Summer Update & Wine Tasting!

Here in these dog days of summer, we pause to reflect on what could've been but wasn't. A taste, yes, but not a full drunken orgy of disease and destruction. The 10-year FLU SEASON that was, in our reality, nipped in the bud. A six-book series (five thus far) that came from that momentary hiccup to our daily lives in the ripe old year of 2020. Drink up!

Last month Book 4 of the series launched. THE BOOK OF DAD was billed as a sequel to the trilogy and continues the saga of the Baumann family. The drama begins with the tuba saved after World War II (we learn that fact in Book 3) and it is subsequently passed down from generation to generation. Along the way, as family members struggle through the pandemic and the lawlessness that follows, we follow the emergence of a very different society. In the capital city of the restored nation, Fritz, the poor hero of Book 4, tries to sort out his miserable life after returning from mandatory rehabilitation, now estranged from his family, given a menial job and a tiny unit to sleep in, surveilled constantly with weekly counseling sessions to prevent backsliding. The city is run by Big Sister who models her efforts on the farm where she grew up - or is it just as much of a lie as what they claim he professes in that video he made of his elderly mother (Isla) telling the truth about everything that happened?

In that novel, we meet his 10-year old daughter Maggie in a few scenes. In the sequel to the sequel, Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER (coming in fall 2024), we meet Maggie again but as a young woman living out west. We follow her through her efforts to start a kids' band in her small town with the help of a musical instrument salesman. There are many obstacles to overcome. But those efforts lead to bigger events in her life, including a major turn in society. Book 6: THE GRANDSON opens fifteen years after the end of Book 5, and is in the drafting stage (I know how it ends) and should be out in 2025.

I've been winging it from the start - a true "pantser" who writes by the seat of his pants - yet the story has been clear in my mind. I've played fast and loose with hard facts. I never name actual cities until Book 5. I never give precise dates so the series will not become "dated" years from now. I give a generic start as "the sixth year of the pandemic" when autistic teen Sandy and his single mother Polly, the tuba player, escape from a city in chaos for the hope of sanctuary on his grandparents' farm. Sandy's daughter, Isla, is born in the seventh year of the pandemic. In Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, Isla narrates her life from 4 years to her final day at age 79.

Now I have to count back and forward to make a proper timeline as I work on Book 6. But I know the overall story. If the series begins in our actual year of 2020, and Isla is born in the seventh year of the pandemic, that would, mathematically speaking, be in 2027. A life lived up to 79 would bring us, as readers, to the year 2106. Now go back 10 years to when the heroine of Book 5 was born. Then add 50 years to the story covered in Book 5. And so on. It can be quite maddening - maddening, I tell you!

But that is half (or maybe closer to three-quarters) of the fun of crafting a multi-generation family saga. 

I awaken with the thought "Wonder what he/she/they are doing today? What trouble will they get into that I alone may save them from? or should I let them be, just watch and see what happens and then write about it?" That is often the writer's craft. It is also the chief hobby of the retired class: to sit back and observe the world going by. In Book 6: The Grandson, I'm still deciding who will tell the story. So far, a few different characters have shared what they know. I am merely collecting their stories for easy reading. The most important character in the book is the one who is dead.

Ensconced in my air-cooled abode, I type. And, having typed, I move on.

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