ideas

Writing and Life Goals for 2026!

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

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!

      This Week I Had Five WIPS Vying For Attention In My Head

      ~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

      I Need More Me’s!

      Image by TyliJura from Pixabay

      If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ll probably know that I find it impossible to work on just one writing project at a time. Ideally, I would love to. One story idea, one plot, one set of characters, one job to do! I envy writers whose minds work like that. It must feel very in control.

      It’s never that way with me. There is always the book ready to be published that needs quotes posting, cover sorting, final edits and so on. There is always the current priority work-in-progress and sometimes that’s a series, not a standalone. And there are always the future books, the ideas, all in various stages!

      It’s been like that this week, and then some.

      First, I am trying to draw attention to The Mess Of Us which came out on Valentines Day. That means promoting it as best I can and creating graphics of quotes from the book and reviews as they come in.

      Second, I am preparing my next book for release at the end of the year. I need to sort out the cover, finalise the blurb and send it to my editor. Recently I read it through on my kindle to pick up any lingering typos or plot holes and found it to be a very clean read. But it still needs that professional edit and proofread. I hope to release The Dark Finds You towards the end of the year.

      Third, I’ve been adding stories and poems to my next anthology Dirty Feet. I’ve no idea when I will release this, but every now and then I add new bits and pieces to it, so it’s always on the go.

      Next, I’ve been working on my official work-in-progress, Black Hare Valley. It was never meant to be a series but book one inspired two more books and then I had the idea of a diary style companion book. That’s what I am writing at the moment, and once that is finished, I will be going through each book in the series with a fine toothed comb, ensuring there are no plot holes and a clear timeline that makes sense!

      But as well as all this I started getting the urge to create a graphic novel style version of Black Hare Valley. Don’t ask me why. I can’t even draw very well! I haven’t done anything about this. But the urge is there and it’s very strong!

      Plus, I’ve been thinking a lot about which book I will work on once Black Hare Valley is complete and decided it will be The Seventh Child, a family mystery thriller. This idea has been building for a while, and I already had the whole plot, the location and the character bios in a notebook. A while back I wrote the first chapter, because, why not? This week, this book has been screaming at me to get on with it! Please, someone tell it it has to wait!

      On top of that another book idea keeps growing and swelling and this week I figured out exactly how I will tell it. Anya and Cody Start The Apocalypse is an idea that came to me in bits and pieces with the characters showing up first. I eventually started a notebook to keep track of things and soon had character bios and locations and a loose plot. That plot has since tightened up but I was still unsure of how to tell the story. Then I figured it out. Epistolary style! The book will be written by another narrator who is writing a dissertation project on Anya and Cody after their story is over. It will be told by the narrator compiling diaries, letters, news reports and social media posts in order to explain what happened. I’ve written diary style books before, (The Mess Of Me and The Mess Of Us, plus the companion diary for Black Hare Valley) but I’ve never tried anything like this so I am really, really excited! And I want to do it now!

      But it has to wait! I will carry on adding bits to the notebook of course. But that doesn’t mean it will shut up.

      My head is full of all these stories all the time. I wish I could create some extra me’s or some extra hands to get it all done. I think I will feel better once I finish the Black Hare Valley diary book. I can then fully concentrate on getting the whole series ready for publication in 2026. I would love to have the first book ready to go in January 2026, for example. The rest of the books will follow one by one throughout that year, and in that time I will be busy writing The Seventh Child.

      Then it will be Anya and Cody’s turn…

      What is wrong with me?