The Writing Life: Behind the Scenes of the FLU SEASON Series

Ever since we were stuck at home during our infamous lockdown era, when I blithely declared I shall write a pandemic novel because I then had enough time free to do it, I got into a regular pattern. I arose at about the same time as when I would go off to the job, grab some coffee, and sit myself at the computer freshly booted up. I would review any notes I'd made since the previous writing session as I started playing the musical soundtrack to the story. I usually had an idea of what came next so I would back up and read through what I'd previously written, editing as I went. I like to call this "thickening" the scene. I tend to write lean and go back to add all of the descriptions, character thoughts and feelings, and making sure there are enough nods and sighs. That sends me into unwritten territory. I do the best I can, knowing I will edit it the next day, and again later, as much as needed. As the music evokes the scene, I imagine sitting in a movie theater and watching the action unfold on the screen that's at the front of my mind. I try to get it all down on the computer screen as best I can.

The remainder of the day I do not write (but I continue to think through what I've just written and what may come next). Occasionally an idea flares up in the afternoon that will prompt me to write a little, at least enough that I won't forget it. Same with the evening. Once I am far enough into the story, it tends to stay with me, constantly playing in my head, sending me on scenarios of the next episode, running lines of dialog as though I've just left the theater after watching the entire movie. This cinematic process has been with me from before the pandemic pause yet it has especially been my method while working on the FLU SEASON series, which began as a stand-alone novel only to become a trilogy and now, as I work on the sixth book, a full series.

Perhaps it is easier working on a series because the world is the same, and you have the same cast of characters. However, characters grow up. That is my forte, I believe: being able to write a character as a child, then a teenager, a young adult, and on to an elderly person all while keeping the personality - and shifts of that personality due to aging and the various experiences which shape a person - identifiable as the same person. I first did that in my semi-biographical novel A GIRL CALLED WOLF where I fleshed out a compelling story of a more compelling real life of a friend of a friend. That book began in her infancy and took her up through her adult age. I hadn't planned anything but realized after finishing it that I had managed to achieve something special, yet I had to give credit to all of the then-recent study of psychology and life stages. With plenty of linguistic training, I could plausibly replicate the speech patterns of various ages, especially an uneducated child as well as an adult whose first language isn't English.

In the FLU SEASON series, I have done it again (hopefully) by bringing characters to life as babies and tending to them as they grow across the pages and even into a subsequent novel. Take Isla Baumann, for example, who is born toward the end of Book 1: THE BOOK OF MOM, narrated by Mom's teenage son Sandy. As a baby she doesn't have much to do, but in Book 2: THE WAY OF THE SON, when Sandy takes his wife and baby into the savage Outerlands, Isla starts to develop her own personality, even displaying unique supernatural powers in trying to communicate with her parents - who obviously do not understand her. At the beginning of Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, Isla is a little girl of 4 and so attuned to her environment that she can serve as narrator of the novel. She goes through her life, from a child to a teenager, to young womanhood, to middle age and to the end of her days by the end of this book. Her perspective changes in keeping with the awful things and the good things that happen.

I'd thought that would be the end of the series, just a trilogy that said most of what I wanted to get across to readers experiencing a realistic near-future following the hardship of a 10-year pandemic and collapse of society that resulted from it. But I had more ideas. Toward the end of Book 3, society was rebuilding, returning to some semblance of order although we find it rather skewed in unpleasant ways.

In Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD 

I bring in Isla's last child, a boy named Fritz (named after the family patriarch) who was born at the end of Book 3. Now he is a grown man with a family but in trouble with the government due to his making of a video of elderly Isla telling her stores about the decades of trouble she lived through. But now the government wants to disavow all of the hardship, the official narrative being that the pandemic was mild and the decades of lawlessness weren't so bad. Fritz is a nervous man and gets into further trouble in the novel, but doing so reveals much of what is wrong with the new, rebuilt society. In Book 3, Fritz's family is mentioned briefly. In Book 4, we meet his children: 2 brothers and young Maggie, all stuck in the oppressive capital city.

Fritz narrates his own story in Book 4, but we get a glimpse of a 10 year-old Maggie. In Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER, she is a grown woman living out west and still figuring what to do with her life. She has the background of Isla's grandmother and father, who played the family's tuba before Isla took it over. But music is frowned upon in the capital and the tuba was put in a museum of naughty devices. The first step, Maggie decides with her older cousin Eve, is to return there and claim the tuba - if it still exists. Next she will start a kids band in her small town, enlisting the aid and advice of a music salesman from a nearby city. Both plans lead her into dangerous territory and constant trouble. By the end of the novel, Maggie is a mature woman set in her career. 

