Category: writing

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Whispers and rumors of collaborations and Nanowrimos derailed

So, Nanowrimo this year is going well enough despite a hectic work schedule, though a friend threaten to derail both my project and hers with an idea that struck her.  She shared it with a mutual friend and then with me, and let me tell you.

I’m kind of stoked.

It’s a collaboration of a particularly epic order of magnitude, assuming we all agree to launch it.  If we do, it’ll be pretty awesome.  If we don’t, I’ll be a little (okay, a lot) bummed.  We’ve done a lot of talking over the past few days (I haven’t seen our third online since the conversation, so I haven’t been able to pick her brain yet, but I’m looking forward to the moment I can), and I’m just getting more and more excited.

So between writing Epsilon: Redeemer and working, I’ve been talking about this stuff.  And thinking about this stuff.

And thinking about the UNSETIC Files, cleaning up some stuff.  In doing so, I came across this little scene that was part of a narrative about how Tim McConaway and Brigid O’Connell, featured in a previous post (the first entry of Doc’s Writercraft), became partners in UNSETIC.

I can remember thinking that they probably should have hung a sign on the door that read X-Files in here.  As it was, the office behind the steel door was small, windowless, spartanly decorated but not necessarily uncomfortable.  What made it uncomfortable was knowing that I’d volunteered for this.

Of course, I hadn’t had many alternatives.

I sat in the hard wooden chair in front of the desk, staring at the fifty-something man behind it, his hands folded in front of him.  He didn’t smile.  “We’re waiting on another.”

“Oh.”  I folded my hands, staring at them.  What am I doing here?

The door behind me opened.  I looked over my shoulder toward the door.  The man that walked in was slightly older than I was, eyes haunted, face gaunt, a healing cut on his lip and fading bruises on his jaw and neck.  I knew him.

He was in the Gulf with us.  I thought he died.  That was years ago.  He moved stiffly, sat down slowly in the chair next to me.  He didn’t look at me, just stared straight ahead as if I didn’t exist.  Stared at the man who was our new boss.

Why did I volunteer for this?  It was simple, though.  I was a part of this because I’d seen someone turn a mortal wound into a minor wound and gone looking for answers.  It was all downhill from there.

“You’ve been working for us already for the past three years, Lieutenant O’Connell,” Paul Ballard said quietly.  “You just didn’t know it.”  He looked toward the man next to me.  “Are you sure you’re up to this, Lieutenant McConaway?”

He’s out of uniform.  The man next to me nodded slightly.  “Yes, sir.”  His voice was quiet.  “I’d assumed I’d be assigned someone from the Air Force to work with, though.”

Ballard inclined his head.  “That was the intention, but Lieutenant O’Connell’s potential partner tried to get himself blown up and yours is dead.  The assignment can’t wait for us to find a new partner for either one of you, so you’re stuck with each other.”

“What’s the assignment, sir?”  I asked quietly.

“You haven’t reconsidered volunteering, then, Lieutenant?”

I glanced toward Timothy McConaway, studied him for a long moment.  There were rumors about what had happened to him in the Gulf.  From the look of him now, whatever had happened then hadn’t left him whole.  But he’s still in the service, apparently.  Maybe.  I nodded.  “Yes, sir.  I’m in.”

“Very good.”  Ballard stood from the desk and took out a pair of files from the cabinet in the corner.  “There’s an installation in theArctic Oceanthat we need you to take a look at.”

“…that’s all?”

“You sound surprised, Lieutenant.”

McConaway frowned.  “Sir, what is it, exactly, that we’re supposed to ‘take a look at’ out there?  I was led to believe that what I was going to do for this agency was going to make a difference.”  He didn’t flinch under Ballard’s stare, but added, somewhat belatedly, “Sir.”

“Don’t make the mistake of assuming that you won’t be, Lieutenant.”  Ballard slid the files across the desk.  I leaned forward and took one.

