Category: Updates

Books, Updates, Writing

The Crying Child is Coming!

Becca Lusher

Though I have been quiet, I have been working hard (promise) and The Crying Child is on its way.

Cover_2 Crying Child

Once there was an island, and on that island there lived three cousins…

Britain 142 BC

The Sisters of Icarus may all be gone, but the next generation remains. Bitter, half-selkie and broken, the three women are different in many ways, yet one thing connects them: the island and its quest for a new Icarus.

Ghosts and family, selkies and betrayal, love and loss, these cousins are on a journey that will change all of their lives. And when the stars fall nothing will ever be the same again.

For there will be a new Icarus – the island will accept nothing less.

No matter what the cost.

At this precise moment in time it’s working its way through the mysterious KDP and Smashwords distribution/checking systems so as yet it’s only available from Smashwords, but hopefully within the next day or two all the links will be up and I can post them all.

Also within the next few days I’ll be making Sisters of Icarus FREE! More details on that when I’ve sorted out a few Smashwords related issues.

In the meantime, The Crying Child is coming!

Books, Updates, Writing

Sisters is Out!

Becca Lusher

Cover_1 Sisters of Icarus
The first in the Icarus Child Trilogy is available now!

Amazon: US || UK || AUS || CAN || DE
Smashwords || B&N || iBooks || Kobo ||

Actually it’s been out for over a week, but in my rush to get it ready on time I overloaded my brain and have been useless for anything else since. Oops. Still, better late than never, right?

Cover_2 Crying ChildIn the meantime I’m back at work on the next one – The Crying Child – and I hope to offer both excerpts from Sisters and a few chapter previews from The Crying Child over the next few weeks until it’s ready to be released, which will probably be November now. But as this year seems determined to teach me, the even the best laid plans are prone to going astray…

I’ll try my best to keep on track. Until then – don’t let the island eat you!

Aekhartain, Updates

September Tidings

Becca Lusher

Cover_1 Sisters of Icarus
Sisters of Icarus is coming!

Well, sort of. I’ve finished another edit of it and will soon start my final run through. Then, hopefully, I will be able to throw it out into the world on September 15th!

<— This is the cover as it currently stands. I may change it, I haven’t decided yet. At the moment I like it, but my views are always likely to change after a day or two.

Any feedback, opinions or views on it are always welcome.

Cover_2 Crying Child

I’m also about a third of the way through my first draft of The Crying Child. 

My original plan was to release this a month after Sisters, but real-life keeps poking holes in all my plans so I’ll have to see if I can pull if off.

If nothing unexpected pops up to ruin my month, I’m fairly sure I can do it, but the unexpected has rather taken over this year so I guess I can only try my best and hope that will be enough.

Cover_3 Icarus Child

 

Whenever that does make its way into the world, I will then turn my attention to the last of the trilogy – The Icarus Child – which currently has a wishful release date of November 15th. However, see above for excuses why that might not happen.

Whatever befalls my writing and editing schedules, I just wanted to let people know that they are being written and edited and thought about a lot right now, and will be coming. Hopefully before the end of the year.

Look, they already have covers and everything! This is almost as good as a release from me – not that I usually leave my covers to the last minute or anything. Nope. Not me. (And yes, I know, they’re kind of blue, but that works with the story. All photos are mine as well, just in case anyone wondered. Apologies once again to Portland Bill for turning you into the island.)

So, those are my exciting plans for this month. Anyone out there got anything good going on?

Updates, Writing

Progress Report: The Woe of Words

Becca Lusher

Why did I ever think making up my own language was cool? I’ve never been good at languages. I’m barely passable with English most days, especially when it comes to correct grammatical terms.

Which might be why I made up my own language, now I think on it.

It was an okay language as far as it went – because it had no rules and I botched it together as and when I needed it. But then I had to try and tidy it up and put in proper rules for verbs and such things.

Which already gives me a headache just thinking about. And that was before a character turned up only speaking in auxiliary verbs! (Okay, he doesn’t only speak in aux verbs, but it felt like it when I was trying to translate it.)

I never even thought to plan for auxiliary verbs! I never thought I’d need to! I’ve been avoiding writing practically anything in Aekh-speak ever since I decided to tidy it up and realised as a purely spoken language that I needed to be able to pronounce it! And then along he came, with his verb baggage trundling behind him.

So now I have a new rule, which is basically don’t bother conjugating the second verb unless it looks prettier that way (I’m kidding. Mostly. About the last six words, anyway). I’m sure this will trip me up spectacularly at some point. Right now, however, I don’t care.