Maggie is the crossover character, tying the first three books to the second three books. Yet like the others mentioned above, she is introduced as a precocious child and we are allowed to follow her literally through her life into her senior years in Book 6: THE GRANDSONS (not yet published). Do not be confused by the title of this current work-in-progress, for the title refers to three characters who are each a grandson to one of the other characters - including a surprise guest in the final chapter. This final volume is expected to be ready later in 2025. I do not expect there will be a seventh book in the series; however, I will have set up the future world used in my already-publish epic fantasy novel: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, which is set in the year 8000. In it, those characters make frequent references to an ancient war which occurs in the year 3000. Maggie passes to her reward in the later-2100s with the world already going mad and mentions made of what is happening in Maggie's lifetime that foreshadows these future events. (I've blogged about this linkage previously here.) I also managed to tie in my vampire trilogy (A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, SUNRISE, and SUNSET) which, being pre-pandemic when written, had characters in 2028 fail to mention such an event, thus correcting the timeline.

After five completed books in the series, I feel I know each of the principal characters as well as my own family, perhaps better, as though I've lived with them all of their lives - which I actually have. I was there when they were born and again when they die. This is the reason for writing, for imagining. It is a kind of role-playing game which is acceptable in polite society. I can play in the garden of my own design, and in that time and place, I can live out my remaining days with a fair amount of pleasure - which I'm happy to share with you. Thanks, as always, for your continuing support.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2024 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 Trilogy Epidemic

Dear Readers, potential readers, and the merely curious,

Today I wish to address the issue of the trilogy - a series of novels consisting of exactly three volumes and comprising one continuous story or some combination of stories related in such a way that they may be marketed as a series.

I'm not suggesting there is a problem - other than the great proliferation of trilogies, especially in the science fiction and fantasy genre. In other genre, related books are sometimes considered a trilogy, usually because they have the same characters or setting, even though they may not have been considered a trilogy by the author.

For me, I have achieved a kind of trifecta - three trilogies (two completed and one in the process of being completed) - which gives me special status...and not much else.

My first trilogy began as a stand-alone book, THE DREAM LAND, which involved a young couple's misadventures through an interdimensional doorway and how they learned to function in their new realm while often trying to return home. Given the setting - an entire new planet - the possibilities for further stories were endless. I immediately began the second volume upon completion of the first, but I stopped when I ran into a plot conundrum. Then life got in the way, as it may for writers, and I did not finish that second volume (or publish the first book) until ten years later. When I resumed writing on the second book, I decided it had to become a trilogy, and I wrote the third volume straightaway as I concluded Book 2, DREAMS OF FUTURE'S PAST. The idea of a trilogy was not a thing in itself but merely a result of writing three novels involving the same principal players in the same setting. I simply enjoyed the story and kept writing, even with a comet approaching our favorite fictitious world in Book 3, DIASPORA.

I wrote two stand-alone novels after that sci-fi trilogy (A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and AIKO). Then, goaded by the Twilight series' portrayal of vampires, I wrote my own version, based on the finest medical research I could research. A DRY PATCH OF SKIN was intended as another stand-alone, a one-off tale of realistic vampire horror. Yet the ending kept nagging at me: more what-if questions. And so, a few years later, after writing two more stand-alone novels, I picked up the vampire story once more with the idea of making it a trilogy from the start. Titled SUNRISE and SUNSET, respectively, I picked up the story of my vampire hero a few years into his future - and our future - in the second volume and much further into the future in the third volume. I failed, however, to have characters mention the pandemic of 2020-2022 as they recounted their adventures since the first volume's 2014 setting (also written in 2014). (Upon finishing the trilogy, I contemplated a fourth book, making it a tetralogy. I started and then set aside a novel concerning the next generation.)

Then I returned to writing stand-alones. First I wrote a semi-biography based on a real person's life with fictionalized conclusion (A GIRL CALLED WOLF), my most-reviewed book. Then, challenged by my fantasy-writing friends, I wrote an epic fantasy involving dragons (EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS), which is my longest novel - not counting trilogies as a single story. But then I returned to the vampire story and wrote volumes two and three and consider it finished with no threat of a volume four.

After completing the vampire trilogy, I wrote a new novel (EXCHANGE) and I finished a previously written book which I had been revising forever (YEAR OF THE TIGER), as well as completing a sci-fi novel which I had left unfinished for several years (THE MASTERS' RIDDLE) which is told from the point-of-view of a non-human alien hero. So far, so good. 

Then we experienced that pandemic, had lockdowns and virtual school, and I thought it would be the perfect time to write a pandemic novel, a kind of post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama of some kind. I started something by describing my own experiences with the virus then fell silent. I couldn't actually write about something so serious while we were actually dealing with it in such a serious way, so I set it aside.