We’re going to freeze our tails.  I thumbed through the folder slowly.  “As ourselves, sir?”

“You are, Lieutenant.”  Ballard eyed McConaway.  “He is not, but I think that’s par for the course, isn’t it, Mr. McConaway.”

“Yes, sir.”  McConaway’s gaze never wavered.  He took the folder almost mechanically and was quiet.

“You’ll get full briefing on the way out,” Ballard said, mostly to me, it seemed.  “You leave in two days.  You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”

I stood up, saluted him, and slipped out.  I considered lingering a moment outside the door so I could maybe catch McConaway on his way out, to talk to him, but something made me think better of it.  I left that basement office and headed home.

I forget sometimes how much I really like these characters.  I’m not the only one, too, and that makes me feel fantastic.

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 

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“Brave hearts do not back down.” — Sophocles

Welcome to the next stop on the Blog Tour de Troops, put together by the Indie Book Collective.  If you got here from Stephen England‘s website, hello!  The next stop on the blog tour is Paul Rice‘s site.  Take a look at what they’ve got to show you and leave a note for them so you get some free ebooks and so does a serviceman or woman.

Friday, November 11 was Veteran’s Day (Remembrance Day in the UK, Canada, and other Commonwealth nations) this year, a time when we as Americans (or Englishmen and women, Canadians, New Zealanders and Australians, to name a few) celebrate the service (and unfortunate sacrifices) of many men and women in uniform who have put their own lives on hold for the good of others.  It’s a day of respectful remembrance, celebration, and appreciation we share with other nations across the globe, thanks to the shared experience of World War I.

The Great War ended on 11 November 1918.  It was supposed to be the war to end all wars.

It didn’t.

My great-grandfather served in the US Navy during World War I.  He lied about his age in order to enlist, wanting to fight for the country of his birth.  He was of Irish extraction but born in the United States.  He had only daughters, but his son-in-law served in the Army Corps of Engineers, rebuilding parts of Germany after the end of World War II.

My other grandfather, the son of a Chicago police officer, served in World War II, training fighter pilots on the home front.  He never spoke about his service, but several years before he died he wrote down everything he could remember of that time and gave it to me in a sealed envelope.

Now, three years after his death, I still haven’t been ready to read it, even though I asked him to write it all down for me.  He was buried with military honors, complete with an honor guard.  The flag that draped his coffin is now in the custody of my uncle, his oldest son.

There’s something important to our collective consciousness about soldiers.  Though I have never served myself, I realize know that there have always been servicemen (and women) in my life.  A family friend I called “uncle” who served in Operation: Desert Storm (I wanted to send him snow, because it just wasn’t right that he didn’t have snow in Kuwait), a cousin stationed in Omaha on September 11, friends and classmates who joined the service either because of September 11 or in spite of it, friends who are veterans who have come home after their time as different (and many times, better) people.  Though I have not always agreed with the government’s decisions to deploy troops, I have never wavered in my support or gratitude to these men and women in uniform.

Likewise, I am absolutely fascinated by the military, which is reflected in my fiction–in my imaginings of how things might work in some far future military apparatus.  The military of the Epsilon universe is much different from the reality of today’s modern militaries, though I like to think that I capture some of the camaraderie, some of the loyalty, the brother/sisterhood of arms that seem to be an inherent part of the heartwarming stories we see on the news and in the press on the home front.

Even in the days and weeks where I hated what people were being asked to do for the good of “national security,” my fascination with and appreciation of the military–the servicemen and women thereof–never wavered.

It takes a lot to serve your country, to sacrifice of yourself and your family for the greater good–because it’s not just about one soldier, it’s about their family, their community.  One person’s service changes everyone around them–that’s how I feel, in any case.  It makes us examine our lives, our feelings, the way we think and what we do.  Regardless of where they’re sent or what they’re doing, men and women in the armed services are doing their jobs for the greater good of all.

I have to believe that.  I hope you do, too.

