inspiration

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?

The Story Behind My Next Book

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Last week I shared the news that my 22nd book will be released next month!

If you’d like to check it out, here is the preorder link! https://amzn.eu/d/0gSeWqen

At Night We Played In The Road was four years in the making and today I want to tell you the story and inspiration behind the novel.

Four years ago I was in the process of rewriting and revamping The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series. I still think having the power and control to change and revamp independently published books is one of the best things about being an indie author.

At the time, I was changing what was two books (The Boy With The Thorn In His Side and its sequel, This Is The Day) into a five book series. The original book was huge, and when I got the idea for new material and events that could be sandwiched between that story and the sequel, I knew I had to turn it all into a series. The original book was split into two, a third book with new events was written and made into book three, the sequel became book four, and just doing all of that gave me ideas for material for book five.

It felt like a crazy and risky thing to do at the time, especially considering I had lots of other books lined up to work on, but it felt like the right thing to do. And it was. I am hugely proud of that gritty 5-book series. I feel like it is a whole universe you can really dig deep into. The series, of course, links to other books I’ve written, where characters are mentioned or the same locations are used. This led to me creating a universe of inter-linked books and At Night We Played In The Road is one of them.

But back to where the idea came from…

At the time I had ideas for book 5 in The Boy… series, and one day I was watching the TV show Supernatural with my eldest child in her bedroom. She had been badgering me for years to watch it and when I finally gave in, I loved it. I’ve rewatched the entire thing many times since then! And one of the things that really hooked me about the show was the relationship between the brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester.

Some might argue it is an unhealthy and co-dependent relationship, and they might be right, but essentially it is a loving and protective one, with each brother prepared to kill and die for the other. The older brother, Dean, has brought Sam up and throughout the show, is also a father to him. This really interested me and their unusual relationship was one of my favourite things about Supernatural.

During that period I was also rewatching Breaking Bad. That is another show I have watched multiple times! With these two shows playing on my mind, I started to get ideas for two characters. Two brothers.

Inspired by the relationship in Supernatural, I created Alfie, four years older than Tom. When Tom was born, their mother died in childbirth and their father, Fred, has never forgiven Tom for it. Unable to bond with the baby that caused the death of his beloved wife, Fred all but abandons Tom. In fact, Fred is unable to even look at his younger son. Instead, he throws his attention and his dreams into Alfie.

Inspired somewhat by Breaking Bad, I decided that Fred would be in the drugs business, something he has taken over from his own father and hopes to pass down to Alfie. A family business growing and selling cannabis.

I then wrote these brothers into book five of The Boy With The Thorn In His Side and they became part of Danny’s story-line as he attempts to finally free himself from his criminal past. I had no intention of giving them their own book, but I fell so in love with them I started to get ideas about their back story.

As I wrote them into that series, the characters of Tom and Alfie just exploded to life in my head.

That’s the way it works and it feels like magic.

Suddenly, they had a back story, their own individual mannerisms and personality traits and their own dreams for the future. I still find creating characters one of the best aspects of writing! I absolutely love it.

I wanted Alfie to be the more serious of the brothers, the one with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He does not like what his father’s criminality has done to their family. His father seems oblivious to the harm he has caused his sons. ( He abandons the boys every time his own mental health declines.) A mixture of simply not being able to cope and occasionally being incarcerated, leads to the boys going in and out of foster care as children.

I gave Tom Tourette’s Syndrome as it was something I was researching a lot at the time. My youngest child was displaying a lot of verbal and physical tics and I spoke to a doctor about the possibility of it being TS, but eventually they calmed down, and though he still likes to make his noises, I don’t think an official diagnosis is needed. However, the research was not wasted when I gave these attributes to Tom.

Compared to Alfie, Tom is more sociable, friendly and reckless. He will do anything to get his father’s attention – including getting himself dragged into crime.

Alfie constantly feels like Tom is in danger and that he must protect him. He cannot let go of that feeling so he is unable to live or even develop independently as his own person. For this reason, he sometimes suffocates and stifles Tom, who eventually begins to rebel.

Tom adores his older brother though, and as he grows older, he realises that Alfie has given up everything for him.

The plot sees them eventually estranged as they take very different paths in life, and it alternates between the past so we can see how that led them to where they are now. And where they are now is a very dangerous place.

Alfie has not seen his brother in years but one day he is brought to his door with a gun to his head. Alfie must save his brother’s life one more time. And to do that, they must face the past they escaped from.

Here is the blurb!

When Tom Lane was born, he accidentally killed his mother and in the process, his father’s love.

Determined to protect Tom from their father’s criminal business, older brother Alfie must become Tom’s father, mother and protector. It’s the two of them against the world until the day Tom chooses a life of crime over Alfie’s dream of a normal life.
Ten years later the estranged brothers are reunited when a violent gang bring Tom to Alfie’s door with a gun to his head.

