Home of The Overworld, Tales of the Aekhartain and Wrystan
I win.
89,218 / 80,000 words. 112% done!
Cloud Cursed is done.
I need to go lie down now… for about a week.
If I manage to gather up any of my brain over the next ten days or so, I’ll see if Esten and Mastekh can help me break 100k. But not yet.
For now, thank you and goodnight.
Things have really started picking up, plot-wise and with the word count, over the last few days. Which is good, because thanks to the boiler breakdown last week and the three days of repairs, my writing schedule was rather disrupted.
I’ve also found out that next week is going to be a bit of a mess writing-wise too. Why does this only ever happen in my NaNo years? In the non-NaNo years November is dull and empty, but as soon as I commit to something, quick, quick, we demand your time elsewhere! This isn’t really a complaint, just a general expression of bafflement.
Anyway, I’m hoping to get the book finished this week. I’m not sure if I’ll quite manage it, depends on how much brain power I have left and how many random directions my spontaneous dragons can erupt in. I can always tell when I’m getting worn out, though, because my characters start to swear a lot. Normally I only let them swear to make a dramatic point, but the f-word is creeping in all over the place lately. This usually shows I’m too busy (or lazy) to think of something better, but at the moment I just sort of stare blankly at the screen for a few minutes, then shrug and move on. So that’ll be fun to edit later.
I’m also having more trouble picking snippets to share without spoilers. Then again, I’m also struggling to figure out if they’re actually spoilers or not when no one knows anything else leading up to this point over the last two books. I’m trying to avoid them nonetheless.
Now all I have to do is gather up all my trailing threads and try to weave them into a coherent ending. In three days. Wish me luck!
Oh, and because of all the above blathering, I haven’t had much time to spare for Courtship. I’ll try and squeeze a few lines out tomorrow, but I’d kind of like to get Cloud Cursed over and done while I have time. Then I’ll have more time to play. I’m looking forward to it. (Although I’m now full of ideas for Book 4 and would love to write that straight after this. I should probably edit No.2 and release it first. Being an indie author is no fun sometimes ;)
In the meantime, here’s the Snippet List of Progress!
DAY ELEVEN
Lost to the continuing Saga of the Boiler.
DAY TWELVE
Cloud Cursed Ch 12
It wasn’t funny and it wasn’t clever. Someone could get hurt – and probably would once Khennik finally tracked down those responsible.
– Khennik, Chapter 12
Day 12 – 3468
Overall – 45, 001
DAY THIRTEEN
Catching up on other things.
DAY FOURTEEN
Cloud Cursed Ch 13+14
“Shut up and hand me that naked dragon.”
– *Spoilers* (It’s probably not, I’m just mean), Chapter 13
“You Riders do make life interesting.”
– Korija, Chapter 14
Day 14 – 6538 words
Overall – 51, 539 words
DAY FIFTEEN
Cloud Cursed Ch 15+16
It was all Estenarven’s fault.
– Khennik, Chapter 15
He used to play with the hummingbirds when he was a dragonling, creeping through the lush forest groves, enchanted by their jewel-bright feathers and their tiny forms. They had been beautiful, so beautiful.
– Mastekh, Chapter 16
Day 15 – 8151 words
Overall – 59,690 words
DAY SIXTEEN
Cloud Cursed Ch 17+18
Footwear was a serious liability.
– Khennik, Chapter 17
“Ow,” the Rider complained, squirming against his grip. “I was only joking. Gods, you dragons have no sense of humour.”
– Vish, Chapter 18
Day 16 – 8602 words
Overall – 68,292 words
68292 / 80000 words. 85% done!
So close now!
At least, I hope I am, because with where everything ended today I could either wrap the whole thing up in another three chapters, or it could be double that and more. I’m hoping to land somewhere in the middle, but I guess I will have to wait and see.
To all my fellow NaNo participants, hope you’re still on tracking and kicking your word count where it, uh, counts.
