C. Litka's Blog, page 71

Done, I hope

First off, I am considering changing the title of Planets of Call to Secrets of the Lost Star.Not only is it more suggestive of the wellspring of the story, but echoes the titles of the three other volumes that make up this long novel – Captain of the Lost Star, Battles of the Lost Star and Ghosts of the Lost Star. Any opinions?
I finished the latest "final" read through of Ghosts of the Lost Star today, and I'm thinking it was indeed, the final one. I was content to do some fine tuning (which I feel the need to do for anything I've written, any time I read it), trimmed a thousand needless words and didn't feel the need to make significant changes. I think I'm done. Finally. My proof reader won't be able to get to it for a few weeks, but I'm planning on a mid-Sept. release date.
Secrets of the Lost Star (lets see if I can get used to calling it that) is essentially a boxed set of an unreleased trilogy. But since the three volumes together tell a complete story, I'm going to cut to the chase and release the work as one long novel. While it weighs in at a daunting 324,500 words, I originally set out to write a serial adventure, and it largely retains an episodic format, which, I think, allows it to be read one's own pace.
In the coming days, I'm planning to post more details about the story of the interplanetary freighter Lost Star and the story behind the writing of it.

The Bright Black Sea Progress Report

I've just about finished my second final read through of Ghosts of the Lost Star, part three of The Bright Black Sea and I find that, like the last time, I'm still hoping that the next final read through will be the final read though. I'll always find words to change and sentences to rearrange no matter how many times I read through something I've written, but when I start adding whole paragraphs and changing the how things play out, which has been the case in the first two final reads I know I'm not finished. I need to read everything I write at least twice, with a break in between, to have confidence in what I've written, so I'll have to go over everything at least one more time to make sure the new additions work. I'm under no deadline, but I'd like to clear my desk so that I can turn to something new. I'm looking at an early September release date now. The fist two parts are done and proof read, so it's only this last 1/3 of the novel that needs to be finished and proof read.
I began this project with the idea of writing a serial adventure – a closely linked series of short stories set aboard an interplanetary tramp freighter. I thought I'd do all sorts of different types of stories within the series – adventures, mysteries, humor, even the supernatural – within this format. However, that plan ran on the rocks rather quickly. First because I'm only getting up steam when I pass the 10K word mark, so short stories became novellas. And then there's the fact that I've come to realize that I'm not really page-turning thriller type of writer. You want cliffhangers in serials, which means you cut the story off 3/4 of the way through and include the last 1/4 in the next installment. Not really the type of writing, or reading, I care to do. And then there was the opened ended nature of a serial – never knowing where it's going and always having to come up with a new story to keep it going – which made me uncomfortable. I'd this fear that I'd run out of ideas and leave the story just hanging. Orphaned. So I felt that before I could consider publishing it, I needed to write a stockpile of stories just tide me over if I should run dry. I wrote the first five sections which ended with a good break point, so I decided to lump them together and launch the series with one 104K word novel. But then, of course, I still needed a backlog, so I started on the second volume... and halfway through that, I discovered how it all ended, and so, I decided, what the heck, I'd just write the whole story and publish it as one long novel.
I ended up writing it in three volumes, The Captain of the Lost Star, Drifting to Despar, and The Ghosts of the Lost Star. They make up one 320K word novel that goes under the title of The Bright Black Sea. Each volume had an end point that would've allowed them to stand on their own as part of a series, but since I'm not in the business of writing or publishing so there is no commercial reason to do this. I'll just make it simple and publish all three parts together as the novel they're meant to be.  

