Home of The Overworld, Tales of the Aekhartain and Wrystan
Available now to buy from Smashwords and coming soon to everywhere else, the ebook of Dragongift is out!
Which means you will no longer be able to read the whole thing for free either here or on Wattpad. Sorry about that.
However, if you grab a copy between now and the end of the year, you can get it for only 0.99. You can also now add/review it on Goodreads if you’d like.
Full post with all the links to come as and when they go up.
Merry Midweek, everyone!
~ Previous Chapter ~
And we’re off!
Spoiler Warning! If you haven’t finished Dragongift, you don’t want to read this just yet.
We begin where we left off, somewhere deep under Aquila…
The wait is over – Mhysra, Lyrai, Mouse, Derry, and co are back! Complete with updates across the weekend.
A few quick things before we begin.
And with that out of the way, welcome to the fourth Wingborn book!
Another month, another fumbled not-quite-catch up.
As of the start of last week NaNo was going quite well. I’d just passed 70K on Tuesday and was starting to feel like maybe I was getting towards the end and this was all going to work out. Then Willow got sick.
Fifteen is an excellent age for any dog, especially a large lurcher, but that doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye.
Suddenly NaNo didn’t seem so important anymore.
Because I found it hard to focus on writing difficult scenes, I put Aquila’s War on hold and realised I needed to edit Dragongift instead since I had originally planned to release it this weekend. Well, that’s not quite going to happen because words are polished but the ebook isn’t ready. It’ll be available next week.
What is coming today is the start of Storm Wings, Wingborn #4. I’ll be leaving Dragongift up until Monday – so if there’s anyone still reading that, hurry, hurry! – but right now it’s time to find out what happened to Mouse, Mhysra & Co.
I’ve also realised I never finished posting Courtship. I should probably do something about that…
*sigh* Isn’t 2017 over yet?
So far, so tentatively good. I haven’t had a chance to write anything today, which is annoying because I know exactly what I wanted to do, but alas, life and admin got in the way. However, I have plans for getting lots more done tomorrow, which should hopefully carry me those annoying last few words over the 30K mark.
Progress! It is being made!
Have some snippets – no spoilers. (I don’t think…)
DAY TWO
Aquila’s War Ch 1Lyrai hated it. It was all so fake and false. Give him the wild wind and a miryhl’s wings any day of the moon over this nonsense.
Lyrai, Chapter 1
Day 2 – 2361 words
Overall – 4850 wordsDAY THREE
Aquila’s War Ch 2“Don’t you dare speak to me of history. I have lived it.”
Lyrai, Chapter 2
Day 3 – 4520 words
Overall – 9370 wordsDAY FOUR
Aquila’s War Ch 3 (½)“They won’t keep anything they catch. Not in the narrow valley.”
Gedanon, Chapter 3
Day 4 – 2758 words
Overall – 12,128 wordsDAY SIX
Aquila’s War Ch 3 (½)“Didn’t think.”
Clearly. “There’s a lot of that going around.”Silveo, Chapter 3
Day 6 – 2880 words
Overall – 15,008 wordsDAY SEVEN
Aquila’s War Ch 4“Cumulo says hello,” she murmured, and he smiled as he kissed her.
Mhysra, Chapter 4
Day 7 – 4252 words
Overall – 19,260 wordsDAY EIGHT
Aquila’s War Ch 5You are needed, the dragon repeated. Your friends need you.
Mouse, Chapter 5
Day 8 – 3146 words
Overall – 22,406 wordsDAY NINE
Aquila’s War Ch 6“Are you mocking your lieutenant, student?”
“Why, yes, sir,” she bowed to both Riders with a flourish, “I do believe I am.”
“Excellent.” Stirla gave her an approving nod. “Keep up the good work.”Corin and Stirla, Chapter 6
Day 9 – 3215 words
Overall – 25,621 wordsDAY TEN
Aquila’s War Ch 7 + 8 (½)No, there was nothing better than flying.
Lyrai, Chapter 7
Day 10 – 4243 words
Overall – 29,864 words29,864 / 90,000 words. 33% done!
