May has passed us by (well, it will, tomorrow), and so it’s time for another monthly update. This one will be pretty short.

In the April update, I stated that my current editing pass for book two was ~70% for surface edits, and those were completed in May. Then, in the second half, I took a break from writing – I had to recharge a bit before I delve into deeper edits. I’ve, instead, used that time to read more.

At this point, I’m thinking whether to go for deeper edits in book two (which won’t be ready for another round of betas anytime soon) or edit book three with what I was told during this first beta read of book one – especially when it comes to character motivation. The advantage of going for book three would be to revise the connections between the books and incorporate updated versions of some hints I’ve been thinking about and developing more.

There are also a few things that aren’t directly related to my story. I’m planning to make a couple of blog posts about education in fantasy and how history can be used to create realistic child/teen life in fantasy, but I have yet to get myself to prepare those posts.

Another part that is in-progress is a pair of blog posts about dragonrider fantasy – there were a couple of days when I thought that this is a sub-genre that’s often based on a quite simple pattern but, despite that and many clichés, is popular and works well. I have a pair of posts drafted, but I’ll need to check to make sure it sounds like an analysis of the genre, and not like a rant.

On that matter, I’ve probably mentioned it a few times that I’d like to give writing a dragonrider story a try at some point in future, but I’d also want to try a different approach. I had one pretty random idea, but it’s still very vague and I don’t think I’d get into it before I finish what I have started with “Project Eternity” – the Eternal Defenders trilogy and the two prequels. For now, I’m leaning to call the dragonrider idea a very imaginative codename “Project Dragon”. All I can say for now about the idea is that I’m considering some different kind of rivalry between factions as well as avoiding the “dragonrider turned evil” main villain (which seems like the biggest trope in dragonrider stories) but it would still be a coming-of-age story with good vs. evil elements, if the idea stays as it is. Obviously, it’d be a standalone story separate from the Eternal Defenders “universe”.

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So, that’s it for my monthly update. Feel free to tell me how’s your month going, or ask anything about my progress.