*kicks the Man Who Fell To Earth*

As you can probably tell, I’m really enjoying writing The Crying Child. Although I’m still not sure whether I’d prefer for Icaria to be more or less creepy. Less would probably be better for my health.

Oh well. I hope your summer is treating you well in your part of the world. Unless you are upside down, in which case I hope your winter is passing swiftly.

My summer is now wet, but then I am in England, so I should expect nothing else. I did, however, see a hummingbird hawk-moth in my garden the other day! And a white stag!(!) In the wild. An actual white stag!(!!) (No wardrobes were spotted in the sighting of this stag. Nor any lions (religiously metaphoric or otherwise) or witches either. Alas.) He’s a fallow deer and he had ladies and a baby in tow, but they were mostly hidden in the bushes while he stood out in front like a forgotten Christmas lawn ornament.

I also saw a rainbow at dawn this morning. In the west. I’ve never seen one that early in the day before, but it was very pretty in its half-shining state.

Fun times.

Updates, Writing

Done! (For now…)

Becca Lusher

My rewrite edit of Sisters of Icarus is done! At 100,000 words it’s grown by 20K, but right now I don’t care. It is done, and hopefully most of the bits my betas didn’t like have now been removed.

I’ve also found out that a bunch of my family are coming to visit this weekend (and next week), so I guess work on The Crying Child will have to wait. While the schedule-keeping bit of me is disappointed, the rest of me is doing a happy dance. I get to play with my nieces and nephews and also avoid writing the less-than-happy book! (Though I’m working on getting more happy into it.) It’s also carnival week next week in my little town, which mostly means face painting, crab fishing, cake stalls and sunshine – yay! 

Summer is on! I hope you’re getting a chance to enjoy it in your part of the world. And if you’re in an upside down spot, then I hope your winter is passing kindly. (If it’s not, sorry to hear that, but I’m not giving the sun back yet ;)

In the meantime, I have books to read and review, plot ideas to form and butterflies to count – if only they will actually appear in the garden! (Seriously, where have all the butterflies gone this year? Last year I couldn’t move for them. Guess my contribution to the Big Butterfly Count is going to be pretty pathetic.) Happy, sunny days!

Aekhartain, Updates, Writing

Progress Report: Blame it on Fox

Becca Lusher

This always happens; I should have expected it. The first time I wrote Icarus Child a certain pair of characters, Cana and Fox, overtook everything and expanded the story way beyond my original plans. I didn’t mind too much because I came to love the pair of them, so I was excited to write about them again in Sisters of Icarus.

As it turned out, while it was nice to write about the again, it wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped. Part of this was because this book is pretty dark and I tried to remember only the nice bits. Another part was because I was trying to force my characters to fit the old plot and keep to a rough word count. I managed it, just about, but some of the spark had gone – and Fox’s biggest fan didn’t like it.

I kind of agreed, which was why I put the book aside and launched a rebellion with Caligo/Nawaquí instead. (Well, why wouldn’t you?)

Needless to say I wasn’t looking forward to going back to this tale and trying to sort out the mess I’d left it in. I knew it would take some work and I foresaw headaches ahead.

Well, so far it’s grown by 15K, including three whole new chapters – which isn’t ideal – but I’m actually quite enjoying it. Because Fox is back, my Fox, the proper Fox, not the angry, resentful, not particularly enjoyable character who showed up for the rewrite. Oh, he’s still angry in places (he always has been and he has his reasons), but he’s also more fun. And because he’s more light-hearted and cheeky, so is Cana.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a sad book in which unhappy things happen, often to nice people, and there’s the whole evil island lurking over everything. But now, thanks to Fox and my vastly inflated word count, there are a few happier moments to lighten the atmosphere and a much more enjoyable romance to keep things ticking along.

I hope. It’s working for me, anyway.

Then again, I haven’t actually finished it yet. There are still five chapters to go and a certain plot that needs to be reworked, but overall I’m happier with this version. I just hope my betas will be happy too and I’ll be able to win Fox’s biggest fan back into his club. I’ll need something positive to keep me going for The Crying Child, which is just as happy as its title suggests…

Before I go, one last reminder:

The Rebel Returns is increasing in price from tomorrow.
Rising from $.99/£.99 to 2.99.
Get it cheap while you can!

Updates

July Update

Becca Lusher

Hello, everyone! I hope your July is treating you well in your corner of the world. Currently my July is beautifully warm and I’ve been spending lots of time sitting in the sunshine coming through the window, catching sneaky peaks at the Tour de France, while running around on important family errands and squeezing in rewrites of Sisters of Icarus where I can.

