An Endless Loop of Editing Begins!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

Best just get on with it!

image is mine

Ahh yes, the direct consequence of writing too many books in a row without breathing! I now have an endless list of editing jobs to get through! This is both good and bad. It’s good because it means more books moving closer to being publication ready. It’s also good news because I do kind of like editing…

It’s bad news because all this editing has to take priority and I am absolutely, unequivocally, not allowed to start writing any new books! It’s bad news because fresh new writing is without a doubt my favourite aspect of writing and I won’t be able to feel that again for a while. I do have some ideas for short stories based in the Black Hare Valley universe, however, so I will probably be able to satisfy the itch of writing with those and perhaps more essays and poems on Medium.

Below is the list of editing jobs I now need to focus on. As I write this, however, I have ticked the first one off. This morning I finished going through the edits for Black Hare Valley Book 1 from my editor. I will now send it to my Kindle for a final read through. I have also sent Black Hare Valley Book 2 to my Kindle and will tackle the fifth draft of that immediately after…

Yesterday, I also finished the Kindle edits of the book my writing clubs have written. I now need to amend those edits on the Word document before starting the process of setting the book up for publication.

Editing jobs:

  • Black Hare Valley Book 1 : 1996 – edits from my editor = DONE!
  • Something Happened in Lakeside View – a book my students have written, I am currently editing via a Kindle check through, then I’ll do final edits on the document
  • The Dark Finds You Part 3: second draft/read through edit to see what I actually wrote and determine if it is any good.
  • Black Hare Valley Book 2 : 1966 – this one now needs to be sent to my Kindle for draft 5/ read through/check edit
  • Black Hare Valley Books 3/4/5 : all also need to get sent to Kindle for draft 5/read through/check edit
  • The Dark Finds You Part 2: needs its sixth edit plus some changes I’ve recently decided to make, then it might be ready to go to the editor
  • The 7th Child – second draft/rewrite – I’ll get to this in a while but it will be more of a rewrite than a second draft so I am putting it off while the above takes priority!

Ugh, I feel tired just thinking about it all. But there is no point moaning! I did this to myself! And the sooner I get on with it, the sooner the books can all be published, the sooner I can start writing new ones!

The Which Book To Release Next Dilemma!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

I think I’ve changed my mind again…

rough cover idea for Black Hare Valley – image is mine

If you’re a regular reader here on my blog you will already know that I tend to juggle multiple writing projects at the same time. I cannot seem to just focus on one book until it is published and then start the next one. Instead, I’ll have one ‘priority’ book which is closest to being ready for release, one that is written and going through various edits and drafts, and usually one I am writing fresh…

This often proves to be a huge headache and mildly stressful but I’ve accepted it. I think I am mostly driven by a haunting fear of dying before I write and release all the books in my head. I’m just trying to get the job done.

Anyway, my most recent release was The Dark Finds You – a gritty crime thriller connected to lots of my other books. It was supposed to be the final book in a shared universe, a crossover book which would pull together and tie up various character’s storylines with a brand new plot.

https://books2read.com/u/mKjewB

That was all great until I started reading the paperback proof just to check it and suddenly got a whole new idea for a part two! I could not resist and ended up penning that book over Christmas. It’s now awaiting its sixth draft, and of course, part two led me to part three… The Dark Finds You has become a trilogy. So much for tying up that universe! I guess I just love these characters too much.

That led me to a dilemma. The next book due to be released after The Dark Finds You was Black Hare Valley Book 1. I had planned to release it on May 1st 2026 and then spread the 5 book series out over a year or two. But it suddenly felt weird, interrupting one now unfinished universe to introduce a brand new, and very different, universe.

So, I decided to delay releasing Black Hare Valley for now and concentrate on getting The Dark Finds You trilogy done. Part Three has just been finished in the first draft and I figured within a six to nine month period I could get them up to scratch and publish directly after The Dark Finds You.

That seemed to make sense!

But last weekend I had another wobble and found myself doubting that decision. And I think I have changed my mind again…

The reasons for doubting the decision are as follows:

  • I’ve really been missing Black Hare Valley! I think this was acerbated by book one coming back from my editor with lovely comments and not too much work to do re editing my end. I just kind of want to get stuck in now and get it done. I’ve been thinking about these characters and missing them. I am genuinely looking forward to doing the edits.
  • I’ve had various doubts about The Dark Finds You parts 2 and 3… I think it’s just because they’re still quite new. I’ve 99% happy with part 2 and about 80% happy with part 3, but I’ve only just finished the first draft, so that’s to be expected. Usually I do the second draft and like the book much more than I expect to. This is probably just a little confidence crisis, but it makes me want to go back to Black Hare Valley until I can figure it out…
  • Towards the end of the first draft of The Dark Finds You part 3 I started to slow down. I just wasn’t feeling it the way I wanted to and I am still not sure why. A reluctance to write is unusual for me and normally means something is not quite right somewhere and I just need to figure out what it is.
  • I wonder if it really matters what order I release them in? Black Hare Valley is nearly ready to go, so why wait? The Dark Finds You trilogy might now be trickier than I imagined to get right and I don’t know how long that will take.

So, with all that in mind, I think I have decided to postpone release of the rest of The Dark Finds You trilogy and just get going with Black Hare Valley instead. I am not sure yet whether I will release all five books in the series and then go back to The Dark Finds You, or whether I will go back and forth between the two very different worlds!

I will, of course, keep you updated!

Draft 2 Digital Have Partnered With Bookshop.org!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

All my titles are now being published to Bookshop.org

my books in a connected universe! Image is mine

Just a quick one this week folks! I thought I would let you know the exciting news that Draft 2 Digital have partnered with Bookshop.org which is fantastic news for indie authors like myself.

