Tag: best laid plans

Updates

Quick Update

Becca Lusher

Hey, everyone, I hope wherever you are in the world right now you’re doing okay and that you and your families are safe.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week or so – since the Wingborn series finished – about what I can do as a writer to help entertain people stuck inside. I have a few ideas and I’ll be sticking a poll up tomorrow to ask for your opinions. One thing that will be coming this weekend is a short story featuring Dhori visiting his mum to give her an update on Rift Rider related events.

Beyond that I’ve been working really hard to get my next books ready to publish. I know it’s been a while and the delays were out of my hands, but over the next few months I plan to release the last two Dragonlands books (Broken Ground and Setting Sun), along with World’s End and Aftermath, the Wingborn extra (extended epilogue) novel, which I’m currently serialising on Patreon. Busy, busy, busy.

After they’re done, I’m really hoping to work on Wingborn paperback editions and get some more writing done. I miss writing. I also should probably do something about this place. It’s been a while and it could really use some attention.

Eh, maybe when I get some of this mythical free time people talk about.

And that’s it really. Nothing too exciting, but that’s not a bad thing right now.

Take care, lovely people xx

Overworld, Updates

Dragonlands Update

Becca Lusher

Book 5 is done! Broken Ground is finished! Whoo!

Broken Ground, you say? What is Broken Ground? I thought book 5 was called Ice Falls?

Yes, well, the observant amongst you might remember I kept talking about a book called Ice Falls until quite recently. You might also have noticed that the name on the sidebar changed a week or two ago. This is because I always had a scene in my head for the final showdown in this book. I knew where the action was going, I knew how it would finish.

Except I was well over halfway through the book and there was no ice. In fact I was almost breaking the plot to get everyone somewhere icy before I realised that maybe that scene wasn’t going to turn out the way I thought it was and there might not be any actual ice in the book at all.

*headdesk*

So the title changed. Dragonlands book 5 is now called Broken Ground, and I’ve finished it! As always it’s a complete mess (and I really mean it this time), and needs a lot of fleshing out in places and smoothing down in others. It’s a strange book, because it was only ever supposed to be a bridge between what happens in Burning Sky (4) and Setting Sun (6), mostly intended to kill some of the big time gap between the two.

Turns out lots happens in this book, even if it doesn’t involve any ice or kill nearly as much time as I needed it to. Instead this is the book with all the things. Happening. A lot. If you’ve been missing some action in this series, never fear, this book makes up for any action the others might have lacked. It’s… I… nope. Can’t say anything about it because spoilers, spoilers everywhere. But I think it worked out quite well. Sort of. Depending on who you are and how you look at it. Pretty sure most of the characters don’t agree with me, but alas, they’re not in charge.

Which means I’ll probably hate it when I have to edit it. Oh well, that’s a job for another day. Besides, who cares about book 5? You need book 4 first.

Speaking of… I will now be turning my attention back to Burning Sky. All things being well, it should hopefully come about the end of March/beginning of April. I’ll be doing a quick read through this week, after which I should have a better idea of how much work it’s going to take to bring it up to scratch. I’ll have a more accurate release date for you after that.

But it is coming. And you won’t have to wait a year, as you did with the other books.

Once that’s done I’ll be writing Setting Sun, and depending on how well that goes Broken Ground should come out Sept/Oct time. If everything stays on track and nothing major happens in the meantime to throw it all off. Which… yeah, probably will, because this is me and longterm plans are made to be smashed up into itty-bitty unpick-upable pieces. But for now things are nicely on track.

Merry Monday, everyone!

Overworld, Updates

May Mission

Becca Lusher

Mu_Lea
Mushu by the river

It’s been a while since I last did an update and as May has now arrived, I thought it was time to catch up. So far this year life has been pretty busy in many mundane ways, which hasn’t left me much time to get myself organised. However, I do have a few projects on the go.

  • An updated version of Blazing Dawn.
  • A Courtship of Dragons is finished.
  • Storm Rising is about to be overhauled.

All alongside the ongoing Dragongift serial. Which means I’m firmly stuck in an Overworld mood – and that suits me fine.

