I think I’ll never be a planner when it comes to writing. When I was writing my May update, I was going through the first draft of #1 on a quick edit pass mostly aimed at some typos and obvious issues, as well as to just get the story back into my head and make notes about possible continuity issues between #1 and #2 so I could have a look at them when preparing the beta draft of #1.

As it tends to be, it could not end being just a quick pass on the most obvious typos and I ended up cutting one chapter entirely (again, needing to adjust the nearby ones for that) and doing what I’d expect to do much later, massively editing the ending – to the point that two characters were added to take part in the final fight even though they were left out of it in the first part. In fact, one of them was pretty much a new character that was only slightly mentioned before – and is the of the continuity edits as she’ll be given a few smaller appearances in #1 (where she is, so far, nameless mention).

Well, it wouldn’t be me if I did not reach further than that. As I was editing the ending, I was toying with the idea of ‘exploring’ the beginning of #3 just to have some of the issues and challenges in my head, hoping that I’d get some ideas on how to solve them.

That day, nothing looked like I’d go that bonkers. I went rollerblading with my sister instead of the hike I originally planned and returned home shortly after noon. I decided that the 36km done this way were nothing to stop me from going on the planned hike the next day and so I eagerly did the necessary preparation. Then I started thinking: what to do with the rest of the day?

So, here it comes. I actually started writing the beginning of #3 instead of thinking about it like it was in the original plan. Whoops! Since the evening on 29th May, I did not just do the beginning but actually busted out 23 chapters totaling some 70k words all the way to the first big story point and at least a third of the to-be book three.

The work on that is paused now for possibly a long time as the next two weeks will require my attention elsewhere and, after that, I’ll go back to working on the first beta draft of #1. The edits won’t be probably large: I’ll finalize names of two locations, do some other minor changes and possibly fix more typos. Then wait for beta feedback (hopefully I’ll be able to find someone willing to have a look at it) and see what needs some work.

At this point, I think that I’ll formally call it beta version on 21.7.2018, exactly three years since I started working on the story. Around that time, I’ll probably finally share the name and something actually specific about it.

So, that’s my progress so far. In the meantime, I am still thinking about the best way I could share more. Maybe posts about some of the characters and their backstory might be a possibility in the future. Maybe I’ll come up with something else. Who knows?