Hey, it's been a while.

#Music

Turn My Way by New Order

Managed to snare the album this is from on vinyl for both much in the Fopp sale last week. It's a comeback for a band who everyone thought were gone, but here they are. This is one of the highlights, featuring backing vocals and guitar from Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame (not really a fan, but they've got 2 or 3 absolute bangers). Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

(Yes, I'm one of those twats who has got back into buying vinyl. But I do listen to it all day. He says, sitting in his kitchen listening to Suede on his Sonos speakers...)

#Last Week

Well, Marshall 6 is done and out to proof readers and to Mr A. King who will be doing his usual narrating. Huge thanks to John and Julia for copy editing and proofing. I didn't enjoy writing that book but it's all done.

Oh, and if you're a print fan, you can preorder His Path of Darkness from my site, Grey Dog Books:

https://greydogbooks.co.uk/products/his-path-of-darkness 

Remember - that's a preorder! The book will be with you around the 30th of September. And if you haven’t, it’s cheaper than on Amazon, especially if you buy more than one. It’ll be exclusive in the UK to GDB for a month or so, but overseas Amazonistas will get it there.

Bit of an experiment, this, but it’s working pretty well for me.

Some news – I've finished the screenplay draft of FALSE DAWN, Shunty's second book (or maybe the start of something new...) following on from the end of M06 (note the use of a zero there). I don't want to spoil you on it, so I won't tell you the setup, but it's different to anything I've written in years, probably closest to the first Hunter book, THE MISSING, in tone and setting. It took two days to outline, two to edit the outline, then four to write it as a screenplay, which has now been edited by James (hey, all my editors are Js – as am I technically), though I haven't had the heart to look at it. Once I've edited that document, I'll expand it into a novel.

I've banged on about how this is a process I am adopting now, but it's a much tighter and coherent document than the lengthy outlines I've prepared in the past. I've written the book once now, really, just need to flesh things out and add the bits a screenplay doesn't have – internal sensations like emotion, sights, sounds, smells, etc. I think the ending is nailed down now, which isn't usually the case with an outline, as I get itching to start and have a point of frustrated head scratching late on as I try to fuse two ideas together. It'll be interesting to see how easy the conversion is. I'll be going from something like:

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

Ed is sitting at his table, typing on his iPad. We hear Suede playing Sleeping Pills in the background.

The phone rings.

ED
Bloody hell.

Into:

Ed sat at his kitchen table, tapping away at his iPad. The wispy sounds of Suede drifted in, but he couldn't remember the name of the song. It stopped him typing. He picked up his phone and checked in the Sonos app.
Sleeping Pills.
Huh, he'd thought it was Pantomime Horse.
He started typing again.
His phone rang with the theme from Successtion.
Bloody hell...

You get the drift. The way I write is designed to be entirely visual (and sensual – not in that way, you pervert – so it covers all the senses), with no authorial intrusions or dumps of information. It’s all in the moment. So this is the natural extension of that – write a skellington and then put flesh on it. I suspect it'll be a quick write, but we shall see – I'll start tomorrow, as I had a ton of admin to do today. But it’s mostly done!

#This Week

I'll be doing that expansion job. Hopefully for a week or maybe a wee bit longer. Then I’ll be onto the secret project…

Anyway, that's me. Have a good one!

Cheers,
Ed