Note: Updated this post to reflect the current working title: The Bright Black Sea, A Golden Age Inspired Interplanetary Adventure

Planets of Call Progress Report

I've just about finished my second final read through of Ghosts of the Lost Star, part three of Planets of Call and I find that, like the last time, I'm still hoping that the next final read through will be the final read though. I'll always find words to change and sentences to rearrange no matter how many times I read through something I've written, but when I start adding whole paragraphs and changing the how things play out, which has been the case in the first two final reads I know I'm not finished. I need to read everything I write at least twice, with a break in between, to have confidence in what I've written, so I'll have to go over everything at least one more time to make sure the new additions work. I'm under no deadline, but I'd like to clear my desk so that I can turn to something new. I'm looking at an early September release date now. The fist two parts are done and proof read, so it's only this last 1/3 of the novel that needs to be finished and proof read.
I began this project with the idea of writing a serial adventure – a closely linked series of short stories set aboard an interplanetary tramp freighter. I thought I'd do all sorts of different types of stories within the series – adventures, mysteries, humor, even the supernatural – within this format. However, that plan ran on the rocks rather quickly. First because I'm only getting up steam when I pass the 10K word mark, so short stories became novellas. And then there's the fact that I've come to realize that I'm not really page-turning thriller type of writer. You want cliffhangers in serials, which means you cut the story off 3/4 of the way through and include the last 1/4 in the next installment. Not really the type of writing, or reading, I care to do. And then there was the opened ended nature of a serial – never knowing where it's going and always having to come up with a new story to keep it going – which made me uncomfortable. I'd this fear that I'd run out of ideas and leave the story just hanging. Orphaned. So I felt that before I could consider publishing it, I needed to write a stockpile of stories just tide me over if I should run dry. I wrote the first five sections which ended with a good break point, so I decided to lump them together and launch the series with one 104K word novel. But then, of course, I still needed a backlog, so I started on the second volume... and halfway through that, I discovered how it all ended, and so, I decided, what the heck, I'd just write the whole story and publish it as one long novel.
I ended up writing it in three volumes, The Captain of the Lost Star, Drifting to Despar, and The Ghosts of the Lost Star. They make up one 320K word novel that goes under the title of Planets of Call. Each volume had an end point that would've allowed them to stand on their own as part of a series, but since I'm not in the business of writing or publishing so there is no commercial reason to do this. I'll just make it simple and publish all three parts together as the novel they're meant to be.  

Feedback

First off, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment on my work. I appreciate both your kind words and your criticisms. I have and will continue to address the concerns expressed by issuing revised copies as errors are pointed out to me, and, I assure you, I will never again make a major revision after the work has been proof read, like I did with A Summer in Amber. I'm not to be trusted to read my own work. In any event, thanks again for taking the time to write.
In the last dozen years I've sold and displayed my paintings, and I have always enjoyed the interaction I've had with my customers and the viewers of my art. (Which can be found here: http://litka.deviantart.com/) And I certainly welcome your comments on my writing as well.
There are several ways you can communicate with me. You can leave comments on these blog pages. I check in ever couple of days, and will respond to all comments.
You can start a discussion or ask a question on my author page at Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/C.-Litka/e/B00X2OB7G2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1437832953&sr=8-1
You can also ask questions on my Goodreads page as well:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13856675.C_Litka
Or if you want to drop me a line by email, I can be reached at: booksbyclitka@outlook.com

I'm looking forward to hearing from you. 

Coming up next: The Bright Black Sea

I am looking to publish my rather sprawling (320K word) space opera The Bright Black Sea Sept 2015 timeframe. I've written it in three volumes, and two are complete and proof read. I have to give the third volume one last read, again. I'm hoping it will go better than the last last read through. I ended up making way too many changes to consider it a final version. Hopefully this time it will be just fine tuning.

Once I sign off on it, it'll be proof read and ready for publication. And with that, I'll have cleared my desk of six years of writing projects, and will have to decide what, if anything, I want to write next.

I'll have more about The Bright Black Sea in the coming weeks. But for now, here's the cover. I'm keeping a standard look and feel for my covers. I've picked this style for two reason – I can do it all myself, and it looks rather old-fashioned, matching the type of books I write. 