This blog post was made as part of the Blog Tour de Troops, celebrating the service and sacrifice of veterans in the United States and the world over.  We appreciate your time and your service, even if we don’t always show it.

If you’re a serviceman or woman yourself, or a family member of a soldier, I’d love to hear your story.  Just leave a comment below.  If you just want to say thank you to men and women in uniform, drop a note as well.

Leave me your email address in your comment so I can get you set up for a FREE ebook copy of my debut novel, Epsilon: Broken Stars.  Every comment gets you a free copy–and a free book for a serviceman or woman.

Midday Edit: If you have a specific serviceman or woman that you’d like the book donated to, please leave their e-mail address in your comment as well as theirs so I can shoot them a link+code, too.

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 

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Doc’s Writercraft: Developing fictional characters through roleplay

Every author, from the rookie to the seasoned pro, has their own tried and true methods of creating believable (or not-so-believable) characters.  For me, developing characters has gone hand in hand with roleplaying.

I’ve been a gamerchick almost as long as I’ve been writing (I started out on AOL chats when I was twelve years old; moved to IRC in 1997 and picked up ISRP around the same time I started playing serious tabletop games in 2000), but it wasn’t until I was in my later college years that I began to notice the overlap between characters I created to play and characters I created to tell their stories in print.  Somewhere in the middle, it all began to merge.

A prime example of this is the pairing of Tim McConaway (created solely for an RPG–as a background character, no less) and Brigid O’Connell (originally part of a now-defunct set of stories).  I hit upon the idea to combine them almost by accident, since they each needed a longtime friend that wasn’t a romantic interest.  They further developed as characters during my time with ISRP and their through-line is an anchor for the UNSETIC Files.

Tim McConaway started out as a cardboard cut-out, an Air Force officer whose parents had been murdered and was raised (with his sister and best friend) by a pair of uncles in Chicago.  His sister, originally, was the focus of my roleplaying efforts, but I later became attracted to her quiet, intense, tragic brother, unlucky in life and in love.  So I started roleplaying him, and he became increasingly complex as a character.  He found his way into a set of afternoon scribbles about a year and a half ago, depicting his first “mission” for UNSETIC with a woman who would become his lifelong friend, Brigid O’Connell.

Brigid originally popped up–surprisingly enough–as a character that should have been in the Epsilon universe (the set of stories that would have been wrapped up into that universe, set in the mid-21st century, have since been scrapped).  She was a retired military officer (honorable discharge due to medical issues) who bought a bar in Virginia.  I began roleplaying her purely by accident–I needed a character without any connections for a very specific reason, one with a particular level of authority, and she fit the bill.

Of course, she got away from me and started changing and developing all on her own.

That’s the one thing that no one tells you about roleplaying: if you’re doing it well, with the right people, your characters become very, very real, very very quickly.  Things happen that you don’t expect, things that you never would have imagined.  I’ve found it to be sometimes incredibly helpful.

Have you ever thought about asking one of your test readers–if they’re so inclined–what they think a conversation with one of your characters would be like?  Have you ever tried talking out that conversation?  Try it!  Let them ask hard questions that you might not know the answer to.  It’ll help you figure out who some of these characters really are and you might even find that they surprise you.  Who knows?  You might end up coming up with whole new subplots.

If you’re really brave, you might even try them out somewhere in the ether or in a tabletop game.  Sometimes, the best characters are the ones that you don’t expect to become your favorites.

Tim and Brigid were like that for me.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

            “Do you ever wonder what it would’ve been like?”  Tim asked suddenly as the subway car clacked and swayed its way uptown, toward Central Park.

Brigid frowned, watching the tunnel lights flash by out the windows.  “What what would have been like?”

“If this never happened.  You and me, partners.  You ever wonder what life would’ve been like?”

Simpler.  Less exciting.  “What the hell kind of question is that?”

He shrugged.  “I don’t know,” he said, starting to get up as the train slowed, pulling into their station.  “I was just curious, I guess.”