And to everyone else, I hope all is well or as good as can be expected.
Take care, my lovelies!
I’m not sure this whole catch up with NaNo on a Wednesday thing is going to work. Thus far I’m not doing too well at it, but as long as I’m still writing I guess that’s the important thing. I would say I’ll move this to Thursday now, but if I do something else will break or explode or just happen along to distr-
Oh look, the kraken is picking up its squidlings from school!
Never mind.
Anyway, this week in the NaNo tally, things have been chugging along quite nicely. All the plots I had for this book have gone missing and I’ve gone off in another weird direction. I’m sort of hoping one or two of them might come back, but not confident. My dragons are spontaneous and resent forward planning.
I’m kicking the word count where it matters though, which is nice. Especially since all my plans yesterday went out the window. Not that I’m complaining, because in the scheme of everything, my NaNo goals are not important. But since my boiler is still broken and I spent most of today waiting for the engineer to come fix it (he’s here now), I caught up on my word count and Cloud Cursed at least is back on track. As far as I know, but see spontaneous dragons for why this may not be true.
I also have something extra to share, but I’ll talk about that at the end of the post.
Now onto the Weekly Progress-O-Meter of Snippets (no spoilers)!
DAY FOUR
Cloud Cursed Ch 5+6
“There are others here that are not so friendly towards my Clan.”
“That’s because your Clan is populated by idiots.”– Leasang, Chapter 5
“I’m so pleased you picked such a comfortable spot. Wouldn’t it be terrible to find somewhere where there weren’t barbs and shards sticking in my feet? No, no, don’t get off, I can bear your weight just fine.”
– Teka, Chapter 5
Day 4 – 6763 words
Overall – 21,001 words
DAY FIVE and SIX
Nothing. My weekend was gobbled up by other things.
DAY SEVEN
Cloud Cursed Ch 7
“Father Sun, this trip was making him lose his mind. This was why he didn’t have friends.”
– Khennik, Chapter 7
Day 7 – 4888 words
Overall – 25, 889 words
DAY EIGHT
Cloud Cursed Ch 8
“We will never be friends, you and I.”
– Khennik, Chapter 8
Day 8 – 4618 words
Overall – 30, 507 words
DAY NINE
Cloud Cursed Ch 9
“Ready?” Nera asked.
He grinned. “Ready.”
The lieutenant gave a sharp whistle, waving her arm to get her flurry lined up behind her, and grinned back. “Then let’s go!”– Estenarven, Chapter 9
Day 9 – 2986 words
Overall – 33, 495 words
DAY TEN
Cloud Cursed Ch 10+11
“I’m really not sure about this, Tek,” she admitted, leaning forward to smooth a hand down her bonded’s neck.
– Nera, Chapter 10
“I bloody hate ancient second-generation runes. And poetry. Why did they always use poetry? Father Sun, it might as well be gibberish.”
– Khennik, Chapter 11
Day 10 – 8038 words
Overall – 41, 533 words
41533 / 80000 words. 52% done!
Woo – and if I may be so bold as to add – hoo!
Now, on to the non-NaNo Thing that has grown out of hazy idea I had bumbling around in the back of my brain, but mostly as a response to everything that’s going on right now.
I had considered making it a novella, however, instead it looks like it might turn into something else. I don’t know how long it will be, I don’t really know where it’s going. All I know is that it’ll be a completely fluffy piece of M/M dragon romance told scene by scene.
I wrote the first one today. I’ll write the second one tomorrow. I’ll try and write a little more every day and post it around the Rift and NaNo updates. So look out on Saturday for the first scene – perhaps even the first two scenes. I would say three, but that’ll be a fine way to ensure I never write anything on it again.
It’s called A Courtship of Dragons and it’s from the Dragonlands series, fitting neatly in between the end of Blazing Dawn and the start of Storm Rising. It’s about Mastekh and Estenarven, in case you were wondering and hadn’t quite guessed yet. It will probably also contain Rift Riders, miryhls and other sundry characters, since it’s all one Overworld.