I might not be pushing on quite as fast as last year, but I’m pretty happy with it so far. Especially considering how out of practise I am and how much of my free time is being gobbled up by a greedy puppy. All in all, progress is good, and will hopefully pick up as the plot pace increases.
To all my fellow NaNo participants out there, I hope your stories are going well, and here’s to many more words to come!
Merry Saturday, everyone!
Oh, look, it’s November again, which must mean NaNoWriMo is back!
I haven’t had a lot of success with forward planning this year, so I’m not at all sure how well this is going to go, but I shall make an attempt anyway. By now I had hoped to have finished Burning Sky (Dragonlands #4), leaving me free to launch into Aquila’s War (Wingborn #5). Alas, this hasn’t happened. Although I’ve been inching along with Sky, I’ve been struggling to get the plot to the point where I’m free to let loose and run away with it. Mostly because I haven’t had the time or been in the right head space to simply sit back and think about it all. As for AW, while I know where I wanted it to go and what’s vaguely going to happen, details have yet to emerge.
At least that’s where I was with it all last weekend, when I decided to put Sky aside for now and focus on AW instead. Then a new plot idea started jumping up and down for Sky, although I’m not sure yet how I can get to it from where I left things in Chapter 7. Now, after reading through Wingborn #4, ideas for AW are busily poking at my brain, and I also have a long abandoned book waving fresh ideas from the dusty archives. All of which leaves me in something of a quandary.
So this year’s NaNo attempt isn’t to write 50K words of a novel. It’s to write as many words as possible on two, possibly three books, and hope I might actually finish one of them. 50,000 words would be good, even more would be great, but I’m making no promises and setting no targets. I have them in my head, but I’m only counting the things that I actually get done. Hopefully that way I won’t jinx myself and ruin it all.
Updates to come as and when I have anything of worth to report.
For now…
DAY ONE
Aquila’s War Prologue + 1/2 Ch 1
Riders filled the northern horizon.
Prologue, 1st line
Overall – 2489 words
Here’s hoping tomorrow goes as well. Although I do have the dentist, so I’m definitely not making any promises.
Good luck to all who are also taking part!
I’m not quite sure what it is about this year – or me – but every time I mention a deadline I seem to be tempting fate too far, so I get something else thrown at my head to make all chances of meeting said deadline impossible.
Which is a roundabout way of attempting to excuse myself for missing all my self-imposed deadlines this year. I would say that from now on I will hit each and every one, but I’m making no promises – in case they turn around and devour me whole.
The good news is A Courtship of Dragons is finally out! You may have already noticed.
The other good news is that I’m working really hard on Storm Rising and hope that it won’t be long before it follows. I have a hard deadline set in my head, but I refuse to write it down for fear of aforementioned bitey things.
After that it really is time I returned to writing. Things have been so hectic around here this year that I basically haven’t written anything in more months than I care to imagine. Which would be frightening, except I have been just too busy to have managed anything. I’ve written copious reviews, but I don’t think they really count. I also cleaned out a fully packed attic, which is satisfying in many ways, but doesn’t write the stories for me.
Next up on my writing schedule is the long neglected Burning Sky (or is it Sands?), which is Dragonlands #4. I left some characters in a bad way there, so I really do need to go and take care of them. After that, I would love to try NaNo again this year, probably with Wingborn #5 (whose title is spoilery for those who haven’t read past book 1). Beyond that, a whole other series without dragons or miryhls in it keeps calling me with a siren song and I’d love to return and play with them. I also have Aekhs to work on and older books to tidy up for various reasons.
As always, lots to do, very little time to do it in. But in non-writing news I’ve been walking loads, have finally worked out a routine so I can yoga every day and I even have a new camera to play with. My dogs and I continue to get older, my cat remains cuddly and grumpy, family is awesome, and my good old British summer isn’t playing very fair right now (see the photo, that’s supposed to be July!). On the whole, though, I can’t complain.
But enough of me, how are you lovely people doing?
~ Previous Chapter ~
And… Action!
Becca Lusher 