The 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 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 [unwanted] holiday gifts or locked onto our online video confrontations convolutions, 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 La-di-la-da, whatever you celebrate. It's all good. Main thing is to get together with family and friends [for as long as one may endure them], usually at the excuse of a communal meal [of dubiously created food], often with added rituals [e.g., the quarter-hourly check of the social streams], concluding with blessings and wishes for the next year to be better [more lucrative, more entertaining] than the current year ending not-soon-enough. So it goes, year after year. For more than 50 years! What holiday decoration ideas remain unused? And I always believed it would be the same, exactly the same [painfully the same] as when I first experienced it [and knew what I was witnessing]: 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 [no matter how faithfully done], 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 [was 2020; now 2023] - 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 causes 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, [as if waking from a pleasant dream to a dark and stormy morn], strike a bargain, slip some cash over the transom [or in a thin envelope under the door], or write a post-dated check to Dr. Fate, the ultimate debt collector [although he's moved but let me know the new address].

Ok, it's not the best holiday season this year [2020; now 2023]. I recommend reading a good book [i.e., an uplifting book]. I have a few which you might enjoy. In fact, I have a whole new trilogy of pandemic/post-pandemic novels written since 2020 called FLU SEASON, with a sequel to the trilogy coming in 2024. 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 [this year I've elected to have a couple pizzas delivered as I intend to hunker down for hibernation during the next few days], for whatever indulgences I indulge in at this time of the year, the following 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.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 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.

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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 year 2020 only counts as 1/4  of a year.)

The Year End Review

Dear Blog Readers,

As another year comes to a close, I like to sit back and let loose several well-deserved sighs and reflect on what the past twelve months have wrought. It is often an uncomfortable process, a cruel exercise in profundity, yet I vow to press on knight-errant-like and achieve my goal of faithful absolution.

One year ago I could sit back and feel blessed, having survived a year fraught with obstacles, hassles, and expected stressors. There were worries about family issues, career moves, health concerns, and as always the stories to write. Yet nothing bad happened. With a full line-up of events seemingly designed to disrupt my peace, I got through them with relative ease. I counted myself lucky. After all, I had a new book out, A Girl Called Wolf, and felt proud of how well I had managed to translate a real person's life into a fictionalized account. And through that, I made a new friend.

This year, with far fewer dramatic turns expected, I expected an easier time, as well. That turned out to be true, thankfully. You see, what troubles there were were mere mole hills against the mountain of life. Though I immersed myself in writing, alighting upon the keyboard for hours at a time, consuming only drinks of lemon and lime, I have not managed to get the big book published within this calendar year. Oh, dear! I put down 198,000 words on my hero's quest, let him meet many an interesting guest, then crafted a novella of 37,000 words about a little princess. Then I merged them together for the win--yes! Whether or not that works well, I'll leave for the reader to tell. That does not mean the year was a total loss, only that as my own boss I have been exceedingly busy yet not particularly dizzy despite all I've had to do. That's still good, true?

In my life, the years ending with 1 or 6 have tended to be jinx years, so I've held my breath as best I could for most of the weeks in 2016. I stayed focused and kept my nose clean. I expected the worst yet I was cursed with bad rhymes at times. In other ways the days were full of dragon slays, which was the focus of my novel, indeed, a challenge to sense and sensibility, wherein I placed my hero in harm's way. That is to say, I accepted said challenge and struck forth with verve. Indeed! What nerve! I kept straight to the plot and did not swerve--not much, anyway, or so I say. And now it sits on the 'forthcoming' shelf leaving me a waiter, and sooner rather than later, it shall be available to dragonslayer admirers everywhere.

This coming year is certain to be the best yet, as each step brings us closer and closer to death. It may not be a wholesome thought, but as they say here and there, until you do arrive you have arrived not. So make haste with your dire plans! And speak well of those that flitter through your life. Bickering, whickering--shall we end such strife? For they that tarry and hound you may spend eternity seated next to you, and you just might be given the middle seat on Afterlife Airlines. Funny how there are no security lines! I can end this year full of merriment and mirth because I am now further on from my birth than I ever was before--and that's nothing to ignore! The older you become, the more you feel glum.

So smile if you can, if that is your plan, each and every day. And by the way, read books despite their looks, for what is a cover worth? If that's not your turf, then peruse inside, let the words abide, then read on until the hero has died. For I can tell you with near certainty, that all protagonists die in the end, whether the end comes by the last page or somewhere beyond. Or, if you're not fond of an end past the last page, some advice that's sage, is to never reach the final line. Not until it's your time. Save the end for another day and crack open a new book and have a new look. That's the sure way! 

And now I take leave to sleep and perchance to dream of the coming year and all I fear. I shall hope for more of the open door, stepping through to pleasures unbound. You see, I've found that the more one expects good, and one certainly should, the more we might enjoy a new, sacred toy, and every day see whatever can be, what we might call 'possibility'! May you and yours have many delights, minimal fights, and safe flights, and I shall strive for the same. I know it's lame, but it seems I can dabble in babble at the drop of a hat. How about that? I'd better end this now, take a bow, and say goodnight. After all, it will too soon be midnight.

