On keeping up with the Future

Most novels cover a certain span of time, and we see characters develop over that timeline, regardless of flashbacks or foreshadowing. Some science fiction is set in the future so we begin the story ahead of the present. For writers of science fiction, this can be tricky. Far enough in the future and the author will be long gone and perhaps the copyright expired and the work forgotten so it won't matter how the years turn over after the book is published.

However, writers setting a story in the near future - close enough that readers only a few years from the publication date will be able to look back and read of events which did not happen as the author wrote about them - are screwed. Unfortunately, I've fallen into that trap with the second and third volumes of my vampire trilogy. I failed to predict how the years 2020 and 2021 would actually unfold. 

My vampire trilogy begins with A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, which is the first symptom of vampire transformation our hero Stefan Szekely notices. The book is set in 2014, which is also the year in which I wrote it, and set in the same city where I lived. I actually "lived" our protagonist's experiences week by week so I was up-to-date with whatever events were happening. I included a tornado that actually struck my city. Then I wrote two more novels that were unrelated to this vampire novel.

Eventually I had pondered enough what may have happened to our hero 13 years later - thirteen being an ominous number. So I began writing the sequel, SUNRISE. I knew at the time that it would be a trilogy and I loosely planned the third book (SUNSET) while writing the second book. With the second book beginning in 2027, I felt I was sufficiently far in the future that I wouldn't need to worry about the future catching up to me. But wait!

At one point a character from the first book reappears [trying to avoid spoilers] and because they have been apart for so long, the arriving character tells our protagonist what has transpired during the absence. The narrative switches to a first-person account of the misery the character has lived through. Remember I wrote this second book in 2018, with the story set in 2027-2028. (SUNSET opens in 2099 so we're good.) Then we learn in the pages what happened in 2020: nothing particular. No virus, no pandemic, no lockdowns, no vaccine - as we have seen play out.

Here's the scene, where Penny Park is explaining to Stefan:

Then I got the reality check for real: the mirror.

Remember the mirror, Stefan? We used to stand naked in front of that wide mirror in my bathroom, side by side, staring at ourselves. One woman, one man. You were slender, a geek. Me with no boobs. We were a couple. Those were good days. But you know mirrors can lie. You told me that more than a few times. Especially when you started poking at those dry patches on your face. You cursed the mirror. Then you turned them down or covered them, you said. You refused to look at yourself. But I saw you. I looked at you, Stefan. I was your mirror, and I saw you falling apart. Every single day. I still went ahead and put my eyes on you, no matter how bad you looked.

March 15, 2020. The next worst day of my life. I stared at myself in the mirror. I saw the patch on my cheek. Brown. Scaly. Itchy. Mottled edges, sort of diamond-shaped. If I had never met you I wouldn’t have a clue what it was or how I might have gotten it. I would try what you did, what I first suggested: apply some lotion. Dry skin needs lotion. And hydration. I can’t laugh anymore at how many times I told you to hydrate. Your skin was too dry, so hydrate. Remember?

You know me: I hydrate like a fish. So that was not my problem. I tried lotions, which softened the patch—patches, eventually, on my face, shoulders, back, also my chest. There didn’t seem enough lotion in all the stores of the mall to cover my needs.

But I did know you, so I had a clue. A creeping feeling started to run up my spine.

I know what you’re thinking: Why does she have this problem? She is not Hungarian. She doesn’t have those genes. And she eats a ton of garlic in that Korean food. I wondered that, too. It made no sense. But there I was, naked in front of the mirror in the bathroom, examining myself, staring at my brown-patchy skin, wondering what to do.

And my mother walked in!

“What are you doing?” she asked, half in shock to see me naked.

“I was about to take a shower,” I told her. “I was checking these . . . a few spots of bad skin.”

She stepped closer and took a look at them. She doesn’t have any medical training, but she is a mother. That must count for something, right? But she had no idea. Then it was déjà-vu all over again: “You better see dermatologist.” 

So she gets some medical problem, sure, but she doesn't mention the entire world having a medical problem. Yes, everything is serious in 2027, as though there is a world-wide problem, but nothing is mentioned about what we have all come to experience in 2020-2021. 

What to do? I could explain it away as her focusing only on her own personal issues and not bothering to say anything about a pandemic. I could go back and add a couple sentences to cover it, then republish the novel. Or I could let the trilogy fade into the sunset and write something new.

