Category: Books

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The Court of Twelve and the UNSETIC Files

Everyone who’s a fan of the UNSETIC Files–or just Tim McConaway and Brigid O’Connell, or James McCullough, or Ridley Thys–can thank LP Loudon at this point, loudly and often.  For the people who don’t know (possibly because they haven’t read Between Fang and Claw), LP Loudon is the brain behind the Hunters (remember Mara, Galahad, and of course, David Tierney?) and one of my longtime roleplaying buddies and, in the past few years, writing partners.  There had been plans between the two of us for some time to interweave my UNSETIC Files stories and her Hunterverse stories, but we’d never quite talked about when that might happen–it was always pushed out into some nebulous future time frame.

As of this past weekend, that time has already started.

I’ll be collaborating with LP on her Court of Twelve serial, The Man Who Made Monsters and with its subsequent sequels.  Monsters is set more than a decade after the stories where we first meet many of the UNSETIC characters that will be appearing in the serial (roughly 2022–we meet Jim McCullough in 2006 with Between Fang and Claw, Tim McConaway, Kate Berkshire, and AJ McConaway in 2008 with The Measure of Dreams, Ridley Thys in 2009 with What Angels Fear, and Brigid O’Connell in 2010 with Bering Songs and Silence), but not to worry!  I still have very definite plans to fill in the gap of time left between those initial appearances and Monsters, and future works will be written with the knowledge that The Man Who Made Monsters is out in the world and that people just might be curious about how and when certain things come to pass.

UNSETIC’s debut in The Man Who Made Monsters is currently set for July 23.

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Theme music – The UNSETIC Files and The Lost Angel Chronicles

Every writer has their little things that they do to jar loose their creativity, things that help them get into particular characters or remind them of particular characters. In this, I’m absolutely no exception. Music is something that I use when I’m writing to sink me into the right mindset to get rolling.

Now, I don’t have set playlists for specific projects (if I did, I’d have a ridiculous number of playlists), but I do have absolutely massive playlists for the specific universes I work in. I started doing this back before iTunes got rolling, in the days of Napster and AudioGalaxy and other free music sharing resources that may or may not exist anymore (yes, I’m old enough to remember the days when the dorm networks at GVSU were legally full of scads of free music for download–we used to share entire folders of music on the campus networks for our fellow students to snag). Writing to music has become part of my process and over the years certain songs have begun to relate to specific characters–sometimes overall, sometimes for isolated period of their lives and stories. I’ll often say to my friends (those who are familiar with my work and the characters in it) “You know, this is a Tim song” or “This song totally reminds me of The Measure of Dreams” and “I could see Bryn singing this song at the top of her lungs in the shower.”

Don’t laugh. It’s happened.

On that note, at various points in time I’ve put together much smaller, tighter collections of music at the behest of one of my first readers (Jen Willard reads pretty much everything UNSETIC and Lost Angels as I’m working on it–and considering that Reece Bailey and Kate Berkshire wouldn’t exist without her, I’m totally okay with this) to listen to while she’s reading.

What you see below are two of those playlists. Some of these songs correspond to a particular character or pairing. Others just seem to especially fit the universe of the UNSETIC Files and the Lost Angel Chronicles. There’s one or two that correspond to characters and projects that as of this writing will be unfamiliar to anyone stumbling over this post but may make a lot more sense in the future.

Volume I

Name Artist Additional Notes
Carry You Home James Blunt
Breaking Inside Shinedown
Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams) B.o.B
Building a Mystery Sarah McLachlan Hadrian’s theme
Crack the Shutters Snow Patrol Tim and Kate’s theme
Second Chance Shinedown
Firework Katy Perry Kate’s theme
Live Like We’re Dying Kris Allen
Hanging By A Moment Life House
Hallelujah (Vancouver Winter 2010 Version) k.d. lang
Welcome to the Black Parade (Radio Edit) My Chemical Romance
The End of the Innocence Don Henley
Awake (Live) Josh Groban
If Today Was Your Last Day Nickelback
Landing In London 3 Doors Down Jim and Bryn’s theme
Shattered (Turn the Car Around) O.A.R.
Time After Time Quietdrive

