draft of GUILT TRIP.
Ahem.
It’s a slight cheat, in that I’m altering something I wrote a few years ago but wasn’t published, for one reason or another. While this gives me a head start on it, changing one character’s voice to another is the big challenge, as well as keeping the new plot in my head at the same time.
There are usually two sides to a story, the hero’s side and the villain’s. With this, I’m marrying the hero’s side, which is a detective investigation, to a new villain’s story. I’m using existing elements as I go and repurposing them. There are big changes in Vicky’s home life and factoring in enough reaction time to what happened at the end of her last book, which motivated a big change in this book.
Still, it’s good to be back in Vicky’s world. Knowing it won’t take me an age of man to get that first cut done, plus it’ll get the final* monkey off my back of old failed old books and actually be a really enjoyable new one to write.
(*there is another one but I’m not touching it. Never. I’ve been down that path a few times!)
This week
One of the things I’ve realised is I don’t enjoy overthinking stuff. Sure, I need to do more thinking than I used to, but I have a tendency to spend too long thinking stuff through. And then not actually doing anything with it. And I’m definitely fulfilled by achieving stuff, which means publishing books and selling them. I’m aiming to write and publish a ridiculous number of books this year, but it all feels totally fine and achievable. I’ve got a solid workflow now and don’t have the pressures of publisher timelines, which led to an annual bout of burnout for me from 2014 through to 2019. Not had one since and I’ve worked a lot harder.
So, I’m just getting on with stuff and trying to publish as much as I can. I hope to make a big lump of progress with GUILT TRIP, though I probably won’t finish the bugger this week, though I’m almost a third of the way through it as I type this.
I’ve got writing those other books to look forward to, as well as figuring out what the hell to do with SECRET SCI-FI PROJECT.
Hope your week is productive.
Cheers,
Ed