Tag: Thief’s Gamble

Free Fiction, Mages of Wrystan, Overworld, Patreon, Updates

The End of World’s End… and Beyond!

Becca Lusher

In case you weren’t aware World’s End is done! No more Wingborn. Unless you’re a Patron and have exclusive online access to Aftermath, of course. In which case you have another 30 chapters or so.

For those of you who aren’t on Patreon, no worries, you still have two months left before you reach the end. However, if you sign up now, not only will you get to read the end right this moment, you’ll also have access to the follow-up serial, Aftermath, which won’t be serialised anywhere else. Everyone will have a chance to buy it when the World’s End ebook comes out, but it won’t be on here and it won’t be on Wattpad. Just so you know.

Anyway, brief sales pitch aside, I need to know what you lovely people will want to read next. As you may or may not know, I’m terribly behind thanks to the unplanned events of last year, so while I am working hard on a new series, I still have the last two Dragonlands books to edit and release, along with World’s End and Aftermath.

In other words, these next few months are going to be busy and I can’t guarantee the new series will be ready to go once Wingborn and Dragonlands are all wrapped up.

So I have a few choices to lay before you. Will you be patient or greedy? Will you want it all, now, now, now? Or can you wait just a little bit longer?

Here are your options. Please vote below – and leave a comment if you want to know more!

1. Misfits of Aquila (Aquila’s Own 1)
My current project. Takes place 5 or so years after World’s End and returns to Aquila with a bunch of new Rift Rider students. Including the first Ihran, an atheist Sutheralli, Lyrai’s little sister and a certain young dragon. Plus one or two familiar faces and several brand new ones. And a little miryhl called Milk.
(In progress. Expected Arrival: Late 2020)

2. Thief’s Gamble (Foundations of Aquila 0.5)
An Overworld novella about a thief and her miryhl stealing a dragon’s egg by order of a pirate. The rest of the series will include the creation of Aquila, and should include the thief, a disgraced royal and some sundry others.
(Completed. Expected Arrival: Mid-2020)

3. Mages of Royas Bay (Mages of Wrystan 1)
An entirely different world, with more of a Middle Grade feel. Still fantasy. Still a fantasy school. Has more magic. Includes young mages and their mage-beasts, which are not familiars or daemons, but sort of are. They don’t talk, but they have big personalities. I love this world, it’s probably my favourite of the many I write (even more than the Overworld) and I have three full books I could share with you while I work hard on building up my next Overworld series. So if you want to keep reading from me while I work on something else, this is probably the one that makes my life easiest.
(Completed. Expected Arrival: April)

Pick! Pick! Pick!

Thank you!

A Bit of Me, Updates

NaNo 2018 Round Up

Becca Lusher

December is here, NaNo is over, let’s see what I managed to get done.

NaNoWriMo Goal 1: Complete Burning Sky

Even though I was already nearly halfway through writing this book, the only thing I really wanted to achieve last month was finishing it. And I did!

Day 10. 42,562 words added. Goal achieved.

But I didn’t want to stop there, so I took a day to prepare myself to start the next Dragonlands novel – and promptly jumped into an unrelated novella from a brand new series.

NaNoWriMo Goal 2: Write Thief’s Gamble

The idea of a Foundation of Aquila series has been knocking around the back of my brain for a year or two (someone asked about it on Wattpad), but I hadn’t really pinned anything down yet. Until Keo and Lahera burst into full life and took over NaNo, leaving me with a completed novella and plenty of ideas for the series to follow. This one should (hopefully) be a lot of fun. I really do need to write another Dragonlands novel first, though.

Regardless of my plans or best intentions, I finished it. And for once an attempted novella stayed an actual novella. I am all astonishment!

Day 20. 25,028 words later. Goal achieved.

Two things down and I still had nine days left. I guess that meant I could finally crack on with that Dragonlands novel.

Wrong.

NaNoWriMo Goal 3: Finish Aftermath

I fully intended to make a start on Ice Falls, I swear I did, but to be honest the last nine days of NaNo weren’t great for me. Mostly because of fatigue issues. I also don’t really have a feel for where this book is supposed to start, so I need to go back and look at the end of Burning Sky before I tackle it.

Anyway, my head was so desperate not to start Ice Falls it seized on Aftermath instead. This is an entirely self-indulgent, overblown epilogue novella for the Wingborn series, which ties up some of the romances and side characters and little things that I didn’t really have room for in the main books. It was supposed to be short and sweet and full of warm fuzziness. I originally dove straight into it after finishing Wingborn 6, but I stalled after a while and it became yet another thing I’ve struggled to finish this year.

However, NaNo was going well, so I thought, why not? Give it a go. The worst that can happen is I’ll get stuck precisely where I’ve been stuck all year.

Day 30. 19,947 words added. Goal achieved!

Three stories finished. 86,340 words written in total. Two major albatrosses released back into the wild. I can’t believe how well that went.

