Writing and Life Goals for 2026!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

What do I hope to achieve in the year ahead?

Image by Wilfried Pohnke from Pixabay

Hello everyone! I hope you have had a truly happy and peaceful holiday season and may I wish you a very happy New Year! My last post saw me checking the goals I set myself at the start of 2025 and exploring the reality of whether I met them or not! I failed two, achieved six, and half-achieved two, which I thought was pretty good.

So, let’s not hang about. What do I want to achieve in writing and in life in 2026?

  1. Publish The Dark Finds You in January 2006! – This won’t be hard to achieve as the pre-order is already set up for the 9th January. I’m giving myself an easy start…
  2. Start final/final edits for Black Hare Valley Book 1 and release it May 1st 2026: I really hope I achieve this as I want this book to be released on 1st May because May Day is a very important day in the Black Hare Valley universe! Book 1 is with my editor right now so fingers crossed…
  3. Release another anthology written by the kids I work with – Not long after publishing The World You Gave Us, we launched another collaborative writing project where all the stories and poems had to be set in a strange town called Lakeside View. At the time of writing I am waiting for a handful of longer stories to come in and hope to have all editing and formatting done by the start of February…
  4. Finish The Dark Finds You sequel – This should be easy. I am almost at the end of the first draft of the book that wasn’t meant to happen. I would like to get this ready to go to the editor in 2026 with a possible release date of autumn 2026…
  5. Continue to edit/rework the rest of the Black Hare Valley series: At the moment I’m not sure how close I want to release each of the 5 books, so there is no major goal being set for publication after book 1… However, I do need to keep working on the rest of them and prioritise this series over everything else!
  6. Start the rewrite of The 7th Child – I recently finished the first draft of this family mystery drama and hated it by the end. I know how to fix it though and it needs a major rewrite. I was all ready to dive into this when the sequel for The Dark Finds You suggested itself! However, I really want to start the rewrite at some point this year…
  7. Continue to stick to Substack and make a few changes, and continue to stick with Medium: It’s always hard figuring out where and how to prioritise your time as a writer. Is it writing for other platforms that might make you money and/or improve your visibility? Or is just writing your own books? I’ve enjoyed both Medium and Substack in 2025 and I plan to stick with them with no particular pressure to do better. Just to have fun. I do have a few changes in mind for Substack though.
  8. Have my best year in the garden ever!!: Oh, I hope so. This might be my most important goal actually. I have worked really hard through the autumn preparing the vegetable patch for the spring and summer and I feel more determined than ever to do really well. I also see it as an emergency. We can’t rely on governments to address or slow down climate change, or help us adapt to it! I am really concerned about rising food prices and food security in general. The best thing we can all do is at least grow something. I also plan to get more ducks and chickens, plant more fruit trees and bushes and lots more herbs!
  9. Complete a reading challenge: I haven’t done one in ages but an author I know created one on Storygraph where you have to read a book starting with each letter of the alphabet. This seemed fun and simple so I signed up! Let’s hope I manage to complete the alphabet!
  10. Get better at sketching: This is partly because I dearly want each chapter of each Black Hare Valley book to start with a small ink sketch and partly because I used to love drawing as a child and it’s been fun to reclaim it. I did basic drawings for the chapters I serialised but they all need to be much better for publication! I hope to find a good YouTube tutorial that will help me…

So, there you have it! A real mix of writing related and general life goals for 2026. I am so excited to get started! Do you have any hopes or dreams for the year ahead? Please feel free to share in the comments!

Happy New Year!!

My 2025 Goals Vs The Reality!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

What I set out to achieve this year and how well I did!

Hello everyone! It’s that time of year once again where I dig out the goals I set myself for 2025 and see how well I did. I always find this exciting because once I set those goals at the start of the year I do tend to instantly forget them! It’s fun to see where my head was at a year ago and what was important to me going into that fresh new year.

Let’s dive in, see what I set myself up for and see whether I managed it or not!

Goal No 1: Publish The Mess Of Us February 2025 

Reality= Achieved: Yeah, this wasn’t going to get missed was it? The preorder was all ready to go! An easy start!

