tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27454925619631698922024-03-18T04:48:22.372-05:00DeConstruction of the Sekuatean EmpireMusings and Amusings about the novels of Stephen Swartz, especially The Dream Land TrilogyDeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.comBlogger407125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-82699016881067017562024-02-25T07:40:00.001-06:002024-02-25T07:40:44.590-06:00What An Amazing February! More music & updates!What a month! The shortest month is always full of so many events I can hardly keep up. First was the Day of the Groundhog (not the horror film), in which I simultaneously began the process of moving to a new 'writing studio' (at which I shall also eat, wash, sleep, and collect mail). Next came my child's birthday, which is no longer a big deal now that she's well into adulthood. Then, be still DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-12854000551499174972024-01-21T00:27:00.000-06:002024-01-21T00:27:52.092-06:00The Musical Life of an AuthorGreetings for 2024!I hope you had a lovely holiday period and are rested and ready for all the new year has in store for you. As for me, I continue dabbling at yet another novel in my FLU SEASON series, revising Book 4 and starting Book 5.However, for those of you who may only know me as a writer of dubious fiction, in my previous life I was actually deep into music and known as a tuba player andDeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-80103441925933753712023-12-24T12:56:00.000-06:002023-12-24T12:56:40.218-06:00The Holidays Post (Updated)The following was originally posted in 2020. This is an edited update.Following the National Novel Writing Month debacle [which I did not participate in this year], I expected to post immediately to debunk my rambling missives or, more likely, to vent a few high-brow words I'd not been able to use during this year, to whit: debacle, debunk, missive, vent, [and] whit. But each weekend came and DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-2233184247021951512023-12-09T21:05:00.001-06:002023-12-09T21:06:33.218-06:00Plot Twists & How to Get ThemI don't usually compare my books with other authors' books. It's not that there aren't good comparisons. I tend to read other novels while writing my own, sometimes of a similar theme or at least in the same genre; other times completely different. Either way, I find that reading a story (or seeing a film) pushes the part of my brain that I need pushed in order for me to write. I feel like DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-61554273353745704522023-11-19T01:37:00.000-06:002023-11-19T01:37:17.087-06:00The Future of Money......And the Nature of WorkYou may have noticed that I've cut back on blogging to write on my latest novel, a sequel to my pandemic/post-pandemic trilogy FLU SEASON. It follows after what happens in Book 3: Dawn of the Daughters and tells the story of the grown-up last child of our Book 3 heroine. As society returns to its pre-pandemic form and rebuilding brings us to a new era, we find a society DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-325319984527063712023-10-14T21:06:00.000-05:002023-10-14T21:06:19.197-05:00"1984" Reinvented as FLU SEASON 4Probably not what you're thinking about today. You're likely focused on football, colorful leaves, Halloween, and pumpkin spice lattes. Certainly not the novel 1984 by George Orwell or countless movie versions of the story of a repressive society in the near future. To be honest, neither am I. However....Like many teens, I first read 1984 for a class in high school. It was one sci-fi novel DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-79428024644982137992023-09-24T11:08:00.000-05:002023-09-24T11:08:12.477-05:00Avez-vous des souvenirs?Got souvenirs?This topic has been bugging me for some time. As you may know, I went on a road trip at the beginning of the summer with the intention to visit some places I had visited long ago and some places I had yet to visit but had always wanted to see. I never planned to take lots of pictures and create an amazing travelogue, something to equal tourism pamphlets. It was a personal trip. I DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-9676695333327612922023-09-10T11:10:00.002-05:002023-09-10T11:10:28.614-05:00The Retirement Project vs The SunsetWhen I was thirteen and full of stories, I had one idea which I knew was too big for me to work on as a teenager. I started writing the story at thirteen, then put it away, overwhelmed by its scope. When I was in college, I wrote more on it before putting it away again. I knew I had plenty of time. Then I wrote it all out as a screenplay because at that time I was interested in going into the DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-62737528311491349342023-08-27T15:47:00.001-05:002023-08-27T15:47:55.780-05:00FLU SEASON 3: Dawn of the DaughtersLAUNCHING Sept. 1, 2023!The conclusion to my pandemic/post-pandemic trilogy is about to launch. Officially it is September 1, 2023, but you can pre-order the Kindle edition now. Paperback edition will be available on September 1, too, so you will have something to read over the long weekend.If you have read Books 1 and 2, then you know what's been happening and will feel right at home on page 1 DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-5249453259832042452023-08-20T13:21:00.000-05:002023-08-20T13:21:19.237-05:00THEN & NOWThe Journey is CompleteNow that FLU SEASON 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS is finished and available for pre-order (delivered to your Kindle on September 1, 2023; paperback also available on that date), I can shift from my summer travelogue to a reflection of the writing life. It's been a long journey and, like the tip of an iceberg, most of you don't see everything going on beneath the surface of 'DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-38749263010382351882023-08-12T15:35:00.000-05:002023-08-12T15:35:38.496-05:00On The Road Again - 8My Summer Road Trip, part 8The hardest part of any endeavor is the end. As a writer, deciding when to end a story, much less a novel, is hard. Deciding when you've said enough and any more would detract from the whole is hard. This includes going on a trip. When have you had enough?As I traveled I devised bigger plans, grandiose ideas, lofty goals. Yet by the time I had checked off the main DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-60977466512979258352023-08-06T11:19:00.000-05:002023-08-06T11:19:12.982-05:00On The Road Again - 7My Summer Road Trip, part 7No, wait! There's more! What can one do after destroying Bozeman and flirting with Yellowstone? Go north, young man! (Tip o' the Day: You can click on the pics to enlarge them.)So I went. After a study of carefully unfolded paper maps lain across my hotel bed, I determined my next move in the great game. I got on I-90 once more, that accursed strip of asphalt, so DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-15079171382866581902023-07-28T04:35:00.000-05:002023-07-28T04:35:19.690-05:00On The Road Again - 6My Summer Road Trip, part 6I wasn't planning to visit Yellowstone National Park on this trip. However, once I got my Senior Lifetime Member card, the parks' the limit! I knew Yellowstone was near Bozeman, me being a map geek, so it seemed like something I should do, especially as I had begun sending selfies to my cousin by way of boasting about the many places I was DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-551326361586946802023-07-21T22:51:00.000-05:002023-07-21T22:51:18.152-05:00On The Road Again - 5My Summer Road Trip, part 5I didn't actually throw a dart at a map to decide where to go. I had a plan. After visiting three minor destinations (Cedar Falls, Waldorf College, Devil's Gulch), I drove on to visit three major destinations (Badlands National Park, Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower). After leaving Sheridan, WY, with a stop at the Little Bighorn Battlefield memorial and a detour through DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-62961531982843042412023-07-14T14:41:00.000-05:002023-07-14T14:41:35.568-05:00On The Road Again - 4My Summer Road Trip, part 4If you've stuck with me so far, it's about to get better. I began with some minor goals, completed them, then swung out into the great unknown for bigger fish to fry. I toured the Badlands like yo mama did, then continued on for more, heading west to Rapid City.As was my plan, I got off the dreadful I-90 and took a lesser highway south into the Black Hills, a DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-7509417465571376572023-07-07T00:16:00.002-05:002023-07-07T00:23:56.237-05:00On The Road Again - 3My Summer Road Trip, part 3I understand the expectation of an exciting, grandiose travelogue that thrills the imagination, but this is not it. It's personal. I had particular goals for my trip and I achieved all of them and went home. Not too exciting. But wait! There's more!In both 2013 and 2019 my travel took me north along the extreme eastern edge of South Dakota. I wanted to go west this timeDeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-31809590844473182052023-06-30T00:14:00.000-05:002023-06-30T00:14:54.373-05:00On The Road Again - 2My Summer Road Trip, part 2I understand that not everyone would drive so far just to go past a house from one's childhood, but that's me. In childhood trips with my parents, it seemed that my father loved to drive more than arrive. It seemed he tried