And then I retired from teaching English (literature, composition, linguistics) and had nothing much to do. So I picked up the pandemic novel scriblings and took another look at it. The main thing for me was to find the right way into the story - something more than coming up with a compelling first page. When something totally unrelated sparked an amusing idea, I knew I'd found the key to enter the story. Even then, I imagined a stand-alone book about a boy and his mother and her tuba fighting to survive in a lawless land. However, before I was very far into the first volume of FLU SEASON: THE BOOK OF MOM, I decided the story would continue into a second - and the inevitable third volume - making it a trilogy. Darn trilogies! Just when I think I'm back to stand-alones the trilogy pulls me back in!

One interesting aspect of my pandemic trilogy is the way Book 1 is actually two books. They make the journey from a chaotic city to the relative sanctuary of a coastal island, which was the story I intended to write when I started. They would reach safety and that would be that. (Sorry if this is a spoiler.) But what happens when they reach that place? I couldn't just leave them there and 'so that's all, folks!' So writing about their uncomfortable experiences on the island was practically another novel. Hence, the two sides of this first novel make it a little on the thick side, but it ends at a better place - and sets up the next book, which is FLU SEASON: THE WAY OF THE SON, which continues our characters' story. The third book will be titled FLU SEASON: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS to complete the FLU SEASON TRILOGY. Have you ever had so much flu season?

However, the second volume of FLU SEASON is more traditional in its structure and does not comprise two separate but related stories like the first volume, and therefore is thinner. In fact, compared to THE DREAM LAND and the vampire trilogy which has come to be named for its hero as the STEFAN SZEKELY TRILOGY, this second volume is shorter than the second volumes of my other trilogies, which tend to be longer because of much more complex things going on. If you look at other trilogies, including in movie series such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, the second volume features the characters going on separate journeys, hence a dual story which comes together by the end.

The final point I wish to share is that this so-called pandemic trilogy was conceived as a trilogy almost from the start. Unlike my first two trilogies where the first book was written as a stand-alone, FLU SEASON is conceived and plotted as a trilogy, which is a different way of writing for me. However, such a project, seemingly vast in its early stages looking forward, has been a fairly easy and delightfully horrific story to write. I know my readers will be happy to know I enjoyed writing it. It has not been a harsh effort, a droll task to be accomplished, yet I do not relish the abuse and horrors I put my cast through. In FLU SEASON: THE BOOK OF MOM you will find a story told 'close to the vest' in as realistic, contemporary, visceral manner possible, a story which could begin wherever you happen to live, say, in the next couple weeks - although in the trilogy the pandemic has been going on for six years when the first book opens and begins its ninth year as Book 2 ends. 

Happy ending? Like life itself, there is good and bad to everything that happens and it is in that light that we must carry on. My only regret is that there will not be a fourth volume. Maybe another stand-alone will follow. We shall see.

Thanks for your support. Please leave a review on your favorite book review sites.

Your Humble Narrator

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 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.

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.

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(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.

Fictional Fathers for Father's Day - Updated

Last month, for Mother's Day, I waxed poetic on the three kinds of mothers I happened to have in my novels. Well, turnabout seems fair play, so let me ponder the types of fathers I find in my novels and consider their source.

So I'm sitting comfortably at home this summer, counting the sales of my latest novel, and it hits me! I should be promoting my Father's Day novel, the one titled AIKO. It's a kind of Father's Day story, after all. And because Father's Day is here again, everyone is doing a grad and dad marketing blitz. My just launched novel EXCHANGE has a dad at its center. Unfortunately he has lost his wife and his daughter in a mass shooting, but there are many "dad" tropes as he struggles to put his life back together and find meaning in what remains.

Everyone knows that grads are tired of reading. Dads tend to be reading averse, too. So maybe books do not make the best gifts. Job search books for grads, perhaps. A book on whatever is dad's current hobby, maybe. But fiction too often falls to the dark, dusty shelf of well-intended gifts. Beside the neckties. My own father would rather read through a stack of history and politics books before he would ever crack the cover of a novel. He is ok with wearing a necktie, however.

So how many books are there that feature Father's Day, anyway? Or about fathers in general? Mothers are easy. Brothers and sisters are common. The sweet aunt and the generous uncle are often seen in literature. Fathers are generally the bad guys, villainous, cruel, authoritarian, mean, and uncaring. They are more often than not portrayed as abusers. Sometimes they only appear as the bad memory of a protagonist and we get a couple of graphic incidents to showcase dad's unpleasantness. (I had to do that in A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and A GIRL CALLED WOLF because they were based on real people and their lives; however, fathers in my other novels are thankfully less abusive.) It's almost a stereotype. Fathers get a bad rap, I think. We tend to only hear about the bad ones. Think of Darth Vader, a.k.a. "Dark Father", and others of his ilk.