“Be more curious about your Corps problem and less about what life would’ve been like in an alternate reality,” she said, heading for the doors as they slid open.  He was right behind.  “It’s probably a better use of what few brain cells you’ve got left.”

He grinned at her teasing as they fought their way through the sparse early morning crowds on the platform.  “Probably right about that.”

They were mounting the stairs up to street level when she said, “I’ve never wondered, Tim.  I can’t imagine life any other way.”

He smiled at her over his shoulder.  “Me neither, B.  Me neither.”

Excerpt copyright 2011 Erin M. Klitzke

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 

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‘Good, because I think I need it.’ – Excerpt from NaNoWriMo ’11, Epsilon: Redeemer

A little bit of a teaser from the rough draft of Epsilon: Redeemer, second book of the Epsilon series.  I’m writing the first draft of the book for NaNoWriMo 2011, and now I’ve got a bit that I’m okay with sharing.

            ‘Quintilian was captured by the Imperium.  He must have been, since we swept the area where he was and found signs of a fight, but no body.  Still trying to figure it out; word would be appreciated.’

I rubbed my temple.  It wasn’t good news.  Quintilian was another regional lead, two sectors over in the Borderworlds, but closer to the edge of Imperium territory than my area of influence.  He’d been a friend of Korea’s from school and one of my closest allies in the upper echelons of the Resistance, especially when it came to trying to find her.

I closed my eyes, leaning back.  I was with Renegade again, taking my turn on the watch.  I’d been switching off with Sam and Conrad, but Kallyn had come to take a watch or two, a signal to me that she was getting ready to get more deeply involved in Resistance affairs.

I wasn’t sure whether that’d be a good thing or a bad thing.

A groan from the bed dragged me out of the quagmire of reports.  Renegade had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the past few days, eyes dull with fever and barely responsive when we spoke to her.  It hadn’t surprised me.  I wasn’t quite sure what point the process had been interrupted at, but I knew that this was as close to normal as these things got.  Her system was in a state of shock.  Nothing was going to happen until that fever broke, and I knew it.

Part of me was silently thankful that Wil wasn’t around.  I’d been able to taste his worry when he’d first brought me in on this, and it was disconcerting to say the least.  Better he wasn’t here to keep right on worrying and distracting everyone around him.

The fever had finally broken the night before, but she hadn’t been awake since then.

Setting aside the palmtop where I’d been reading the reports, I leaned toward her, watching as Renegade lifted a hand to rub her eyes and groaned again, starting to roll and curl on her side.  She noticed me a few seconds later, blinking blearily.

“Where am I?” she murmured, voice hoarse and heavy with confusion.

“Caldin,” I told her.  I touched her shoulder as she started to sit up.  “Careful, you’ve been mostly horizontal for a couple weeks except to get some food into you.  Don’t sit up too fast.  I don’t want you keeling over on me.”

She laughed weakly and let me help her sit up.  She hunched over a little, staring at her hands, thin and pale against the gray coverlet.  The engagement ring Wil had left on her finger sparkled in the room’s dim light and her gaze fastened on it for a moment.  Her breath caught.

“I don’t know where that is,” she whispered.  “I don’t know who I am.  Who’re you?”

“Call me Luc,” I said.  “I’m a doctor, and a friend.  I’m here to help you.”

Her gaze slid sidelong to me, hazel eyes pinning me in place.  She had one of those stares, one that could paralyze a man with a glance, a certain sort of intensity that could instill comfort or unease at her leisure.  “Promise?”

“I promise.”

One of her hands closed around mine and squeezed with a strength that surprised me.  “Good,” she said in a ragged whisper.  “Because I think I need it.”

Copyright 2011, Erin M. Klitzke

Like what you see?  See what comes before in Epsilon: Broken Stars, available where ebooks are sold.