The new version of Blazing Dawn isn’t massively different to the currently available one, I’ve just expanded a few bits and tried to ensure certain moments make more sense. So basically everything to do with Ushara. I’ve just finished the last big edit, so I’ll be running a final check and formatting it for upload. Hopefully this will be out in the next couple of weeks. After that I hope to start work on a paperback version.

While sorting out the paperback, I’ll also turn my attention back to Courtship. In case you missed the announcement, I’ve finished it! As I feared, it ended up much longer than I planned, but I’m not surprised. There are a few things in it that might affect the other books, so I’m glad I finished it before I released Storm Rising. This does also mean I need to release the whole thing before I release SR, so that’ll be fun.

I plan to keep going with the serial, as well as posting it on Wattpad. However, those who are too impatient to wait several months for the end, you should be able to download the whole thing. For free. Just give me a month or so to tidy it up first.

Once that’s taken care of, I’ll then turn my attention to Storm Rising. This book is long overdue and I’m sorry about that. Hopefully the delay will ensure that it’s a better book. I’ll definitely try.

While I work on all of the above, I also hope to get cracking on more paperback releases – Wingborn, Rift, SR and then I’ll work on the Aekhs. I’m not sure yet what the prices will be or how long each will take. I’ll keep you updated as I go.

So those are my plans for May and June. If everything goes to plan as I hope, by July I’ll be free to get back to work on Dragonlands #4 (Burning Sky/Sands – can’t decide). However, since all my best laid plans keep getting thrown out of the nearest window, I’ll neither hold my breath nor make any predictions beyond that.

Instead I’ll wish you all a Merry Mayday (and Beltane/Samhain for those who celebrate) and hope that life is treating you kindly, wheresoever in the world you may be.

Books, Updates, Writing

Where is Storm Rising?

Becca Lusher

Also known as Plans for 2017. Of a sort.

When I released Blazing Dawn back in autumn, the plan was to have Storm Rising (Dragonlands 2) written and ready to go around now. Well, the good news is that it is written, but the bad news is that it isn’t ready to go anywhere. Or it might be, I don’t know.

I’ve lost confidence in my writing. This isn’t unusual for me, but it’s kind of inconvenient. So for the moment, Storm Rising is on hold while I run through Blazing Dawn again. I’m half wondering if I should fully revise BD before going further with the series, I’m also wondering if perhaps I should write the whole lot out first before releasing any of them, and focus on getting the Wingborn books out first instead.

I don’t know what to do and that’s making me hesitate. Which is not helpful.

So I have a question (well, a few, but we’ll start with this one) for anyone who has read BD. Is there anything you wish I hadn’t done or had done differently?

I know there are a few things people didn’t like with it. I also know that SR does clear up a few issues (why Ushara is as she is, mostly), and that there are some things I tried to alter before release that I still might not have managed as well as people would like. The Ushara issue is particularly tricky because of perspective. The characters I’m writing with don’t know much about her and what’s going on until SR, which ties my hands a fair bit. I’m tempted at times to use Goryal’s pov, but they know everything and I’ll never be able to keep secrets again. (Also, I didn’t know everything until SR, so there is that.)

Basically, what didn’t you like? Please be as honest as you can, I won’t take offense. I’m trying to make this book as strong as possible and I’m currently doubtful that I did that before release, so I’d like to try really hard to clean it up now before going further with the series. (If you’d rather not comment below, feel free to email me aekhtales[at]gmail[dot]com. I will be exceedingly grateful.)

I’d also really like to work on releasing paperback copies of my books this year, so if I’m making changes, now is the time to do it.

And if there’s anyone out there who would like to read Storm Rising to help me figure out if it’s as messy as I currently fear, then that would be awesome too.

Oh, and since I’m doing a revised version anyway – even if it’s just clearing up typos – I’m thinking about adding a character list and glossary to the end. I have a few questions about how to go about that, but it’s probably best I save that for another day. Level of detail, mostly.

For now my plans for the year are rather nebulous but go sort of like this:

  • Revise and re-release Blazing Dawn.
  • Finish Rift Riders serial and release as an ebook.
  • Paperback versions of Wingborn, Rift Riders and Blazing Dawn.
  • Write more A Courtship of Dragons and serialise it properly.
  • Serialise Dragongifted (Wingborn Book 3)
  • Write Dragonlands 4 and 5
  • ?Release Dragonlands 2 and 3?
  • ?Paperback versions of Aekhartain Tales?
  • Write something else.

