David Goodman, author of 'A Reluctant Spy' - Thriller writer discusses juggling projects, soft word-counts, and day-notes
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Goodman writes edge-of-your-seat spy thrillers. His debut, 'A Relucant Spy', was published in 2024. We follow Jamie Tulloch, a successful exec at a top tech company, who has a secret... he's part of the Legend Programme. It's a secret intelligence effort to help provide backstories for undercover agents. It's simple, real people, living real lives and are willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks to help a spy blend in. Yet, when Jamie gets a tap on the shoulder, and things go wrong... he needs to play himself well enough to save the world.
It won the McDermid Debut Award at the Theakston Old Peculiar Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, also the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize, and was nominated for many more. He's publishing the second in the series, 'Solitary Agents', in June.
David is at a really interesting time of his writing life. He's in between novels, had debut success, things are being optioned for TV, and whilst still busy with the day job, has been able to give up fridays for writing. We discuss how his writing life has changed now he's firmly in the publishing business. Also, why his 'day-notes' keeps the writing muscle going. You can hear about future writing plans, juggling projects, and waking up early.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week's episode of writers routine is sponsored by the Quick Book Reviews podcast. |
| 0:05.7 | If this show takes you behind the scenes of writing books, the Quick Book Reviews podcast |
| 0:10.7 | takes you into what makes them brilliant. It's all about the authors too. You can join |
| 0:16.3 | Philippa, who for the last six years has been chatting to some of the biggest authors around and discovering their newest work. |
| 0:23.6 | If you're a reader looking for new book recommendations and getting to know your favourite writers, |
| 0:28.7 | this is the perfect show for you with in-depth chats and spoiler-free book reviews |
| 0:33.8 | in perfect bite-sized chunks to fit easily into your day. |
| 0:38.5 | Recent episodes there for you to listen to include an interview with Jenny Godfrey |
| 0:42.5 | and the revealing truth about how NetGalley really works. |
| 0:47.4 | Philippa gets into all the fun questions too, finding out what authors like to eat, |
| 0:52.4 | where they want to go on holiday, and the gossip about bits of their life that you won't find anywhere else. |
| 0:59.6 | All that with some very speedy book reviews, getting right to the heart of all the newest stuff out there and the best ones for you to read. |
| 1:10.5 | The Quick Book Reviews podcast is a lighthearted |
| 1:12.8 | look at authors and what you might love about their new book. You can get two episodes a week |
| 1:18.8 | wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for the Quick Book Reviews podcast. Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine. This week we're with David Goodman. David writes, |
| 1:40.0 | Edge of Your Seat spy thrillers. His debut was a reluctant spy. Now juggling three or four |
| 1:46.9 | project at a time. He's got a day job. Things are being optioned for TV. It's a really exciting, |
| 1:51.9 | busy time. And we get right into the middle of it. You can hear all about why he likes to try things, |
| 1:57.2 | fail at things and then learn from things. Also, why he writes day notes, blog posts on his website every day, which keeps his writing |
| 2:06.5 | muscle working, but on the flip side takes away valuable working time. |
| 2:11.5 | I did find quite quickly that it's actually really, really useful psychologically, socially to just talk very regularly |
| 2:20.8 | about what you're doing. It's useful for me because I'm able to have a record of what I'm working |
... |
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