Without you, I’m nothing

Inside Ed’s Head 2023-11-20

My God, it’s almost December – how did that happen?

#Music

Bit of a blast from the past here, David Bowie elevating a lesser Placebo song to greatness with his soaring vocal.

#Last Week

Okay, so a weirdly bitty week. I get these from time to time – sometimes I’ll be spinning too many plates and others not enough.

Main thing I worked on was the series bible for Marshall season 2, comprising three books. I’ve figured out a plan for the next year which will hopefully let me maximise income and output without absolutely killing myself like I have this year!

For those who’ve read Marshall 4, I left him in an interesting place, so a lot of my thinking was about his role in the police and what he wants out of his career – and also his life. I’m trying not to get too bogged down with soap opera stuff, but I’ve built up a cast of characters I really like and I’m proud of, so I’m trying to make sure they’re all getting enough page time, and in interesting ways too.

The plots are quite diverse – I’m leaning back into the serial killer stuff for the first two books, with the third being something different. It started out as a locked-room idea, but bugger that – police procedurals and that kind of malarkey don’t mix well.

Anyway, that’s all done and dusted.

Also done and (almost) dusted and/or home and (almost) hosed is Fenchurch 10, Hope To Die. I spent Saturday going through the copy edit and it was all quite light, which is good given how much editing I’ve already done with it. It’s off to the proof reader and, more importantly, to my Advanced Readers – if you’re one and you haven’t got it, please check your spam!

In other news, I approved the audio files for Fenchurch 4, which should take about ten days to wind through the sausage machine. Fenchurch 5 is being edited just now, so that might pop up next week. All go on the audio front. Before Fenchurch 6 is recorded, this one’s next:

(I lost the ebook master file for the ebook cover, so had to recreate it from scratch, then create the audio cover – basically making it square, making sure the image goes to the edges, adjusting the gradients etc to make it look smooth. But all of the Fenchurch ones are ready for when they’re uploaded.)

#This Week

Okay, so this week’s plan is to break down Marshall 5 into a synopsis. I’ve got an idea of the setup and the resolution – this document takes that start and that finish, then puts in the big chain links between them. There’s all the character stuff (pay attention – I talked about it up there) that needs to go in to thicken the broth. The beauty of doing the series bible is that I can have foresight of the next book, so Marshall will be investigating the main crime that happens in that at the start of this, before he’s diverted from that. It’s maybe a bit daft, but it hopefully makes it feel like those books breath and live in a real-ish world, if not this one.

Okay, enough wittering from me – have a great week.

Cheers,

Ed