The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is now on Netflix. I was quite pleased with the adaptation. Keep in mind, the book is 400 pages long. The movie is two hours long. Some changes needed to be made, but they kept the heart and emotion of the story.

So, Terminal List: Dark Wolf came out Wednesday, and tonight The Thursday Murder Club is out. It's like someone knows I write in both genres and wants to make me choose a favorite. I refuse. I will love each child equally.

I made some wonderful friends at #killernashville this year, and learned so much! I even got to wear my new rainbow shirts and got so many compliments. I'm so glad I went and can't wait until next year!

Day three of #killernashville writing conference is about to begin. My brain is getting full, in a good way.

Later this week I head to Nashville for the #killernashville writing conference. I've never been, but am excited about the panels. It's in the Franklin/Cool Springs part of town. Anyone able to recommend a tasty restaurant in the area? Doesn't need to be fancy. www.killernashville.com

Just thinking today about the great Terence Stamp. His portrayal of Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert left behind a fierce and wonderful role model. A truly iconic and important performance.

Spy trivia: Anna Chapman didn’t use public Wi-Fi. In NYC cafes, she’d sit back-to-back with a Russian handler. Their laptops created a hidden network, silently exchanging encrypted files—no cables, no trace. Modern tradecraft at its coolest. #Espionage #SpyTech #Tradecraft

My first book took me about 4 years to finish the first draft. My second book has taken about 60 days to get to the same point. I guess I must be doing something right. #spythriller

From my Facebook spy author page, Tim Gallows: Did you know William Shakespeare was a spy? He was, but not a very good one. He was found guilty of "thespianage!" 😄

A little bit of the writing I did this month from my action-adventure spy story. Some setup. Our spy is hiding out in a squathouse, but needs to help them with a greedy landlord trying to evict them. He's paid a utility worker, Koos, to keep cutting their power. Our spy needs to stop him.

I seem to have broken through some type of resistance. From Friday to Sunday, I wrote 10,741 words in my new spy novel. Spy novels are longer than Mysteries, so I'm targeting 100k for my novel goal. But all told I've written 19,214 of that 100k and am now starting Act 2. I deserve a cookie.

While my current draft is in queue for the Developmental Edits, I am starting on an action/adventure spy-type book with a gay protagonist. It's new territory for me, but one I'm looking forward to writing. Happy pride!

This is Garth, one of the most important characters (according to him) in my upcoming book "Murder at the Bathhouse", an adult-themed gay cozy murder mystery, due out later this year. timcandleman.com/murder-at-th...

Here's a few words I wrote over the last week's vacation.

A scene from my upcoming Cozy Mystery novel.

Worked on a scene in an action/adventure book that's been running around in my head. Decided to create a little AI art to better visualize the scene, and thought I'd share it.

Adorbs.

Every now and then the Youtube algorithm gets me. This was a real treat to watch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnOD...

Thanks Bethesda. It's not like I have a novel to edit or anything. www.ign.com/articles/the...

There are some helpful uses for AI when it comes to editing. I don't let it write anything for me, but it's great for determining overused words and phrases. Here are some of my worst offenders: looked, looking, just, really, actually, great, amazing, like, anyway. So much passive voice to fix.

I put together a Word Cloud for my second draft of my book. Here's Chapter 4. Shouldn't be any spoilers in it. Seeing a Word Cloud helps me see quickly if I am overusing a word (like "just", which is too frequent).

This will be delightful to see. The book is great! collider.com/the-thursday...

I'm quite pleased with how my cover for "Murder at the Bathhouse" turned out. timcandleman.com/cover-for-mu...

This is lovely. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_I5...

I attended the Atlanta Self Publishing Conference last weekend. I took some time to write up my positive experience. timcandleman.com/attending-as...

Second drafts are fun. Since I'm a pantser, I needed to go through and update my outline for my first draft. Since that is complete, I am combing the manuscript to make sure my clues are in the right place and not too subtle. Then a new outline, then I can start the actual edits/changes. Fun!

Checking in with my friends to see if anyone can recommend a book cover artist for the Gay Cozy Murder Mystery I'm writing.

Apple TV has a show called The Gorge. Great show. I watched it in a dark room at a distance initially, but had to move closer to read some things on the screen.

This was a great Youtube video covering how Scrivener can connect to Vellum for formatting your book properly for publishing. I'm looking forward to more videos like this. youtu.be/07V6jPeIxdU?...

Working on my second draft. So far, making progress. Learning what sorta system works for me. Re-reading my work I realize my scene level work is pretty good, but since I'm a bit of a pantser, my scenes sorta flow all over the place. Adding structure will be my second draft challenge.

Because I had to take a long distance trip, I've recently started a new audiobook, The Thursday Murder Club. It's amazing so far, but I have a dilemma. I just found out that it's being produced as a show on Netflix. My dilemma is, do I finish the audiobook or do I wait for the show?

Some of my friends from other places have recently joined Bluesky. I'm welcoming you with this lovely picture from the University of Hawai'i West Oah'u.

I've been looking for some good shows to watch. A friend recommended Severance, and I realized I wasn't in the mood for something so dark. I tried Cross, and realized I wasn't in the mood for action. I need some feel good shows. I've watched S1 of Ted Lasso, think I'll start S2. Any other recs?

I just finished watching "The Good Place". It's a surprising series that is great fun and also makes you think a bit. I think my favorite character is probably Janet - a very unique character you don't see very often.

Several of my friends are moving over to Bluesky as their exclusive social media platform. I'm still getting used to Bluesky, as I'm more of a Facebooker than a Twitterer, and the interface feels a bit strange. I'm grateful to have a place where people feel safe. Welcome, friends!

Another decent month of writing, given the holidays and some travel. Up to 74915 words for my first draft now.

I just completed reading the latest Kay Scarpetta novel Unnatural Death, by Patricia Cornwell. I've read her series from the start, Postmortem because my sister had great taste in books. Her novels are part of the reason I want to write my own books. www.amazon.com/Unnatural-De...

A snippet of some of my most recent words.

NaNoWriMo comes to a close. I started my book last November, and didn't make much progress on it for several months. I now have 62k words for my first draft and will probably write another 40k more based on my outline. NaNoWriMo got me going on my dream. 15k a month is a good goal for me.