Tom’s partners in crime have turned on him and he needs his brother to save him one more time…


Thanks for reading!

See you next week!

How To Keep Going When Your Story Gets Stuck

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

When you first get a solid idea for a story, it feels exciting, like anything could happen. You write it down, start building on it and thinking about it. You start crafting character bios and researching locations. You put the work in and hope that when the time comes to start, the words will just be there, waiting to flow. Starting the story is sometimes the trickiest and scariest part of writing. There are so many things to figure out, for example. What point of view to tell it in, what tense to use, how to structure the plot, how to keep up the pace and so on. Once you get past the start, it feels easier. You have a great idea, you’ve put the work in and you’ve worked out how and where to start it. Then, you get stuck. Inevitably, you run out of steam, or get lost, or run out of energy or get some form of writer’s block…

Don’t worry if this happens to you – it’s very common! This is the really tricky part, you see, the part where the whole thing could get derailed and fade to nothing. This is the danger zone, potentially at least. So many stories never get past this point and so many writers of all ages and abilities give up when this happens and move on to something new. Because new is exciting right? And chances are, there is another great idea knocking around inside your head! I see this all the time with young writers and it was a trap I fell into too at that age. So, what can we do to avoid it? How can we get a stuck story unstuck? Here are a few ideas that have worked for me over the years.

  • talk it out – find a willing friend, family member or even a fellow writer to talk to about it. This has helped me numerous times over the years. As the writer, you are so connected to the story it can be hard to separate yourself enough to stand back and figure things out. Sometimes just talking to someone else about your story can be enough to get it going again. They might suggest a way out of a plot hole if you are lucky, but even so, sometimes just relaying the story to another person can be enough to get you inspired again.
  • go back to the start – You might not be sure why you are stuck but going back to the start can be really helpful. Read it through, edit, get invigorated by what you’ve already written and hopefully inspiration will hit you again
  • try to figure out what the problem is – It is important to try to figure out why are you stuck, because there are so many potential answers. Are you bored of the story, if so, why? Are the characters flat? Do you need to do more research? Has the plot unravelled? Or is your attention being stolen by a new idea?
  • be honest with yourself – it’s vital to be honest with yourself if you want to get this story going again. Does the story flow? Is the pace fast enough for the genre? Are your characters fully fleshed or do they need a bit more work? Being honest with yourself at this stage is difficult because acknowledging that something is wrong with the story means you are going to have to redo things! But it will be worth it.
  • experiment – If you have been honest with yourself, you may now have figured out what is wrong with the story, or what is stopping you from writing it. Perhaps you need to change something, for example, the narrative point of view or the tense it’s written in. This means more work but experimenting could be the answer to getting unstuck so it is worth exploring.
  • go for a long walk and try to figure it out – This always works well for me. Long walks alone or with my dogs tend to get my brain whirring again. It’s definitely preferable to sitting in front of a blank screen for too long. Go for a walk and see what happens.
  • have a break and write something else – If your story is stuck, rather than giving up and writing a new one, why not try tackling a different form of writing, like poetry or non-fiction? This way you are still writing, and it will feel fresh to try something new, but you won’t be fully abandoning your story. You will just be having a little break from it while you try something else creative.
  • remember why you started it in the first place – Ask yourself what made you start this story in the first place, why was it important to write? What were you trying to say and why? Sometimes reminding ourselves of why we started can give us the push to carry on.
  • write a bit each day – When writing gets tough we can either give up and walk away or we can keep battling through it. The best way to do this is just to write a little bit of it each day. Even if it is just a paragraph, even if it is just a sentence! Even if it doesn’t really move the story on and doesn’t solve why you are stuck – just try writing a tiny bit, a few words each day to move it forward. It is possible to write our way through a hump or a block.
  • remember it doesn’t have to be good yet – sometimes we get stuck because our first draft feels so clumsy and ugly. It doesn’t feel as if it is going well. But remind yourself that it is just a first draft! It can be messy and chaotic, it can have notes and bullet points and question marks all over it. It doesn’t matter. The first draft is just you telling the story to yourself. Getting it out of your head. Getting it done so that you can start to polish it up in the second draft.

These are all things that have helped me get unstuck in the past. I hope it keeps you going too! Feel free to leave a comment. What helps you when you are stuck with a story?

The Old Friend – A Collection of Tales and Poems is out today!!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

It’s always exciting when months, if not years of hard work, revisions, edits, proofreads and more edits lead finally to the release of a brand new book. The Old Friend – A Collection of Tales and Poems is released today in ebook and paperback on Amazon. It will be on other platforms very soon. Here is the short link if you feel like checking it out! mybook.to/TheOldFriend

This book in particular was a long time coming. Some of the short stories in here go back at least a decade whereas some are very recent. The same goes for the poetry and the blog-style musings you will find scattered throughout the book. I don’t write poetry very often, for example, sometimes only a few times a year, so you can imagine why it took so long to get enough content for this collection.

