Hope you’re taking it easy today, assuming you’re in England or eastern Scotland. It’s been 30C here, which is insane. Tomorrow might hit 33. In Scotland. 33 degrees Celsius. In Scotland. The world is burning and this is proof, sadly.
But here’s a lovely summer song:
One of those songs from my youth that still has that same effect years later. A blast of blue eyed soul. The lyrics are pretty enigmatic and have a mondegreen – I thought it was a baby being born to the over hill, but it’s overkill. Huh. Anyway, enjoy it. It’s great, perfect listening for a summer’s evening.
(Mondegreen comes from a poem with a line Lady Mondegreen, which was take to be “laid him on the green”. Ahem. Similar to excuse me while I kiss this guy.)
Last week
Finished FALSE START. Yay. SO I’m giving it a bit of a break now. While I’ll leave my comments for after I’ve read it through again next week, I kind of enjoyed it but mostly found it to be a pretty painful experience. It took too much time for what it was, mainly because the outline was bollocks, so I changed the ending a few times. Think I’m pretty pleased with where it’s got to, it’s a strong character thing focused around Shunty. It’ll be interesting to see what people make of it depending on the order they read – this vs The Turning of our Bones.
Thinking that won’t come out in October. Trying to not pressure myself timewise, so mid-January will be the next window. Want to get at least book 2 under my belt score then. And I’ve not even outlined it yet! Well, I know the story so it’s just a case of execution but The Turning of our Bones benefited from a long gestation before I started writing it. Making me think things through, going for the less-obvious stuff, which makes for a stronger book.
Still, the rest of last week has been working on the Fenchurch 9 outline. Have to say, it’s so much easier executing it because the story is straight in my head. The poor sod is going to be up against it yet again, though this time it’s all his own making.
That said, I don’t have a conclusion to the story, so anything could happen yet. Enjoying exploring something different and also something else which I know which is fairly topical. And stepping back into an established world is much easier than doing the new stuff. It’s more who to leave out than who to include.
This week
Got a good chunk of the outline done already, up to chapter 30 of 40 (though I like spending 20 chapters on the last ten to get a better pace). I was hoping to finish today or tomorrow, mainly because I need to pack for Harrogate on Wednesday. Hopefully some of you will be there – if you see me, come and say hi. I’m not appearing at anything and I’m my own publisher, but I always go and catch up with a good few friends. Got a lot of work to do tomorrow so I’ll hopefully get the last act done. I spent today going through what I had and picking some stuff up as I went. But getting a solid basis for the story. I advise this when you’re going through a book – for a genre like crime, which is adjacent to a thriller, pace is important. Get that story flowing. I’ve had loads of messages recently from people devouring Dodds 5 in a day. It’s a reasonably long book, so I think my approach to writing is achieving that goal, at least!
Anyway. Short one today, so I hope you’re not melting like a candle today. Take care of yourself. Avoid the Sun until Wednesday, when it’ll be thunder and lightning.
Cheers,
Ed
source https://edjames.substack.com/p/inside-eds-head-the-will-to-set-you