Volume II

Name Artist Additional Notes
Broken (New Version) Lifehouse Tim’s theme
Iridescent LINKIN PARK AJ’s theme
So Close Jon McLaughlin Michael and Jade’s theme
Toy Soldiers Martika
Shooting Star Owl City
All Through the Night Cyndi Lauper
Mercy OneRepublic Tim and Brigid’s theme
Glitter In the Air P!nk Brigid’s theme
All We Are OneRepublic
Clocks Coldplay
For You Calling Scott and Sierra’s theme
From Where You Are Lifehouse
Not Meant to Be Theory of a Deadman
Nothing Left to Lose Needtobreathe
Seasons of Love Rent
Secrets OneRepublic Michael’s theme
Shadow of the Day LINKIN PARK
Taste Lorna Vallings

If you’ve read any of the UNSETIC Files or Lost Angels books, I’d be interested to hear your feedback on these choices–are there songs on this list that you don’t think fit?  Are there songs that are missing?

The first three books of the UNSETIC Files (Bering Songs and Silence, Between Fang and Claw, and The Measure of Dreams) and the first book of the Lost Angel Chronicles (What Angels Fear)are available where ebooks are sold.

Hit my main page to join my mailing list to stay abreast of what I’m working on and get free books and other neat goodies.

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Prompt for July 18, 2014 – Day 199

Happy Friday!  I’m happy it’s Friday…

Two opening lines in a row might be lame, but I feel like they’re less lame if they’re ones I’m currently using myself.  Yesterday’s was from the current version of When All’s Said and Done.  Today’s is from the current draft of Epsilon: Redeemer.

Prompt Type: Opening Line

Prompt: “Go. Get out of here before they figure out what you did for me.”

Got an idea for a prompt?  Email me at emklitzke (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Prompt for July 13, 2014 – Day 194

Aww, it’s Sunday already?  Bummer…

Fun fact: today’s opening line is actually the opening line from my first full-length novel, Epsilon: Broken Stars.

Prompt Type: Opening Line

Prompt:  “Identification.”

Got an idea for a prompt?  Email me at emklitzke (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Prompt for April 14, 2014 – Day 104

Another Monday–I’m back to the office, just like a lot of you.  I had a productive weekend, though, and I hope you had the same!

A musical prompt is in the offing today, in part thanks to my release of The Measure of Dreams yesterday!

Prompt Type: Musical prompt

Prompt:

Music is “Castle of Glass” by Linkin Park.  Video courtesy of YouTube

Got an idea for a prompt?  Email me at emklitzke (at) gmail (dot) com.

 

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Prompt for April 8, 2014 – Day 98

Two more days until Day 100!  Where have all the days gone?

Another opening line prompt for you today, again something sourced in my own work.  One of the UNSETC Files books ends with a phone call–and sparks a whole new story in and of itself.

See what you can do with this opening line.

Prompt Type: Opening Line

Prompt: “I have news about your brother.”

Got an idea for a prompt?  Email me at emklitzke (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Updated cover reveal for The Measure of Dreams

I’m almost finished with the main draft of the next UNSETIC Files book, The Measure of Dreams, which tells the story of how AJ McConaway and Kate Berkshire meet and begin working together.  AJ and Kate are number one and two in the trifecta of heroines that keep Tim McConaway (Bering Songs and Silence) from going completely off the deep end–or worse, somehow returning to the kidnappers who twisted him into their own image.  Kate’s already met the third of their trio at the time of The Measure of Dreams, but AJ hasn’t and won’t until she gets a phone call from one Lieutenant Brigid O’Connell at the end of Bering Songs and Silence.

I anticipate releasing The Measure of Dreams sometime this spring (oh god, did I just set a deadline for myself?  I think I did!) and with this anticipated release I’d been looking at the cover I’d originally designed.

I decided I didn’t like it and needed something better.

So I made something better and here it is!  I hope you all like it as much as I do.

The Measure of DreamsStay tuned for more tie-ins to The Measure of Dreams coming soon (including stats so you can use AJ McConaway in your modern or near future d20 games) as well as a firm release date for the E-book.