to see how far he could go away from home. We did arrive at places, of course, but that was only a side-effect of the driving. I recall one DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-60151988424642255802023-06-24T23:53:00.000-05:002023-06-24T23:53:11.268-05:00On The Road AgainMy Summer Road Trip, part 1So there I was: eating a rather inauthentic burrito in a no-star Mexican restaurant on the north side of Independence, Missouri. I sat at the south end of a long table, the other end bedecked with a tall birthday cake while various relations whooped and hollered in celebration of one of my cousin's birthday. Suddenly, between bites, I had an epiphany: I could just leaveDeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-77281641290577870972023-06-18T09:37:00.004-05:002023-06-18T09:39:40.412-05:00Fictional Fathers for Father's Day - Update #2I've just finished a dystopian trilogy, FLU SEASON, about a quirky family dealing with a pandemic and the violent fallout from that devastating reality.Book 1 and 2 are out and Book 3 is finished and coming out this fall. The narrator of Book 1 and 2 is a teen son, describing in Book 1 his sassy never-married mom ("The Book of Mom") and in Book 2 his own family ("The Way of the Son"). So far the DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-68707137524940907012023-05-27T22:23:00.000-05:002023-05-27T22:23:15.061-05:00Winning the Trifecta!!!In honor of the launching of the second book in my third trilogy, FLU SEASON, I thought I would wax poetic over my three trilogies and how they came about and how they proceeded. Of course the third book of my third trilogy has yet to be published but it is complete and considered finished, so it counts. Now I have a set of three trilogies and thus have achieved the Trifecta! These nine volumes DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-10274924007728549522023-05-21T12:43:00.001-05:002023-05-21T12:43:58.751-05:00The FLU SEASON Trilogy: Doing What I DoIt has been a week since my new novel FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON launched and the excitement of that minimalistic day still lingers. The thrill of seeing my finger push that button to send a tweet into the void sizzles even now. It's all about the thrill, you see. I really can't stop. It's like a role-playing game and I get to play all the characters and make them do what I want them to do.DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-71013502942018271462023-05-07T00:39:00.000-05:002023-05-07T00:39:13.644-05:00FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON Launches!Hurray! The Way of the Son, the second book in my pandemic trilogy, FLU SEASON, has launched! Paperback is available now and the ebook for Kindle will be delivered May 15 although you can pre-order it now. Click the links.Sanctuary from a pandemic is only good if you can stay there. When Sandy and his young family are exiled from the island, he struggles to find a way to save them while they faceDeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-23700404937438857052023-04-23T02:24:00.001-05:002023-04-23T17:02:21.516-05:00Pandemic Fiction: The Evil That Writers DoActually, I don't know what I'm doing.For a while now, I've gotten up in the mornings and gone immediately to my computer to write the next whatever in this file some might call a role-playing game. Before I fully awaken I am immersing myself into a fantasy world, not as a character, not even as an observer (well, sometimes), but as a god, creating everything, pulling all the strings (though someDeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-4416370217298099952023-03-26T05:24:00.000-05:002023-03-26T05:24:45.472-05:00Reconciling Past & PresentLife happens a little too fast sometimes. For example, I was minding my own business, hard at work revising the second book in my pandemic trilogy, FLU SEASON, when I was contacted by another author concerning a semi-biographical novel I wrote a few years ago: A GIRL CALLED WOLF.Well, I do like to talk about my books. So the result was me being interviewed for a podcast by Nick Alimonos, DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2745492561963169892.post-29478220406350694552023-02-25T12:36:00.000-06:002023-02-25T12:36:12.075-06:00The Writer's AbyssIt's starting to hurt again.Even before I am completely finished, like with revisions and editing, I feel that shadow creeping up behind me, ready to engulf me. It's the writer's greatest fear: the abyss. What abyss? You know: that one: the bottomless pit of deadly indolence, where writers who've just finished a book go to scream at the walls for another story idea and hear only the echo of DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15652207370325098073noreply@blogger.com0