Happy Holidays! 

And books make great gifts!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2016 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.

Another Year Ends

I think I'm going to make it--that is, if this hotel wifi holds together long enough! It's been iffy at best and I'm using my older, slower netbook instead of my fast newer laptop which, apparently got some malware at a previous hotel stop and now will not connect to any wifi even if I try to shove it down its wifi slot. (So beware those public access electronic connections!) But I digress...

So I think I'm going to make it. A long year full of frequent travel and everything else required of me with little rest or break between each. Makes one feel rather like a superhero. In fact, I've come to realize that my superpower is being able to trick myself into believing I'm going to make it. I shall adopt the name Incredibleman. Then I'll make-believe I believe it. And this sojourn of journeying is finally about to end, and end hopefully with a whimper not a bang. Easier to deal with a whimper, you know. 

Then I would like about a year off before I do anything else.

I began the year by traveling near and far, then I wrote about previous travels near and far, then I traveled again, mostly far. While I was traveling near and far, I wrote about other, foreign destinations (i.e., "far") but not about those particular destinations where I happened to then be traveling. For example, I wrote a novel about Greenland while I was in China. You can read about that a few blog posts back in the sacred timeline. It's a weird situation, I know. But that's how life goes, and I tend to roll with it as long as I get a boost from gravity.

The new year looks good, because it's a blank slate and I don't have much on my plate as I look ahead out the window at the future on the wilted lawn. Yes, 2016 is wide-open and waiting to be filled! I'll be back at the day job instructing young writers how to become old writers. I've also promised to punch out an "epic fantasy with dragons"--which I've started to the tune of 3000 words and 3 dragons killed (sorry, if you are a dragon lover). It's intended to be a personal challenge, so I accepted the slap of gauntlet. Or I could just as easily be tapped on the brain by a different muse, say, a Victorianesque romance involving well-dressed bunnies. Anything is possible. 

Thus, to all of you wonderful blog-readers who pass by these electronic files, I wish you a merry holiday season and the best of everything. Perhaps, even a full bag of coal. You know you can burn coal to keep warm, don't you? I never understood why it was such a bad gift. I mean, can you just go out and get some coal on your own? Where does one buy a lump of coal these days? You can buy your own knick-knacks and frivolous keepsakes yourself, after all, and in many different places. But despite the material accoutrements of the season, we always enjoy the personal greetings!

So thank you very much for your continuing support! I wish you the best of everything in the coming year! Keep safe and stay happy! Read and read again! (FYI, I just bought a fresh copy of Moby Dick, because I lost my dog-eared paperback in high school and never replaced it; otherwise, I have five or eight books beside my nightstand in various states of read.) And if you see something you like, tell others. I'm talking about books, of course. Tell others what books you've enjoyed reading and--if the mood should strike you--you might find delight in something I've sunk my blood, sweat, and tears into making. It's entirely possible. The world is full of possibilities! 

Enjoy the final days of 2015! Make the best of 2016! And never look back!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2015 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.

Year End Review

Have you ever gotten to the end of a year and stopped to wonder whether January was, like, about five years ago?

Or, perhaps, January was somewhere between yesterday and the blink of your eyes when you read the first sentence of this blog. 

Either way, the year is winding down and the final page of the calendar sits ready to be replaced by a Brand New Calendar possibly from your insurance company, who patiently wait for your mishaps to accrue in their carefully arranged actuarial tables. I know mine does.

So for my only blog this month, hence the final blog of the year 2014, I would like to remember some highlights. Forgive me if some of mine are not necessarily some of yours. Then again, I am fully aware that none of these may be highlights to most of you dear, sweet, loyal readers. That's just the nature of serendipity.

I began the year no worse for wear from the previous year--actually, I was sitting rather comfortably in my DREAM LAND TRILOGY pajamas, having finally gotten the third and final volume out of the womb and into the world. The third one was the easiest to push out. No drugs were needed, but the comet did hurt a little.

I began the year by exchanging blog posts with my writer colleague Kate Bitters, author of Elmer Left. I also entertained author Joan Hazel's new book Burdens of a Saint, the second book in The Guardians series, which involves shape-shifting werewolves. Those were good times. Then everything went downhill.

I dared put out my "sexy" "campus" "romance" book A BEAUTIFUL CHILL just in time for Valentine Day but that "sexy" "campus" "romance" trend had sailed. So I ignored all the naughty spanking jokes and waxed poetic on the trials and tribulations of choosing character names as well as a humorous post on making Top 10 lists. I followed those [ahem] "highlights" with a stream of complaining through March about anything and everything, yes, even as I tried foisting books upon hyper-excited Spring Break readers. It was not a pretty picture.

By April I was well-underway on a new novel which eventually became my contemporary Vampire tale set in Oklahoma City. The idea had been boiling for a while, the desperate need to explain to the world the true nature of vampirism, the real disease which exists, and the poor unfortunate protagonist who suffers from it. Thus, more and more of my blog posts revolved around the topic of vampires, blood, skin diseases, and medicated lotions.