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 

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Fragments of background (Epsilon universe)

What follows here is spoiler-riffic, so if you’re not into that kind of thing, don’t read below the break.  I’m in the midst of working on Epsilon: Redeemer for NaNoWriMo, and in doing so have ended up looking back at some scenes I scribbled out a long time back, when I was tooling around with a project called Resistance, which was a story mostly about Korea Cooper and Lucas Ross.  I have a .doc file full of scenes that were a mix of background scenes and sequences that might end up in later works in the Epsilon universe.

More ramblings (and one of those scenes) below the break.

Continue reading “Fragments of background (Epsilon universe)”

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Some Halloween treats (UNSETIC Files excerpts)

In the spirit of Halloween and the veil between worlds being a bit thinner in the autumn, I’m celebrating by throwing up some brief segments of work in the UNSETIC Files universe (still under development as a collection).  Then UNSETIC Files are a series of paranormal and supernatural stories set in a present and future much like our own world, but darker, with deeper secrets and an unseen world that some realize is very, very real.

Excerpt #1 is a freewritten background sketch for a college professor in 2030s Manhattan who runs a little esoteric shop and bookstore.  Back in her (much) younger years, she found herself in Alberta, Canada…

The tribe was singing a mourning song, beautiful and haunting.  It sent shivers down her spine, though not because of its beauty.

“Who died?”  She whispered.  No one had been out hunting today, she’d thought.

His arms tightened around her waist, breath warm against her ear.  She could feel his heartbeat as she leaned against his chest, heard him take a deep, almost ragged breath before he spoke softly.  “No one yet,” he said.  “But they’re playing it for us.  For the pack.”

Rebecca stiffened, staring up at him.  Ioan was staring back at the fire, at the circle of singers clustered in its flickering light.  His jaw was set, but it quivered a little, betraying him.  It was weakness he’d never show to anyone else.

But they belonged to each other, and she’d have seen it where no one else would have.

“Ioan, why would they do that?”

“I have to ask you something,” he whispered, ignoring the question.  “To do something, but you’re not going to say no this time.”

Her brows knit as she stared at him.  “What is it?”

He hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment before he looked at her square.  “You need to stay behind this time.”

“What?”  Why would he–  “I’m the best shot the pack has, Ioan, and you’ve said yourself that without my cover fire, half of what you’ve accomplished wouldn’t have been possible.  I’m not letting you guys go into that place without me.”

“I’m not risking you,” he growled, letting go of her waist.  He took her face in his hands instead, scarred, calloused thumbs stroking her jaw.  “You’re staying here.  So I have a reason to make that music into a lie.”  He nodded toward the fire, to the singers and their mourning song.  “They don’t expect us to live through this.  It’s a suicide mission.”

“And you volunteered for it anyway,” she said softly, eyes widening.  “Ioan, why?”

His expression softened and he rested his forehead against hers.  “Because someone taught me that there are things that need doing, no matter how dangerous, for the good of the whole.”

She slumped.  “My father.”

He shook his head slightly.  “No.  You.”

Excerpt #2 is from something I featured in an earlier post–about a certain vampire.

 She drummed a pencil against the blotter, brooding out the window in front of her, at the coastal view.  The city glittered like a jewel in the night, vibrant and lovely.  It was almost easy to forget how dangerous her streets were, especially by night.

Almost.

The phone at her elbow started to ring.  She would have ignored it, but it was Rebecca calling, and she was the only person she trusted implicitly—and still had as eyes and ears inside of the city.

So she answered it on the third ring.  “Becca?”

“Cameron.  Are you all right?  Is he staying?”

Her pencil fell still against the blotter.  “Yes,” she said quietly as she got up to make sure the door to her study was closed.  “Yes, he’s staying, though I don’t know for how long.  He chose to live, though, instead of following him to his grave.  I’m not sure if it was cowardice or hope that did it…but who wants to die?”  I didn’t want to die.  I chose existence over lack thereof, when I was offered the choice.  Maybe it wasn’t the right one to make, but I picked the bed and now I have to lay in it.

