Tag: dragons

Books, Overworld, Writing

Blazing Dawn is Out! (Snippet #2)

Becca Lusher

Blazing Dawn Cover 2To celebrate the release of Blazing Dawn, and to make all the spamming seem worthwhile, here’s the second part of Chapter One.

If you missed the first part, you can find it here, where you’ll meet Rift Rider Lieutenants Nera and Anhardyne.

Now it’s time to introduce Elder Khennik kin Blazeborn Clan Sunlord, who is feeling very grumpy. You’ll also meet his lovely, if excessively nervous, aide Mastekh kin Rainstorm Clan Flowflight.

A fire dragon and a water dragon? What could possibly go wrong? ;D

“ELDER B-BLAZEBORN. ELDER B-BLAZEBORN?”

Khennik kin Blazeborn Clan Sunlord sighed and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. Ringed by hanging fronds of fragrant seisflowers, the sun was perfectly framed by the circular opening, pouring its life-giving warmth over his bare head. Seated in the brilliant spot cast upon the floor, Khennik had been deep in meditation, dreaming of his home far to the west, where the clouds were thin and the mountains dry. Every breath there tasted of dry heat, stoking the fire that ran through his veins, where to fly was to bathe in Father Sun’s glory.

“Elder B-Blazeborn?” The voice this time was much closer, even more timid than before and full of apology.

Khennik glanced towards the irritant with narrowed eyes. “What is it now, Mastekh?”

Mastekh kin Rainstorm Clan Flowflight sweated with nerves as he stood on the edge of Khennik’s precious sunlight. Barely past his change time, the youngster had only just mastered a human shape, though his skin was blue-grey instead of a more acceptable shade, his hands were clawed and he wore scales instead of clothes. Merely being in Khennik’s annoyed presence loosened what little control Mastekh had and a soggy tail uncoiled behind him.

Trying not to snap at such a poor showing of focus, Khennik closed his eyes again and lifted his face towards the sunlight. “You will have to work harder than that, wingling, before the humans arrive. Else you will unsettle them and be asked to leave.”

If it were up to Khennik the youngster would have been long gone. Whoever had decided to pair a nervous Rainstorm dragon with a Blazeborn elder, not well known for his patience, was a fool indeed. Yet it was a rule between the kins and Clans that youngsters had to gain experience with others outside their own, especially those opposed to their nature. To toughen them up, the Starshine elders claimed. Khennik thought it was all rather cruel, when he thought of it at all.

“That’s j-just it, Elder B-Blazeborn,” Mastekh stuttered, his voice turning bubbly – a clear indication that he was about to lose his hold on his form altogether and revert to dragon shape.

Khennik’s eyes flashed open in a glare. “If you’re going to liquidate, do it outside.” The only water he permitted in this sunroom was for the plants. Everything else took too long to dry, and if he had to see to it himself the flowers might not survive. Which would put him quite out of temper.

Gulping nervously, Mastekh clenched his clawed-hands together and stared at the ground for a long moment. A shudder rippled over his scales and skin, the blue shade darkening as more water dripped from his nose and elbows, but he finally mastered himself.

“Ap-p-pologies, elder,” the young dragon whispered, lowering his head as if expecting a beating.

Khennik had never been one for physical punishment. He sighed. “Fetch a cloth and clean up after yourself, then leave me be. I have too much preparation to do for the arrival of our human guests’ tomorrow to be disturbed now.” If meditating and brooding over his poor fate could be considered preparation. Which in Khennik’s book it definitely could.

Humans were useless. Once they arrived they would need constant supervision and support, leaving him no time for anything other than irritation at their hopelessness. A foolish task for a Blazeborn, especially one with as important a mission as his.

“N-not tomorrow, Elder B-Blazeborn,” Mastekh squeaked, wringing his hands so hard that yet more water dripped onto the beautifully dry floors. “N-now.”

“What?” Khennik snarled, losing patience as he opened his eyes yet again. “Stop this brookish babbling, Mastekh, and speak clearly.”

“The h-humans are er-er-early, elder,” the Rainstorm dragon bubbled in a rush. “By a whole d-day. They’re h-h-here. Now!”

With that Mastekh lost all control, bursting out of his human form and leaving a large, soggy dragon drooped pathetically across the floor and a completely sodden elder glaring at the mess.

Still want more?
Oh, very well.

Chapter 1, Part 3

Or click here to find out where you can buy it!

Books, Overworld, Updates

Cover Love

Becca Lusher

ETA: I’ve tweaked them a tiny bit.

I’ve been playing around with covers over the last few days, in between bouts of editing and formatting, and I’ve landed on a few I’m happy with.

First up:

Blazing Dawn Cover 2

Everything seems set for a Friday release, though I do still have a few tweaks to make here and there. One of these days I might even be able to have an advanced release date and preorder links.

Then again, this is me, so probably not. That would mean being organised *gasp*

Anyway, here’s Khennik kin Blazeborn Clan Sunray, swirling about at dawn as is his preferred way of greeting the day. I know he doesn’t stand out too brilliantly, but that’s the problem with having a bronze dragon on this background. Also, since you can’t see him too clearly at thumbnail size anyway, I don’t really mind him blending in a bit.

I always have these grand ideas for covers, but frequently when I come to make them, I find they’re too cluttered and plain horrible looking. I might have gone completely the other way now with the Wingborn series, but I kind of like the new, cleaner style.