    Goal No 2: Go through my editors suggestions for The Dark Finds You and prepare it for release summer 2025 –

    Reality= Achieved, sort of?: Okay, The Dark Finds You is released on 9th January 2026 so I didn’t meet the goal of releasing it in the summer of 2025. I did, however, go through the final suggested edits! Half and half?

    Goal No. 3: Publish The World You Gave Us through Chasing Driftwood Books 

    Reality = Achieved!: This anthology written by the children I work with was indeed released June 2025. I suspect that’s why The Dark Finds You got moved back several months! It was a hard slog editing, formatting and getting it ready for release but the kids were all so proud of it and we launched straight into another one!

    Goal No 4: Send Black Hare Valley Book 1 to beta readers and my editor 

    Reality= Achieved sort of?: Another half and half. I did send it to Beta readers if you count serialising for feedback here and on Substack? I certainly got feedback! It didn’t make it to my editor though so I didn’t meet that part of the goal. I’m now on the final edits before I send it, so I was close!

    Goal No 5: Get both Black Hare Valley books 2 and 3 to 5th draft status 

    Reality= Failed!: They were only in first draft a year ago and they are now in third, so I didn’t get close to 5th draft. I set myself a tough challenge with that one!

    Goal No 6: Finish the companion book I am working on 

    Reality= Achieved!: I just finished the third draft of this Black Hare Valley book the other day. It’s now book 4, rather than a companion book though…

    Goal No 7: Continue to build and progress Chasing Driftwood Books 

    Reality= Failed!: Honestly, this almost fell apart this year. I just don’t have the time I ideally would like to commit to it. We are still going however and we just posted a 2025 round-up on the website of everything we’ve been up to and what are plans are for 2026!

    Goal No 8: Continue to keep as physically and mentally well as possible! 

    Reality = Achieved!: I am still sticking with Pilates and Calisthenics in order to keep as fit and flexible as I can as I drift closer to my 50s! Still walking lots and pottering in the garden too. Mental health wise, despite the challenges of the perimenopause, I am doing well!

    Goal No 9: Restart my vegetable plot 

    Reality= Achieved!: This is one of the things I am happiest about. I actually did really well in the garden this year, especially with tomatoes which I have always struggled with! Considering I was giving myself a gentle way back in, it all sort of exploded. I’d say I’m even more into it now, even more obsessed with turning my space into a sustainable food garden! For the first time ever I got a piece of paper and planned my new patch. I researched companion plants and plants that hate each other. I took multiple cuttings of herbs and fruit bushes I already have. I put up a new fence and created an archway entrance which beans will grow up. I have also been making trellises out of old sticks and these form a sort of grid/fence structure from the old tires I have. It all looks quite quirky and I love it! I also planted winter seeds and currently have broad beans, peas and winter lettuces on the go! I created a keyhole bed which is a key-shaped raised bed (made mine out of old logs) with a chicken wire compost circle in the middle. The idea is the compost leaches out to the soil. I’ve got another compost in the corner and plan on adding a second greenhouse. I am genuinely so excited and I’m out there every day planning and sorting and preparing! I guess the lesson I have finally learned is that gardening starts in the winter!

    Goal No 10: Reconnect with nature whenever and wherever I can

    Reality= Achieved: I have continued to try to name nature whenever I can. If I don’t know the name of something locally I take a picture and look it up later. This year I have also become very interested in the benefits of herbs and plan to grow a lot more next year. I’ve been drying my own and plan to start making teas too.

    In conclusion, I failed two, achieved six and partly-achieved two which I think is pretty good considering it’s been a busy year!

    Look out for my first post of 2026 where I will set out my goals for the next year! Thank you, as always, for being part of my writing and publishing journey and for joining me here in my little corner of the internet.

    Have a wonderful festive period and a very happy New Year!

      Writing Until It Hurts

      ~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

      When an idea explodes so loudly the book just writes itself..

      Image by ha11ok from Pixabay

      This is something I have written about before because this does happen to me every few books, but I just couldn’t resist talking about it again!

      As you know, my next release The Dark Finds You (out on 9th January) can be read as a standalone but also ties up various storylines from some of my other books in a connected universe. Connecting some of my books up with characters and locations is something I really love doing! The Dark Finds You was such an easy and pleasurable book to write because the idea of how to link up some of my most beloved characters came so naturally that writing it felt like pure joy. It took six weeks and it felt like it wrote itself. This was back in 2023.

