What's in Store for AdorkableSmile in 2026?
Okay, it’s fair to say that 2025 was not my year.
It was very much a year of burnout: I started off with such high expectations, and then I got nothing done for a solid eight months. The late autumn and December became a project of clawing back my sense of self and learning to enjoy writing again. Now I’m back to somewhere vaguely sensible, and learning to listen to my mind and body and avoid stretching myself too thin, so I’m crossing my fingers that 2026 will be a more consistent year!
With that out of the way, what’s in store for 2026?
Stories: Fallen Star, Short Fiction, and Looking Ahead
Last year I posted twelve chapters of Fallen Star, averaging out to one chapter a month. Considering I was intending to put out one every two weeks, that’s… not great. Buuuut, I’m already eight chapters ahead on my buffer, so I’m planning on upping my schedule to one chapter per week. I’m feeling okay with a pace of 1,000 words a day, so that’s my current plan – where I need to adjust that I’ll try and let folks know, but this year is looking more positive so far.
Then there’s the bad news: The Winter Spirit is on indefinite hiatus. I’m stuck on it, which usually means I’ve gone wrong somewhere; I need to look at it and consider some serious rewrites. So that’s spending this year in the doldrums, as I decipher the story and delve into characters.
On the short story side, I’m hoping I can still put out one story a month, but I’m not going to push myself to maintain a buffer of those and chapters for Fallen Star. We’ll take them as they come, and I’ll write when inspiration strikes.
RPGs: Continuing Rank & File, essays on adventures
So I thought RPGs were going to be a thing that didn’t come back for a long time (if at all), but SURPRISE! I wrote a solid base for a RPG in like October/November, and I’ve started talking about it a little on my site. I’ll be continuing these RPG essays on an as-and-when basis, as I write more of it and continue my explorations.
I’m also hoping to start running some games again this year – it’s all very tentative at the moment, and depends on how my mental health continues throughout the year. But I’m looking to keep it fairly simple; it’ll be mainly D&D 5e or 2024 or whatever the official name is now. I’m not a huge fan of running that, but it’s what folks want to play, and I don’t really have the energy to argue that right now.
Anyway, if I get to running some games I’ll write some musings on D&D adventures, campaigns, etc.
Other writings: reviews, news, essays, and more
When I’m not posting fiction, I’ll be writing reviews. There are a lot of interesting films coming out this year – Park Chan-Wook’s No Other Choice is out toward the end of this month, as is the film adaptation of H is for Hawk, which I loved as a book. And in February everything in the world is coming out on the 20th – notably the Brazilian film Secret Agent, Glen Powell vehicle How to Make a Killing, and weird sci-fi comedy thriller Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die from Gore Verbinski.
...I plan to see a lot of movies this year.
And I’ll try to review them!
I enjoy talking about movies, and it’s something I don’t do enough on here. So I’m going to start writing more reviews when I’ve watched a film in the cinema, because I like to delve into these things. I saw some six, seven movies in the last couple months of 2025, and I didn’t talk about any of them because I was still recovering from burnout; I want to avoid that going into this year, so we’ll take it easy – if I really liked a movie, I’ll review it, but I’m not going to push myself to burnout writing so damn much.
I also want to discuss books I’ve read, so I’ll start putting book reviews up here too. I read fifteen books in 2025, and I reviewed almost all of them on Storygraph (surprise! I’m on Storygraph!), but I’ll aim to post more of them on here this year.
Lastly: I wrote an essay! You can find it online over here; it’s for subscribers only, but for AU$30 a year it’s not too steep (that’s about £15, which is well worth it for the articles). I want to write more like it – non-fiction exploring literature, games, and other subjects that hold my interest. Aside from my RPG writings, there may be more essays appearing up here this year, although I’m not holding myself to it.
Conclusion
I’ve come into this year feeling more rested and positive, but the spectre of burnout hovers close. It took me a long time to recover last year, and I’m worried that I could slip back into it if I try to push myself too hard, or if circumstances change for the worse.
Looking at this list, I’ve got a lot of projects I want to do. It’s ambitious; but my sole focus this year is finishing Fallen Star above all else, and ensuring I can publish its chapters up here at least twice a month.
So I’m going to take it easy – no matter how much it might look like I’m planning to write. I’m committed to enough Fallen Star to keep up a buffer, and outside of that anything else is as my fancy dictates. I hope that’ll be enough to keep you coming back.
- Moth ཐི༏ཋྀ