Beyond that I’m not certain. Nor am I willing to put dates on any of these (except finishing Rift serial, which should be next month sometime), because every time I project into the future something else comes along to smash my predictions to bits.

I also hope to actively start promoting my books this year too and search for some helpful reviewers. Word of mouth is amazing, but I need to put some admin work in on my side and reviews really work. So that’s on the pile too. Along with a proper Overworld map, which I may or may not attempt to put in the books at some point.

So, as always, I have many, many plans and am busy working away in the background. Hopefully it will result in something shiny in the end. I think that’s a pretty good goal to work towards.

Merry Monday, everyone. I hope your January is going well, wheresoever in the world you may be!

Books, Overworld, Updates, Writing

What Now?

Becca Lusher

So now that Wingborn is complete and fully posted, what happens next?

Well, currently I’m in the middle of formatting my next book, Blazing Dawn, which is set in the same world, but two hundred years before, when dragons still dealt with humans and women hadn’t yet been banned from the Rift Riders. It’s the start of the Dragonlands series, which I was supposed to have published last month, but I got Tour de France distracted – as I do every year – so I’m a little behind with it. I hope to have it out by the weekend, but we shall see, since I still have the cover to finalise, the blurb to write and other little niggly things to take care of.

However, it contains dragons. Real dragons! Grumpy ones, ethereal ones, soggy ones and rock-headed ones. So many dragons. I should probably do some introductory posts about them at some point. I’ll see if I have time.

Once that’s taken care of, I shall be turning my editing attention to Wingborn once more. It’s mostly just typo catching and tidying up, so although it shouldn’t take long, I’m giving myself a few weeks to play with it all. Then I’ll smarten up the cover, format the whole thing and release it for free through Smashwords. I’ll also put it up on Amazon, but I can’t say whether or not they’ll allow it to be free.

Writing-wise, I’ll be working on the follow up to Blazing Dawn, which for the moment is called Storm Rising. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time when I decided to serialise Wingborn. I hadn’t started Blazing Dawn then, and still thought it would prove to be a couple of books at most. Now I realise it’s a series, covering quite a few years, taking up an undefined number of books, and I need to get cracking on writing it before the Wingborn series starts issuing spoilers. There might be a few at the end of the next WB book, but it’s really three and four I’m worried about. (Because that’s how far I’ve already written in the WB series.)

Which means I need more time to write up to these points and make sure I don’t have to change anything in the WB books. Rather than wait until I finish all the Dragonlands books – which could take years – I’ve decided to release both series effectively at the same time. So DL#1 will come out this week, followed by WB#1 before the end of the month. Then I’ll get cracking on DL#2 with the aim of publishing it around winter time. And because it would be cruel to make everyone wait that long for the next WB book, which is already written, I’m going to serialise that one too.

So, if you’ve already finished Wingborn and want to know what happens next, you’ll start finding out at the end of August. I warn you, the cliffhangers in this one are going to be intense. I’ll talk more about it closer to the start.

In short, the answer to the What Happens Now? question is as follows:

  • Blazing Dawn (Dragonlands #1) to come very, very soon.
  • Wingborn (Wingborn #1) ebook version to come over the next few weeks.
  • Rift Riders (Wingborn #2) serial starts August 26th.
  • Storm Rising (Dragonlands #2) around December/January.

 

What does this mean for the Aekhartain?
Well, right now the Aekhs have taken a bit of a back seat. I’m not sure anyone will even notice they’ve gone (if you do, let me know). They’re not gone forever, but for the time being the Overworld has taken control. Maybe at some point I’ll be able to grab some breathing room and unwind with a few tales of jealousy, death, hope and starlight, with some poetry thrown in. For the moment, though, my focus remains elsewhere.

And what about those Regency things you were hinting about a little while ago?
They are definitely on their way. Once I’ve finished messing about with Wingborn, they are my next big editing project. I’m hoping to release the first one in September, but the Olympics and Vuelta might derail me in the meantime. I’ll try not to let them.

So that’s what’s going on with me in an authorial way – busy, busy, busy, but in good directions. I hope everything is going productively and well in your own worlds.

Merry Lammas and Lughnasadh, or Imbolc, to you all!

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?

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, 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?