Happy new year everyone. Can you believe we are in 2026! In many ways it’s nice to say goodbye to 2025 and hello to a new year which will hopefully include a lot less trauma for many people I know. I think it will be sensible to break down the year and let you know my plans for 2026 ((so excited, I cannot wait!))
Boat & Vlog Life
Well, 2025 was an amazing year, despite waking up to the boat listing due to a pound being drained due to no water. Chris falling in, twice and low water across the canal network due to the fantastic weather meant a worrying time but we managed to get back to Warwick in the end.
We have seen and learnt so much about boat life again this year. We’ve worked different locks and lift bridges and explored new rivers, canals, villages, towns and cities. We’ve met some amazing people and I created forty vlogs. It really has been an amazing year and we feel so lucky to have this life.
I’ve finally smashed my goal of 1,000 subscribers on YouTube and currently have 1,174 as it stands. This sadly still doesn’t mean I’m making any money as you also need 4K watch hours which I don’t have.
I only have one more cruising vlog uploaded and a vlog where we added the secondary glazing. I was wondering what to do next…. last year I didn’t add in any new vlogs as I can only video me sitting at the dinette working on so many videos ((yawn fest)) so we are thinking of adding some cooking vlogs so will see how that goes. If you have any recipes you want us to make let me know. I’m going to start by making the ones from my book, Lost the Plot.
Books and author life
Another fantastic year and every year I make some progress. Lost the Plot has been the standout book this year despite me publishing it in 2024. It’s gone from strength to strength after the review in Waterways World Magazine and I have some more magazines interested and promotion planned. A few people have asked me for a sequel but I’m not sure! We will see.
One Step Ahead was published in June and I pulled up my big girl pants ((Did you use a winch?)) to have my own book event in The Harbour Gallery in Jersey and National Civil War Centre in Newark as part of Newark Book Festival. I never thought I would be brave enough to do these. Despite appearances, I do not find public speaking easy, although like anything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes or so they say. I also did a little book signing in Newark Bookshop which I enjoyed ((That’s because mainly your mates came along and bought books!)) and some people I didn’t know actually.
I won a competition for my boat story and won £700 towards our Canal and River Licence and let me tell you when our licence is due on the 1st of January it is very welcome. We also have to pay our mooring deposit if we are going to stay in Warwick of £300. ((Is this a yearly review or a begging letter?)) can it be both?
Next year I am planning on putting full focus onto my thriller, Killer’s List. I will be submitting it as I’ve said before and if no publishers are interested, then I’m going to publish it myself. This will require a significant investment in terms of cover, typesetting, editing and marketing but I plan to start saving the money from my Lost the Plot sales towards this. I’ve mentioned that big publishers have big marketing budgets and there I no way I can compete so I need to get clever with the promotion ((That’s unlikely)) Come what may, I want this book out in the world.
I’m still working on my witch story which has been well received. I’m sorry if anyone received an email with the first chapter. I was chatting online with a ‘Happiness Engineer’ from WordPress as I wanted it just to be a post on my website page but it ended up emailing everyone ((DOH!)) anyway, hopefully all sorted and new chapters incoming. Please remember this is just for a bit of fun so if you cannot handle spelling mistakes or inconsistencies then don’t put yourself through reading it. Oh, and the working title for the story for now is…. The Sixth Witch.
My brother bought me some Tarot cards so that’s a new thing for me to learn. ((Oh God. You’re not going to turn into your character are you? Although I’ve always said it!)) No, I don’t think there is any danger of that. As I’ve been writing the story outline the tarot readings were something I felt will become more important than I thought to the story and it would be interesting to learn.
I’m not taking on any other writing projects this year. Killer’s List and The Sixth Witch are quite enough.
Work
As I’ve mentioned before I have a newish freelance job as a Senior Publishing Assistant and so far I’m really enjoying it. My hours are increasing for this year but still leaves me lots of time for writing and promotion. I will be working all year this still means plenty of time for cruising.
The job really compliments my own ‘author life’ and one of the reasons I’m leaning more to self-publishing Killer’s List is that I already know so much more about the industry and how to publish a book to ensure it can be ordered by Waterstones and other bookshops.
I was looking at offering some more mentoring sessions as I’m already mentoring a couple of people but I’ve decided not to. I find myself falling into the trap of taking on too much, like thinking oh I better do this now I have the time, learn TikTok, do a podcast, set up a Substack account where you can earn money from blogs and I am, of course, tempted by many but I’ve had a word with myself and added them to the ‘maybe one day in the future list’. ((Not like you to be so sensible)) I know, must be my advancing years. Taking time to do these is time away from writing and promoting and I need to be focused and not get distracted learning something new!
The only one exception ((Oh here we go!)) It’s been mentioned a few times when I was organising the Literature Village for Newark Book Festival that I should write a guide on running a stall. This will hopefully help newbies to have some information as they are daunting when you’ve not done them before. This will basically just be available as a PDF to buy and download hopefully from my website so once it’s created it will hopefully see a little income from this. I just need to finish creating my logo which is nearly done.
Life
This year has been difficult as sadly there I’ve been to way too many funerals and we’ve lost too many good people. This, of course, affects every part of life. From June it has been relentless with bad health news for people in my life which has an impact on plans and some days it means you just don’t feel like doing anything. I am hoping that 2026 will be a bit kinder to everyone.
I’ve survived and nearly come out of the other side of the peri-menopause and still not sure how I managed to help pull Newark Book Festival together when my brain was only working at about 10% ((That’s a good day for you!)) on a good day but sometimes you have to dig deep.
I turned 50! ((Who knew?)) it is such a big number when it’s written down. I don’t feel 50 ((You certainly don’t act it)) I was lucky enough to spend some quality time with family and friends this year on different adventures. Throughout all of these my author’s brain never stopped taking in those details which help form stories of the future…
Thank you
Lastly, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone reading this blog. Creating my blogs keeps me focused on my journey. Sadly, this also gives Brackets a voice but that cannot be helped. I think it’s too late to get rid of Brackets now ((OI. I’m the best thing about your blog!)) Thank to everyone who has bought my books, read my books, left a review, come along to a book event, shared my posts and helped me promote. To my wonderful Patrons who support me financially as well as people buying me Super Thanks on YouTube and buying me a coffee, thank you so much.
I hope you’ve had a good 2025 and enjoyed my little videos ‘employee of the month’ and ‘meet the team’ a few people have asked for more ((Suckers!)) but I’m not sure how I can create anything better but will have a think!
Here’s to 2026 and everything it brings and thanks for hanging about for the ride! x
C.L. Peache 