Wingborn Cover 2

I’m planning on using the wings to unify all the covers – like this:

Rift Rider Cover 8

I may have to tweak the colours again on this one. I’m not sure if it’s too pink, but since making it more red leaves it pretty overwhelming, on the whole I like it. For now.

Hope the week is treating you all kindly, wherever in the world you may be. I’ll no doubt be back at some point over the next few days to bug you about the dragon book. That is if I ever manage to write a blurb I’m happy with.

So there are these dragons, oh, and don’t forget the giant eagles and humans who fly them, ’cause they’re kind of important. There’s quite a bit of politics, lots of flying, a few sunrises, some fun and games, oh, and danger, and don’t forget the stormy stuff. There might even be a romance or two bubbling in the background. Seriously, what more do you want? A nervous water dragon? I have one of those. A stubborn rock dragon? Yup, that too. How about a grumpy dragon hero and a shy but determined human heroine? And a handful of playful, foolish, flirty Riders. Well, good, ’cause that’s what I’ve got. Want to read?

I’ll keep working on it.

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!

A Bit of Me, Books, Overworld, Updates, Writing

Catching Up: Feb-May

Becca Lusher

As there isn’t a midweek Wingborn update this week (contain yourselves) and we’ve hit the halfway point in the book, I thought I’d catch everyone up on what I’ve been up to lately.

Bagtor Feb
Haytor from Bagtor Feb 2016

As the picture shows, I’ve been walking on Dartmoor a fair bit, when the weather allows. You’d never know from that particular picture that it was bitterly cold up there that day, with a wind blowing hard enough to almost knock me over! (Ignore the shape of the tree, it’s always like that. Growing on the moors tends to have that effect on the vegetation.)

It’s been a very strange start to the year in many ways, not least weatherwise, but now that May is here things seem to be settling down a bit. Especially when it comes to writing.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve finished two books!

The first, Blazing Dawn, is an Overworld book, set a few centuries before Wingborn when women were still allowed in the Rift Riders and the dragons still interacted with humans. That’s where this series is set, the Dragonlands, where a certain fiery Blazeborn elder has been unhappily assigned as a delegate to the new human ambassador and her Rift Rider retinue.

Mini Khennik Blossom
Mini Khennik amidst the greengage blossoms

The dragon is called Khennik and he’s the sort of hero who if you’d asked him to save the world would say, “Not today, I’m busy.” But if you asked him to help his kin and Clan, would lay down his life before you finished the question. He’s contrary and grumpy, prone to bursting into flames, and I’m really rather fond of him.

Mini Dragons 1

Here Mini Khennik is hanging out with a few of his fellow Blazing Dawn characters on some pieces of Dartmoor quartz. Junior Archivist Reglian is the black and gold dragon, Elder Goryal is the little grey one, stony Estenarven is beside him, while poor watery Mastekh is lying off to one side. They all have their parts to play in the story, some more successfully than others, and there are plenty of Rift Riders to get to know too. Not least Nera, a young lieutenant out in the world for the first time.

You might also be able to tell that I’ve been playing with polymer clay a bit lately, but more on that some other time.

The second book I finished just last week. It doesn’t have a title yet, but it’s a Regency Romance! I love reading books in this genre and I’ve had a few ideas for my own over the years. I originally started this one almost ten years ago, but it’s been mouldering away, stalled at only three chapters ever since. I thought I’d give it another go and see if I could actually finish it – and I did! It’s still very rough and needs a lot of work, but it’s set in the country, has a rather put-upon heroine, a scarred up hero and some annoyingly cute kids running around. I had fun writing it, so I hope people will enjoy reading it. I’ll also be releasing it under a different name, but again, more on that some other time.

Aside from the fact that I’m really pleased to have finished these two books, they also have a couple of surprising things in common. They’re both old stories I started ages ago (Blazing Dawn didn’t even get past the first chapter), neither of them turned out at all like I expected, they’re both longer than I intended, and they’re both firsts in their own ways: my first completed Regency and the first time I’ve actually managed to finish a book with a dragon as the main protagonist. This last one is particularly surprising since I love dragons and have written a fair few over the years, but clearly they prove more tricky than I ever expect.

So, as you can see, writing continues apace. Over the next few months I’ll be polishing both books up and turning my attention back to the Aekhartain again. I’ll also be considering what I’ll do after the serialisation of Wingborn ends. I think I’d like to try it with something else, but I’ll be writing it as I go this time. I haven’t what decided yet, but I’m open to suggestion if anyone has anything they want to know more of.

In the meantime, I shall leave you with a final couple of pictures.

One of the things I love best about walking on Dartmoor at this time of year (or in the lanes closer to home, because I am very lucky) is hearing the skylarks. Their numbers are supposedly dropping nationwide, but you’d never know it if you walk regularly around these parts. Here’s one I spotted the other day when walking to Laughter Tor.

Laughter Skylark

It’s perched atop a prehistoric menhir, Loughtor Man, which stands at 2.4 metres tall.

Louden Man
Loughtor Man, April 2016

Apparently it once stood in the centre of a small cairn, with stone rows around it. Now it stands mostly alone, save for the occasional walker or skylark stopping by for a rest or to admire the view.

And on that note, I shall leave you all in peace. I hope the world and the weather is treating you kind wheresoever you may be. I shall be back soon with more Wingborn and perhaps a photo or two of places I’ve been along the way.

Merry midweek, everyone!