Category: Writing

Aekhartain, Books, Writing

The Icarus Child

Becca Lusher

The Icarus Child

~ The Icarus Child #3 ~

Once there was an island, and on that island there lived a boy…

Britain 135 BC

Cover_3 Icarus ChildOrphaned at birth and raised by his aunt on an isolated island, Icastar has led a far from normal life. His body is misshapen, his days are tormented by whispering winds and demanding ghosts, and he only has seals for friends.

But there is more to this boy than his physical hardships and lonely location. The island and his own body might try to hold him down, caging him inside a world of pain, but he is the Icarus Child.

One day he will fly – or die trying.

Freedom is at stake, and failure is no longer an option.

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The Icarus Child in Brief
What’s in it?: A 90,000 word novel and a bonus short story (Star and Shadowborn)
When is it set?: 135-126 BC
Where is it set?: Iron Age Britain, pre-Roman.
What kind of story is it?: A family drama about a young boy, the aunt who raises him, his extended family and the island they live on. Involves love, friendship, selkies, chores, goats, a magpie, some nightmares and some really unfriendly ghosts.
What’s the genre?: Historical Fantasy.
Any age restrictions?: None. Although the story does involve a bit of violence.

Behind the Story
If you’ve read any of the Aekhartain stories before and have been wondering how that series connects with this one, wonder no more! This is Shaiel’s book – and if you liked Demairo/Demero’s story in Unbound and Free there are a fair few similarities here, especially in the first section.
When it comes to comparing it to the original, then there have been a lot of changes. Icastar is pretty much as he ever was, but all the other characters are different (and Fox and Cana are his grandparents and still alive, so they make brief appearances) and for the most part the plot takes a wholly new route to the end. The outcome there is the same as it ever was, although the method has differed. In other words, if you read and remembered the original, you might get a few surprises here.
You also get a bit of a bonus story in Star and Shadowborn, because as always Maskai likes to make things difficult for me, and squeezing in an explanation of who and what she is always seems impossible. Hopefully this little tale will clear up any questions the rest of the book raises. If not, tell me and I’ll see what else I can do.

Read on for the opening chapter from The Icarus Child, and be aware that it may contain spoilers for Sisters of Icarus and The Crying Child.

Continue reading “The Icarus Child” →

A Bit of Me, Aekhartain, Writing

Secrets of Icarus: Part Four

Becca Lusher

The Icarus Child is almost ready! I think I might actually be able to release it tomorrow as planned – which will be a big relief. In the meantime I’ve been reading Wingborn on my Kindle, and finding it surprisingly enjoyable, but more on that next week ;)

For now…

Secret #4 – Some of My Books Have Their Own Accents

Okay, I’ll admit this one is a bit weird and is something that has only started recently, but it’s true, my books sometimes have accents.

Let me explain. During the editing process, at some point I’ll email a book to my Kindle and then read it aloud – making changes as I go. The change of screen and reading pace is great for spotting those irritating typos that I would otherwise skim over without noticing – especially after the third or fourth times of reading the same book. To make this more interesting for myself, I often do voices and accents along the way. I’ve always loved imitating accents, so I like to have a bit of fun and because the accents make me speak more slowly I tend to pay more attention to what I’m reading.

Which is straightforward enough, if a little strange. However, just lately I’ve noticed that some books prefer a particular type of accent throughout. Unbound and Free and Be With Me have a distinctly Welsh lilt, thanks to Elisud. While the Dark Rebellion books are very Devonian. Both of these make sense due to the characters involved.

The Icarus Child is Scottish – and I have no idea why. I’ve never been that good at Scottish accents before, but this book has cured me. I had so much fun saying Icastar (ih-KA-staar) that I can no longer use any other accents with it. Believe me, I’ve tried. My Irish starts off well enough, but drifts into an Ulster/Northern Ireland sound before hopping across the sea to Scotland. I lost my Welsh accent altogether, and even my Yorkshire/generic Northern accent doesn’t last long.

It doesn’t make much sense, but there you have it. The Icarus Child has a Scottish soul and you now have another unnecessary insight into my quirky writing habits.

I’ll be back tomorrow (hopefully) to pester you about the new book. Hurrah!

In the meantime – Merry Monday and Happy February, everyone!

A Bit of Me, Aekhartain, Writing

Secrets of Icarus: Part Three

Becca Lusher

I love music across many genres, but when it comes to writing I tend to stick to classical orchestrations – mostly because lyrics distract me. Sometimes I don’t really care what I listen to and will happily have the radio on (Classic FM usually), and there are days when I don’t listen to anything at all. However, most of the time I like something faintly inspirational and without interruptions in the background.