Note: The above cover was the first design with one of the titles I've been toying with. I've had a devil of a time coming up with the title. Below is the current cover of The Bright Black Sea

Coming up next: Planets of Call

I am looking to publish my rather sprawling (320K word) space opera Planets of Call in the Aug/Sept 2015 timeframe. I've written it in three volumes, and two are complete and proof read. I have to give the third volume one last read, again. I'm hoping it will go better than the last last read through. I ended up making way too many changes to consider it a final version. Hopefully this time it will be just fine tuning.

Once I sign off on it, it'll be proof read and ready for publication. And with that, I'll have cleared my desk of six years of writing projects, and will have to decide what, if anything, I want to write next.

I'll have more about Planets of Call in the coming weeks. But for now, here's the cover. I'm keeping a standard look and feel for my covers. I've picked this style for two reason – I can do it all myself, and it looks rather old-fashioned, matching the type of books I write. 

Some Day Days is Now Available

Some Day Days, is now available (10 July 2015) as an ebook at Smashwords. com for FREE in a variety of formats and at Amazon for $.99. Within a week or so, it should also be available as an ebook from iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo for FREE. After that, I'll inform Amazon that they're being undersold, and I would hope they will discount Some Day Days by 100% and sell if for FREE

"Some Day Days" Ready to Go

Just a quick update. I will be publishing Some Day Days on 9 July 2015 at Smashwords.com and Amazon. 

The Smashwords edition will be FREE from the get-go. Amazon requires a minimum $.99 price, however, they will, at their discretion match the price of their competitors. They did that for A Summer in Amber, but only in the U.S. store, and only after I call to their attention the fact that iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo were offering it for FREE. This process may take a week or two, since it takes about a week for iBooks, B&N, and Kobo to get copies from Smashwords. However, Smashwords will have a FREE Mobi version of the book which can be side-loaded to a Kindle, if you can't wait until Amazon reduces the price or live outside the U.S. My attitude is that I'm sharing not selling my work, but Amazon reaches too many readers to pass up. At $.99 I don't think I'm ripping anyone off, but I'd rather have people read and enjoy my work than make a few cents I don't need.

I should also note that I've made a small change to the title. It's now Some Day Days, rather than Someday Days. Apparently the compound word "someday" is not universally accepted as a word. Go figure. English is so logical and uniform, it's startling to bump up against something that's still ill defined like that. And just to be clear, I'm being sarcastic. Nevertheless, (Can you believe that's an official word and "atleast" isn't?) Some Day Days might be a little bit more descriptive, more evocative, than Someday Days, though it looks rather odd. But then, maybe an odd looking title is a plus. Who knows?  It's Some Day Days. We're playing it safe.

Version 1.6 of A Summer in Amber is now available

The June 2015 – ver. 1.6 – update is now available. Minor grammatical corrections.
The May 2015 – ver. 1.5 – included many grammatical corrections as well as some revisions.

If you have downloaded but not yet read the book, for your best reading experience download the latest version. While I regret the necessity of making these changes after publication – the sin of doing a large rewrite after proof-reading – ebook publishing does allow me to make corrections, and I am committed to correcting any remaining errors. Leave your favorites in the comment section below for the next revision. Thank you. 

New Novel "Someday Days" Coming 9 July 2015

This is a rather accidental novel. Six years ago I set out to write a short story that told its story itself, as opposed to a narrator on high telling you this happened and then that happened, etc. Well, the characters came to life for me, and I went on to imagine many more stories and incidents in their young lives. Over the years, I've managed to set the first dozen stories in words, making up this volume of Hugh Gallagher's memoirs of his first love. 

Someday Days is the second of three books I plan on releasing this year. The first was A Summer in Amber, and after this one, is my science fiction space opera, Planets of Call which I hope to release in August 2015. More about that work in the coming weeks.

