Category: Modern paranormal

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What’s in the works…

I had intended to mostly update folks on the couple of editions of things that are in the works, but that seems silly because there’s so much that’s in the works right now.  We’ll just break it down by title and universe and work from there.

The Lost Angel Chronicles / UNSETIC Files

  • When All’s Said and Done (Lost Angel Chronicles) – This is the story of how Kyle, Ridley, and a motley crew including Julia, Kyle’s roommate Reece, FBI Agent Matthew Thatcher, and company try to rescue some of the other “angels” and bring down the Institute.  Will they succeed?  Will Kyle and Ridley end up in the clutches of the organization that once held them captive?  Only time will tell…
    Word Count: 29076 as of this writing (goaled for 85k+)
  • Girl from a Brigadoon (UNSETIC Files) – In 2027, a town that vanished more than ten years ago reappears in the wilds of Alberta, Canada.  Within that lost town is a New York woman who’s been missing for as much time–a woman who might hold the key to why the town vanished and why it reappeared.  New York regional lead for the United Nations Supernatural and Extraterrestrial Investigative Corps, Brigid O’Connell, is starting to realize exactly how much her organization doesn’t know about the “supernatural” angle of their investigations…
    Currently reassessing goaling.
  • Untitled project (UNSETIC Files) – After witnessing a friend’s miraculous healing ability aboard the USS Daedalus, Brigid O’Connell volunteers to join a new, secret division of the United Nations – UNSETIC, dedicated to investigating the unexplained and, in some cases, defending humanity from it.  She’s assigned to work with Timothy McConaway, a figure from her past that’s as much ghost as he is man.  When they’re sent to the Bering Sea to look into reports of a strange creature hassling a research team, O’Connell has to wonder if she’s cut out for the job–and if her partner is as crazy as she fears.
    Word Count: 9,814 as of this writing (Goaled for 35K+)
  • Two additional projects in this universe are in the works, both crossover pieces between the Lost Angel Chronicles and the UNSETIC Files.

Epsilon

  • Epsilon: Redeemer – Lucas Ross has made a promise to an Alliance spy: he’ll find a way to restore Ren Flannery’s memory come hell or high water.  The floodwaters are rising for the Resistance, though, as word of their success at Castion begins to make the Imperium believe that maybe, just maybe, the disorganized rabble they through the Resistance was is more dangerous than they originally believed…
    Word Count: 21,788 as of this writing (goaled for 90K+)
  • Epsilon: Spades over Kings – Working title for a little side project in the universe.
  • Another side project is planned but not in production, dealing with the investigation by Alliance Intelligence of Daniel Taylor’s disappearance when his son was eight years old.

Awakenings

  • War Drums – This is Book Two of the Awakenings series and looks to be on track to finish by Christmas…but we’ll see where the story takes me.
    Word Count: Over 100K as of this writing – another monster, probably longer than its predecessor.
  • Book One – Print edition is currently in final editing (when I pulled it from Word into InDesign and started to fix stylesheets, I lost a lot of italics, so I’m having to go back and make sure that there are italics where I want them).

Legacies of the Lost Earth

  • The Last Colony – This one is actually getting really close to finish; probably only a few more chapters until done.
    Word Count: Over 80K as of this writing (which makes it just about as long as Broken Stars).
  • Ashes to Ashes – Book two of Legacies of the Lost Earth will pick up very soon after the ending of The Last Colony — but when I begin to post it is another question entirely!
  • Untitled third installment – I do intend for Legacies of the Lost Earth to be a trilogy, but that may change depending on where the words take me.

In addition to everything listed above, I have a full-time day job, a boyfriend, and a few projects currently in production that I’m not at liberty to discuss.

Stay tuned for more updates–and excerpts–in the future!

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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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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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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.

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Breaking blocks – Institute Universe / Lost Angel Chronicles

To expand on a recent Twitter post and my last update (in which I complained about how much trouble I was having with What All’s Said and Done), I think I’ve maybe, finally solved a rather tricky quandry that I’d run into.

Here’s an excerpt from me clawing my way out of that quagmire:

            “Ky,” Ridley murmured, fingers tangling in my sleeve and face pale as death as he looked away from the tinted windows of the minivan.  Matthew had borrowed from the FBI pool to transport Ridley and Julia to a safehouse a few blocks away from Damon’s apartment.  I’d tagged along for moral support at their mutual insistence.
            We’d faked their deaths the day before—more to the point, the FBI had faked their deaths.  It had been on the evening news, though they hadn’t released the names of the dead, pending notification of the families.  I didn’t envy the person who’d have to lie to Julia’s parents about their daughter being dead.  I wondered if the person doing the informing would actually know the truth.
            When I didn’t answer him right away—in truth, I hadn’t heard him—Ridley tugged on my sleeve, his tone turning urgent.  “Ky, look out the window.  Look out there, at the coffee shop across the street.  The red-head on the patio.”
            I looked and my heart started to beat faster.  Is that Allyson?
            “What’s wrong?” Julia and Matthew asked in the same voice.
            “You weren’t in contact with anyone, were you?” I asked him.
            He shook his head quickly.  “No, no one.  Laren was the only one after they released me from the facility, and I haven’t talked to her since the motel.”  He shot a glance at Julia, whose gaze bounced between he and I.
            “What’s going on?” she asked, a hint of urgency to her voice.  “The only person I talked to back in Andover was Paul and I haven’t heard from him since.”
            “Ky.”  Matthew didn’t look back at me, but his tone insisted I answer, and quickly.  I tamped down a mixture of annoyance and fear.
            “Ally’s a mimic.  She can do whatever the hell she wants.”  I gave Ridley a long, hard look.  “Did they try to pair you up after what happened?”
            “Who are we talking about?”  Julia asked, sounding desperate now.
            “The girl at the coffee shop,” I said.  “With the red hair.”
            Julia looked and gave a little gasp.  Matthew growled and instead of slowing down, sped up, driving up the block before he swung the van around a corner and parked it on the side of the street.  He twisted in the driver’s seat and glared at all three of us.
            “All right, what the hell is going on back here that no one decided to the guy with the badge and the gun about?”
            Stupid as it might have been, I held up a hand to forestall further comment from him, staring at Ridley and waiting for him to answer me.  Dammit, Ridley!  If they tried to pair you two up, she’s got a link to you that she can use.  She may not have a lot of power in that direction, but it’d be enough for her to track you.
            He stared at me for a few seconds that felt like hours before he nodded, looking away.  “Yeah,” he whispered.  “It took them two months to figure out it wasn’t going to work.”
            “But long enough for her to learn your tricks,” I muttered.  “Damn.”
            Matthew reached back and grabbed my arm, squeezing so hard it hurt.  “In English, Kyle.”
            I jerked my arm out of his grip, rubbing it and glaring at him.  “We think we saw Allyson.”
            “I gathered that much.  What does it mean?  She works for the Institute, doesn’t she?”
            I glanced at Ridley, who winced and whispered, “Yes.”
            Julia stared at him and shook her head.  “No.  I don’t think so.”
            Matthew stared at all three of us for a few seconds, then started to get out of the van.  “One way to find out.”
            “Wait one goddamned second here!”  I got out after him, leaving Ridley and Julia in the van.  “You have no idea what you’re up against.”
            “A teenager or a twenty-something that both you and he knew on the inside, which means she’s got some kind of ability that I may or may not be able to combat.  Sound right?”  Matthew checked the clip on his sidearm and slid it back into its holster, then adjusted his sport coat.
            “What are you going to do?”
            “Get a cup of coffee and watch,” he said, slamming the van door shut.  Julia and Ridley piled out behind me.
            “We’re coming with you,” Ridley said firmly, positioning himself at my shoulder.
            “Absolutely not,” Matthew said.  “Get back in the van and wait for me to come back.”
            I shook my head.  “Somehow, I don’t think that we’re going to do that.  You don’t know Ally.  Ridley and I do.”  Though what would make Julia think that she’s not working for the Institute is something I’d certainly like to know.  I glanced sidelong at Julia, whose hand was wrapped tightly around Ridley’s.  “You said you don’t think she works for the Institute.”
            She shook her head quickly.  “No, I don’t.  I’ve seen her before.”
            Ridley paled again, turning toward her and taking her by the shoulders.  “When?” he asked hoarsely.  “How?”
            Julia reached up, cupping his face in her hands.  My pounding heart began to ache at the tenderness of her gesture; I had to shove the thoughts of Hadrian that swarmed up back down again so I could concentrate.  Soon, Ky.  Soon.
            “I went to have a look at the installation outside of Andover, remember?  That’s when I saw her,” she said softly.  “She told me to go back to town.”  Her gaze flicked momentarily to Matthew.  “And she left me a note to Google him.”
            I was stunned, and from the look on his face that he couldn’t quite smother, so was Matthew.
            “Why would she tell you to do that?” he asked.
            I stared at my sneakers.  “Because she loved Tim and she knows why he was there.”

This is a huge shift and departure from the original universe (Allyson wasn’t featured in the original draft–but then again, neither was Ridley, and Julia didn’t exist).  It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.

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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The schedule update: I’m so failing at this

It seems that When All’s Said and Done simply refuses to be written.  I’ve hit a particularly sticky situation near the very beginning of the piece that I just can’t seem to plow through–but perhaps a weekend off from the store will help me press onward.

Of course, the schedule is also getting shuffled around, thanks to a decision I came to regarding The Last Colony.  Instead of straight ebook release, I’m releasing it as a serial, one chapter a week, at www.embklitzke.com/e557 — the first two posts went up on January 1.  It will update Sundays and is the first book of the Legacies of the Lost Earth series.  I’ll probably release the ebook version before the full serial is posted (thanks again to A.M. Harte for that suggestion).

Looking forward to my forthcoming weekend off from the store, which will leave me time and flexibility to write.  I see a trip to Starbucks for a few hours on Thursday in my future.

Awakenings Book 1 was completed on January 1 with the Epilogue post.  Book 2 began today, 2 January 2012.  I’m starting to claw my way back on-schedule with that (which is to say that I’m no longer scrambling to write a post within forty-eight hours of it needing to be posted).  Hopefully I’ll be able to maintain that pace.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.