I’ve just hit 50% on that, which leaves me nicely on target to get through it by the end of the month. Hopefully it’ll go quicker now that I’ve rewritten a particularly troublesome chapter. There are a few more ahead, though, so I’m not feeling too confident just yet. Still, it’ll be nice to write something from scratch next month.

Speaking of new things, I’m toying with the idea of releasing a collection of short stories to accompany the Dark Rebellion duology. I’ve got ideas for at least three – all connected with the books – but I’d like to include a few more, perhaps about Caligo’s childhood before his troubles began. If there’s anything you’d like to know more about in the books (or that happens outside of the books), I’m definitely open to ideas. Request for more Noctis will always be considered, especially since we recently lost Hector, the chief inspiration for his doggy days.

And finally in other Dark Rebellion news, The Rebel Returns is still on offer at $.99/£.99, but only until next Friday, July 17th. Get it cheap while you can!

Aekhartain, Updates

Updates!

Becca Lusher

Dark Rebel 9

Dark Rebel  is going up in price this Friday, May 1st! So grab it while you can before it rises to $2.99 USD, £1.99 UK, $3.99 AUS!

In other news, the first draft of The Rebel Returns was finished a couple of weeks ago, but family troubles and other commitments mean I haven’t had a chance to get to it yet. I’m hoping to start the first round of edits on it tomorrow, after which I should have a better idea of when it’ll be out. Sometime in May, hopefully.

After that I’ll be working hard on getting the Icarus Child trilogy done and dusted so that it can be released late summer/early autumn, by which time I will definitely be wanting to write something else. Got any character stories you’d like to request? Want to catch up with Freyda and Dóma, perhaps? Maybe you want more Mero/Shaiel adventures. I’m hoping to comply a freebie anthology of short stories at some point this year, so if there’s anything you want to see, let me know, and I will see what I can do!

Aekhartain, Updates, Writing

Let’s Dance!

Becca Lusher

First draft of Dark Rebel is done! I am so relieved, since I’ve mostly been writing it while waiting for the plot to show up – just as a traditional Aekh tale should go.

But it’s done. Sort of.

Okay, so it’s messy and needs loads of work, but the first draft is done! Excuse me while I slap on the Playlist of Victory and go dance for a while.

Merry Thursday, everyone :)

Aekhartain, Overworld, Updates, Writing

So About 2015…

Becca Lusher

I have some plans. I like making plans, even if I rarely stick to them. I thought I might share some of the ones I have lined up for this year.

During January I hope to write the next Aekhartain release. I’m currently neck-deep in Dark Rebel and mostly enjoying my traipse across the 9th century landscape. I don’t know how long it’ll be yet, because this is a completely new story. I had to scrap the original because it doesn’t fit any longer with the timeline or the world setting. Oh, and it’s rubbish.

The rest of this release (Letters from the Dark and Dark Words) will hopefully just be updates of the originals, because although they have their faults they still capture Nawaquí/Caligo better than anything else. I might also be adding something extra at the end. I guess it depends on the word count.

So writing, rewriting, editing and all willing I’m hoping to get this out by February/March. We will see.

Elsewhere this month I plan to clean Unbound and Free of typos and other mistakes, and release the updated version. I’ll also be bumping the price up to $2.99, so this is a first warning. I’ll issue another one when I have a better idea of the timeline.

I also need to find time to read through Wingborn for a quick edit, before I go begging my beta readers for some assistance. This will be the first of the Overworld books, which are pure fantasy and involve people flying around on giant eagles. Yes, giant eagles. More to come nearer release time, but I’m aiming for May *fingers crossed*

Those are my plans for January, though I’m hoping to have tackled them all before the end of the month. As for the rest of the year, well, my optimistic release schedule currently reads like this.

Dark Rebel (Historical Aekhartain) – February/March
Wingborn (Overworld #1) – May
Sisters of Icarus (Icarus Child #1) – July
The Crying Child (Icarus Child #2) – August
The Icarus Child (Icarus Child #3) – September
Possible Overworld novella freebie – ?
Winter Nights (Modern Aekhartain, Issie and Eddie’s stories) – November/December

There might be more freebie novellas, though ideally I’ll be posting free short stories here instead. I suppose it depends on big they end up and how much time I have, both to write and edit them, as well as prep them for a big release. There’s also a possibility that I’ll release the second Overworld book too, since it’s already written. I guess it depends on how well the first does. For now the year seems busy enough. I’m also hoping to post here on a more regular basis, but we shall see.

In the meantime I have a story to keep writing and plenty of stuff to edit. Anyone else got any big plans for this year?