Writing Progress in Q1, 2026: What Worked, What Didn’t, and Why

At the start of January, I set out my writing goals for 2026. I try to review all my goals every three months, so here’s what’s been happening in the first quarter of 2026.

Q1 Progress on Big Fiction Project (“Finish My Rom Com Contemporary Fantasy Novel and Send Out to Agents”)

In March, I finished the second draft of my contemporary fantasy novel, then I spent a chunk of a Writers’ Cafe virtual writing retreat day on making notes for Draft 3. 

This was the point where I realised the structure was off: I’d been structuring around more “external” plot points than the relationship between the romantic leads. This was also where I decided that “contemporary romance” is probably a better description than “rom com” (there are some funny/lighthearted bits, but not enough focus on the comedy).

So I finished the quarter feeling positive about this project: there’s more extensive redrafting left to do than I’d hoped at this stage, but I also think the changes I’m making will make the story a lot stronger … and more in line with genre expectations. 

What Worked (And Why)

With writing this novel, the things that worked well were:

• Using the Writers’ Cafe writing hours (I usually host 3 of these each week, so they’re a firm fixture on my calendar).
• Having extended time during the Writers’ Cafe virtual retreats (again, I run these, so even though various kid-related things mean that I can’t write the entire time, I’m still getting a fair amount of writing during the day).
• Using Claude AI for help with the revisions. I switched to Claude from ChatGPT, and I found it much better at pushing back on things that (frankly) I wasn’t doing well, like the structure. Having the AI as a brainstorming companion helped me push on faster during the reworking of the story between draft 2 and draft 3.
• Stepping back to do brainstorming and rethinking. I didn’t do this as much during draft 2 as I’d imagined when writing about this goal back in January, but I did take more of a break between Draft 2 & Draft 3 than planned, when I realised I needed more time to rethink and restructure the novel.

What Didn’t Work (And Why)

The main thing that I struggled with this quarter was … March.

For a variety of (non-related) reasons, March was an unexpectedly hectic month. My daughter’s birthday is near the start of March, which makes that a busy time … but then a bunch of health-related things, for both me and other family members, knocked out a ton of writing (and work!) time.

None of these were major, and none could have been prevented or predicted, but I definitely want to look at ways to have more margin for these types of things in the future.

(If you’re a fellow writer-parent who has the main responsibility for kid/household stuff … I see you and I know how hard it can be.)

Q1 Progress on Other Fiction Projects (“Short Stories, Reaper, and Writing Streak”)

The other fiction projects I planned to tackle this year were:

Publishing Reaper

No progress on this one! I still need to set aside some time to go back to it, commission a cover design, do a final proofread, format, etc. None of this has felt as engaging as actually writing! But I’d really like to have the book out there, so I’m going to recommit to this one for Q2.

Writing Four Short Stories

No progress here either. I still need to identify competitions to enter. This one’s less of a priority for me right now, so unless I get an unexpected amount of writing time (unlikely), I’ll set it aside for Q3.

Maintaining a (Very Easy) Writing Streak

I did keep up with writing something on my fiction each day for almost the whole quarter. This fell down in the end during the most hectic week of March – not just because of the busyness, but also because I was struggling to get going on the new first chapter of my contemporary romance.

As always, I find that daily writing only works for me while I’m working on a draft-in-progress: as soon as I need to step back and brainstorm, it falls apart. (In theory, I wanted to draft on other projects while brainstorming on my main one, but that never feels like a good creative fit.)

So my plan going forward is to aim to do at least 5 minutes related to my fiction writing each day, whether that’s drafting, editing, brainstorming, etc. Obviously, I’m aiming for more than 5 minutes most of the time … but even 5 minutes is enough to stay in touch with the work and see gradual progress.

During Q1, I wrote 45,164 words – but as you can see from the chart, how much I wrote per day varied wildly! There was just over a week of “zero” days at the end of the month, when I was brainstorming, but apart from that, my lowest wordcount was 23 words (Monday 16th March) and my highest was 5,727 words (Saturday 21st February, a virtual writing retreat day).

Non-Fiction: Aliventures Blog, Newsletter … and More!

I wasn’t quite as consistent with the Aliventures blog and newsletter as I wanted, but most weeks, I did publish (or update & republish) a blog post and send out a newsletter.

I’m trying to do more short-form non-fiction on Instagram and LinkedIn, though that’s been quite patchy! That’s going to be a big focus for me in Q2 though, so if you want bite-size novel-writing tips, make sure you’re following me on one of those platforms.

No progress yet with YouTube or a podcast … but I’ll update you through the newsletter once that changes.

How did your first three months of 2026 go? Are you working on a big project like a novel, building a regular rhythm of writing, or just exploring ideas? Let me know in the comments below or drop me an email at ali@aliventures.com – I love hearing about your writing and I reply to every comment and email. 🙂