I'm planning on releasing Someday Days on  9 July 2015 at Smashwords.com for $ FREE.  From there it will be sent to Barnes & Nobel, iBooks, & Kobo, a process that takes about a week. Amazon requires that I set a price, so it will be $.99 at Amazon. Once it is in the competing ebookstores, I'll call that to Amazon's attention and they may reduce their price to $0 as well, at least in the U.S. store.

The official short blurb & description for Someday Days: 


Be careful what you wish for – wishes can come true, as Hugh Gallagher discovers when the girl of his dreams, the incomparable Selina Beri, comes seeking his expertise on a piece of technology she needs to understand for her last final exam. Can Hugh, the classic shy, geeky, university student, avoid making a fool of himself with the girl he's loved from afar? A romance set in the near future.
This is something of an experimental work, along the lines of Frankenstein. The original subtitle was a romance in an undetermined number of pieces of which this is the first 12. It began life as a a noveletta, to which I added a novella length sequel, and then, in my imagination, more and more pieces of the story, until I had a memoir of a four year romance, of which this work covers only the first six months. I use the word pieces to describe it's parts because no one term describes them all. I have the original novella, its longer sequel, several chapters of varying length, an essay, and a gaming story and a ghost story, tied together as the memoir of Hugh Gallagher, a third year student reading Physics and Philosophy at Oxford University, let's say twenty years from now. It does, however, have a beginning, middle and an end, and thus, the essentials of a novel. Since it is the beginning novel of a series of novels (that are not likely to be written), it focused on introducing a variety of characters that have parts to play throughout the projected series, rather than a laser-like focus on taking the story from point A to point Zed.
The first piece, Kiss of the White Witch is a result of two challenges. The first came from reading on a blog, I believe – a challenge to write a short story centered on the effects of some piece of technology in the future. I chose to write about a device that would record one's day on video as a "dynamic diary" or a "dyary". While this was before Google Glass, there were the first crude devices along this line being developed at the time. So the story centers on just what such a device might mean in everyday life. The second challenge came from reading the stories of one of my wife's coworkers. It struck me that too much of the story was simply being told to the reader, rather than allowing it to play out. Talk being cheap and it's easy to be a critic, I decided to see if I could do it better. If I could write a story that unfolded mostly in dialog. The result was Kiss of the White Witch.
After several drafts of that story, I found myself thinking how I could bring the two characters back together again, and eventually wrote a sequel, A Shattered Heartwhich is the second piece in this work.It is a longer novella length piece, but could not really stand on its own, so with these two pieces being too short for anything, there was nothing to do, but plow ahead. Over the following months I daydreamed and wrote drafts of the "pieces" that make up this work, while taking it in my imagination four years ahead. Daydreaming is one thing, actually writing it down is another, but over the last six years, I've managed to finish the dozen pieces that make up this volume of Hugh Gallagher's memoirs. Unfortunately, this is likely to be the only volume. There's too much of a "been there, done that" feeling to the whole saga for me to get exited about returning to Hugh's romantic saga. I did offer to add an addenda on the end of this work outlining the subsequent events, but Hugh would have nothing to do with that, "It's my story to tell. Or not. I'll tell it my way, or not at all," (Artists! Even a small literary work sparks an artistic temperament!) Well, I guess it is his story to tell, so I've honored his wishes – though I did cheat a little in my book A Summer in Amber. Don't tell Hugh.
As for the story is a simple story of first love and friendship set in Oxford and Cambridge England. It reflects my taste for the understated, humor, and clever writing (though that's a goal rather than a claim.) Raymond Chandler wrote that there are two types of writers, writers who write stories and writers who write writing. I aspire to write writing. I wrote the first several pieces of Someday Days six years ago, and finished the last several, last year, so this work spans my current writing phase.
Someday Days – a little romance of first love set in the near future by the author of A Summer in Amber, is available at most fine ebook sellers.And coming late summer/early fall 2015 Planets of Call, an long space opera with a golden age of science fiction touch.