Writing Goals for 2026 — Same as 2025, Really

About this time a year ago, I was setting my goals for 2025, and I was pretty sure what I was going to achieve in the following twelve months. After finally finishing the first draft of The Empire of Nandesh, the second novel of my octology, in the dying days of 2022, I’d spent much of 2023 and 2024 working on shorter stories, ranging from 100 words up to over 30,000.

This had included a return, after several years away, to my Sam Nemesis series. Sam is a hard-boiled private detective — you know the type. The difference is that he’s based in the realm of Hades and his clients are “gods, heroes and monsters”. A couple of the stories were published years back, and this time I took Sam further into Greek mythology and even solving an Egyptian myth.

The Challenges for 2025

By the time I was starting out on 2025, I still had six of the stories from the previous two years to finish revising, all set in the Traveller’s World. These were:

• The Tower of Zeka-Zomi — The Traveller battling against an immensely powerful evil sorcerer.

• The Forbidden Library — Prequel to my Kari and Fai series before they became (in their own minds, at least) outlawed wandering sorcerers.

• Smoke and Mirrors — A curious story about Loshi vi Assarid and a companion who might be an old woman or a ten-year-old girl.

• The Demons of the Past — A story about a new character, Alliou (known as the Maimed Warrior) and her leopard companion Shavsi.

• Secrets of the Black Cape — Archaeological fantasy in the “contemporary” era, a sequel to the published The Lone and Level Sands.

• Shadows in the City — A “contemporary” magical Hitchcock-style story set in my favourite location, the strange city of Errish.

And then, when all that was done and dusted (probably by the summer), I’d finally turn back to doing the second draft of The Empire of Nandesh.

Well, that was the idea.

What Happened in 2025

The Forbidden Library, Smoke and Mirrors and The Demons of the Past were relatively straightforward (even though the last ended up considerably longer than it started). All three are complete and have started collecting their own personal hoards of rejections.

Secrets of the Black Cape was more complex because it’s longer. After four drafts, it’s ended up at a little over 23,000 words, so now I’m figuring out what I’m supposed to do with a story of that length.

One possibility is to combine it with The Lone and Level Sands and then write a third story to create a plausible-length book about the two main characters, Musu and Zadi. That’s assuming, of course, that I could get the book published.

Shadows in the City was the monster. The first draft was already over 30,000 words, and I knew I was going to have to add some more content, but I underestimated how much. The second draft is now around 50,000, and officially a short novel.

And that left The Tower of Zeka-Zomi. I did a second draft that took it up to nearly 10,000 words — and was told by several critiquing partners that it needed to be considerably longer. I had doubts about that at first, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve drifted towards agreeing — it would certainly give me more option to develop the characters. I have some ideas now about what I need to do with it — and I strongly suspect that this is going to turn into another short novel.

All this has taken a good deal longer than I’d expected. The plan was to come back to preparing for the second draft of The Empire of Nandesh by around the mid-point of the year. In fact, it was mid-November before I got to it, and I’ve spent the past month and a half reviewing critiques and writing up guides to the characters and locations. There’s still plenty of preparation to go.

And yes, I know all lot of writers do all this before the first draft, but I have a slightly different approach. Outlining is something that comes between the first and second drafts.

A Fun-Filled 2026

As I’m midway through the preparation for The Empire of Nandesh (which, incidentally, will almost certainly not be the final title), completing that process will be the first task — characters, locations, themes, arcs and a breakdown of a largely new chapter structure. The second draft is going to be substantially different from the first, and probably longer. So what’s new?

Once that’s done, of course, the actual writing will begin — but not right away. I’ll probably slot in finishing Shadows in the City first. This needs a third draft, but that should only involve tidying up a number of points, and then a final polish. I’m hopeful I can get that done in around a month — but we’ll see. And then trying to get it published begins.

Then onto the second draft of The Empire of Nandesh, which I imagine will take up most of the year. I’d like to think I can have it done by this time in 2027. It’ll need one or two more drafts after that, but again, hopefully those won’t take as long.

On the other hand, there are likely to be distractions along the way. Other projects I may well divert onto include:

• A story for the next Fantasy-Writers.org anthology. We’re planning on starting the process in a couple of months, and I’ll need to think of a subject.

• The third Musu and Zadi story. I have a rough idea of the plot, and I’d hope to at least start it this year.

• A couple of stories I’ve had the beginnings to for a while and feel as if their time has come. One is another “modernish” Traveller’s World tale, while the other is essentially weird — set on board a ship that’s navigating by eight cardinal directions, instead of the usual six (no, that’s not a typo).

• Possibly one or two more Sam Nemesis stories. These are typically fairly short and shouldn’t take too long.

And then there’s The Tower of Zeka-Zomi. I don’t know if I’ll actually start writing it this year, but I’d like to have some kind of outline of how I’m going to open out 10,000 words into more like 50,000.

And no doubt other projects will ambush me in the course of 2026. John Lennon said that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” — and so is writing. I’ll let you know how that goes in January 2027.