I am really pleased with it though. It’s a dark, gritty little thing full of musings on life, death, birth, motherhood, nature, society and more. It’s probably the most personal thing I have ever released, particularly the poems, and some of the musings are about real people in my life, real experiences, thoughts and fears and so on.

Of course, many of the short stories are pure fiction. Before release, I wrangled with the idea of adding a page in the book where I explain the background or inspiration for each piece. In the end, I decided to leave it up to the reader’s imagination. But just for fun and to celebrate release day, here is a list of the pieces in the work along with the stories and inspiration behind them;

Murder – This was a poem that climbed intside my head about 5 or 6 years ago when I was jogging down my lane. The crows were absolutely furious. So noisy it was deafening. Quite eerie, and I really did wonder what was wrong with them. Then I thought about how the local gamekeeper shoots them to protect the pheasants they raise for people to shoot for fun and thought yeah, probably that.

The Old Friend – At one point, I thought my book The Boy With The Thorn In His Side was complete. It was a large book in two parts and had a sequel. Then I started getting new ideas. New ideas that meant moving the ending further back and slotting in a load of new content. The only way to do this was to make it into a series, dividing the big book into two, adding a brand new book three, using the sequel as book four and then inevitably that led to a brand new book five. This short story was written around the time I was writing book three. In book three the main character Danny goes through an even harder time than he had previously and I couldn’t help feeling guilty, almost as if I were doing it to a real person! So, I explored this guilt in this story.

A Mother’s Story – essentially a prelude or teaser to my upcoming YA series The Day The Earth Turned, I wrote this from the point of view of Mother Nature.

Leaf – an old story I wrote years ago about a boy and his imaginary friend. This was based on some truth; my nephew had an imaginary friend called Leaf when he was little!

The Writer Woman – A Cautionary Tale – This also goes back a few years and just popped in my head one day. It might even have appeared on this blog at the time. It’s a little nod to the years I spent not writing because I didn’t think I had time and because so many people try to deter you from following creative pursuits. It’s a bit of an over-exaggeration of what could happen if those ideas aren’t let out regularly!

Child’s Eye – Another old story, I can’t quite remember where this idea came from!

Who Turned Out The Lights? – I wrote this one a few years ago after our writing group were talking about horror stories for Halloween. I wrote it around that time and possibly shared it to Wattpad or this blog. We are prone to power cuts where we live and sometimes when the lights go out suddenly, you automatically reach for the nearest hand…

Snotgoblin – This piece appeared on my blog about 8 years ago when my youngest child was approaching his first birthday. Someone on Facebook joked about calling children of this age snotgoblins and I thought it was brilliant. He was a little sticky mess at that age and the piece just flowed from that. It’s a little nostalgic piece about the untamed wildness of very young children.

Reuben’s Race – I wrote this as a short story or possible chapter for my YA series The Day The Earth Turned. At the time I was busy with other books, but if I got a really strong idea I would write a bit for this series. This story eventually ended up as a chapter in the book!

The Puddle -This is another old one and it comes from the memory of my oldest daughter being quite obsessed with puddles as a young child. She would often say there were other worlds inside them…

Stan – A piece that appeared on this blog a long time ago about my late step-grandfather, Stan. He was a very tall, very quiet man who I didn’t feel I ever got to know. But I have so many good memories of him.

Getting There – A few years back I was going through a low period and most of the poetry in this collection comes from that time. For some reason, I can only write poems when I’m feeling really dark! This one is a reference to what me and my husband often say to each other. You Ok? Yeah, you ok? Getting there. It just kind of means we are hanging on.

7 Minutes – Wrote a few years ago after a chat with my eldest daughter. She had read somewhere that after death your brain is still alive for 7 minutes. I started wondering what those 7 minutes might be like.

Slug – Quite an old one written about my ridiculous but genuine fear of slugs!

Crushed By A Number – Another one written during a dark time. I have always struggled with my body image.

The Rubbish Man – wrote a few years ago. I got the idea when feeling really angry about the amount of litter and fly-tipping that goes on where I live.

Fine Wine – I do like to reward myself with a glass of wine on a Friday after a busy week!

Monday Morning – wrote a few years ago after watching my older kids leave home and try to cross the road to their school bus stop. It was a miserable Monday and none of us wanted it.