Bookshop.org launched in 2020 as an Amazon alternative and champion of independent book shops and indie authors. As an indie author I could have added my books to it back then but I never got around to it. However, I recently had an email from the team at Draft 2 Digital announcing their new partnership with Bookshop.

The good news is all I had to do was check a box and now all of my titles will be published and available on Bookshop.org in ebook and paperback. Draft 2 Digital is fast becoming a far more enticing place to be for indie authors and the link with Bookshop.org means our readers have even more places to find our books and avoid supporting Amazon if they wish to.

The whole process of uploading ebooks and formatting paperbacks on Draft 2 Digital is far preferable to the Amazon experience. I also much prefer their paperbacks to Amazon’s.

These days, perhaps because I largely only share the universal book links Draft 2 Digital generate for me, I get most of my sales through platforms other than Amazon. It makes me wonder if we even need Amazon anymore, which is something I never thought I would say.

I’m going to wait and see what happens with Bookshop.org. My books are not on there yet but it says ‘publishing’ on my Draft 2 Digital dashboard. It may be that in the future I ditch the evil ‘Zon for good.

That would feel good, to be honest! Amazon are famously terrible for indie authors, appalling at sorting out problems and communicating and we all know they are not an ethical company whatsoever.

I’ll see what happens but personally I would love to dump them.

What do you think?

The Danger of Juggling Too Many Writing Projects

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

I wouldn’t advise anyone to do what I do…

Image by Theodor Moise from Pixabay

The other evening I was sitting at my laptop in my bedroom typing away when my youngest child wandered in to ask what I was up to. I assumed he wanted the short answer, ‘writing’, but he wanted the long one. He wanted to know what book I was working on. Sweet of him, but I instantly rolled my eyes and laughed. I held up my hand and warned him. I can’t answer that quickly, I told him, it’s always a long and complicated answer!

So, bless him, that’s what he got and to his credit, he did seem interested. He kept asking more questions so I assume he was legitimately intrigued! My answer went a bit like this, “I’m writing what might be part three to the book I just published… but I’m still not 100% sure if I am going to do it, but I just finished the fifth edit on part two, so I need a little break from editing, but really I should be editing the next Black Hare Valley book, but I’m probably delaying that series now while I get this one done which was always meant to be one book but now looks like it will be a trilogy…or I should be starting the rewrite for The 7th Child which is an unrelated book I wrote recently which really needs a big rewrite, but I’m just not in the mood to do it yet, probably because these books are too much in my mind. Plus, I did write a chapter or two of another unrelated book recently, but I’m gonna have to ignore that too…”

We also got into how the trilogy that wasn’t meant to be is related to and connected to lots of my other books.

He nodded and grinned. Probably wondered how unhinged his mother is. I felt suddenly exhausted by the work I have given myself. It isn’t easy juggling multiple projects and although I long ago accepted that this is just the way my mind works and there is no point resisting it, I do sometimes feel myself buckle under the weight of it.

In an ideal world I would get an idea, plan and plot and research, start writing, finish book, edit, edit, revise, edit and so on, publish, market and then start again with a new idea. I feel like that would be so peaceful, so organised, so chilled… I truly envy people who work like that.

It has never been like that for me. I have always found myself balancing multiple writing projects, editing something while writing something new, marketing old books while marketing new books, writing down ideas I didn’t want, feeling books push to the front and jump the queue, and books that were meant to be standalones evolving into trilogies…. Most evenings involve me splitting my time between editing one book and writing another.

Most of the time it’s fine and I just go with it. There is always one book that is the priority and that is usually the one closest to being published, but not always. I try to prioritise that one so my approach isn’t completely scattergun. The book that is furthest ahead will keep getting pushed towards that publication finish line. There is always another book, maybe two, being written at the same time though. I just can’t help it.

And sometimes it does stress me out. I think one of the hardest things is having my mind in several different books at the same time. The worlds might be very different, for example. I’ll be fully immersed in the world of one book and then have to switch vibes to work on another. This is hard when it comes to characters. Character is the most important element of story writing for me, and I’m always extremely happy when my reviews mention how much the reader loved the characters. But it would genuinely be better to just concentrate on one book at a time and be fully engaged with that set of characters. Instead, I am all over the place, and I am constantly worrying that it might dilute the characters or that I might confuse them.

To be fair, I don’t think that has ever happened but it is one of the reasons I wish I could concentrate on one project at a time.

The other thing that makes it hard is time. I wish I had more time. I wish every day was twice as long and then I could get everything done twice as fast and get on to the next waiting story. I think I live with the fear that I will die before I get all my books written. There is a tab on this site for my upcoming books – that should give you an idea of the amount of noise in my head all the time! Every time I get a book finished and published, I feel such an incredible sense of relief and letting go.

It’s also difficult from a stress point of view. A lot of the time it is fun working like this, jumping from one project to the next every day. It keeps things fresh and exciting. Sometimes though, it is stressful. It feels like I have given myself an unbearable load of homework and it often feels like something terrible will happen if I don’t complete it all!

I have my everyday to-do lists: plant seeds, change the beds, order dog food, water the plants, put the washing on, etc. Then I have my work-related to-do list: reply to that email, check online banking, prep the next weeks lessons, edit the children’s project and so on.

And then there is the endless writing to-do list I insist on giving myself. My on-going projects are on a piece of paper pinned to the wall beside me when I write. About twice a year I get the thrill of ticking one book off because I have published it! But the rest lays heavy on my shoulders. And I really, really don’t want to get any new ideas. Which is why I often avoid writing short stories…

Who knows what they could grow into?