Richard Holliday – Author

Happy New Year!

I thought I’d start the new year off with a reflection on my goal to set quarterly goals and aspirations with my current writing projects.

First of all, let’s look at the slate as it was in September 2025:

September 2025:

Project	Current Status	Next Stage
Legacy of Iron	First Draft	Shelved for cool-off period after completing first draft; draft to be reviewed Q1 2026
Ray of Light	Second Draft	First round of developmental edits October 2025
The Thaw	Fourth Draft	Awaiting proofread and cover commission
Disaster series*	Concept	To be outlined

How Did I Get on?

Project	Progress
Legacy of Iron	Remains parked. Initial readthrough of initial draft to take place in Q1 2026. Character map to be created
Ray of Light	Third Draft 75% complete
The Thaw	Quotes received for copyedit
Disaster Series Book 1: Boat Party	Book 1 50% outlined at scene level

So at a glance I would say the last quarter has been moderately successful:

• I have integrated most of my developmental editor’s feedback into the next draft of Ray of Light. However there have been several quite large and complicated-to-action changes that have slowed me down more than I would’ve liked, especially as this level of editing… it’s not the fun part of writing! I expect that this work will be completed by mid-January and the book will be ready for beta readers to read for feedback by then.

If you would like to apply to be a beta reader please use this form. Your help is gladly and graciously appreciated!

• I have been corresponding with some copyeditors on Reedsy, a marketplace for writing/author professional services, and I have made my selection. It’s been an interesting and enlightening process, the first time I have used Reedsy to commission a professional editor for a project but I am excited that The Thaw is in capable hands for the last few steps before publication.
• I was diligently working on the first Disaster Series book outline but I stopped to focus on the Ray of Light developmental edits. However I expect the outlining process to be completed fairly quickly as I “parked” the project in a safe place where I can pick it up. As it’s an expansion of a story that I have already written I feel more confident to be able to resume progress.

It would also be remiss to not mention that it has been a busy time at the end of the year with my day job, and I wanted to spend time over Christmas and New Year both celebrating with family and resting and recuperating from the year, and I feel a lot better for having done so!

What’s My Plan?

So, for the first quarter of 2026, what’s my plan?

• January 2026: Complete the Ray of Light edits and finalise the third draft and send this off to beta readers. I will also complete the scene outline for Disaster Series book 1 as I’m itching to draft again!
• February 2026: Start drafting Disaster Series book 1. I anticipate these books to be fairly short – 50,000 to 60,000 word affairs – so it’s not outside the realms of my capability to complete this in 28 days, or at least do the lions share of that work.
• March 2026: Finish the draft from the previous month if I haven’t already. I will start my initial readthrough of the 240,000 word initial draft of Legacy of Iron and start building the character map (a spreadsheet of chapters/the characters who occur within each, inspired by my friend Benjamin Twigg). I should have the Ray of Light beta feedback and depending on the changes/tweaks needed I can start to plan the publication for that book.

As always, my monthly(ish) newsletter is the place to get my exclusive project updates so do consider subscribing here.