I think about the fathers in my other novels. My protagonists seem to relate to their fathers very much like I relate to my own father. Funny, that coincidence, right? Write what you know, they say. Or am I drawing on the only role model I have? (Curiously, I'm an only child and my protagonists tend not to have siblings, also - or siblings that are throw-away characters, mentioned but not active in the story. In AFTER ILIUM, the young hero dislikes his dentist father's strictness and is glad to be on his own touring Greece and Turkey after college. In EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, our dragonslayer hero's father was a military commander killed in battle, so our hero carries only the memory of a violent, frightening man. In A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, the first volume of my vampire trilogy, our poor hero is transforming into a vampire. He is angry at his father for not warning him and for sending him away to live with an aunt. Otherwise, that fictional dad sounds an awful lot like my own father: haughty, disinterested, aloof. In volume 2, SUNRISE, the father comes across disturbingly like my own father at the time I was writing the book: well-meaning but still authoritarian to an uncomfortable degree.

In AIKO, our hero discovers he is a father, then struggles to find his child. There is a brief mention of his own father being stationed in Japan after WWII - like my own father was. After the war, my father went to college on the G.I. Bill and became a social studies teacher, then later a librarian. Now he is deep into retirement, having put his books away for poor eyesight and sleepier days, not to mention the devastation of a hurricane.

When I think of my father, the image that comes most readily to my mind is of him sitting in his reading chair, reading: reading in such a focused, determined manner that I could get away with literally anything because nothing could disturb him. Thus, he was separated from my everyday activities, always there but on the sidelines, uninvolved in my youthful experiences. And that is what I learned of fatherhood: 1) provide the family income, 2) relax at home after the job, 3) fix things around the house and yard. Also, 4) be master of the castle, 5) enforce the rules, and when necessary (6) represent the family like a knight in shining armor when some authority or institution challenges us. He is the (7) champion, the protector, the lord of the manor. And that is, for better or worse, how I portray the fathers in my novels: powerful yet distant. 

If you've been following this blog you probably know I'm a dad. It's a weird feeling knowing there is someone living in the world partly as a result of my actions. Sure, we can imagine clones, or cyborgs, but another human? That's crazy. Like us and yet not like us. And eventually they go their own ways and have their own lives and we scratch our heads and think What just happened? Now my offspring is finishing college, studying to be something in the medical field. This is after going through Army training to be a combat medic.

As I think back on the past 23 years, I can pinpoint a few things I did that might have helped raise this baby to adulthood. But there are just as many other things I did about which I have no clue. Maybe they helped, maybe not. Only my grown child can tell. I'm pleased, even proud, of how this googly little bundle of joy overnight became this awesome adult who vaguely resembles me in appearance and words and behavior. 

So for now, I must pass the reins to my protégé. No longer do I need to concern myself so much with me doing great things and achieving this and that and telling my child about, you know, the things I can boast about. Now it is time for me to boast about my grown child, to note what this new adult is doing, and praise the new things, the new deeds, of this adult - to praise and be proud of what my child has done more than being happy at what I have done. I've actually inserted this idea into the thoughts of my protagonist dad in EXCHANGE. Oh, I will still write books, of course - until the keyboard is ripped from my cold, dead fingers. But now it's no longer all about me. It's about the generation we produce and what they will do as we fade gently into that good night.

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(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 After-Reading Party

I came, I read, I answered questions.

I'm the sort of person who doesn't like crowds, especially doesn't like speaking before a crowd. I can handle a classroom of inattentive students, say, up to about 25, which is my day job. So I worried about the reading opportunity that was foisted upon me this past Tuesday. I prepared by selecting which scene from each of my three books I would read, something short yet evocative and which demonstrated in a couple pages my great craft.

My event made the campus jumbotron!

Then obstacles ensued. The largest was a faculty meeting the hour right before my reading. In fact, as faculty meetings tend to go, it could run long and thus extend into my scheduled reading. I wondered whether or not I should leave the meeting a little early to be at the appointed place at the appointed time. But then, I feared, the university vice-president, who leads these meetings, might call me out for my reading and if I were not present it could be a major faux pas.

However, everything went as the proverbial clockwork. I attended the meeting, sipping on a caffeinated beverage throughout. As the clock ticked down, the VP did indeed call me out to say a few words about my new/latest book. "Give us a couple sentences," he said. Knowing my colleagues were anxious to exit, I just gave a two sentence summary of my event and all were pleased. 

I returned to my office to grab the three books of the Stefan Szekely Trilogy, plus another trio to be used as a raffle prize. I thought to carry the box I had of other copies but thought I could sell them later, after the "show" or the next day, rather than carry the box across the campus. (In hindsight, no, I did not sell any books afterward; I believe I could've sold some if I had them there at the event - mistake number one.)

