reading

Why Black Hare Valley Goes Back and Forth In Time

~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

There are centuries of mystery in this series!

https://books2read.com/u/4EO5DE

When I first starting writing Black Hare Valley, I had no idea it would become a series. However, by the time I reached the end of the first book, set in 1996, I knew I also had to set one in 1966 to help explain some of the events.

My heroic group of misfit teenagers in the first book are dealing with a missing friend in 1996, but along the way they discover that children have gone missing from Black Hare Valley before, and their own parents were once involved in trying to solve one such case.

In fact, the strange events and missing children occur every thirty years…

Writing the 1966 book was a lot of fun, as I got to go back in time and revisit adult characters from book one when they were teens in the sixties. I think it gives readers an interesting insight into why certain adults in book one behave and live the way they do. It also answers a few of the mysteries along the way.

By the time I got to the end of that book I was thinking about 2026 because thirty years on, my teen characters from 1996 would now be middle-aged and would potentially have children themselves. I wondered what the town would look like by then. Would it be any different? Would children still be going missing on May Day?

So, the series starts in 1996, jumps back to 1966, then jumps forward to 2026. But it doesn’t end there.

My next idea was a diary form book from Jesse Archer’s POV. I don’t want to go into too much detail as it will give you spoilers, but there is a thirty year period where Jesse is essentially cursed and totally alone. I was curious about how he spent those three decades and decided a sporadic diary written by him would provide the answers. It would also answer even more of the mysteries surrounding this strange town.

This therefore means that after the 2026 book, we go back to 1996 to fill in those thirty years…

I honestly thought it was all over with four books but while in the middle of editing and reworking bits of them, another idea hit me. I had one of those really satisfying ‘click’ moments when I realised a fantastic way to end the series and have almost everything explained. (I am also writing a selection of short stories that will fill in even more blanks.)

Book Five, therefore, is also set in 2026, but it makes sense to read it after the diary book. It starts with my heroes thinking they have ‘won’ but in truth, they have no idea what they have unleashed…

Black Hare Valley Book One: 1996 is out this Thursday 25th June (my birthday!) and you can preorder the ebook and/or the paperback on this link: https://books2read.com/u/4EO5DE

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?

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 Next Release ‘The Dark Finds You’ is Now Available to Pre-Order!

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

The final book in an interconnected universe is finally here…

image owned by Luke Fielding Art

First of all, let me apologise for the lack of blog posts since I started sharing Black Hare Valley Book 1 with you a few months back! A huge thank you to those who read along and left me feedback. I really appreciate it and serialising was an overwhelmingly positive thing to do. I will be serialising something else soon but more on that next week!

This week the good news is I finally have a new book on the horizon. The Dark Finds You is a gritty crime thriller drama about a fractured community and a missing boy. It also contains characters from many of my previous books in a shared universe. However, it can very much be read as a standalone and you do not have to read any of the previous books to enjoy this one.

If you are interested in exploring the connected universe however, I’ve listed the order to read them in. If you start with The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series and work your way through, you will find that The Dark Finds You makes a satisfying conclusion to previous storylines in that world. The main characters in The Dark Finds You are: Danny Bryans (nightclub owner), Leon Lawrenson (drug dealer) Bill Robinson (lead singer in a band who play at Danny’s nightclub) Elliot Pie (Bill’s father is having a baby with Elliot’s mother so they are now almost brothers) Laura Pie, (Elliot’s mother) Leah Barratt (Elliot’s friend) and Finn Douglas (Elliot’s other friend and the catalyst for the storyline when he goes missing.)

And here are the order the characters appear in books I have already published. In other words, read in this order!

Danny Bryans – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side – Part One (5 book series)

Leon and Joe Lawrenson – The Mess Of Me

Elliot and Laura Pie, Leah Barratt and Finn Douglas – Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature

Bill Robinson – A Song For Bill Robinson, Emily’s Baby and The Search For Summer (also known as The Holds End Trilogy)

Danny Bryans also appears in At Night We Played In The Road and the events at the end of that book lead on to…

Leon and Joe Lawrenson – The Mess Of Us

Here is the blurb for The Dark Finds You:

14 year-old Finn Douglas is missing.

Best friend Elliot is desperate to find him, but why is mutual friend Leah strangely reluctant to help?

Elliot’s pregnant mother fears her agoraphobia has returned, while his almost-brother, Bill, agrees to help look for Finn but risks exposing his secret drug habit in the process.

Meanwhile, ex-con Danny knows his nightclub is being infiltrated by drug dealers who work for a gang from his past. And drug dealer Leon can’t have the fresh start he wants until he has repaid his debt to the same criminal gang.

A collection of characters with dark pasts find themselves linked by a common mystery that they all have a clue to solving – what has happened to Finn Douglas?

And you can pre-order the ebook here: https://books2read.com/u/m07dgP

At the time of writing you can’t pre-order the paperback because I am currently waiting for the proof copies arrive for me to check over! I will let you know as soon as the order links are live.