This means I listen to a lot of soundtracks as well as classical composers. I love a good soundtrack, be it for film, TV, games or trailers, but I also have a distinct weakness for a nice bit of piano music and strings. I am all about the strings.

Which brings me to…

Secret #3 – Each Book has a Slightly Different Soundtrack

Continue reading “Secrets of Icarus: Part Three” →

A Bit of Me, Aekhartain, Writing

Secrets of Icarus: Part Two

Becca Lusher

Secret #2 – I Keep Plot Charts/Tables For All My Stories

Along with chapter titles that no one ever sees, I also keep plot charts. Except they’re not really charts at all, they’re tables where I keep track of my word count and write one or two lines about what’s going on to help me out when I’m in a hurry to find something.

I also use them for very short brain-storming session during the writing stage, leaving myself short notes about what’s coming up next. I do this for all my books, so this series isn’t particularly special in this regard. Actually, my charts are pretty scanty for most of this series. Probably because I knew roughly where I was going.

Some (edited for spoilers) examples include:

Sisters of Icarus

  • Grief. Nightmare. Chores. Farewell, Icarus.
  • … Cana sees much, but says little.
  • Fox, Fox, Fox!
  • Snowball fight! Love, kisses, promises, hopes. Crossed wires.


The Crying Child

  • Cari is thoughtful. Fox is Fox.
  • Catch a falling star and put him in your pocket, save him on a rainy day…
  • … Cari still sulks – others are content.
  • … Selkie delivery.
  • Fox to the rescue! Well, kind of…
  • OH NOES! I AM THE NEW ICARUS


The Icarus Child

  • There was a boy, a very strange and lonely boy…
  • Storm and goats. The magpie – yay!
  • Family fun. Saekara and Ica and Morvoren. Love.
  • A new face on the island. Hurricane Morvoren!
  • … Selkie panic! Ica itches.
  • … Save us! Save us!

And there you have it, another small insight into my writery habits that you probably were perfectly happy not knowing about.

Next time music! (I’ll give you a hint, it involves lots of soundtracks.)

A Bit of Me, Aekhartain, Writing

Secrets of Icarus*: Part One

Becca Lusher
*Which actually sounds like a good title for a spin-off collection of short stories based around the Icarus Child books. I might quite enjoy doing that. I could write some more Rudh and Howl, maybe some young Fox adventures, definitely some more cute Fox and Cana moments, perhaps some non-scary Icaria, or some selkie time. I could even delve into why Morvoren and the goats Do Not Get Along. That could be fun. Maybe. Although this is supposed to be my last historical Aekh(ish) tale for a while, so it might be nice not to spend even more time in the Iron Age. Oh well, just a thought, which may or may not grow into something at some point.

Er, anyway, putting all of that to one side. Since it is now one week until the (hopeful) release date of The Icarus Child, the final part of this trilogy, I thought as a way to chivvy me along to actually making the deadline, I’d impart a few secrets along the way.

Not spoilers, secrets. These things are more a behind the scenes look at my writing process, particularly as it pertains to these books.

Secret #1 – All the Chapters Have Their Own Secret Titles

This is something I do quite a lot when writing novels. Way back in the days when I used to share my writing with the Elfwood community, I tended to post a chapter at a time, so I got into the habit of saving them a chapter at a time too, for easy access. Even now, if I know in advance that what I’m writing will become a novel, I use individual files for each chapter. This makes it a whole lot easier to find things when I need to change them, but it’s a bit more of a pain when it comes to the final editing and formatting stages.

I use these chapter titles in part because they make my files look more interesting, but also as shorthand to keep track of the story as I go. I don’t tend to use them in the final books because some of the titles are a bit spoilery, others are kind of boring (a few seem to crop up in every book I write), and also because I don’t know how much attention people pay to such things. (If you have an opinion either way, feel free to share. I’m always curious.)

This secret is particularly relevant to this series because the first title chapter of the original Icarus Child book is the same as in this version – And Then He Fell. This matters to me because that was where the whole story began, ten odd years ago. Back then all I knew about the story was that Icarus had three sisters, he would try to fly and fail, and somehow or other this whole thing would end up back at Shaiel and the Aekhartain. I’m still not entirely sure how I got from there to the end in the original, but I did, and I use those two titles to remind me of that long ago day when I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going but full of hope all the same.