“None of us, I suppose,” Becca said.  “I’m sure he’ll come around, Cam.  He’s just upset, that’s all.  Andras’s death is a lot to take.  You told me how long they’d been together.”

“He’s not just upset, he’s bloody well pissed with me, Becca.”  She sighed, slumping back into her chair.  “And he has every right to be.  I abandoned them.”

Becca snorted derisively.  “You did no such thing.  You left, yes, but it’s not like you didn’t tell Andras you were leaving.”

“In a note, Becca.  I left him a note that said I couldn’t stay, I had to go.”

“You called him after, and you wrote.  You stayed in touch.”

“It’s not the same.  Not enough.”  Her eyes focused distantly, staring at the city lights, at the chop on the water.  “Maybe I never should have left,” she whispered.  “Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Cameron Beckett, don’t start that load of shit.  You wouldn’t let me wallow in what-ifs and I’m not about to let you do the same thing.  None of this was your fault and you had no control over what happened.”

Beckett growled low in her throat, glaring at her vague reflection the glass now.

Becca sighed at the other end of the line.  “Cam, I know they’re your demons and they’re your demons to fight, but I’m not going to sit still and let you beat yourself up for something that wasn’t your fault any more than Ioan going missing was mine.”

“What would you say if I told you I promised that I was going to avenge Andras?”

Silence answered her at first, long minutes ticking past before Becca answered.  “Is it something you need to do?”

“He made me, Becca.  In more ways than one.  I owe him at least that much, and I owe it to Elijah.  He can’t avenge him and someone’s got to.”  She paused.  “Besides, there’s the distinct possibility that the primarch of New York and his innermost circle know the truth about me.”

“You mean about your age?”

“Yes,” she whispered.  “I think they’ve figured out that Andras and I were closer than just friends or acquaintances.  Perhaps they only suspect we were blood-bound.  That would be the best case scenario.  Perhaps they think I made him, but I suspect they know it’s the other way around.”  It was a rare thing for her to admit a fear that deep, that close to her core, that mortal.

But if she couldn’t say it to Becca, who could she ever say it to?

Elijah, once upon a time…

She smothered a wince, even though there was no one there to see it.

“That…is a very valid concern,” Becca said slowly.  “So is that part of the reason you’re going to do something more stupidly dangerous than any stunt I’ve ever pulled?”

“Part, yes.”  She leaned back in her chair, the old wood and springs creaking.  “But it’s more than that.  It’s about making sure others are safe—you, Elijah, my sisters and everyone else that they might call down a hunt on.  They’ve already called one on Elijah.  It’s only a matter of time before they decide its safe to reach further.”

“How much time do you think we’ve got before that happens?”  Becca asked softly.

She rocked upright in the chair.  “No, Becca.  This isn’t your fight, it’s mine.  You need to stay out of it.  Vampiric power plays are not something you need to get involved in.  All I need for you to do is to make sure Elijah’s okay if something happens to me—hell, even if nothing happens to me.  I just need you to take care of him.  He won’t talk to me right now.  I shouldn’t talk to him right now.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid of what I’d say,” Beckett sighed.  “Something tells me he knows a lot of the truths I realized a long time ago, the truths that the elders want you to think are just figments of our imagination.”

“Like what?  Like love, you mean?”

“Mm-hmm.  That thing we’re not supposed to be able to do, to really feel.  We’re dead, after all.  The dead can’t love.”

“Except when they can.  Are they really trying to sell you on that bullshit?”

“A lot of us are buying, Becca.  There’s something twistedly reassuring about it.”  She shook her head, staring at herself in the glass.  “Can you imagine knowing that you’d have to live with all of your pain for the rest of your relative immortality?  Every mistake you’ve made, every minor or major wrong you’ve done?  It would drive about half of my kindred insane before they made it six months.”

“So how do you live with it?”

“I cope,” Beckett said.  “I hang onto what’s good, learn from the bad and try to right the worst of the wrongs I’ve done.  I find balance between woman and monster.”