I guess I’ll find out as I go along.
There was a flower on his bed.
– Mastekh, Scene 1
No, you’re not getting any more. It’s less than 300 words long at the moment. Come back on Saturday.
In the meantime, love and good thoughts and hope and support to you all.
So November is here and NaNo has begun, but rather than spam everyone with daily updates on my progress, I thought I’d go for weekly instead. Since this month ends on a Wednesday, I figured a Wednesday update would work best. However, since I had something else to post yesterday, I’m doing it on Thursday. Which is a great start! Um…
Anyway, it’s Day 3 and, since I get up early and write in the morning, my count for the day is in. It’s going quite well so far. Cloud Cursed is taking shape and an idea pounced on me yesterday that may or may not turn into a major plot point. Not sure I could make it work, but if I can, it could be interesting.
So, progress so far (with daily snippets – no spoilers):
DAY ONE
Cloud Cursed Ch 1
Clearly he was having a mid-century crisis. Well, he was more than seven hundred years old. It was bound to hit him sooner or later.
Khennik, Chapter 1
Overall – 4295 words
DAY TWO
Cloud Cursed Ch 2+3
“It always starts in the library.”
Estenarven, Chapter 2
Day 2 – 4774 words
Overall – 9069 words
DAY THREE
Cloud Cursed Ch 4
He’d never done so much thinking in his life and, quite frankly, he was exhausted.
Estenarven, Chapter 4
Day 3 – 5169 words
Overall – 14,238 words
14238 / 80000 words. 18% done!
So far so good. I’m slowly increasing my count every day, but I’m still feeling my way into the book so it should go up even more when I know where it’s all going. For the moment, though, I’m happy with it. I’m hoping to get it over 20,000 by the weekend. We shall see.
To all my fellow NaNo participants out there, hope it’s going as well for you.
Merry Thursday, everybody!
… is going to be late.
Sorry, everyone, but this week and weekend is crazy and I haven’t time to get the next installment ready, let alone post it tomorrow. Which is probably a good thing, because it ends in a fairly tense place.
As such I hope to get Ch 9.1 up on Wednesday, which means that the cliffhanger at the end of Friday’s 9.2 will only have to hold you until Sunday. So that’s a good thing, right?
Sorry again, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday!
Just a quick announcement to say that Storm Rising the book I feared might never end is in fact FINISHED!
At 90k it’s about fifteen thousand words bigger than planned, but colour me very relieved.
It’s done!
Things on Wattpad are going quite well where my Wingborn/Overworld tales are concerned, so to celebrate it, I thought I’d add a few short stories and deleted scenes around the place. On Wednesdays, since I’ve stopped the extra chapter updates.
I needed to make up this cover for Wattpad, but I’ll probably also make an ebook out of it one day when I have enough stuff to pad it out.
For now, I have a handful of short stories and a scattering of deleted scenes and alternative chapters. I’ll be starting with Wingborn related things, but I’ll probably move on to Rift at some point.
In the meantime, any requests? So far I have first meetings of Cue and Hurricane, Lyrai and Stirla, plus a Stirla survival lesson and a longer story about Stirla and Milli, but is there anything else people would like to see? First flights? When Stirla met Atyrn? Derry making the decision to join the Riders? Kilai’s first day at Aquila? Mucking about at Wrentheria? Downtime at Aquila? Something with Myran or Hylan or the dean? Maybe more Corin, Mouse or the other students?
I’m open to any and all suggestions. I can’t promise I’ll be able to actual write them, but I will definitely give it a go.
In the meantime, I shall go kick things off with when Stirla met Lyrai…
Merry Wednesday, everyone!
[I was going to do a terrible dragon pun, but I thought I’d spare you (except I kind of haven’t… oh well).]
Work has resumed on Storm Rising and I’ve now passed the halfway point (I think). In terms of word count it’s coming along fairly well, but wow, it feels like I’m dragging it out of my imagination, one stubborn chapter at a time.
