Author: Erin Klitzke

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I am, indeed, still alive…

What few normal visitors I have to this site will be gratified to learn that I am, in fact, still alive despite rumors to the contrary.  It’s been a busy summer so far and it’s not over yet.

Just to recap what’s been going on lately…

  • In April, I quit my job of six years at a major retailer of womens’ clothing sizes 14-28.  It was more than time for a change.
  • At the end of April/beginning of May, I started a new job, one with normal 8-5 hours (or 10-7 hours, but  more on that later), an hour for lunch, and good stuff like that.  One of the best parts about this job?  I don’t work weekends.  One of the worst parts about this job?  I generally get up at 6:30 to be at my desk by ten minutes to eight every morning.  Because I’m getting to be an old fart (stop laughing) it’s become increasingly difficult for me to function on anything less than six (or eight…) hours sleep, but I’m working on it.
  • I ate through my backlogs of both Awakenings and The Last Colony, so that eats up a chunk of writing time four days a week.
  • I’m working on the edits for print editions of Epsilon: Broken Stars and Awakenings Book One.  The unfortunate part of converting the files from Word to InDesign and then attempting to fix all of the errors in stylesheets (have I mentioned that I hate those styles sometimes?) was that I lost massive chunks of italics, so the process is taking longer than it should be.
  • I’ve discovered that I actually like to read again.  In order to wind down at night before I try to sleep, I end up reading for a couple hours.  This understandably cuts into writing time but is probably good for my sanity.
    • None of what I said above is helped by the fact that many of the series that I was waiting on the next books of have been released since May.  There’s one more coming in August (Caitlin Kittredge’s Soul Trade) that I’m eagerly awaiting, then it looks like things might settle down a little bit…unless I discover that the next Lightbringer book is out, or the next Graveyard Queen book.  I think I’m safe on Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices…for now.
  • Got rolling on a second draft of Epsilon: Redeemer.  It will be interesting.  Of course, then I got distracted because….
  • I had to get back to working on the sequel to What Angels Fear.  Especially because my aunt said her “friend” read it and is now demanding that I write a sequel (and wants to know when it’s coming out).  Coincidentally, this is the aunt that said she wasn’t going to read anything before I wrote my memoirs (she’s an English teacher).  So as I got to working on the immediate sequel to What Angels Fear, other things began to rear their fair heads and demand to at least in part be committed to paper.  These include:
    • A currently untitled Lost Angels/UNSETIC crossover involving Hadrian Bridger (Ky Thatcher’s main squeeze and Ridley’s former roommate at the Institute), Ridley, and Commander Brigid O’Connell (UNSETIC universe).
    • A currently untitled stand-alone piece about a girl named Caitlin and a boy named Thaddeus using virtual reality tech developed for an MMO to predict threats to life, limb, and national security.  This is also set in the Lost Angels/UNSETIC universe, like many of my works in the modern/near future.
  • Also continued some work on what may or may not be the first UNSETIC piece released (Girl from a Brigadoon is becoming more complex than I anticipated, but what do you expect from one’s first psuedo-mystery?), which is the story of Brigid O’Connell and Timothy McConaway’s first mission together with UNSETIC.

So, in a word, I’ve been busy.  I am hoping to be less busy at some point, but the date of that remains to be seen.  I’m attempting WebSeWriMo again this year, and I’ve set a somewhat ambtious goal for myself in hoping I can get twenty installments for Awakenings written in the month of August (which is just about one a day, with ten days off to work on other stuff) with secondary goals to finish the edits to Awakenings Book One for print and a tertiary goal of finishing Awakenings Book Two.

It strikes me that Book Two should have an actual title, but titles are hard.  I’ll have to think about that.

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Writing Space

Everyone has a different process for writing, but at the end of the day, we all need a place to write.  I can’t tell you how many books on writing have told me that you should have a dedicated space to work–a spot that will put you undoubtedly in the mindset for writing from the moment you sit down to work.

Pardon my language, but it’s a load of bull.

Yeah, it’s wonderful to have a spot that you can retreat to when everything else in your life is going insane, but it’s not something that’s strictly necessary for the writing process.  I’m not even sure it’s something that would be helpful for most writers.  Most of us, however, don’t have the luxury of that kind of space.  Everything in our lives has to be multifunctional in today’s world–one trick wonders don’t cut it anymore.