When I arrived at the student union for the event, I found everything set up for me, thanks to the English Club! I'd worried that I would be walking into an empty room and would need to announce myself and gather passers-by to form an audience. My colleague introduced me and acted as MC. First I told about my new/latest book, the third of a trilogy. That led me to explain where it started, where I got the idea (anecdotes about my daughter being hooked on Twilight, etc.), and an overview of the trilogy.

Then I read a scene from the first book, which I felt showed the style and tone of the story quite well: the first time my protagonist seeks medical help for his skin problems. I paused to explain what happens next, intending it as a lead-in to reading a scene from the second book. However, a hand went up so I called on that audience member and answered her question. That led to other questions, divided evenly between questions about my writing process (in general and for this trilogy) and the process of "getting published". The questions continued and I never got to read more in the hour-long event.

Given that the audience was mostly students, I had worried how attentive they might be at such an event. I know how they can be in my own classes. I also knew that my colleagues had offered "extra credit" for attending, so I had little expectation of an enthusiastic crowd. Their questions, however, seemed genuine and not off a script. Several were apparently very interested in writing stories and trying to publish them. I made generous offers to take a look at their work. One colleague reminded me to mention I would be teaching the Creative Writing course in the fall semester.

A Journalism professor attended and later suggested some journalism students would interview me for a feature in the campus newspaper. Great publicity! Especially for a shy guy who would rather write than speak. In any case, it was a comfortable experience. I urge anyone of similar temperament to go ahead and accept that invitation to do a reading. It will be over before you know it!

It was later than usual when I left the campus for the drive home, but I did not stop off at my neighborhood bar for a drink. I was not unnerved and in need of that stress-relief. Instead, when I arrived home, I indulged in ice cream. I could almost sense paparazzi outside my door. Almost.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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 Curse of the Author Spotlight

[NOTE: Strange transformations going on with Blogger, so be patient while we see how it all plays out....]

This week I've been invited to be the guest and chief entertainment for a session of what those who invited me have dubbed "Author Spotlight". Now, as an author, I am also somewhat of an introvert; I prefer to express myself on the page rather than, say, face to face, especially when the other is represented by multiple faces. Worse yet would be no faces. But colleagues have assured me that they are giving their students extra credit to attend my dubious carnival act.

This Author Spotlight came about when a potential English major asked a reasonable question at an English major reception: "So do any of you do anything? Like write?" To which I immediately raised my hand and uttered the fateful words: "The third volume of my vampire trilogy just came out." Of course, I was then pressed upon to tell more. Any Book 3 requires divulging the whole story: Book 1 and 2, the impetus for the entire story, etc. That led to several other questions. 

My colleagues knew about the first book, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, because it had been reviewed in the local newspaper, The Oklahoman, as part of a short list of Halloween-themed books. As it was set in Oklahoma City where I live and work made it all the more topical. It garnered enough curiosity, in fact, that the STEM-obsessed Dean of our Arts & Sciences School, mentioned it at an all-faculty meeting, even holding up a copy for all to see - as I slunk in my seat to keep out of view (the introvert thing). I then wrote two other books, unrelated to the vampire genre, and thought I was finished with vampires.

But the ending nagged me. I had to know what happened next, having ended the story in 2014. By the time I got the idea of what would happen next, it was already 13 years in the future in the story and 3 years in my real life. With a vampire as the main character and narrator, there were only two ways I could go with the continuation: treat him as a vampire, ugly and miserable, scraping by on the blood of peasants, or have him fit in somehow with polite society. Either could have been an interesting discourse, but I chose the latter and Book 2 was born: SUNRISE.

In the first book, I allowed my protagonist, Stefan Szekely, to get into conversations with God, who he jokes about initially then comes to blame for his worsening affliction. Thinking he has made a deal with God, he discovers to his horror that God has backed out on the deal, leaving him to his fate. In the second book, Stefan still converses with God - or believes he does - but it is a mocking diatribe this time, no longer taking God as a kindly grandfather but a spiteful menace. In SUNSET, the third book, when the situation demands another bargain be struck, Stefan believes it is being made with God. Unfortunately, it is with God's number one interloper, Lucifer, who sees the potential in him. In the third book, that potential is realized, much to the world's chagrin. Chaos and cruelty reign! 

