Yeah, I forgot to do last week’s!

The title I was planning on using was one of my book titles to reflects Scotland’s meek exit from the Euros – I mean, playing as badly as England but without the world-class players to score two fluky goals... There’s always next time, but I’m not sure where a half-decent centre forward is going to come from.

#Music

Not listening to any vocal music just now, so none this week.

Here’s a DJ set from Luke Vibert in his Amen Andrews persona:

https://boilerroom.tv/recording/luke-vibert-aka-amen-andrews

(The name is a pun on TV host Eamonn Andrews and the Amen break, from Amen Brother by the Winstons, used in virtually all jungle/drum&bass tracks)

#Last Week Fortnight

Well, I managed to write and edit 28,000 words, with another 6,300 pencilled in (though most of that chunk was today and is going to need a lot of work to expand when I edit).

A decent but not spectacular amount, especially considering the amount of travel I’ve done and the effect the hay fever has had on me. This last few weeks have been bloody awful when it comes to hay fever. Bloody horrible. Literally – I spent a lot of last weekend with horrible nosebleeds that would start as soon as the previous one stopped. If you don’t suffer, you’re lucky... I’m on new antihistamines, which seem to be doing the business but are knackering in a different way from the others. At some point this month (God, it’s July now!) I’ll be able to stop taking them at all and it’ll all be golden again, but that’s the best part of a fortnight away. Maybe I’m past the worst of it, but never say never.

How’s the book going? It’s okay. It’s not the book I’ve enjoyed writing the most, I’ll say that for it, but it’s definitely the one I’ve enjoyed researching the most. From the stuff with Beltane in Peebles, and the other Common Ridings across the area, to getting lost finding a tunnel in Peebles, to the little jaunt I did down by Hawick and Selkirk yesterday, venturing deep into the Ettrick valley to the titular village and over to not quite find another tunnel, but finding two things that will fit the story perfectly.

#This Week

This week, I really need to finish the bugger for my own sanity. I may take it easy for a few weeks after it as my head is mush just now. Hopefully stopping taking antihistamines will ease that.

I’ve got eight chapters to write, so conceivably that should all be done by Wednesday, if not tomorrow. I’ve got two new chapters to add in and a ton of tweaks and changes to make, but it’s all good. Now I’ve written that all out, I know I’ll get this done this week. Which is a good feeling.

Have a good week – I will be back on Mondaty to let you know how I got on with it.

Cheers,
Ed