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.

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.

 

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.

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.

On writing the Lost Angel Chronicles

I’ve been asked here and there where I came up with the idea for the Lost Angel Chronicles–for the Institute, for the characters fighting against it and the characters who are involved with it.  One of my cousins, after reading What Angels Fear, couldn’t sleep for a few nights, wondering where I had come up with such a “twisted” idea (Allie was more than a little disturbed, from what I gather, after reading What Angels Fear).

The Lost Angels came from a few different places.  The first and earliest of them was a chain novel project I worked on with some fellow ops from the #Authors channel on the Undernet (from what I understand, it still exists, though I haven’t been around to check it out in a very, very long time).  What started with a girl arriving at a mysterious institution became something much darker very quickly when I had the opportunity to introduce Hadrian Bridger, Allyson Conner, and Ky Monroe–much to the dismay of at least one of my fellow writers, who was going for more of an X-Men kind of thing (this was in the days before Harry Potter, mind you).  I had the idea for Hadrian in listening to Sarah McLachlan’s “Building a Mystery”–a quiet, mysterious and powerful boy with a candle and a Tarot deck secreted away in a safe place.

When I embarked on my first foray into NaNoWriMo, I obtained the blessing of my fellow chain writers to take some of the characters and concepts created as part of our short-lived project and develop them into something new and broader, more full than what we’d embarked on before.  I adjusted the timeline forward and began on a November afternoon with a college-aged Ky Monroe thinking that the people she’d loved when she was young were now all dead at the Institute’s hands.  I was a college junior at the time, a liberal living in a conservative area of Michigan, feeling constricted and disturbed by the amount of evangelizing going on at my public university and knowing I wasn’t alone in the feeling.  I was majoring in history and anthropology with a minor in political science and started to think about what could happen if a militant evangelical cult got its hands on children and teenagers with special gifts.

It was pretty much all downhill from there.  By the end of November, I’d written more than the requisite 50,000 words and was still going.  I hit 80,000 words and change in December and called it a day, then tucked the manuscript away, knowing that there were pacing issues and other conceptual issues that I would need to address someday.  I would write a sequel to When All’s Said and Done the following year for NaNoWriMo, an unfinished project I titled When the Gods Cry, dealing with the now-married Ky Monroe and Hadrian Bridger and their circle of friends (including an also-married Reece and Matthew) and the unexpected kidnapping of Ky and Hadrian’s young children by a remnant of the Institute.  This, too, was placed on a digital shelf and left for a time when I had more time and brainpower to devote to it, and there both projects languished for a long while, overshadowed by works like Epsilon and the nascent Awakenings, among other projects.

One bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree later, a fateful road trip with my best friend many years later sowed the seeds of my return to the universe I’d created with When All’s Said and Done.  I had seen signs for Starr Commonwealth before on other trips along I-96 and I-94, but something on that particular trip (I think we were on our way to the Silver Leaf Renaissance Festival) tripped a synapse in my brain.  A few days later, I sat down at my desk with iTunes, a sheaf of college-ruled notebook paper, and a green felt-tipped pen and started to write.

A half dozen and more pages later, I realized that I was writing about Ridley Thys, one of the Lost Angels, mentioned only in passing in When All’s Said and Done and When the Gods Cry, a character that had featured briefly in the project initially developed as the chain novel way back when I was still in high school myself.

What Angels Fear and the whole of the Lost Angel Chronicles are in part about what rampant extremism can lead to when left unchecked (or, as the UNSETIC Files and later Lost Angels works will show, when extremism is left largely unchecked).  It is also about characters and people–what binds us together and keeps us apart, what makes us tick.  What brings Julia and Ridley together is a belief that no one should ever suffer as he’s suffered, a trust born of desperation that blossoms into more.  It’s about people learning to care, learning to love–and learning that the price of loving someone can be very high indeed.

While I’m sorry to have disturbed some people who’ve read it, I’m glad that What Angels Fear made them feel something.  I’m glad it makes people think.  I don’t write literary fiction, I write genre fiction, but sometimes, that’s the best way to put forth an idea and start a conversation.

If What Angels Fear and the rest of the Lost Angel Chronicles starts a conversation, I’ll be happy.  If they don’t but they entertained and left people wanting more…well.  I’ll just have to feed that demand for more.

Have you read What Angels Fear yet?  Leave a note with your thoughts and gut reactions.  I’d love to hear them as I continue to craft the continuing stories of Julia, Ridley, Ky, Hadrian, and al the rest.

Snippet Sunday – UNSETIC Files: Truth Will Set You Free (WIP)

This week’s snip is from a current work in progress with a slightly different flavor from other books in the UNSETIC Files series…at least to start.

UNSETIC Files Truth Will Set You Free-1000Homicide detective Ryce Marshall returned from what was supposed to be a routine trip across the state line with amnesia–almost all trace of her past erased. Her quest to restore her fragmented memory will put her on a collision course with an FBI investigator that’s fallen down a rabbit hole so deep, he may never climb out again.

Jesse Stole’s mother was the daughter of a capo in the Mancini crime family. He and his younger brother have tried to escape that legacy, but Jesse’s been sucked back into the shadowy world of organized crime–all in the pursuit of law and order. His only saving grace is the woman he fears he’s lost forever.

Tasked with the nigh-impossible task of getting a dangerous new drug off the streets, Agent William Scarborough uses every resource at his disposal in his fight against the syndicates distributing the drug. When he tumbles down a rabbit hole into the supernatural, he’ll drag Stole and Marshall down with him.

Whether any of them are ready for it or not.

Snippet below the break!

Continue reading “Snippet Sunday – UNSETIC Files: Truth Will Set You Free (WIP)”

Snippet Sunday – UNSETIC Files fragments

This week’s snippet Sunday is a little different.  You see, there are characters and ideas that gnaw at the back of my brain and won’t go away until I get them down on paper. This is the case with the characters you’re going to meet in this week’s snippet–a pair that don’t have a solid place in the UNSETIC universe beyond knowing that they’re there and doing things.

Two vaguely connected scenes in chronological order below the break.


Continue reading “Snippet Sunday – UNSETIC Files fragments”