When editing is disrupted by sourdough & the need to buy provisions ahead of snow and ice

AI instruction: Driving through a valley with a river and hills with snow on the road [This looks nothing like the reality and neither did my road continue as a river/sheet ice]

6. Tuesday 6 January 2026

I’m not sure if I’m overachieving because I’m writing this and wanting to show off or whether I set my daily goal far too low or whether I’m just brilliant, but I got through another ten chapters today. Despite four hours being taken out by Chris and I driving through the snow for 45 minutes each way to buy provisions ahead of forecast snow and ice.

                Kind of weirdly, the snow stopped about halfway there, it was just drizzling in Lockerbie. 25 minutes from home, the snow got thicker and thicker (though only a few centimetres since we set off, nothing like the snow they’re currently having in the Highlands or Canada and other countries where “it’s snowing” has significantly greater implications).

                I felt guilty going out on a work day, so maybe that’s why I managed to get through ten chapters. I was up and potentially ready to start work by 7.15 this morning, but didn’t actually start until 8.30, annoyingly, for which I blame sourdough. I have foolishly awoken a starter (first time ever) and I now realise I can’t actually bake any bread from it for four days, yet I feel committed to seeing it through. Tending to the sourdough also meant breaks while I was working early evening. Maybe there is some kind of writing metaphor within this four-day sourdough process. I really hope my first ever sourdough loaf works out. I also hope the sourdough isn't a form of procrastination?!

Elastic band for where my sourdough started. Ready (I hope) to be transformed into bread (day 2 of 4)

                Maybe the most useful thing I’m currently doing for this edit is writing out the chapter number, date (ie in the story) and purpose/point made in each chapter on credit card-sized pieces of paper. I have roughly cut A4 sheets of paper into eight and these small pages are clipped together. I have used variations on this method before. It helps me that, when I’ve written each of the 50 chapter notes, I can lay them all out. My story jumps between the first five weeks of the crime writing course and the two weeks after the course. I lay the earlier chapter notes at the top, the later ones below and it enables me to see how often I’m moving between the two times. It also makes it easier to work out what chapters need to be deleted, added or amalgamated. Plus, I love little bits of paper.