Now, when pressed upon to be the featured guest at this campus function designed around a book series, I was immediately concerned with our well-discussed conundrum of our students disdaining reading long passages and how I might get students interested in reading my books. Of course I will read a short scene from each of the three books, something stand-alone and interesting in itself. There is a great deal of dark humor, irony and sarcasm in the telling of the story, so I worry they would not see it as a dramatic tale of man becoming vampire becoming holy terror personified. No monsters leap out of closets. Since part of the story is set in Oklahoma, I shall read one scene set there which involves our hero, Stefan, and a lowly grave digger - thereby allowing me to use my well-trained voice to affect the Okie accent. I may otherwise use my vampire voice while reading other parts. I've mastered how to speak the classic phrase: "Good Eeeeeving."

Other than reading short passages and telling how I got the idea for the books, I will likely talk a bit about my childhood interest in reading and writing. Then I should segue into how they should be writing something, starting with events in their own lives - perhaps change the names and call it a story. I want to get them to see the potential they have in expressing themselves. Sure, they can make videos, come up with songs and spoken-word poetry, share raps, but those are all short-form expressions. Can they create an extended form with a complex, layered narrative? I will challenge them. Perhaps my inspiring words will translate into better classroom productivity. Who knows?

Lastly, I shall take questions from the audience. I have no idea what they may wish to know. I will have explained much already, so . . . I must be ready for anything. I must deflect any questions about the Penny Park (pseudonym!) affair recounted in Book 1. Hopefully, I shall be done with the session before my glucose drops and my head goes foggy and my voice cracks. It is the author's equivalent of a marathon. And I have not been training much. The only thing that might save me, give me an edge, is that I will know some of the audience already. The other saving grace is that I sure do love to talk about myself!



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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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 Future of Vampire Stories (a continuing resolution) Part 2

With a welcome weekend off for the St. Patrick's Day celebrations (There are no naturally occurring Irish vampires, thankfully!), we return with Part 2 of our continuing resolution on the future of Vampire literature: A look into the Future Society.

The 3rd book, SUNSET, in the Stefan Szekely Trilogy opens in 2099 and extends into the 2100s, remarking often on the situation in the world and especially the Empire of Europa, born of the expanded Hungarian Empire, led by the vampire Emperor. His Holiness chastises his governing council, lectures them on how He has improved the world from the way it was in the days of His transformation in 2014:

Case #4

His Holiness, Emperor Stefan: “It needs to be controlled, this world of ours. I agree. Too much and for too long the scientists and the inventors sought to expand only leisure and sloth, leaving the masses unemployed and starving. Those who could work willingly worked for the lowest possible wage. Others were slaves of sloth: no will to enter the night, to make something, no, only the attention to divertissements. For each man and each woman must have purpose in their existence, so we have given it to them: make good your efforts to bear children prior to your transformation, raise them to obey, honor our traditions and maintain our heritage. A logical scheme. Look how we smashed the towers of commerce, those thirty-floor skyscrapers that were not a part of our traditions and our heritage. We return to the common architecture style which represents the best of our land, the best of our history—true art! And we should continue to make works of art and beauty and sing songs that glorify the empire and praise the Most High. Diligently make your specified production each night. Enjoy a sport or celebrate music in your hibernation. Notice the world around you and your place in it. Nothing occurs in isolation. This is what we do within the span of our existence. We do not seek to advance society into some strange new world full of strange objects and stranger beliefs. This is our home. Let us keep it clean and dark.”

Case #5

Later we meet Oklahoma grave digger Bucky Denham and learn of the wars that have been on-going in Europe: the Ukrainian front on the east and the front on the west coast in Frisia (northern Netherlands):

    “Oh, that?” Bucky thumbed to his shoulder. “I was o’er in Frisia for a year, fightin th’ Europa vampires. Got this here wound ’nd they sent me home. Yeah, don’t hurt now, but shee-yit shore did when it was still burning, I mean li’l blue flames rising from each hole, like to beggin for someone ta kill me right off. But I got ta th’ hospice in time ’nd they put out th’ flames ’nd bandaged me tight. Worst year of my life, lemme tell ya.” He shrugged to show it didn’t hurt now. “But they get me good now, takin half whatever I make diggin graves for folks no matter I did my service. My pops kicked off while I was o’er there. My baby boy had with a gal down the street, too.”
. . . 

   “Yessiree. Them vampire brigades come at us during night, firing flares ’nd shee-yit at us. Then they got th’ Black Storm going ’nd they started attacking during th’ day. But it weren’t like no day, black clouds coverin th’ sun, dark as night. They could go out then. Nothin we threw at ’em ever did much. We tried silver bullets but they just went straight through ’em. Silver’s too dang ’spensive. We had ta get some sabers ’nd go fer th' heads. Lop off a head 
’nd they stopped cold dead. Yep, true dead. We heard they kept ’em starved of blood then released ’em at us so they’d tear after us, ya know, ta get our blood. Ya never saw no more gore than th’ battlefields of Frisia. I mean, arms ’nd legs ’nd heads laying ever’where. So many gyawdamn crows peckin at shit.”