“Mmm,” Becca said.  “We’ll have to continue this discussion later.  I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

She must have just looked at the clock.  “You have a class to teach in the morning?”

“Linguistics 101.  McConaway’s on sabbatical.”  Becca paused, quiet for a moment.  “Look, Cam, I’ve got my next sabbatical coming up in the winter semester.  If I asked you to come with me to Alberta—”

“I would come, but do you really want me to?”

Her friend let out a frustrated sigh.  “I don’t know.”

“When you decide, tell me,” Beckett said, starting to get up.  “Go get some sleep.”

“G’night, Cam.  What’re you going to do?”

“Plan my vengeance.  It’s going to be a process, I think.”

There was another silence on the other end of the line, then, “Good luck.”

Becca hung up, leaving her alone in silence.

At some point, perhaps both of these projects will amount to more than just scribblings and half-written plots. Whether or not that’s the case certainly remains to be seen.  Both of these characters–Rebecca Reid and Beckett–are figures in the shadows of New York, supernatural players in the world known to be real by only a few.

The men and women of UNSETIC are among the ones who know the truth.

Excerpts copyright 2011 Erin M. Klitzke.

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 

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Nanowrimo: The final countdown to November

It’s T-minus two days to Nanowrimo.  For the first time in several years, I won’t be able to stay up until midnight Halloween night to get my first thousand words in before 2am on November 1.  I blame my new position at the store for these things, but I suppose a night’s rest and eight hours at the store won’t kill my creative process before I have a chance to get started.

This year’s project is something entirely new in an old setting.  It’s the sequel to Epsilon: Broken Stars (which was released on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon yesterday), called Epsilon: Redeemer.  It’s a change of PoV from Aaron Taylor, a trip into the head of Lucas Ross.

All those things he could never say to Aaron?  Now readers are going to know what some of them were.

My plotting process this year is proving to be much, much different than it has been in past years.  All of my other Nanowrimo projects over the years (When All’s Said and Done, When Angels Cry, Fate and Second Chances, an untitled fantasy piece, Awakenings, The Last Colony, and Ashes to Ashes) have been in new universes or universes created the year before (When All’s Said and Done and When Angels Cry are both in the Lost Angels universe, Fate and Second Chances and the untitled fantasy piece are in the same universe, and The Last Colony and Ashes to Ashes are both in the same universe).  Never have I worked with a universe like my Epsilon universe, where I’ve lived with it and developed it over the course of more than a decade.  Furthermore, the story of Epsilon: Redeemer will fit neatly into a three year gap between Epsilon: Broken Stars and an untitled project based on notes and concepts that originally appeared in drafts 1-3 of Epsilon (back when the project was one big–or two big–books).  In essence, I’ve stepped into somewhat uncharted territory in a universe where I know what’s gone before and what will happen after, but not the specifics of what’s happened in between.

I’m also doing it with a new character, one that didn’t exist before the draft of what became Epsilon: Broken Stars.

That’s right, Lucas Ross didn’t exist before Aaron’s story came to Caldin.  I actually came up with the idea for him as part of a short-lived Epsilon universe science fiction game (born as a “what if characterX had a brother and he joined the Resistance?”) and his importance completely snowballed from there.

And now he’s going to have his own book.

I started plotting in earnest this morning, mostly because I didn’t want to be tempted to start actually writing him before November 1.  He’s one of those characters that curls up in the back of your brain and lurks, waiting to be let out.  He’s a bit lower key than either Aaron Taylor or Caren Flannery and much less bitter than the former.  He’s got secrets, and it’ll be tricky to figure out when to reveal them–and how.

There’s a lot of stuff that he knows that he couldn’t tell Aaron.

The truth is, Lucas Ross is part of my attempt to make Aaron’s father, Daniel, a more sympathetic character in the long term, rather than just the monster Aaron thinks he is.  We’ll see how well I succeed in that when the time comes.

Now, however, I have to get back to my notecard outlining.

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