Well, my latest work-in-progress is about what happened in 2020-2021 and the years after. It's the pandemic novel I tried to start in March 2020 but didn't get far. We sci-fi writers are used to imagining scenarios, even truly awful situations. So when something awful actually happens, we may not feel that it's so real. I wanted to wait and see how it unfolded. More than a year later, I've seen enough that I can write my own version of a post-apocalyptic novel. This one is about a boy and his mother and a tuba. Should be out in 2022...if we live to see that day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(C) Copyright 2010-2021 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Idle of March

Time is fleeting if I am to include a blog entry for March. This may be my last chance to pen a few words on something arguably trivial. Or it may serve to jab a blade into precisely that niche where it will do the most damage. Sort of wake you up. But that's March for you. Never know what you'll get.

So I looked at posts in March from past years of this blog. The way those posts have gone, I was well underway in new novels, vampire stories for the recent years. Before those years was an epic fantasy novel. Usually I would get the idea for a novel in the fall and dabble with it, working out the plot and doing research, so that by spring it had form and function. Then I would write fast and furiously through the summer and edit/revise during the fall. 

However, the great swath of sloth I experienced during this past year threw off that timetable. Because of the general malaise impacting the reading public, I delayed the launch of a new novel (EXCHANGE) from March (pre-spring break) to late May (pre-summer vacation). That shift threw off my next novel, which had been written years before, thankfully, but had been undergoing recent revision so that I believed it was finally ready. I put out YEAR OF THE TIGER in October, keyed to the time at the story's climax. 

Thus I did not get a new idea to play with for Christmas. What I did do, while working on the publication details of the other two previously mentioned books, was to work on finishing a novel I started in a National Novel Writing Month  competition a few years back. I've blogged about that process previously. What this all means, however, is that I have nothing ramping up for the coming summer rush. This new science fiction novel will come out by the start of summer, just in time for pool and beach (or cabin and motel) reading. More on this exciting new book next time.

Given these time-adjusting events, I mistook yesterday for Friday. I also mistook Friday for Saturday. Everything is mixed up now. March begins with Pi day, which I only acknowledge by helping myself to a reasonable slice of pie. Or three. Then comes St. Patrick's Day when I serve myself corned beef and cabbage. Then comes my school's spring break. No break this year. Many schools elected to skip the week off and eliminate a week at the end of the semester. The thinking is that it is better to not have students go away, pick up some infection, and return to campus with it.

But I digress.... As I've been working on edits and revision of my forthcoming sci-fi novel, titled THE MASTERS' RIDDLE (mind the apostrophe placement), I've gotten ideas here and there for other stories. So I open a file and jot them down. Barely three sentences for most of them. I note that I've now collected about a dozen during the past year. One of them may interest me enough to give it a go, and perhaps it will prove to be novelworthy. One never knows. That's the drawback of being only one. 

So here it is, a blog post at the end of March. Enough, I dare say, to qualify, yet short enough so as to not waste too much of one's time. While I wait patiently for book cover art, I shall wish you and yours a very merry April - which happens to be National Poetry Month, thus providing me with ample blog post fodder in the form of doggerel I shall dabble anew!

--------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(C) Copyright 2010-2021 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Greetings & Salutations!

I see you. I know what books you are reading. And which books you have avoided reading. Perhaps you only read certain genre, particular themes, about characters much like yourself...or quite the opposite. Either way, I forgive you. It is not too late to pick up a copy of one of mine. The odds favor you enjoying them.

So after lazing through a dull and dreary holiday pause, I pondered the first blog post of this, the year of 2021, that of the Ox. I've been thinking of "years of" for several years and finally have brought out my novel of a similar name: YEAR OF THE TIGER which is set, as you may guess, in a year designated for tigers; in this case 1986...before computers, cell phones, social media, and TSA checkpoints and a pandemic. Although the first inkling of the complete story was composed in 1983, I waited to share it until I thought the world needed it as a profound distraction for the viral dilemma filling our lives in 2020. 

Which leads me to this blog's topic: How do I get the titles for my novels?

As 2020 turned surreptitiously into 2021, I realized that I have been at this writing effort for ten years. Sure, I wrote before, but it was not until 2011 that things began to improve exponentially. (You can read about this career arc in earlier blog posts.) I dared offer a "weaker" work to an untried publisher, willing to throw this story away if the deal fell through or I got burned by unscrupulous purveyors of publishing pomp. AFTER ILIUM is a contemporary tale of misdirected romance in the exotic setting of northwest Turkey and the ruins of ancient Troy. Troy also had the name Ilium. The 'after' part refers to what happens to our hero after he visits the site with his new, older lady friend. Much of the story is how he struggles to get back to her after they become separated. So...after Ilium. 

(Click the link in the upper right corner of this blog page to get a copy of any of these books for yourself.)