Besides, in the days of laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs, you can go and write anywhere.  The folks who follow me on Twitter know that Starbucks and Panera Bread are two of my favorite places to go work–in part because of the change in scenery and in part because I’m not at home.  Of course there’s the slight inconvinence of possibly not having all the notes or drafts you need at hand to work through particularly sticky spots, but for writing hard and writing fast, throwing caution to the wind, a public place with a caffinated beverage and an iPod stuffed full of tunes can’t be beat.  I wrote many an Awakenings update at Panera or at Starbucks.

Of course, I’ve written an equal amount at my kitchen table and at my desk at home.

Yes, I have a desk–a semi-dedicated workspace.  Of course, occasionally that desk serves as a catch-all when I come home from work, or as my craft table, or as a dozen other things.  Is it my workspace?  Of course it is.

It’s a wonderful desk, custom-built for me by my father, a cut-down version of a library table with shelves on either side and a drawer beneath.  When he was first getting ready to build it, he couldn’t imagine me needing a desk as large as what his original blueprints, the original plans called for.  In hindsight, I think we both realize that perhaps I could have used the extra tablespace–if only to catch more stacks of paper.

But it’s a wonderful, beautiful desk and I love it.

But I didn’t use it very much until January 2011, when I began the frentic tail end of my master’s program and had exactly six weeks to write, revise, and complete my Master’s thesis.

Since then, I’m constantly finding myself retreating to my desk on Saturday afternoons and weekday evenings–any time there is too much noise going on elsewhere in the house and I don’t feel like actually relocating.  The main attraction of havin the desk to work at is the fact that I can stick post-its on the wall in front of me, rifle through file folders of articles and old drafts or my back isses of Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and other writing mags, and get snuggled by my cat (the cat, however, can also be a disadvantage because she has an annoying habit of walking on my desk, especially when I’m trying to handwrite anything).

Everything I need is in one spot, except for maybe a microwave and a coffeemaker, but those are within easy reach just down a flight of stairs.  My desk, you see, is in my bedroom, sandwiched between the closet and the door.  Two beds, two dressers, my sister’s desk and some bookshelves sit behind me when I’m at my desk.  I’ve got additional file storage boxes tucked beneath the desk, along with binders.

But I don’t always work there.

Maybe I’m abnormal because I can write anywhere–or maybe I’ve just learned to do it out of necessity.  When you steal moments from everyday life to write, you learn to do it where you can.  Not everyone’s got the luxury of a dedicated space.

But sometimes, it’s nice to have one.

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New cover reveal – Epsilon: Broken Stars

I’ve been quiet around here since I left my retail job and took a new position elsewhere (a 8-hour day plus an hour for lunch–so a 8-5–that pays me closer to what I’m worth and doesn’t put undue stress on my defenseless knees and feet) because I’ve been working on finding my groove again.  With those efforts slightly derailed by my sister’s return home from college (thus necessitating catching up with her, since I hadn’t seen her in several months), I’ve been playing catch-up for a couple weeks when it comes to getting myself on track.

I’ll be writing something longer sometime this weekend, topic TBA, but today I’m tossing out a short post to reveal the new cover for Epsilon: Broken Stars. Since I’ll be focusing on putting together the print edition of it after the print of Awakenings: Book One is complete, and seeing as I was starting work on a new draft of Epsilon: Redeemer, it seemed only right to put together a new cover for Broken Stars.

So here is its public internet debut.

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First print release! – What Angels Fear

I’d intended to post about this last week and failed.  As of 17 March 2012, my first print book (novella), What Angels Fear went live on Createspace and Amazon.com.

It was actually not all that hard to put together, but I chose to publish this smaller piece first so I could get used to the formatting demands and the processes of Createspace as a POD service.  My overall experience with Createspace was actually really good and the finished product is very, very nice.  The cover (which is built on one of their stock templates) turned out awesome and the interior looks great in my opinion.

I’m very pleased with the result, which is available for $4.95 (plus shipping) via the links above.  It’s 122 pages and includes a raw preview of my next print release.

