Novels I need to keep working on - 2026

Writing projects I need to keep working on this year.

26 Paychecks: Paycheck Two - January 14 to 28, 2026

Write an around 300 to 500 word piece about a writing project that you have been working on, but aren't pushing through to completion. (If you need more words to explain your project: go ahead and write more. Just keep it on topic.)
Explain the project: genre, plot synopsis, expected length (short story, saga, epic, novel, series).
Tell us how long ago you started writing it.
Tell us why you stopped working on it, or why the work is not advancing.
Tell us what people in this group or on Writing.Com could do to help you see your project through to the end.
For this task, you can submit your writing as an item link, entry link, or typed directly into a reply to this post.
All submissions MUST BE a reply to this thread.


A writing project that I have been working on, but have not been pushing through to completion, is my NaNo novel.... Zayda's Quest. I could also add Arlynn's Way to that list as well. Both are novels I started for NaNoWriMo and have been pecking away at them, but they've both stalled.

For Arlynn's Way, I got the first, discovery draft done and then I didn't know where to begin with the revisions, so I started Zayda's Quest.

Arlynn's Way is about a woman who is starting over after being in a toxic relationship. She goes north to her family's cottage in the Muskoka area. There she reconnects with old friends, begins a freelance career, and finds new love.

Zayda's Quest is a paranormal romance of a sort. I am caught in the muddled middle. Trying to press forward, but feeling a bit daunted by the task at hand. I sometimes worry I am out of its league. Doubt is a horrible thing.

I am also easily distracted by the contests here on Wriing.com and find myself writing, just not writing what I think I should be working on.

I started Arlynn's Way a good five or six years ago. Zayda's Quest is around 3 years old. That sounds awful. But in that time, I also had the fun of dealing with identity theft issues and I lost a lot of heart when I could not locate all the various parts of my stories.

Some of those story bits are in Scrivener, some are in Dabble, some in Novlr and some in Autocrit. Having these programs are great, but I need to remember where stuff is and keep a record of where the bits are so I don't feel overwhelmed by the process. Organization will be key.

Doing things in NaNo is also not great because I have included parts of my novel with anything else I was writing at the time. The goal was word count more that it was in completing the novel. So... that's where I am with things.

I need to focus time each day, or at least a bit each week, on writing each of these novels. Even if it is ten minutes a day. I need to hold myself accountable and move each of these novels forward to completion. I have already wrote a new scene in a short story that will work in Arlynn's Way. That prompt helped me to get the juices flowing again. Writing.com is good at providing prompts that help me generate stories... that may just work themselves into my novels.... and help me do the necessary revisions or move me through the muddled middle.

Word Count = 445 words.