We say our goodbyes over messenger

Inside Ed's Head 2023-03-20

Music

I was going to go with no music, but decided to go with this one. One of their later records, but a beautiful song that’s up there with their best stuff (and Ben Gibbard’s amazing collaboration with Dntel as the Postal Service).

I was going to put an old Vic and Bob clip up instead, but I haven’t. I listened to Bob Mortimers’s SATSUMA COMPLEX in audio yesterday as I walked the hounds then did some gardening. I tore out the roots of several succouring trees (I’m sure that’s the technical term for when their roots grow in a network underground like SOMETHING FROM THE LAST OF US) that were in danger of overtaking half of the garden. Don’t mind them in the fields, though, as more trees = good. Anyway, the audiobook was great, narrated by Bob and Sally Phillips (of Alan Partridge and Smack the Pony fame) and kept me smiling through a difficult time. I listened to Bob’s excellent autobiography in my rehabilitation from my ticker troubles – his were much worse and seem to still be debilitating, but it definitely helped me. Both books are highly recommended.

Last Week

That’s well over a third of Marshall 3 done, which is slightly ahead of schedule. It’s not really growing any in the telling, which is nice, just a little bit of merging some chapters together and re-sequencing. Adding little bits of spice in there, that will hopefully make sense when I read it back! Overall, pretty pleased with how it’s going even if it’s slower than usual. Always hard to tell when my Spidey sense isn’t tingling if it’s any good or not, but I just have to get on with it and trust myself. Even managed to get back on the treadmill to write a chapter too, 1800 words in 45 minutes. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, though, and haven’t done it since. Tomorrow, maybe!

Spent a lot of time on Grey Dog Books, my Shopify store where I sell directly, and got my first two orders last week! And both were in Kelso, too! The books are available for a much cheaper price than on Amazon, though non-Prime customers have to pay postage, but the more you buy, the better the deal on postage. I think the printing is better than Amazon too so the books look really good. I’ve got both Marshall series books up and Fenchurch 1-6 (though I need to buy some more ISBNs to get the rest up!). Plan on adding the Dodds and Police Scotland books this week too. If I can get it working, it’ll be a nice second channel of sales for my books – I hate having my eggs all in the Amazon basket and, as good as they’ve been to me over the years, I can’t shake the feeling they’re just one bad morning away from the CEO deciding to shutter the indie side of things. Financially, it works out really, really well too. Next step is to do a couple of Cullen short novels and sell ebooks directly too, which I can later collect on Amazon. Anyway, have a little mooch and see if anything tickles your fancy. The books are printed in the UK.

www.greydogbooks.co.uk

This week

More Marshall 3. Will definitely clear 50%, hoping for at least 60%. Got some big chapters to do, so that’ll make me feel like I’m going slow when the opposite is true. Some days I can blitz through three short chapters, but others I’ll have to take just one as a win. I’m the thing where I go through yesterday’s work first thing, which is really helping flesh out stuff. The story outline is hanging together so it’s looking and feeling okay.

Some more tightening up and finalising of the bookstore too this week. Somehow I’d deleted all the master files for the paperback Fenchurch covers, which is a bit annoying so I’ve had to redo them from scratch but my process is very slick now (I’ve done so many!) and I’ll hopefully get all of them up there soon.

Also, finally – I’m doing the Cancer Research press-up challenge, where I do 100 press-ups a day in April. I’ve started already and will continue on through April. If you wish to sponsor me or get involved yourself, here’s the link:

My Cancer Research fundraising page

Have a great week, y’hear? Take some time to have some fun.

Cheers,
Ed