Case #6

Finally, as expected, more and more fundamental tasks will be taken over by automation - robots - thereby leaving humans to enjoy their leisure. Sometimes the technology works too well, or doesn't work at all:

    Twice a surveillance drone approached him. Finally, it flashed a red warning: MAXIMUM WARNINGS EXCEEDED. A security patrol drove up beside him, hovering over the pavement.
    “What’re you up to, fella?” asked the robot in a life-like voice.
    “I like the scenery on this street,” he said in as calm a voice as he could conjure, imagining the robot might detect voice stress. “So I’ve been walking this way for my daily exercise.”
    “Residents have complained. Please choose another route.”
    “Yes, of course. Sorry. I meant no harm.”
    “No harm is not no harm,” the robot replied like a Zen koan, eyes blinking. “Residents feel harm even if you intend no harm.”
    “I suppose that’s true,” he said with a smile.
    “Please choose a different route. You are forbidden from this route from now.” The robot’s arm telescoped out from the hovering vehicle, a tablet attached to its hand. 
    “Apply chip here.”
    He was wary of the authenticity of his chip now and stepped back from the neighborhood patrol. He turned his back to the robot and walked quickly down the slope, around the curve, back to his Hoverina parked on the street—recharged with his old paper money converted to credits at a bank, where he was advised to get a replacement chip since his was not connecting properly to the grid.

Case #7

Toward the end of the novel (not to give away any spoilers), a major character travels to Moscow and we see that Russia has not suffered the degradation of a vampire society:

This train ran smoothly, she noticed, a much better vehicle than the old one they had ridden from Budapest. Someone mentioned the train sailed over jets of compressed air. She was entering a modern world. Arriving in Moscow, she could not believe the architecture that had sprouted up like a great forest. There were the Seven Colossi marking the old wall towers of ancient Muscovy, silver office buildings rising fifty floors, topped with great communication towers. Nothing like them existed in Budapest or anywhere else in Europe; the empire disdained anything modern. In the center of the city stood the 800-meter tall statue of Saint Vladimir, savior of the republic. Below the feet of the statue and its mountainous hill of earth and granite blocks, the walls of the Kremlin were crumbling, finally allowed to decay as an unwanted symbol of the Communist era.

She exited Okhotny Ryad station at the north end of Red Square and found the streets crisscrossed by driverless trolleys, stopping to pick up anyone who waved. After strolling the square and assuring that St. Basil’s Cathedral was still as colorful as she remembered—it was, undamaged; Lenin’s Tomb, however, had been occupied by the latest iconic figure—she rode to the west, then north, past the huge Bolshoi Theater extension—the arts were flourishing again, it seemed—and a grand new Orthodox cathedral on Neglinnaya Avenue dedicated to St. Vladimir. Another trolley took her past blocks of solemn gray high-rise apartments where she thought she had lived with Yevgeni. She became confused. Eventually she realized her location and stepped off.

So we see that a vampire tale - its logical, if not unexpected, conclusion, that is - must necessarily describe a transformed society, as well. In this respect a vampire tale must cross over from mere urban fantasy or a paranormal genre into science fiction. Rather than bedazzle readers with the amazing inventions of the future, a vampiric society would, when it had the chance, I believe, return wholeheartedly (no pun intended) to an early age culturally and practically. Yet it is the principal characters we must follow as they function within and attempt to alter the world that we know in 2019.

The Stefan Szekely Trilogy is complete!
(Look to the upper right on this blog for links.)

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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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.

How to Write a Medically Accurate Vampire Novel

Spring is not usually the time in which we think of vampires - or the undead in general. However, it is not only October, or specifically the season of Halloween, that brings out our less lively kin. Oh, no. The vampire is a stock character for all seasons, for the vampire is not a seasonal being sent to frighten us on one occasion but to serve as a constant reminder of what can happen to the rebellious, evil abominations who walk among us.

The Stefan Szekely Trilogy is now complete! 

Get Book 3, SUNSET, at an Amazon link near you today! 

(Kindle lovers click here: SUNSET.)

When we think of the vampire, we have many models from literature and cinema to cast in our mind. From legends far and wide comes the idea of someone who has died returning to life or of someone not truly dying but settling into a degree of existence between life and death, what many have termed the undead. It is a frightful situation, indeed, both for the poor sucker [pardon the pun] who must "live" such a "life" as well as for those who may encounter him or her. (Read more information here.)