Other titles across the current series include:
Farewell to Sea and Sky, Samhain Storm, A Fox’s Tale, Return of the Fox, Snowfalling, Illusions of Happiness, Catch a Falling Star, He Who Must Ascend, Winter Woes, A Star is Born, Kidnap!, Ghost Plans, The Wings of a Storm, Family Familiarity, Dreams and Screams, My Star and my favourite of the lot which I can’t include for spoiler reasons.

So there you have it. Not so much a secret as just something you might not have known.

Come back soon for the next in this exciting series of things you never knew, were probably happy enough not knowing and could likely have lived your whole life without feeling the lack of, but which I’m going to tell you about anyway!

Cover_3 Icarus Child
Quick IC Update

New additions and character fixes are mostly finished, so now I just have to edit the last five chapters again.

Yay… I think.

Merry Wednesday, everyone!

A Bit of Me, Updates, Writing

Icarus Child Edit Update

Becca Lusher

\(*O*)/  <– That feeling when you’ve finished the final edit on your new book.

/(~_~)\ <– Until you realise you need to go back and sort out one of the characters.

(@-@) <– And then you realise the character in question defies explanation and sorting it out won’t be easy.

/(-.-)\ <– Think. Think harder. Work it out.

|(*.*)| <– Oh, hey, that stupid idea might just work…

I’ll let you know how I get on. For now, though, I still have hope for a release next week. Please don’t burst my optimistic little bubble.

(And yes, I know, I probably could have found some gifs to explain it all better. But that would take work and my brain is back in lazy mode.)

Merry Tuesday, everyone!

Aekhartain, Updates, Writing

Icarus Child Update: Week Three

Becca Lusher

Week 3 Total Word Count: 74,000

I spoke way too soon last week. After two 10K writing days, I hit a wall. Hard. It was like pulling teeth trying to drag the story on for a while there. The trouble was I’d hit a point where the story would quite happily have reached an end. Which would have been fine, except nothing would have been resolved, it was way too soon and I still had too much to do. But try convincing my brain to go on when it said everything was done.

This is what happened with The Crying Child, a set of events leapt out of nowhere, twisted things around and suddenly, Ta-Dah! The End! Well, I could get away with it on that book because it was the second of three, but I couldn’t really let that happen here. Unless I wanted to write a fourth book *shudders*

Funnily enough it was sparked by the same character. I suspect if I’d written a completely unnecessary fourth book it would have happened again. With the same one. A born troublemaker that one. Never mind, I pulled through, finished Chapter Twenty Five then gave myself a few days off to think about it all.

Then came yesterday, when I sat down, flexed my fingers and finished the whole lot with a mammoth effort. I’m pretty sure the entire thing is a massive mess, nothing I wrote yesterday will make a lick of sense, but it’s fine because some of it will be salvageable and I now have an iron framework to hang the whole story on.

Phew!

Also, if I’m lucky, it won’t be quite as messy as I think it is. This has happened to me before, and in the best cases I didn’t need to change a thing. Even if it doesn’t happen here, I’m still happy because the hardest of the hard work is done!

Even better, I can finally get out of the Iron Age! And away from the historical stuff altogether (for a bit at least). My next Aekh tale is set in 2002. I cannot wait. Even if it does mean a lot of Shakespeare in my near future. If you’ve read Orion’s Kiss this is the story that will make sense out of just who Beatrice Winters is. Finally. Two years after I finished that one.

*ahem* Oh well, better late than never, right? 

Anyway, back to this book. No snippet this week, since everything is spoilery. Instead I’ll end with the final tally, since the last day was only just in Week 4.

Icarus Child Final Total: 86,700 words.

Woo – and indeed – Hoo! Now all I have to do is edit the thing.

A Bit of Me, Aekhartain, Updates, Writing

I Win!

Becca Lusher

I broke my brain, but I win! The Icarus Child is done!

I’ve written 13.5K words today. Starting at 8 ish. I broke off to watch Tim Peake rocket up to space, then had to break later on to drive my mum somewhere because of rain, but otherwise I powered through on a diet of Galaxy chocolate, copious amounts of water and Ori and the Blind Forest soundtrack (and a couple of others – I will have to talk music sometime).

It makes no sense. I don’t even care. It is done! Book is finished! I’m not even going to touch it until the new year.

Now I can catch up on my reading, put up decorations, wrap presents, see family and look after the dog who has an ear infection and a lip infection and all kinds of skin infections (apparently, though he seems fine, but the vet says, so *shrug* and he’s a foolish pedigree), and probably sleep a lot. Because it is December and it’s wet and we’re not quite halfway out of the dark yet.