I’m lucky because I’ve always been a fast writer. I usually have a vague idea of where any story I’m writing is heading, and the details helpfully fill themselves in along the way. This often means that the deeper into a book I get, the faster I write. Which is great, as long as I have time enough to harness the creativity. When I don’t have as much time, the slower pace usually means I can spend more time thinking about what’s coming up and maybe playing with details to make them fit before I have to write them down.
Not with this book. It doesn’t matter how much time I spend thinking about it, the plot still refuses to let me know anything further ahead than a chapter at most. If I think I know where it’s headed, it almost always changes on me as I’m writing it. I don’t know why, but this series really doesn’t like to be thought out in advance. The first book didn’t go anywhere near where I wanted it to, and now that I’ve given up on reaching the one main goal of the second book, suddenly they all veered off course and have now arrived.
I’m not complaining, as such, because the words keep flowing and things are progressing, but it’s not how I’m used to working and I just hope this isn’t going to be how everything goes from now on. One good thing about this series, though: it might not let me see the plot in advance, but it does keep throwing up images of the places they will hopefully end up next. I just wish I had any kind of fantasy landscape artist skills, because I would love to show them off in more than words.
Ah well, I shall just have to stick with what I have and maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to afford to commission someone to do it for me.
In the meantime, Wingborn is definitely loose in the wild now and I’m finally going to update the links on various pages. If you’ve been waiting for it turn up free somewhere other than Smashwords, here are a few:
It’s still not free on Amazon, but if you really want to pay for it then I’ll add various links on the Books page under the Overworld header.
Merry Midweek, all!
I’m fairly sure some people have already noticed this but…
It’s out!
You can now get your own free ebook copy, which has been typo-checked and slightly edited since the serial.
Find it free at Smashwords, where you can get epub, mobi and pdf formats, amongst others.
More free links to come when they’re available.
It’s also up on Amazon, but as always, the only way I can guarantee it being free is to have it exclusively on Amazon. Since I’m not going to do that, you may have to pay for it. If you buy through Amazon. If you do want a copy for your kindle, the free Smashwords mobi should work just fine (even if it did frustrate me to no end when I was sorting it out yesterday, so it had better be okay!).
It’s also up on Goodreads if you want to add it to your reading list or leave a review… which would be amazing if you could. Hint hint.
More links to come (including the Amazon ones) in a few days when they’re all up and available and I’ve had more than four hours sleep and so am less like a zombie.
Merry Tuesday, all!
The ebook of Wingborn is coming. In fact, I’ve now finished the last round of typo-catching, continuity checking and tiny changes edits and will spend most of the weekend formatting it and polishing it up for release, while giving the cover one last tweak. (Because I know how to enjoy myself!) Hopefully this will mean I’ll be able to release it on Monday *fingers crossed*
Alongside that, because this one is going to be free as much as I can make it (Amazon probably won’t price match, but I’ll find other places for the mobi file), this will mark the end of the Sisters of Icarus freebie special. It’s been free for a few months now, so I’ll be putting it up to $/£0.99, and it may go up again in a month or so, I haven’t decided yet.
Also, because it will have been a month since Blazing Dawn was released, that too will be increasing in price. As of Monday it will be $2.99 (£1.99, other regions will vary). So if you’re still undecided, maybe go for it now while it’s still super-cheap!
And once that’s all done, I will finally get a chance to work on Storm Rising and maybe edit a few deleted scenes and special Wingborn extras, while also turning my editing attention back to my Regency projects and, and, and…
Same old, same old, basically.
Although, in all the rush to get Blazing Dawn out while still working on Wingborn, I completely failed to acknowledge that it was my tenth official release! I should probably find some way of celebrating that.
If anyone has any ideas that are somewhat more exciting than me blasting out the Playlist of Victory and dancing about like a loon while eating Galaxy Caramel, I’m all ears.
Becca Lusher 