Erynn Lehtonen's Blog

Back in 2021, I entered a publishing competition hosted by Inkfort Press: the Publishing Derby.

The idea was that up to 100 writers could enter the competition, get a free book cover under an assigned alias, and start over from scratch without anyone knowing who they are. New name, new book, new platform. The writing had to be done by a certain date, and then the winners would come in different categories such as the most sales, the most reviews, the highest rated, and so on. I loved the idea and had to enter, especially because the cover for The Mists of Arathia was downright incredible.

Earlier in 2023, I updated my website and email branding to share that tagline. All three concepts have been important to me since my very first steps as an author; long before my shiny new logo, my website read "mental illness in fantasy worlds" but I thought it was time for an update and some specificity.

Three years after the original publication of Spirit of the Dragon, on the verge of publishing Blood of Dragons and concluding the Yokai Calling series, I began my hunt for a cover artist for the omnibus edition of the series. I wanted to go big because until that point in my author career, I'd opted to design my own covers instead of hiring an artist.

In hindsight? Doing it all myself probably wasn't the best idea... but I had a lot of fun doing it, learned a lot about covers and design in general, and got to play around with another artsy thing that I don't get to do very often! So all in all, no regrets, but by the time the end of the series came along, it was time to splurge on a pro. :)

Today marks the 4th birthday of Spirit of the Dragon! Woah, I can hardly believe that four years ago today, I officially became a published author. It's been a wild ride with highs and lows, bumps and turns, but what's stayed true from the very beginning is my love for the stories I've written and continue to write. And that all started with Spirit of the Dragon.

We'll continue my tale of ongoing Ark adventures with details regarding the first leg toward mine and Alex's quest of defeating bosses on The Island. First, a little more detail about the bosses themselves, as I've been sparse with them so far...

On the island, there are three mysterious obelisks. Blue marks the Northwest corner of the map, Red marks Southwest, and Green marks approximately East. While travelling long distances, we often use them as directional markers because you can see them from very, very far away.

During my last year before I graduated from the University of British Columbia, I had the opportunity to attend a World Mythology class. Although most of the class was dedicated to defining mythology and pre-religious belief systems and classical mythological texts such as the Enuma Elish, I did have the opportunity to study Japanese mythology and folklore as part of my personal projects. One such project was my essay Shintoism and Folkloric Wartime Propaganda: Momotaro and World War Two.

"Kagi" is the term for this species used by the Ishoki people, those who lived in Seiryuu before the warlocks came and claimed the land as theirs. Colloquially, Kagi dragons are also called Sky Whales for their whale-like shape that differs quite a bit from traditional dragons but marks their capacity for flight, unlike true whales. This species is all but unknown to the Seiryan people as they dwell in areas where spirit energies are extremely powerful, which tends not to be in Yumihari at all. The Channel of Stars and other places in the cosmic sea—the Nightmare—are such examples.

I write significantly more words a year than I publish. For the last few years, I've easily reached a million words a year, often leaping and bounding over that desirable number without a second thought.

And yet only a fraction of those words are ones you'll ever read. Why?

Because they belong to someone else.

I knew long before I wrote the first word for A Dragon Will Rise that the book would continue my series' commentary on mental health, but that this story would be unique. It is not a tale about the monsters of doubt and fear in your head or about the creatures that come in the dead of night to tear away your willpower and burrow eggs of self-loathing in your skull. This story is about a woman who has lived through it all and has made it out on the other side, on the path to recovery toward happiness and wholeness.

But not everyone around her travels the same path.

Boy what a mess we've gone through in our Ark Survival playthrough! Every day brings us closer to our goal of beating all of the bosses in the storyline, but the best way to get there? Shenanigans, of course!