Outside – I wrote this after the first lockdown, when restrictions were starting to lift. During the strict early days, it was so quiet everywhere, it almost felt like the world had ended. This is from the point of view of a woman who doesn’t want the world to go back to normal…

Nothing – another fairly dark poem from a dark time

Grief – This one is fairly recent. I was feeling so sad about the state of the world, climate change, the decimation and extinction of wildlife…

Moonlit Shadow – This has a story behind it. I got up one morning about two summer ago and walked blearily into the bathroom. I was sure I saw a shadow move across the floor and when I sat on the loo I got a really strong feeling of loss accompanied with lyrics to a song I couldn’t recall the name of. I associated it with my sister, though I still have no idea why! I ended up googling the lyrics until I found the song. It was Moonlit Shadow by Mike Oldfield. I still have no clue why it made me think about my sister!

Bug – small, strange poem about me accidentally killing a bug. I hate accidentally killing things.

Smokey Sneak – a little poem about the stresses and strains of modern life

Zombies – a poem I wrote during a recent election.

The Shed – This story was my son’s idea! It was during the first lockdown when he was 12 and he told me he had a story idea but didn’t want to write it, so I did.

Dark Little Girl – another dark poem from a darker time!

What If… – a poem that expresses concern about the point of life

Friends List – a poem about Facebook!

Mother Pt 1 – just a little one I wrote one day when tired. I remembered my mum always saying there was no point her sitting down, and I felt the same!

Fried Eggs For Breakfast – The idea for this came when I was cooking eggs and wondering what I would do if something unexpected came out of one…

Tired – a poem that crept in my head when I was still dog-walking for a job as well as running writing clubs. I was really, really tired!

All These Thoughts of Dying – a bit of a grim one, but I find it really hard not to think about death when I am driving!

The Forest – a recent poem I wrote after a walk in my favourite woods. I wondered what it would be like to just lie down and sink into the earth.

Things You Don’t Want To Do – A poem I wrote a while back when feeling a bit overwhelmed. Sometimes life is just full of things you don’t want to do….

Driving The Bends – this one evolved in my head during my constant journeys up a certain narrow, twisty road where I live. It’s one of those roads that is just begging for an accident to happen and it only takes one idiot…

Dylan’s Dream – another idea from my teenage son. He had a bizarre dream and described it to us in great detail. I said that sounds like a weird story. He didn’t want to write it down, so I did.

Read Now, Die Later – I got the idea for this one when dog-walking. I was on a narrow, gravelled path and I kept thinking I could hear footsteps behind me, crunching the gravel. Whenever I turned, no one was there. I soon realised it was the loose gravel flying out behind me when I walked and scattering further back. But by the time I felt safe, I had devised this whole story in my head!

The Universe – I like this one, it’s one of my favourites. For a long time, my husband had to start work at 4am and as we only have one car, I’d wake up too and drop him there. Sometimes on the drive back, the sun would just be rising and everything would seem very peaceful and calm, and if a perfect song came on the radio and if all the traffic lights stayed green, I would cruise safely home feeling that the universe was on my side.

The Death of You – another poem about death. I often get fearful about driving especially when I see the remains of animals on the roads, but then I started thinking about all the other ways you could easily die at any time…

2020 – one I wrote during the first lockdown! 2020 was certainly a memorable year.

The Black Van – This short story arrived unexpectedly when I was driving home one day. The lights were red and a black van was in front of me. Just then an identical black van pulled up behind me and I was sandwiched between them. It was early morning with no other cars about. The lights seemed to take forever to change and I started imagining what would happen if the vans contained bad people with sinister intentions! By the time I got home I had the story idea and wrote it later that day. It just flowed! It then became a novel idea which I intend to co-write with Sim Sansford soon, now that we have finished our trilogy together!

Mother Pt 2 – I think a lot about motherhood. Being a mother makes you realise things about your own mother. I think it gives you a clearer idea of what she did for you and what she sacrificed. Thinking about how much kids are attached to you as little ones but then leave home and don’t look back made me think about my own mother and my experiences as a mother.

A Woman Of A certain age – I wrote this in the kitchen one Friday night after a stressful week when my perimenopausal hormones had really battered me. I had a drink on the go and music from my youth playing.

My Golden Son – I wrote this quite a few years ago when my oldest son was about ten or so. We were walking down the lane which is very beautiful, sheltered by oak trees and enjoying the wildflowers and the hedgerows full of birds, and then I got suddenly very depressed by the litter and the prospect of climate change and I just felt awful for him, having to grow up in such uncertain times

These Streets – Another one that popped into my head during an early morning drive home after dropping my husband at work. He works in a fairly run down area and it was these details I was noticing as I drove.

Black Hare Valley – A few years ago I had a vague idea to write a horror story about a group of kids living in a very sinister town. I started a few character bios and loose ideas and then created a huge map for the fictional town of Black Hare Valley. It was a lot of fun and my son helped me. I couldn’t write the book at that point but I wrote this prologue or teaser for it instead. I am now writing the book!

We Write – The newest poem in the collection. I am obsessed with writing, as you probably know. I love it so much. I think it is pure magic and these are just some of the reasons we feel compelled to write.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these brief stories behind the pieces in this new collection!