At the same time, my offering for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition that year caught the eye of another small publisher and we tried to make a go of a career launch. A novel I had already written and submitted to the ABNA became our focus: A BEAUTIFUL CHILL. While working on a revision of this campus relationship novel, I also got another novel, AIKO, involved before the publisher dropped both books, and me, over creative differences. The title of the first novel refers to a phrase the heroine says, describing a feeling of loneliness or a melancholia which can only be alleviated by brief random encounters, such as with a professor on her campus. The second novel is, obviously, a Japanese girl's name, who is the center point of a story involving a man's search for the daughter he suddenly discovers he has. He goes to Japan to claim her but it is not an easy mission.

At that time I wanted to bring forth my magnum opus, a science fiction book revolving around interdimensional voyaging, an alternate universe, and the twisted reign of a pair of high school science nerds who find their way there. I called it THE DREAM LAND, later with volume two and three, The Dream Land trilogy. Originally titled simply Dreamland, I found a book in a bookstore one day about the Coney Island amusement park in New York City which had the same title. So I changed mine to The Dreamland. And wouldn't you know it? Another book already with that title, so another change to what it is today. The three volume epic is quite the tour de force of interdimensional intrigue with a lot of steampunk elements and a fatal comet, a personal favorite.

With the vampire craze reaching its peak, I became enamored with the medical side of the condition and swore to write a medically accurate story of transformation into a vampire. I titled my novel A DRY PATCH OF SKIN after the first noticeable symptom which marks our hero's descent into monstrous madness as he seeks a cure only to surrender to his family's curse. A couple books later, I had ideas for continuing the story, making it into a trilogy, so I sought matching titles for two books and came up with SUNRISE for volume 2 and SUNSET for volume 3. They fit: Sunrise tells about his rise and reintroduction into polite society. Sunset sets the theme for the downfall of his vampire empire.

Between volume 1 and the other two of the Stefan Szekely vampire trilogy, I wrote a novel based on the real childhood of someone I met online (a relative of a Facebook friend) whose experiences I believed would make a good story. Because the heroine's name meant "wolf" in her native language, we agreed on the title A GIRL CALLED WOLF - slightly different than our first choice A Girl Named Wolf which was already a nordic folk band's name. I crafted a novel from a list of her adventures gleaned from many interviews and added a fictitious conclusion sequence.

My colleagues at Myrddin Publishing have championed the fantasy genre so I boldly declared I would write a fantasy, too. In fact, I asserted, I would title it Epic Fantasy just to make clear what it was. I was further challenged to include dragons in the story. No problem. I made the title of my longest novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS - yes, with the asterisk, just to be a little tongue-in-cheek. While starting off in an easy manner, the tale of an unjustly exiled dragonslayer on a quest to find the dragons' breeding ground and kill them all to regain his position, I found myself exploring all kinds of big ideas and profound themes by the end of it. I declared when I had finished it that I would never write again because I had "said" everything I had to say in this tome. Then I returned to the vampire theme....

In summer 2019, I had an idea burst into my head that I had to write - and put aside what was trying to be the 4th book of the vampire trilogy. EXCHANGE was a contemporary drama revolving around a mass shooting and the surviving husband/father who must put his life back together while dealing with the arrival of a Chinese exchange student who doesn't know what has happened to her host family. You can guess where the title came from, and yet there are several kinds of "exchanges" that occur throughout the story, including a couple big twists as we rush to the final pages.

The Year of the Rat (2020) was not anything like what we wanted. I delayed launching Exchange until finally I decided to hit the button. People had plenty of time to read but it seemed few were, aside from the apocalyptic plague novels. I read a few of those myself; I even tried to start writing one. Instead, I worked on yet one more revision of my YEAR OF THE TIGER novel which I had kept putting off because other books poked me more. With not much going on and nobody buying books anyway, I did the only thing I could: I put it out there onto the bookshelves of the world. I will let you guess where the title of this book came from. Hint: all the action occurs during the year 1986.

The kitschy cover for my 2014 NaNoWriMo effort.

My next novel started in the 2014 National Novel Writing Month competition, where I wrote the first 55,000 words of it but still unfinished. It is a science fiction tale of alien abduction (the alien is abducted, not a human abducted by aliens) and his escape and attempt to return home (but not at all like that movie E.T.). I'm nearing the end of a final polishing. It should be coming out by summer 2021. The title is THE MASTERS' RIDDLE - which refers to the question of why the evil captors took our hero away from his home world. It may be my last novel. 

Oh, I'll keep writing, but I may not get to the end of what I have left to work on during my idle days of retirement. Stay tuned for the amazing conclusion.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

(C) Copyright 2010-2021 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Holidays Post

Following the National Novel Writing Month debacle, 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, whit. But each weekend came and went like the remaining quarter of pie in the fridge. I had thoughts to share, yet also the whiff of extra sleep that bade me back to bed. Then I imagined leaving the month of December as a blank slate, given how so many of us were left sad and alone, surrounded by stacks of holiday gifts or locked onto our online video confrontations, leaving no time for putting weary eyes upon this weary page. However, there is still time before Stille Nacht bangs through the playlist again.