Back in 2014 I awoke from a nightmare - actually, fell off the darn mare and hit my head on a stone - and I had the idea of writing a vampire tale. Much in the vein of my paranormal-writing colleagues, I sought a story of Gothic pathos, a horror tale of bloody delight! Alas! I could not, however, in good conscience, create something along the lines of more recent vampire fictions. They were too much filled with magic, melodrama, and frou-frou accoutrements than suited my sophisticated tastes. I needed a real vampire.

I knew there were some medical and biological causes of symptoms which are typically associated with those folk claiming vampirism. I did my research, both into legends and customs of Eastern Europe, and into the science behind such awful disorders as porphyria. Is there such a thing as vampirism as a medical condition? And, if so, how does one combat it? Is it genetic or does one catch it from someone who is already a vampire? (One valuable resource was the scholarly book by Paul Barber.)

So I deliberately sought to create a horrific tale as contemporary and realistic as modern science and my twisted imagination could make it. 

The result is the amazing true-to-life story of Stefan, an American of Hungarian ancestry, who is doomed to become a vampire - at precisely the wrong time in his life. Just when Stefan is falling in love with his Beloved, local TV reporter Penny Park, and they are planning to marry, he notices the first sign: A DRY PATCH of SKIN.

“I do care about you,” she whispered.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound positive. “We can’t let a dry patch of skin get between us, now can we?”

But I digress...

Check yourself. Check your family members. Look over the people standing close to you. Examine all with whom you come into contact. Look for the tell-tale signs of oncoming vampirism. To aid in your quest for avoidance, here is a handy checklist:

• dry skin, in blotchy patterns and red-brown shades regardless of natural complexion
• gaunt features, as though the skin were pulled back tightly against the bones
• withering away of musculature, rendering the person unusually thin
• loss of hair, head and body
• protrusion of teeth as gums shrink
• protrusion of eyes as sockets decline; loss of lashes and brows
• semi-hunched posture due to less of muscle and bone integrity
• heightened senses, especially of olfactory ability (smell)
• metallic taste in mouth and bitter breath
• decreased urine and fecal output
• decreased hunger and thirst sensation
• exposed skin sensitive to light, especially sunlight; prone to either drying and shredding or to melting
• hands and feet painful due to swelling; nails may appear to protrude due to reduction of skin borders
• bearing the scent of decay, mildew, etc. or alternatively a hint of sulfur
• constant physical readiness for sexual activity
• capable of periods of sustained activity (3 to 4 days without sleep) followed by prolonged sleep (2-3 days)
• consumption of heme (blood) improves symptoms temporarily
• contagious via exchange of bodily fluids
• no cure, only treatment which offers brief relief at best
• long-term prognosis: a lengthy, miserable existence filled with alternating nights of desperation and days of coma-like sloth
• usually a normal life-span (90-120 years), barring attempts at suicide
• onset usually 30s through 50s; fully symptomatic 2-5 years after onset; transformation complete after 7-10 years

Be aware of those around you who may appear normal yet may have begun the transformation. Take particular note of any strange discolored and/or unusually dry patches of skin upon the face. Avoid those who wish to sample your blood. Call for help should you be unable to extricate yourself from the magnetic aura of a true vampirism sufferer. It is not glamorous; indeed, it is a miserable existence, and in that misery boils an unholy rage, often exploding into violence.

For further information about transforming into a vampire, I recommend reading A DRY PATCH of SKIN.

The truth about being a vampire: It is not cool, not sexy. It’s a painful, miserable existence.

Good reason to avoid that situation, thinks Stefan Székely. He's too busy falling in love with TV reporter Penny Park, anyway. Until one day he has a dry patch of skin on his face.

At first it's annoying, nothing to worry about, some weird skin disease he can treat with lotions. However, as his affliction worsens, Stefan fears that his unsightly problem will ruin his relationship with Penny.

If only that was all Stefan has to worry about! He soon realizes there is a lot more at stake than his handsome face. To save himself, Stefan must go in search of a cure for the disease which is literally destroying him inch by inch. If only his parents had told him of his family's legacy.

The next step in creating an accurate vampire trilogy was to

write books 2 and 3. Keeping it medically accurate proved more challenging. With Book 1, A Dry Patch of Skin, being set in the same year I was writing it, 2013-2014, a sequel needed to be in the future. With only 13 years passing, in Book 2, SUNRISE, it was easier to formulate how much society will have been changed. 

By Book 3, SUNSET, existing even further into the future, I had to stretch myself. This future-creep required a more science-fictionesque approach. Thus, the vampirian aspects seemed to take a backseat to updating the new setting; then I could let my creature play in that setting. However, such a vampirian-led society might choose to return to an older, more stately style more akin to the times of their ancestors and not be so inundated with technological flamboyance. A cultural regression made the re-setting easier, yet I still needed to recount how the world changed back - rather like a clock once a year.

More about the regression next time.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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.