The next book I plan to release in print is Awakenings book one, which comprises the first year of postings on the project.  It’s twelve chapters plus a prologue and an epilogue; since I’m going to print the “deluxe” edition rather than the “basic” edition, there will be extra features such as a FAQ and an essay about working on the project.  These are coming together as I edit the raw text of the web serial into (what I hope is) a very readable book format.  As it stands, the trade paperback will be around 370 pages, though that number will shrink and grow as I edit and format the book to my liking.

The cover of Awakenings will be my first fully designed print cover, which I dearly hope will look awesome, and will be my first title distributed beyond Createspace and Amazon.

Kind of scary and exciting, huh?

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Obligatory indie author sales post

Call me a joiner, but a lot of indies post these and it’s about time I decided to not be any different in that.

I started to e-publish my work back in August, starting with a lightly revised version of my Master’s thesis, Intersection with the Once and Future King.  Since then, I’ve published a few shorter works and two full-length novels, Awakenings Book One and Epsilon: Broken Stars.  Epsilon: Redeemer and When All’s Said and Done are forthcoming, hopefully by the end of the year.  Print versions of some of my work will be available in the coming months, starting with What Angels Fear, which is in the final review process on the print edition.

I’ll be breaking my analysis down by book, but omitting the copies given away of Epsilon: Broken Stars in November 2011.

Intersection with the Once and Future King ($2.99-$4.99)

  • Amazon:
    • September: 0
    • October: 2
    • November: 1
    • December: 5
    • January: 1
    • February: 2
  • Barnes and Noble:
    • September: 0
    • October: 0
    • November: 1
    • December: 1
    • January: 0
    • February: 1

Falling Stars ($0.99-FREE)
most of these copies were free except for those on Amazon, where the price is still $0.99.

  • Amazon: 9
  • Barnes and Noble: 781
  • Smashwords: 212

What Angels Fear ($0.99)

  • Amazon:
    • October: 3
    • November: 0
    • December: 0
    • January: 2
    • February: 1
  • Barnes and Noble:
    • October: 0
    • November: 1
    • December: 1
    • January: 0
    • February: 0
  • Smashwords: 4

Epsilon: Broken Stars ($1.99-$2.99)

  • Amazon:
    • October: 1
    • November: 0
    • December: 1
    • January: 0
    • February: 1
  • Barnes and Noble:
    • October: 1
    • November: 2
    • December: 0
    • January: 1
    • February: 0
  • Smashwords: 8

Awakenings: Book One ($2.99-$0.99)

  • Amazon:
    • January: 2
    • February: 5
  • Barnes and Noble:
    • January: 1
    • February: 1
  • Smashwords: 3

Amazon recently cut me my first e-check–for $18.97.  Hopefully, it will be the first of many, many more.

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Schedule updates – scrapping the schedule

I’m scrapping the schedule–again.  We’ve been without a full time manager at the store, which meant that the other part time and I have been picking up a lot of slack (it’s a lot of store to run on three managers, let me tell you that much).  Instead of a full-on schedule, I have some deadlines roughed out, which now include some print versions of some already-released work.

Currently on tap:

  • Print version of What Angels Fear (including a brief essay on writing the work) – hopefully by the end of March.
  • Finishing up Epsilon: Redeemer, Girl from a Brigadoon, and When All’s Said and Done.
    • Tentative release time frames (all of these are subject to change and are for the ebook release; trade paper/print versions are a little later than the ebook release):
      • April – Girl from a Brigadoon
      • May – Epsilon: Redeemer
      • June – The Last Colony

I’ve got a couple of projects kicking around that will be released under a psuedonym that (for the moment) shall remain unrevealed.

[progpress title=”Epsilon: Redeemer” goal=”80000″ current=”65201″ label=”words”]

[progpress title=”When All’s Said and Done (a Lost Angel Chronicle)” goal=”85000″ current=”20018″ label=”words”]

[progpress title=”UNSETIC Files: Girl from a Brigadoon” goal=”45000″ current=”23642″ lable=”words”]

For anyone following the word count meters, they’ve probably noticed that I’ve been making good progress largely on Girl from a Brigadoon, though this past week I’ve put in some work on When All’s Said and Done and Epsilon: Redeemer.  The latter is probably going to significantly eclipse its word count goal and be longer than Epsilon: Broken Stars.

