What is time? No, seriously, guys. How is it the middle of July already? My birthday’s in 2 weeks? What?!? I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster ride that’s going so fast, I don’t even have time to yell “let me off”. I guess that’s one way to go with the flow, hah.
It wasn’t a particularly busy week but it was also not not busy, if you know what I mean. I spent a good chunk of it working on my eleventy thousand edit of A Party to Murder, this time with the goal of getting the word count down from 115,000 to 95,000 words. I did it … just. Had to sacrifice some bits of my B-plot, but hopefully this strengthens my story overall. And I’ve learned my lesson; in the future, under-writing my first draft is the way to go. For me, it’s much easier to add wordcount during editing than it is to cut it.
Somehow, I was able to do a few fun things too. I’m currently trying to source comps for my current WIP (which I will need when I go to query) so I’m adding lots of books to my TBR list. This week, I read Alex Pavesi’s The Eighth Detective. Really enjoyed it, though it turned out not to be a good comp for my book. I picked it up because I saw it being compared to Stuart Turton’s Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, but I actually found it more similar to something like Anthony Horowitz’s Mayflower Murders series. A mystery within a mystery with a writer/editor who is also a sort of amateur sleuth. Fun and twisty.
Last weekend, I picked up some books at the thrifts, including the companion illustrated “guide” to the show Victoria. Flipping through it made me feel nostalgic, so I ended up re-watching Season 1. I remember being obsessed with it when it first aired. I kinda blew my own mind when I realized that was in 2016. Coulda sworn it was only 5-6 years ago. Sigh. It was interesting to see it again, 9 years later. Weirdly, I was Team Melbourne back in the day, and now I found myself leaning Team Albert. I’d forgotten how cute Tom Hughes is. Anyhoo. I’m now locked in to watch Seasons 2 and 3, which I never saw the first time around. The show’s historicity is pretty typical of the genre, but it mostly works for me. It’s definitely entertainment first, history second, but it’s not total fantasy either.
I’m super pumped for the weekend. It’s my son’s birthday on Sunday; he’s turning 14. Seriously, what is time? He’s already had his birthday party, so the celebration this weekend will be super chill. On Saturday, we’re doing a day trip to Ponoka for their town-wide garage sale. We went a couple of years ago, and the whole fam had a blast, so we’re very excited to do it again. Hopefully, the weather cooperates because it’s been getting preeeetty smoky here this week.
Have a great weekend!