My regular update on my novel writing progress, with insight into living and working as an indie author with a full-time job and Crohn’s disease.
my_writing_week
The week started a little slowly from a creative perspective, but I didn’t mind; I was out for most of Sunday at a dual celebration for Father’s Day and my mum’s birthday, which was nice.
I did a bit of work in the evening on the cover for The Spike 1.1, mostly spent on the font and layout of the subtitle: Application Infiltration. Unsatisfied, I finished up wondering if I should create my own font…
Having slept on it, on Monday I researched the font creation process and the software I’d need. Unhappy with the time and money it would take to create what I want myself, I looked at a couple of font libraries, but they understandably require licences for commercial use, and I didn’t find something I was happy enough with to be willing to pay for it.
I decided to shelve that for the time being and let the different ideas percolate whilst I worked on other tasks.
Tuesday and Wednesday were similar, both days where I had to go into the office for my day job. On each day, I added a chapter from The Spike Volume 1 to the series bible, and I wrote a bit for my upcoming “author’s review” of Dracula by Bram Stoker, having just finished reading it for the first time. That will be posted to this blog once it’s complete so keep an eye out for that.
I felt a bit unwell Monday to Wednesday because of a slight flare of my Crohn’s disease, brought on by the stress of my day job. These six weeks are my busiest of the fifty-two — I work in an Accounts department and it’s our financial year end on 27th June, followed by an audit — and this was a reminder I must make an effort to remain relaxed and not let the pressure get to me.
When I stayed late in the office on Wednesday to work on a chapter for the series bible, my manager suggested I go home and veg in front of the telly seeing as I wasn’t feeling great. I declined. The sense of achievement I got from working on my writing despite being unwell bolstered me, and was the boost I needed to see out the week.
Thursday, I began work on this blog, partly because I was feeling especially enthused about my weekly_inspiration (below) and wanted to get that part done. Don’t miss it!
On Friday, I wrote a bit more of my Dracula review, and added another (lengthy) chapter to the series bible. I’m up to chapter 21 now; only 60 more to go…
I cheered myself up a bit by buying one of the optional employee benefits at my day job: an extra five days of annual leave! I’ll very much look forward to having more time to spend doing what I want.
As I was lying down to sleep on Friday night, my brain decided it had percolated long enough on the “cover font” issue and spat out two good ideas within five minutes. One of them I like a lot and will only work with Application Infiltration; the other I’ll save for another book.
The brainwave inspired me to spend a couple of hours on Saturday working on the cover, and I think it’s going to look really good. There’s lots more work to do on it though.
That brings us up to date. Fortunately, the little Crohn’s flare up is behind me and I’m more relaxed. Feeling unwell played a part in me not being as productive as last week with my writing, but I still hit my target of 14 sessions for the week. Yes, it’s a decrease from the 20 of last week, but that felt like an anomaly at the time.
Hopefully I’ll continue to decrease my stress and increase my creativity during the week to come.
status_report
I’ve almost completed a new cover design for a second edition of The Spike Volume 1, but I waver back and forth over how much I like it.
I’m working on covers for the two individual parts, Application Infiltration and Laying Down The Law, which are going to be published separately for the first time. I want both to have a similar style and layout, and I have an idea I like for each. They’re progressing, slowly, but slow progress is still progress.
Draft 2 of The Spike Volume 2 is complete! It contains three separate books from the perspectives of seven characters.
Revision will begin soon.
The aim is to have Volume 2 finished by the end of 2025 for publication early 2026, although this is beginning to look ambitious.
Early brainstorming has been done for The Spike Volume 3. I know how it must begin; I have an ending that I think will be great; and I have a long list of ideas to get from one to the other that needs to be whittled down and put in an order. I’m not intending to do much more work on this until revision is complete on Volume 2.
There are a couple of other projects in the works that I’m not ready to share yet – they’ll be announced here first.
connecting_links
The Spike is set in our world, incorporating real events; the links below are relevant to the themes and overarching storyline, and may or may not provide clues to the direction of the series.
I do not necessarily agree with or endorse any of the views within.
Built to Dominate: Palantir is designing the infrastructure of repression—and telling us why.
Anthropic study: Leading AI models show up to 96% blackmail rate against executives
World’s largest banks pledged $869bn to fossil fuel firms in 2024, new report finds
AI boom means regulator cannot predict future water shortages in England
Salesforce study finds LLM agents flunk CRM and confidentiality tests
weekly_inspiration
Every week I share something that’s inspired my creativity.
This week, I’ve mostly been listening to this particular live performance of “When Your Mind’s Made Up” by Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard.
The song was originally written and recorded for a film they starred in together, “Once”, which was billed as an indie musical. It’s a touching story about two people meeting and connecting through music. One of the tracks, “Falling Slowly”, won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008, and they subsequently released an album in 2009, “Strict Joy”, under the band name The Swell Season.
After touring that album, they went their separate ways, but they’ve reformed for a new album, “Forward”, which will be released 11th July. It’s on my wishlist.
What’s inspired you this week? Please share in the comments.
See you next week.
Arrowmaker Books 