Author: Erin Klitzke

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Camp NaNo July ’21 announcement

Well, despite some wavering yesterday on what project I was going to focus on for Camp NaNoWriMo this July, I’ve officially declared that it will in fact be work on various UNSETIC Files projects as previewed in my planning doc from the other night on the train.  Even if I’d decided to switch gears, that document would have been useful (and will be useful) in the future, all things considered.

The last couple weeks have been nuts and that’s all I’m going to say about it.  But at least I have new windows in my apartment!

Stay tuned; possible writestream tonight, but we’ll see how I feel when I get home from work.

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Just an editing copy

In case you ever wondered what my stack looks like when I do edits on paper.

This is Lost and Found, double spaced, 12-point font (aside from chapter headers), 1 inch margins.

The draft is about 91500 words and in this format is 330 pages.

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Editing copy – Lost and Found

330 pages, about 91500 words.
12 point font, double spaced, 1 inch margins

Edits and changes got lighter the deeper into the draft I got.

No, I did not do all of the edits in one sitting.

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Back to it…

UNSETIC Files: Lost and Found editing resumes. This is round one, back after a long break. Chapter 27 of 40.
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Review: A Furious Sky

I have a thing for learning about natural disasters. It’s something that I’ve discovered about myself over the years–there is something about the whole man versus nature and the events surrounding these experiences that is fascinating to me. As a result of this interest, I picked up A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred Year History of America’s Hurricanes on Audible during one of their two-for-one sales and gave it a listen.

I got through the book in only a few stretches of time and probably could have listened to the whole thing in a day if I’d had the 10+ hours where I didn’t need to engage with other people beyond the perfunctory. On the audio end of it, it was well-produced and the narrator was very good with the material that he was presenting.

The actual content of the book, for me, was largely familiar territory, though there were some segments of the book that were new material for me. For those who have read or seen documentaries about the Galveston Hurricane, the Labor Day Hurricane, or the Long Island Express, these sections of the book will be very familiar and tell stories that you’ve heard before with very little variation from previous works. If you don’t know much–or anything at all–about these events, though, they offer a striking window into what the experiences of these storms were like. Information about some of the earliest recorded storms was very interesting, and the storms discussed in the mid- to late-twentieth century and beyond offered glimpses into these storms that went beyond the headlines and weather reports.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the coverage of how the science of hurricane prediction and the technology involved has evolved over time and continues to evolve. If anything, the book was a worthwhile listen for this information alone. The author, Eric Jay Dolin, is a scholar himself and has synthesized a lot of information into a (relatively) short piece on the subject.

All in all, a worthwhile listen. Definitely recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in the weather–and looking for a slightly heavier but still completely accessible beach read.

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Happy June, happy Pride!

We have made it to the sixth month already and wow, has this year gone by both fast and slow at once.  The big news is that I’m not going to grad school in the fall despite efforts to secure a spot in a Ph.D program.  So what does that mean here?  Beyond me looking for a new job to pay the bills at least for the time being, it means that throughout the next year I should have more time to dedicate to writing projects and the podcasts I want to get started, among other things.

Folks in my discord server are already aware of this, but I’ve had a research project that’s been nibbling at my brain for well over a year now, and that’s a broader comparison of responses to the 1918 Flu and the COVID-19 pandemics.  I have some thoughts and some research questions that are floating around, so stay tuned for that both here and on my blog (I’ll be cross-posting, likely with early access to patrons here).  So that will be coming down the pipes.

I have some podcast ideas that are still floating around as well as a TikTok idea that I may or may not roll with sometime in the future (mostly because old newspaper headlines can be WILD).

I’ll be diving back into UNSETIC projects and currently I’m planning on July’s Camp NaNoWriMo project to be writing 50,000 words in that universe, though not limited to any particular project.  Edits are still in the works on Lost and Found and I’m debating whether I’m going to make my own cover (which is what I typically do) or if I’m going to think about hiring someone to design it for me.  Either way, time will tell with regard to what I’m going to do.

Also, it’s Pride, so happy Pride today, this month, and don’t forget that love is love.

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Finding the new normal

So this marks the “official” end of the first week of no more undergraduate classes–ordinarily, my last day of classes in a week came on a Thursday, and today is the first Thursday after final exams (though admittedly my last paper wasn’t due until this past Friday).  Grades are in, my name appeared on all the graduation lists, so it is officially done.

Bachelor of Arts, History and Anthropology (2005), Master of Arts, History (2011), Bachelor of Science, Political Science (2021).

It is weird and surreal and at the same time very lowkey and normal, considering I am still working full time at the same place I have been since I started this last degree program and will be at least for the time being (will update on that if something changes).  After the stress of the last few weeks of the semester, I’ve been spending my off time largely trying to get my head back on straight and decompress.  Once I’ve managed that is when I’ll be able to really plan for what comes next, at least in the near term.

A few things are probably in the works based on some things that I’d like to get done and some musings out loud to friends.

  • Podcast or stream based around worldbuilding–possibly both in theory and modeling worldbuilding practices for both fiction and gaming purposes.
  • Return to the edits on Lost and Found, since that’s what it needs.  I’ll tweak cover art and the like once the edits are done–or if I find I need a break from said edits.
  • Planning a TikTok that will possibly be related to a future podcast.  This will involve reading STRANGE HEADLINES (probably historical ones).
  • Get podcasts planned and scripted–I’ve got Wait That Was News? and Fictionalize This! as two that I want to get off the ground
  • Get my writestream schedule back in order
  • Revisit some old projects, assess what I’m going to tackle, get organized

This is just a sampling of the stuff that I’ve got coming down the pipes, but first I’ve got to strike that new balance.  The last time I finished an academic program, Awakenings happened.  I don’t think we’re going to see something quite like that in the near term, but you never know.

Sometimes, things just happen.