It’s time to reflect on what’s happened in the first quarter of 2026.

Yet again, things went slightly sideways from where I had imagined them to be when I was reflecting at the start of January, and that’s okay! My goals always remain that – goals and aspirations, and my process needs to be flexible and malleable enough to change up as things crop up.

Here’s the general overview of what’s happened since last time:

How Did I Get On?

Project	Progress
Legacy of Iron	Remains parked. I’ve read a few pages of this on my Kindle and I’m not unhappy with what I’m reading, but this will need major work for the next stage.
Ray of Light	I’ve received my beta reader feedback and I’m about 33% through the next (and likely final) edit. I’m working on some major realignment work on this one but I can see the feedback is making it a better, leaner book.
The Thaw	I’ve agreed a copy-editor and this will be going to them in May 2026.
Boat Party (Disaster Series book 1)	Draft 1 66% complete

Legacy of Iron

I simply haven’t had the bandwidth to do much with this chonker yet, but it sits in my mind’s eye and my hard drive tempting me. I do really want to get into this again but sadly I must prioritise my other projects for now. I have had a little read of some of the early chapters and I’m excited to work on it soon, as I think there’s tons of potential and I can’t wait to introduce you to the weird, wonderful world of Niblock!

Boat Party

I’ve had a successful quarter starting on this project, having completed the outline fully and the first draft is about 66% complete. I’ve found that, as I have been drafting, the project length has shrunk to fit the project – I’d initially estimated that this could be a “short novel” (around 60,000 words) but as it’s a two-POV story by design, given the length of the scenes I’m writing, I could be looking at a 35,000 word “long novella”. This is an excellent development, frankly and I’m excited to have this as a potential avenue for faster yet frequent publication as shorter books take less time to draft and less time in “production” in terms of editing and formatting. I have not yet decided whether to commission bespoke cover art for this book or use stock imagery; I do however like commissioning cover art for books over using more “self-published looking” stock images so we shall see. Also as I’m an unashamed hobbyist writer, I don’t really mind the outlay for covers, if the price is right.

Sadly I haven’t quite finished the first draft, but I am at the climax of the story so I’m eager and ready to write that when time permits.

Ray of Light

I’ve received my beta feedback for Ray of Light from a trusted a close critique partner, and it’s been very constructive and thorough. I agree with all of the suggested changes and I’ve been gradually making them – however, there’s some structural changes that I have been working on which have meant my time has to be dedicated to finishing this project.

I did delay the initial publication from the end of March to the end of April and I now have a firm deadline to upload the book. I’m confident that I can complete my editing pass, give it a final read through and upload it.

I do wish I’d delayed it to the end of May as I’m now having to simplify my paperback plans, but alas I made an error: when I selected the end of March release date on Amazon, I am allowed to defer the date once to a maximum of 30 days of that original release date. Cancelling or missing this amended deadline would incur penalties on my account that I would rather not have, so I have not freed myself up as much time as I’d have liked to.

Instead, I should’ve set the release date as long as possible and then brought it forward, possibly by setting a “ghost” release date as far into the future and then pulling it back to the actual release date I wanted once I was certain the product would be ready. Who says every day as an independent author isn’t a learning process!

I have also made some tough decisions in working on the fourth draft which has resulted in the culling of more than one chapter but these chapters no longer fit for the new version of the book I am putting together based on my beta feedback.

The Thaw

I’m excited that I’ve agreed a professional copyeditor to look at my post-apoc novel! I was really impressed by the thoroughness of the sample edit and was impressed by a couple of video chats we had so I’m excited to move forward. The editing process is going to be an expensive one but as this is my hobby and i want this book to be its absolute best, I’m willing to give it a go as well as learn more about the professional editing process with this one. I’m more excited that my editor is going to be doing the work for me, and when I receive the edits, all I will need to do is go through and click approve/reject. Easy!

The Thaw is due to go to the editor in early May. My plan is to spend a bit of time fixing some very minor niggles I found in a “printed” copy of the current fourth draft just to make sure the book’s in the best shape I can leave it before my editor takes over.

I have a cover artist in mind, so I need to get moving on that side of things as I hope to have The Thaw out for a Q3 release.

What does the next quarter look like?

For the next three months my priorities are going to be:

• Finish the edit for Ray of Light and be satisfied with it enough by the time it needs to be uploaded on April 21^st. I am very minded to focus on the eBook release first and follow up with the paperback at a later date, or I may scale back my paperback plans.
• Complete the final “tidying” edit for The Thaw so it’s ready to go to my editor on May 10^th.
• Finish the first draft of Boat Party and start editing that.

I’ve still got a handful of half-finished blogpost ideas to do as well!

If I can hit those three main goals, Q2 will be a win in my book!