Although, if I look back at my daily tallies, it could have gone a little better. There were 13 days when I didn’t write a single word, and even my biggest daily haul (9135 words) is a bit below my best. I didn’t experience my usual rush of momentum where I write more and more and more as the month goes on, but that’s probably because I’m used to focusing on one project from start to finish, not jumping in halfway and finishing several things along the way.

So perhaps I could have written more, but looking back I am more than happy with how I did. Burning Sky is finally finished! A pair of new characters have established themselves in a whole new series and I’m excited to get back to them and let their story unfold. I’m also relieved that Aftermath is done, even though I acknowledge it’s no longer a novella, bonus or otherwise. But I knew that after it passed 30K, I was just living in denial. Still, it’s done, yay! And I’ll figure out what to do with it later.

For now, thanks NaNo! I don’t know why the mere thought of the challenge can break through blockages that have frustrated me all year, I’m just glad that it did. November is done. Thanks for the word count, but now it’s time to move on.

To all my fellow NaNoers, I hope you enjoyed your month and had fun with all your words. Here’s to you all! And I’ll see you again next year.

Merry December, everyone!

Overworld, Updates, Writing

NaNoWriMo Week 3

Becca Lusher

On and on and on it goes, where the words stop nobody knows!

More snippets below, but fewer Patreon links because I’ve not been keeping up on my updates.

DAY FIFTEEN

It was an expression Lahera hadn’t seen in a while. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it until she saw it again, half-lit by fire, half-lit by lightning. That was her human, mischievous and confident. A thief to her bones.

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 6

Day Total: 5435 words
NaNo Total: 54,251 words
Book Total: 11,689 words

DAY SIXTEEN
Nothing. I have no excuse, it just… didn’t happen.

DAY SEVENTEEN

Gods, she was so glad she wasn’t born human. Imagine having to walk all the time? What a terrible way to live.

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 8

Day Total: 3570 words
NaNo Total: 57,821 words
Book Total: 15,259 words

DAY EIGHTEEN
Nothing. Again.

DAY NINETEEN

Very intimidating. So scary. Fear her!

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 11

Day Total: 5180 words
NaNo Total: 63,001 words
Book Total: 20,439 words

DAY TWENTY

“We,” Lahera said slowly, “may have made a mistake coming here.”

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 15

Day Total: 4589 words
NaNo Total: 67,590 words
Book Total: 25,028 words

Novella complete! I wasn’t expecting to write it and I certainly wasn’t expecting to finish it, but yay anyway. Which leaves me one final week to start something else. I love it when a NaNo plan takes off and runs away on its own.

So that’s my recent NaNo progress. Here’s hoping any fellow NaNoers out there are having as much fun as I am.

And to everyone, merry Wednesday!

Overworld, Updates, Writing

NaNoWriMo Week 2

Becca Lusher

Writing continued apace this week, despite a few days when things were thrown slightly off-track, but it all got quite interesting around the weekend and new projects now loom on the horizon.

Snippets below, no spoilers, along with links to all the Patreon posts where I talk a little more each day.

DAY EIGHT

“Why wouldn’t I want to fix you, Khennik? You’re important.” Litha patted him on the arm again. “Think of all the hard work you do, as a delegate, as an elder. Why, one day you might even change the Overworld.”

Burning Sky Chapter 18

Day Total: 4049 words
NaNo Total: 29,747 words
Book Total: 75,573 words

DAY NINE

“It mattered. It mattered a lot, because Nera desperately needed to know which dragon she could punch for this.”

Nera, Burning Sky Chapter 19

Day Total: 8600 words
NaNo Total: 38,347 words
Book Total: 84,173 words

DAY TEN

Jesral grinned. “Now that is a very clever trick.”

Burning Sky Chapter 22

Day Total: 4215 words
NaNo Total: 42,562 words
Book Total: 88,288 words

I finished Burning Sky! NaNoWriMo GOAL ACHIEVED!

DAY ELEVEN
Zero, zip, zilch.

DAY TWELVE

History, they say, is written by the victors. This is invariably true, but they often forget to mention that it is frequently edited by prudes and fusspots, who take out all the interesting bits.

Thief’s Gamble, Prologue

Day Total: 2173 words
NaNo Total: 44,735 words
Book Total: 2173 words

New book, new characters, new series, old world. It’s an Overworld novella and I’ll talk more about it when I get further into it.

DAY THIRTEEN

“You’re cracked. He’s cracked. I’m cracked!”

Lahera, Thief’s Gamble Chapter 2

Day Total: 4081 words
NaNo Total: 48,816 words
Book Total: 6254 words

And that’s it for the moment, since I haven’t written anything yet today.

Week 2 done, the halfway point approaching, 50K almost reached and I’m onto a second, unplanned project. Ha! This is why I love taking part in NaNo.

Here’s hoping everyone else out there is having as much fun as I am.