Proper update tomorrow. For now – yay!

(Ow, my head)

Aekhartain, Updates, Writing

Icarus Child Update: Week Two

Becca Lusher

Week 2 Total Word Count: 46,000

Woo! This book is flying!

Well, sort of. Writing-wise I’m down to three days a week when I have enough free time to make it worth my while to sit down and get stuff done, but when I do I’m making it count. Which is lovely. If I get a chance to focus and have the right music on I can scribble out a chapter in an hour and a half, so I’m trying to get three chapters done a day – depending on how long they are, of course. If they’re short I might manage four.

There’s a reason why I don’t do NaNoWriMo, because once I establish a set routine and give myself a goal of getting the book done by This Day it all tends to snowball and I get very competitive with myself. Last time I did NaNo I started off aiming for two to three thousand words a day, then I realised I wouldn’t be able to write at all for the last week of November and it all went a bit crazy. By the end I think I was writing between ten and fifteen thousand words a day – and the little book that was supposed to be about 75K was heading for 90K and wasn’t anywhere near finished.

And it still isn’t, three years later, because if I try and touch the book my competitive instincts rise up and order to me to finish it now, now, now! Who cares about the pirates? Add in a ghost and some astral projection and everything will be fine! And kill that snooty kid while you’re at, no one will even notice. Then put in a race over the beach – that’ll be so cool. You can literally have rocks falling so everyone dies! 

Except that this is a multi-book series and I need some of those characters to survive. And I like them too much to kill them all.

Rocks fall. Everyone dies. Really cool!

But –

Rocks. Fall. Everyone. Dies. Dead.

Yeah, ‘kay, no… I’ll just put this one away for now then.

So. I don’t do that anymore. (Which is a shame, because there are some parts of that book I adore. I must head back to that world sometime. It’s the one where Tobi and Faron come from. I love that world.)

Anyway, yes, back to this book. Even though I’m only writing three days a week, my competitive instincts are rising (I’m only ever competitive with myself or as part of a team, which is why I was so relieved to break my arm when I was nine so I could quit gymnastics before they made me compete anymore). However, instead of a daily word count race – because I rarely have a completely free day to write in – I seem to be pushing for a weekly thing. The first week I hit 20K, the second I managed 25K. I’m now in week three and my first writing day went over 10K, so looks like it’s all on schedule to make my brain explode. Also, I should get the book finished before Christmas as I must be over halfway now. Seriously, I must, it’s over 50K words now.

Also all the major players seem to have finally arrived. Yay! There’s also a new lesson to be learned from this series – other than Keep Away from Talking Islands, They Will Possess You! The new one is Never Trust a Foundling, or other sundry washed up bodies that appears anywhere near you. Nothing good ever happens. Rocks might not fall (though I’m not ruling that out because there are cliffs everywhere) but someone will die. Or that might just be the island. Maybe I’ll stick with the first one and add They Will Kill You! after the bit about possessing people. I may need to put up signs. Those will totally work.

Ah well, another normal week in Ima-land. Have a completely non-spoilery snippet conversation between two children on a beach, and I’ll get back to wrestling this story into (ha!) submission.

Continue reading “Icarus Child Update: Week Two” →

Aekhartain, Updates, Writing

Icarus Child Update: Week One

Becca Lusher

Cover_3 Icarus ChildDespite numerous attempts by real life to sabotage my writing time in recent days, so far things are going reasonably well with The Icarus Child. The book has started much earlier than I expected (by about seven years), and seems to be enjoying itself meandering along while I tap my fingers and wait for the plot to show up.

Which is business as usual with the Aekhartain tales.

If you enjoyed Unbound and Free, the beginning of this one is very much in a similar vein. Except my boy Icastar has even more troubles than Demairo had, but they both live on the island, look after some sheep and only have seals for friends, while ghostly voices make demands of them. Poor boys. It’s no fun being born on the island.

But that was last week. This week I’ve moved forward four years (Ica’s gone from 7 to 11) and things may be about to happen in a vaguely sinister way. I’ll have to wait and see just what and when if I manage to write any more tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Nevertheless, Week 1 word count: 20.5K.

And now for a snippet. Spoilers are so mild as to be nonexistent. Just a cute and casual game of something (no idea what, don’t ask me) between a boy and a selkie. (See, he has some fun sometimes.)

 

Continue reading “Icarus Child Update: Week One” →