Christmas, Yule, Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, D'uoppo, sLari'i, Ma-Em-To, or whatever you celebrate. It's all good. Main thing is to get together with family and friends, usually at the excuse of a communal meal, often with added rituals, concluding with blessings and wishes for the next year to be better than the current year ending not-soon-enough. So it goes, year after year. And I always believed it would be the same, exactly the same as when I first experienced it: full of wonder, hope, and cheer, with a few toys added. But gradually, it becomes tiresome to get up and do the rituals again, feeling less and less fulfilled in the doing, and more cynical each time I try to trick myself into feeling that holiday mirth.

So it's easy to become bitter - and let's not even consider the special effects of this present year - but bitter is just another taste, or as we see on the TV ads, another "Taste Sensation!" Yes, it's a little like that: the desperate search for sparks (the opposite of triggers) which cause memories to fire and burn bright in our minds. And for an all too brief moment we can feel that same feeling as before, back when this time meant something, when we knew where we were and who we were and everything was right with the world - or, at least, our little corner of it. Then we always slip back, back to the reality we must deal with, strike a bargain, slip some cash over the transom, or write a post-dated check to Dr. Fate, the ultimate debt collector.

Ok, it's not the best holiday season this year. I recommend reading a good book. I have a few which you might enjoy. They're distracting enough that you may forget your troubles for a while. That is probably the main reason people read - more so in troubling times. Whatever works for you. I shall turn off the alarm clock, stay up late writing and editing my next book, and consume much of the dessertary substances around which I may come into contact, for whatever indulgences I indulge in at this time of the year, the follow year provides ample opportunity to forget my lapses and, indeed, to forget everything that does not fit into my perfect world view.

Happy Holidays to you and your associates, short and tall! See you on the other side.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(C) Copyright 2010-2020* by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America. (*The year 2020 only counts as 1/4  of a year.)

Welcome to 2020

Good evening. I suppose you're wondering why I've called you here today. We have unfinished business which has been overlooked for far too long.

When last I posted, it was May in the year 2019. I posted an assortment of material based on April being National Poetry Month. Apologies for verse which was, shall we say, not exactly the worst but not quite the best. Some were from the vast world of Twitter where there are strict limits on what a poet might do.

After that post, I had the best of intentions. I planned to continue the effort more or less on a three posts per month average schedule. However, I quickly became busy with personal matters. Besides, it was summer by then and I usually have taken a month off, anyway.

But summer went on and on, especially since I did not go to China to teach a summer class as in past summers. I was left with time on my hands. And I didn't know what to do. Unfortunately, more blogging never occurred to me. I decided to travel. I can share more of that adventure in upcoming posts.

At the end of the summer, I became stricken by a strange illness I later attributed to ineffective treatment of the hurricane-stricken interiors of the hotel in which I stayed. The coastal town had been battered and the hotel suffered damage. Alas, the hotel appeared completely rebuilt so I gave them my business. Upon departure, I noticed the first of what would become a long list of awful symptoms. First, I had to suffer through a week of horrible misery worse than anything I've ever imparted on any protagonist I've written.

The experience of weeks of recovery derailed again my desire to blog like there was no tomorrow. That is my story and I believe I shall stick with it. Or, in the alternative, I kept thinking I should get back to blogging but, like so many other blog attempts, I feared something would happen - meaning a tragic event - so it seemed inappropriate to post.

I missed my chance to blog again in 2019. Now I am about to miss my last opportunity to start blogging again with the first month of the new year. But as this is the Year of the Rat (or Mouse, if you prefer), I should get started again because . . . because there's probably some link between blogging and this particular mammal. It's in some ancient Chinese text somewhere. 

Therefore, you find yourself reading this post - unless you have already bailed out. If you have chosen to endure, kudos to you! 

For 2020, I shall commit to posting once a month. More often if the mood hits me or you start begging for more. Besides, I have a new novel coming out soon so it makes sense for me to get the ol' blog-a-thon rolling again. The usual suspects will likely appear: writing, my writing, amusing anecdotes, extreme diatribes, rants on the nature of nurturing, and a bit of alliteration. It is possible I may post something of interest to you at random.

U P D A T E - KC CHIEFS HAVE WON SUPER BOWL LIV 31-20. 

One of the first items on my agenda is the Kansas City Chiefs' appearance in Super Bowl 54, a mere 50 years after winning Super Bowl 4 against the Minnesota Vikings. This coming Sunday everything will be decided once more. I predict a victory for the Chiefs vs the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 38 to 24.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.