Speaking of Broken Stars, stay tuned later this week for a post revealing what my sales have looked like the past few months since I started releasing ebooks.  I’m still waiting on some numbers (Kobo, etc.) from some of the Smashwords distribution channels, but I can show off some preliminaries.  They’re not that impressive, but they’re “whole dollars!” as my brother puts it.

You can find Erin on GoodReads these days @ http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5211226.Erin_Klitzke And on Smashwords @ http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/EMBKlitzke

And Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/author/erin-klitzke

She offers two free fiction serials @ http://www.embklitzke.com/e557 and http://awakenings.embklitzke.com.  Stop on by and check it out.

 

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When projects attack…

Anyone who follows me in any social media venue knows that I’ve got a new project chewing on my synapses lately.  I’m one of those unfortunates who can’t shove ideas away because they just keep coming back again.  They become relentless and won’t let me work on anything else, regardless of how much I may need to.  This was the case a few weeks ago, when I started working on an UNSETIC short.

At least, it was supposed to be a a short.  It was also supposed to be freewriting, something to just get the tale out of my system so I could get back to work on Redeemer, When All’s Said and Done, and other various projects.  Instead, it’s become all-consuming.

It all began with this:

            “There are places in the world, Doctor, that we leave off maps because no one can get inside in the first place,” the Canadian G-man shouted over the sound of the wind.  “You try to drive into them and suddenly pop out on the other side.  We don’t understand how it works, we just know it happens.”

            “I’m aware of the phenomenon,” El Stone yelled back over the sound of the rotors.  The former crime scene investigator held on to one of the oh-shit bars as she peered out the helicopter’s window at the trees below.  “But that doesn’t tell me why I’m here.”  Here was the ass-end of Alberta, somewhere up in forests so damned thick that no one would’ve noticed if they’d missed a twenty-mile stretch even if they’d been looking for the gap.  The sort of places they were discussing were rarely that large–mostly, the places omitted from the maps were two to five square mile areas, tops.  In the business, they called them Brigadoons when they reappeared, for the musical.  She knew that because she’d read the files on the flight up to Edmonton from the States.  There had been little else to do on the flight.

            The G-man pointed to a clearing that hosted a small village and a narrow roadway that spiraled out of the forest.  It hadn’t been on the maps she’d seen before they’d left the RCAF base.  Her heart began to beat a little faster.

            “One of them just opened up.”

Now, let’s be honest, I’ve tweaked it a touch since I wrote that first bit, but that’s literally how it began.  The dialogue and the images caught me in the side of the head, much like the idea for What Angels Fear did a couple years ago.  Unlike What Angels Fear, however, I knew fairly quickly who the story was actually about.  It took me until this past weekend to come up with a title, however, and the title is Girl from a Brigadoon.

The story, of course, is about the titular girl–a woman, actually–who’s been missing for fifteen years.  It’s a paranormal yarn, a mix of mystery, fantasy, and suspense.  In other words, it’s something that I’m a bit out of my depth trying to write, since mysteries have never been my bag.  I don’t tend to read them and I’m feeling a bit beyond my ken trying to write one.  But the idea has been persistent and it won’t let me not write it.

I keep having to revise my word count goal upward as the ideas trickle in, because there’s no way it’s going to be anything under 40k words at this point.  I’m already nearing 14k words, and it’s only chapter three.  It’s going to be some hard work, but it feels right.

For people who have known me for a long time–as a writer and as a gamer both–there will be some familiar faces in the text.  Brigid O’Connell figures prominently in the story as one of the investigators and AJ McConaway is playing quirky, perky sidekick every so often, thanks to an (annoying) absence of her twin brother Tim.  Then of course, there’s Rebecca Reid, who the story really belongs to.

She is, after all, the girl from the Brigadoon.

Keep an eye on Twitter and such for ranting, whining, and occasional progress updates.

You can find Erin on GoodReads these days @ http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5211226.Erin_Klitzke And on Smashwords @ http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/EMBKlitzke

And Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/author/erin-klitzke

She offers two free fiction serials @ http://www.embklitzke.com/e557 and http://awakenings.embklitzke.com.  Stop on by and check it out.