      This also happened to me with Book One in the upcoming Black Hare Valley series. I wrote the first draft of book one in several notebooks over a six week period after we had a long-lasting power cut that prompted me to get writing. Each chapter led to the next and it just poured out of me. Most of the books that followed have been similar, although book 3 was a tricky one and book 5 still needs a lot of work.

      Last week when I was reading through the paperback proof of The Dark Finds You to check for errors, I got addicted to the story once again. It brought back to me how much I love and understand these characters and before I know it my mind was asking questions. What if…? And then, what if…? You get the picture.

      The thing is I did leave a few things a little bit open at the end of The Dark Finds You. I now wonder if I did that subconsciously because I still wasn’t ready to let go and say goodbye for good…

      All I had to do was slightly alter the tiniest bit of dialogue in the novel for a part two to be possible…

      The idea hit me like a bullet and exploded into pieces in my brain so violently I had to very quickly grab a notebook and write it all down before I lost anything. By Thursday last week I had outlined the whole novel chapter by chapter and could not resist writing chapter one in a notebook.

      That was it then, and by Sunday night I had 30,000 words.

      That’s a big word count for a four day period, but funnily enough we did have another power cut during this time that left me with no option but to write!

      Extra scenes have obviously squeezed themselves between my original chapter outlines, but other than that, it is all unfolding exactly as it did in my head last week. Which makes it so incredibly easy… I can only describe it as like being in a trance and just letting it all pour out of me as fast as possible!

      When it goes this well, it becomes very addictive. You just don’t want to stop or let anything get in the way of writing, when it is just begging to be written and the next chapter is constantly filling your head screaming to be let out.

      I wrote so much over the weekend that it physically hurt. I think that is a new thing for me. My shoulders, neck, back and eyes were all begging for a break, but I just wanted to keep going. I had to force myself to stop.

      It will slow down as the week ahead progresses because I have work and life to contend with, but I know I will feel the intense pull of it every day until I get to my laptop in the evening.

      Obviously, it doesn’t always work like this! Last week before this all kicked off, I finally finished the first draft of my family mystery drama The 7th Child. This was a book that had been waiting its turn patiently for years and had the plot, location and characters all mapped out ready to go. It went well to start with but it didn’t burst out of me in the same way and by the end of that first draft I hated it! I have figured out how to fix it though.

      So, it’s not always like magic. Sometimes it is much harder work.

      Which is why it is always worth celebrating the joy of it going so well!

      Social Media, Medium, Substack and Writing! An update on spinning all those plates!

      ~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments
      Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

      Hi everyone!

      I’ve been active on Medium now since 2023 and active on Substack for over a year. My trusty and much loved blog here on WordPress has been going since I started my writing and publishing journey back in 2012 or therearebouts! Since I published my debut novel The Mess Of Me in 2013 I have gone on to publish a total of 23 books, if you count The Dark Finds You which is out next month.

      It was all a learning curve in the beginning and it’s true to say I actively hated a lot of it. I just wanted to be writing. Fast forward through the years and I started to get used to it and eventually, even enjoy it. And then of course the landscape shifted – again and again and again – and like all independent authors on a low budget, I’ve had to shift and adapt with it each time.

      What I do now is try new things, give them some time and then assess what is working and what is not. After all, no one wants to spend their entire lives on social media and these books have got to be written somehow! With all that in mind I thought I’d do a little recap on what has been working for me, as well as what I am thinking of trying in the future!

      The first thing to mention is that my sales are up. Reviews are still very hard to come by, but I get sales from Amazon and from Draft 2 Digital (who distribute both ebooks and paperbacks to everywhere else) every month and in the last year or so, those sales have improved. Now, I am nowhere near being able to pay the rent! Nowhere close! But I do get a nice surprise most months, a little ‘oh!’ moment when my royalties show up. Funnily enough, most of my royalties are coming from Draft 2 Digital distributors, not Amazon!

      Let’s start with social media.

