Writing

I only wrote one chapter today but it was a key chapter and had to be written from scratch, so no copying and pasting from version 2. I felt quite excited when I finished stenoing and writing it as the end is very much in sight. I have three chapters to write, and I’ll need to rewrite them all, except possibly the final chapter, which anyway is very short. My word count is 96,000, so this version will end up being less than 100,000 words (which will be cut). It was good to fe

Today was almost a reversal of yesterday, whoop! I often hear of writers being asked if they’re plotters or pantsers (as in seat of your pants). For quite a long time, I consider myself a plotter, but I was kidding myself. I have plotter intentions but I’m most definitely a pantser by default. Today, however, I spent most of this morning actually plotting the “new” final few chapters and then wrote two of the four of those new chapters

I’ve slightly lost track of how many chapters I wrote today, not because I wrote so many but because I’m amalgamating and changing things quite significantly. In many respects, I’m seeing this as a good thing but the sections I’ve read back haven’t been great. Well, I’m being unfair on myself. I know I’ve said this a few times now, but I had convinced myself that version 3 would be brilliant, greatly improved from versions 1 and 2. I thought it would be mainly copying and pas

If someone told me they spent all day from 7.30am either thinking about starting writing or reading (unrelated) or doing blue sky thinking (AKA attempting to sleep/hide/avoid) or doing chores and didn’t actually start writing until gone 3pm, I’d be appalled at their lack of focus. On the plus side, say that person were me, a productivity burst between 3 and 6 makes up for that … right?

27. Saturday 31 January 2026 I rewrote/copied/edited one chapter today, which I see as a bonus extra as I haven’t factored in working on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s far from being my best chapter but it takes me to chapter 39, which will have to be a complete rewrite and a very short chapter. Chapter 40 is one of a few chapters dedicated to lesson six of six and then there are only a few more “incident room” meet-ups and wrapping-up chapters. I know it will be

I think the problem with my sourdough is that it's over-proofed. I think the problem with my novel is that I'm trying to put in too much detail. My bread and writing life seem to be about excess. That was a lame tie-in, but kind of reflects a slightly disappointing day.

Thursdays seem to be my peak performance days. As with last Thursday, I totally overachieved today. I wrote/edited five chapters. It’s amazing how good it feels to have a productive writing day. I wouldn’t have had time or inclination to snack had I not tidied the snack drawer in a break. Big mistake. I wanted to empty a few packets and storage jars, so ate the contents. I then rediscovered Squashies and ate a load of them.

Today, I edited two chapters and wrote a third, a chapter about a party that I’d sort of accidentally forgotten to write in version 2. It felt like a fairly productive day and I think I found a way to write about the party without describing the whole thing. The crime writing lesson before the party included discussion on using one significant event to make whatever point you want to make about, say, a whole day. So I wrote about one thing out of the ordinary that happened to

I eventually got into the swing of things today, but I don’t feel like I worked well. I got myself a bit mixed up because I realised I had some timescale errors within the chapters I wrote on Friday. I’m now on chapter 28 of version 2, which is chapter 26 of this version. That does mean that I’m only two chapters off reaching my target for this week, but I don’t feel like I’ve done that much as a lot of today's editing was just altering copy and pastes. It's more satisfying r

Today did not go at all to plan. I reread class 3 with a view to getting back in the zone to then start editing/rewriting the chapter that is later in time connected to class 3. However, that is where my edit ended today. I am not impressed with myself, in the slightest.

My friend Carla and her daughter Imogen are currently on the M6 heading north. The three of us are having a sleepover in the cabin that Carla helped me build. As is often the case when I have a hard finish for some writing, I kind of overachieved today. Well, I say that but for (fictional) class #2 I had to rewrite and change quite a lot, but for class #3, which I was doing today, it was more of an edit. Hurrah. It was good to have a more positive day in terms of feeling I’d

I was at my desk and editing at 07:00 this morning. All was going well for the first twenty or so minutes. Then I had a stomach ache and, trying not to overshare, ended up back and forth to the bathroom for half an hour. So that was annoying. The writing resumed, all fine, then mid-afternoon, I somehow cut my middle finger just under the cuticle. I wrapped some kitchen towel around it, dabbed the blood and resumed stenoing. Then my finger slipped. Strange, I thought. I’d bled

AI instruction: Woman with white, pixie-cut hair and large, translucent green glasses wearing a multicoloured woollen hat and a black coat and black jogging bottoms, walking along a road through a valley in winter (river, trees, grass). She is carrying a white plastic bin bag and litter pincers 19. Wednesday 21 January 2026 I had such good intentions for today. I thought I’d get straight to it, write and edit loads and be finished so I could read and do a few jobs around the

I was expecting to feel bad for not having written every day, but I’m okay with it, and rightly so; I need a break. That said, I have struggled to get back into my writing and editing today, and I certainly don’t think that what I wrote today is my best work. I’ve realised that to attempt the ten chapters I’d like to write this week, seeing as I barely did anything on Saturday and took Sunday and Monday off while I stayed in Edinburgh, I’d need to write two chapters on two da

17. Saturday 17 January 2026 My work-in-progress novel is called Crime Writing for Beginners , which is the name of a six-week course. When one of the six students dies in a perceived accident at home, the remaining five decide not to waste an opportunity to put their investigative skills to the test so treat his death as a murder. The idea is that the reader knows almost as much as them because almost all knowledge they have of the victim is from the unconventional exercises

My main aim for today’s editing was to rewrite one version of events of the death of one of the members of the Crime Writing for Beginners course. I wrote it once, rewrote it, tried to make it work and failed; today’s plan was to rewrite it and make it work.

15. Wednesday 15 January 2026 Does it count as having rewritten two chapters that I wrote chapter 8 and deleted chapter 9? Probably not, but I have written a few paragraphs of chapter 9, which was chapter 10 and chapter 10 is double figures so sounds like a leap in progress. What's wrong with my memory? I think I might have actually written two-maybe-three chapters. I think I started with chapter 7. Go me, if I did! Chapter 9, which was 10, requires a proper r

I didn’t rewrite as much as I hoped today, but I did work through some problem areas in the four chapters I wrote yesterday, so I feel kind of okay about today’s progress.

Surely not? I’m trying to think how many chapters I worked on today. Three? No, can’t have been. I think it actually was. I can’t check – well, I could but it would require my getting up off the sofa to go upstairs to fetch a physical hardware key and that’s just not going to happen. I’m thinking three though. I'm mildly impressed with myself.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading a novel called There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura and translated by Polly Barton, mainly for one section, where the main character’s job is to watch covert footage of a writer. The narrator is amazed how much time he spends sitting at his desk and/or not writing. I would have been horrified to think of someone watching my attempts at writing today. I first sat at my desk at around 08:30. I turned my desktop PC, monitor, keyboar