editing

A Week of Obsessive Editing

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

I just want it done!

cover for the anthology my students have written! Links coming soon! Image is mine

I blogged last week about the endless editing facing me after writing so many books and having them at various stages of drafts. This always seems to happen to me! I write and write and write, start new books when I have not yet published other books, and then at some point I inevitably end up with a lot of editing jobs… A seemingly endless list of books and projects to edit.

The thing is, I might just be as obsessive about editing as I am about writing. It has utterly consumed me this week and I’ve managed to tick off two of the biggest jobs I had.

Something Happened In Lakeside View is an anthology of connected short stories penned by the children I work with and this week I finished the final edits. I am now in the process of setting it up for publication and hopefully this time next week I will have buy links ready for anyone interested!

Here is the blurb by the way:

Welcome to Lakeside View, a pretty little town much like any other. Or is it?

Scratch under the surface and you will find a place full of secrets and shadows.

A place full of darkness, magic, ancient curses and hidden horrors. Who would live in a town like this? Many people have come and gone and some have left behind their testimonies.

What happened in Lakeside View? Read on to find out.

This is an anthology of stories and poems written by the young people who attend creative writing clubs with me at Chasing Driftwood Writing Group.

It felt like a huge weight had lifted when I declared that editing job done! In fact, the whole project has been very time consuming to put together so I should, in theory, have some more time on my hands for a bit.

The second big editing job was going through my editor’s edits on Black Hare Valley Book 1: 1996. I also got this done this week! I am now doing a final proofread/check through on my Kindle to mop up any lingering typos. Again, it feels like a weight has been lifted with that big job done.

These two books are priority for getting ready to publish or setting up to publish, so that will now take precedence over any other editing jobs I have. However, I am still slowly going through the second draft, or read-through draft, of The Dark Finds You Part 3. I still have a lot of misgivings about this one… But reading through and making little changes is helping me figure out the problems it might have!

So, on it goes… But at least the big ones are done for now!

When it comes to endless editing that just cannot be put off, I tend to just get my head down and crack on with it. I’ve had my Kindle with me at all times this week, so I have been editing in the car while I wait to go into work, and I have been editing in the evening, and then editing again before bed when normally I would be reading or watching TV. There’s simply no other way to get it done other than just get on with it!

An Endless Loop of Editing Begins!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

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!

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?