      Facebook and Instagram: I am still not as active as I probably should be, but whatever I am doing there for free does seem to be fetching me sales. I have 424 followers on Instagram which is linked to my Facebook author page where I have around 1,500 followers. I post daily life pictures and videos such as dog walks in my favourite places, gardening and baking pictures and writing updates. I post review graphics of all my books as much as I can, and quote graphics too, all with buy links and blurbs attached with the relevant hashtags. What I’ve done differently this year is use music! I caught on late and who knows what difference it makes, but it is fun picking songs to go with your pictures and reels. I try to repost and share my Substack and Medium posts to Instagram and Facebook too but not as much as I should.

      What I want to try in 2026: I want to try posting more videos of me talking. Scary, I know, but a lot of the time it would actually be quicker to record myself saying or doing something and post that to several places. I particularly want to try this with my Chasing Driftwood Writing Group social media platforms and blog. I work with young writers running clubs on Zoom and in schools, but I often worry about the young writers I can’t reach. There is only one me and I can’t run any more clubs than I already do. I already post a weekly round-up of what the kids have been up to on my Chasing Driftwood Writing Group blog and Facebook page, but I was thinking of changing that to a video where I could go into a bit more detail. It might be useful for writers who can’t access clubs and workshops, and I could cross post it to lots of places. I’m unsure at the moment, but it could potentially be more effective as well as a time-saver!

      Medium: It’s been up and down over on Medium but I do try and publish pieces there at least once a week. Essays, poems and short stories mostly. I am still running my tiny little publication The Wild Writers Club but constantly wondering if it is worth it! I have been boosted a few times lately and while two of them didn’t earn as much as I would have liked, one did hit the sweet spot and earned me over £200 just in time for Christmas! I was thrilled. Funnily enough, although I was only responding to a writing prompt about revolution, it was the most political piece I have ever shared there, so maybe I should do that more often? Anyway, it continues to be worth it, so I will stick around for the forseeable future. One new thing I have been doing is sharing links to my Medium pieces to my Substack weekly round-up post. I share the Medium member link and the free friends link to cover everyone.

      What I want to try in 2026: I need to remember to share my Medium pieces in more places, such as Instagram and Facebook as well as Substack. Chances are the same people are not following me in all these places, so it makes sense to cross post as much as possible. I also intend to keep up my once a week posting if I can and maybe even up it, but we will see. Maybe I will be brave and share more of my political and social opinions!

      Substack: I am not earning anything on Substack, that is the most important thing to point out. I have zero paid subs and I don’t think I am likely to ever get any. I have thought about offering high value content to paid subscribers but it just feels a bit cheap. I’m not sure I have anything to offer that’s worth £5 a month. I just want people to read my books and that’s what I focus on there. Sales have been better this year, so perhaps it is working? I have 139 subscribers there. I post weekly round-ups on a Friday where I share the main news of the week, whether it is writing, work or just life related and I also share what I am reading, watching and listening to. I just enjoy it! It’s fun sharing books and music and TV I love! There is always writing related news too and as I already said, I also post links to my Medium pieces. I also post an end of the month author newsletter, which really just replaces the old useless MailChimp one I used to have. This is always 100% writing related. And up until recently I was serialising Black Hare Valley Book 1 on Substack as well as here.

      What I want to try in 2026: I was thinking about adding writing tips and prompts to my weekly round-up but if I go ahead with my weekly video thing for Chasing Driftwood Writing Group, I wouldn’t need to do this. I would link to it. One thing I am definitely doing is adding character POV things to my author newsletter. There is endless content for this! I am going to be handing over a part of the newsletters to one of my characters each month. For example, Danny from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side will share his favourite sad songs, or Bill Robinson from The Holds End Trilogy will share his best ‘fuck you’ songs to sing at a gig. Chess and Reuben from The Day The Earth Turned series will share survival skills, and so on! There will be all sorts from playlists, reading recommendations to life hacks, recipes and philosophical thoughts! I am looking forward to this!

      Well, I think that’s everything. As always there are probably a million more things I could be doing to sell books and improve visibility as an independent author, but at the moment I think it’s wise to stick to the things I know and keep building on them. Tweaking things and trying something new every now and then within these platforms also seems to be worth it!

      How about you? If you are an author what is working and not working for you at the moment and d you plan to try anything different in 2026? If you are a reader, where are you finding your books at the moment?

      See you next time!