Shell

Looking forward to this tonight. Should be fun!

Shall be there with some of the @edinburghsff.com gang no doubt! Should be a horrible night. Wait. I mean, a night of horror. (Love yah!)

RIP Walter, and thank you 😭

That temporary relief that getting up early Monday after the clocks have changed—not quite so brutal, aye? And it’s light! Quickly forgotten because it is Monday morning. Send coffee.

Be safe out there. One of the blocks in Leith has wind damage.

It just suddenly got very dark in my bit of Leith. Like someone is dialling down the lights. Um. I’m sure this is fine.

Charlie and Parker & co. continue to live rent-free in my head, many months after reading!

Recharging this morning. Writing laptop is right… there… but… Look, I like rain, but not so much the wind that is trying to pull down the scaffold caging our tenement. So today is a reading day, then some editing later I s’pose.

Something I wish more people would realize.

Not all bookstores in Japanese fiction are idyllic. Two newly translated novels bring an authentic portrait of working in Japan, forcing readers to drop the sakura-tinted glasses.

Very excited for this!!

For the weekend people. I am still laughing about this.

Bizarre existential dream last night about… dreams. This is fine. So, back to writing about necromancy and how things can steal your soul in your sleep and other fun things.

Hmm words are hard to find today. Probably because one scene isn’t sitting right.

They're almost here... soon.

While I'm shouting at clouds, UK gov telling everyone to stockpile for climate-change-driven emergencies while fast-forwarding fossil fuel drilling is... I had thought it was the government's responsibility to fix problems, not cause problems and then tell us to deal with the fallout at our expense.

Happy to be in here in the writers’ community space and not out there swimming. Damp to my bones.

Beautifully juxtaposed

I have said it before: Get a native speaker of the dialect to beta read your swears. They're such a giveaway and so easy to get wrong in tone, placement, appropriateness. (I had HOW TO FAKE IT IN SOCIETY swear-read by three French people...)

There are motion sensitive lights in the office space I’m camping in today. I keep being plunged into darkness. I mean I could move once in a while instead of prawning over my keyboard I guess…

Oh this is very nice.

730am walk across Leith to get pre-work writing done was dark and dark and dark. I’ve already forgotten what sunlight looks like.

In the City of (Broken) Dreams, it’s not about how you flatline. What matters most is the impact you make with the time you’re given. Edgerunners 2 Update (2.5) is available now on PC, Mac, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and coming soon to Nintendo Switch 2.

@cdprojektred.com @cyberpunk.net bravo on the update! That gig was so much fun. …and now I’ve been pulled back into Night City once again, after 600+ hours. City of stories, aye?

Fixing a massive plot hole that I didn’t realise was a plot hole by accident was today’s theme (if you ask me irl, it was entirely on purpose, what plot hole?). If only I could do that with life-admin plot holes too.

I feel bad for anyone caught up in this PHP mess today, but man, that language/platform has been legacy for a long time. This was always going to happen. Use something that is actually modern and secure and easy to update.

Big writing day tomorrow I hope. First, a big work day to get through. I’ll sleep when I’m old. Oh, wait…?

I've mentioned before I've updated my contracts to make sure everything in the production of my books is done by humans and not "AI"; if you're wondering what such a thing looks like, here's a clause covering that from a recent contract.

Good morning Edinburgh. I love this view early morning. Beats the heck out of the basement office I had for 6 years.

Today was the most Monday of Mondays. But I have made chicken broth from yesterdays roast, so I’m beyond excited about dinner. Chunky bread to go with it too. Everything will be fine…

Seconded! @pictcon.bsky.social is a heartening testament to how microcons can support grassroots genre communities. I loved keeping panel chats going between things with such thoughtful and engaged fans. Thank you @effjayem.bsky.social and team for making my first one so welcoming. See you in 2027!

Paperback incomingggggg!

Damnit! Pintail is down again so my Shoveler isn’t working. How am I supposed to Merganise the Scaup reports now? My Wigeon score is gonna take a hit.

Paul Kane is back with a brand new horror collection: Fresh Wounds. It will be released at Fantasycon 2027, and it will be his third collection for Luna and his second for our Harvester series (and if you have not discovered the Harvester series, you really should!). @paulkane.bsky.social 💀

Today’s words are in honour of whoever it was buzzing our door at 330am. Who shall I maim…?

World building is hard. But I love it?

Edited for about 8 hours. Also took the plunge and migrated most of my notes to @notion.com (as I use this extensively at work too). Much easier to organise the bible for this novel in there.

October?

Work was intense today so not many words done. But tomorrow! No work laptop. Only writing laptop.

A wee reminder that if you want to join my writing group in Glasgow in celebrating their fortieth anniversary by buying a book and getting it signed, it's in less than a week's time. www.waterstones.com/events/celeb...

We don't need a blog to understand that this is absolutely an error of judgement (to put it kindly). Weak "regulation" is worse because it allows bad actors to say oh but we signed an ethical charter, and suddenly that's enough for the SoA to give a completely meaningless seal of approval.

Four chapters and act 1 of the novel edited. Memory, family, woven things in the dark, ghost cats & strange magic.

Sure. Sure. “Hey, ChatGPT, how do we backpedal without sounding like we sold out…?”

Please don't harass individual members of the SoA management committee over the AI decisions--there is an address for sending opinions, use that (And for Heaven's sake don't email committee members on their personal email addresses)