In May I got tagged by the blog tagging monster and forced upon pain of pain to write about my writing process. That produced a plethora of paragraphs on purple prose that primarily got me banned for life from the writing life. It got some play. Or, as Gordon Gekko quips in the film Wall Street: "It's good for a five-point pop." If I had a nickel for every penny I have.... No, seriously, it was well-received. In fact, that post garnered the highest number of retweets ever in the history of my lonesome Twitter feed!

By June I had finished the draft of A DRY PATCH OF SKIN and felt pretty good about myself. I had gone from the dreaded "I'll never ever write again" to the smug "Yeah, I can write a 100,000-word novel, no problem." Then came all that revision, editing, and proofreading. The usual game. (I usually win that.) More of the same through the rest of the summer: vampires, blood, skin diseases, scratch scratch. An unhealthy number of juxtapositions between the story line of the book and the real events of my life made it a more or less miserable period. 

A couple more posts came in the autumn to remind us that blog posts exist to preach to the choir. Mine addressed such pearls of wisdom as shoving that profound message right on up through the heart of an otherwise fun story. Or why you shouldn't. Or how to slip it in without a reader even feeling it. I also wrote lucid comparisons between the film Dracula Untold and my vampire novel. 

Then NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) appeared on the horizon and I jumped into it for the first time and burned through a cheap pulp sci-fi book to win the thing with 55,555 words, give or take. So my blog posts were about that silly sci-fi story and the NaNoWriMo experience. 

And that brings us to the end of the year. 

Normally I would wish each and every one of you a happy and healthy holiday happening, but this year... Well, all right, I'll go ahead and wish you a happy and healthy holiday happening yet again! Had you worried a moment, didn't I? Sorry. Here's a holiday bunny for you: Scrooge McBun.

As I shall be traveling through time and space for the remainder of the month--not all of it will be interdimensionally, however--I shall not be blogging until next year.

Let us hope that many things about our world improve significantly in the next year. In the meantime, let our personal worlds be filled with joy and bounty! (But not too much bounty; New Year resolutions await.)

See you on the other side, and thanks for the egg nog!



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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 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.

What We Gain From Loss

Life makes you take turns, wait your turn, and often turn around so much you get dizzy. Instead of rushing on into the heady world of publishing thrill, I've been forced to pause and consider everything in the world around me. Oh, the new novel is fine, waiting its turn. Summer vacation is full of the usual indolence. The day job is waiting like a closed oyster. And the laundry is done. But something is missing. There is a strange emptiness here.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said that all we have to fear is fear itself. The point was that worrying about something can be as crippling as the effect of the something actually happening. In the same way, fearing loss can be as debilitating as experiencing the loss itself. But loss is its own strange animal. 

Perhaps what a person fears most is loss of him/herself: loss of identity, loss of agency. When you are no longer who you are, who you have always believed yourself to be--when you lose that facade or mask you relied on for so long and people see you for who you really are, a kind of psychological nakedness--that kind of loss can be as real and as painful as death. Loss of agency, your ability to make a mark in the world, to make your own way, to act for your own benefit--can also be as devastating as a physical injury or paralysis yet it can come in psychological forms just as a loss of identity can.

Loss is the principal issue in many of my novels, it seems. It is easy to see in hindsight. Perhaps I chose that theme unconsciously or perhaps there was something intriguing about loss that drove me to explore it and its pain. After all, having a character lose something important and struggle to regain it is always a great way to introduce tension and advance the plot.

Of course there is the obvious loss of the significant other in a character's life. In AFTER ILIUM, Alex Parris loses Elena, the woman he has been having an affair with, and that loss drives him to take all kinds of risks to get her back. Along the way, he is threatened with the loss of his identity--how he sees himself, the kind of man he has been taught to be--and with loss of agency (his inability to act for himself, first by being in a jail, then by peer pressure to act differently than for his own interests, then by violence).

In THE DREAM LAND Trilogy, Sebastian is initially hurt by the loss of his love interest, Gina, but as he grows into his role as interdimensional voyager and accepts all that role entails, he becomes caught up with a life full of threats to his identity. He gets a little schizophrenic (mere IRS clerk or warrior on another world?) and from that wound also paranoid as he sees that others do not see him as he sees himself. Through the trilogy he is constantly losing and fighting to regain many things. It never gets easy. In Book III, Gina faces the loss of her daughter, who she gives up in order to save her.

Eric, the male protagonist in the campus anti-romance A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and his female counterpart, Iris, have each suffered loss in their lives. When they find each other one winter night, they think the losses will cease. They think they have plugged the gaps--only to find they become each other's worst enemy. Each has a plan for the other but they do not accept such plans because they represent loss of identity.

Now, in my new novel, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, our hero, Stefan, faces the greatest loss of all: his own bodily integrity. As he fights against nature--and God--he fights against the loss of himself. He does not want to transform, against his will, into a hideous and grotesque creature of the night. Moreover, it is that transformation that will cause him to lose Penny, the love of his life, who he refuses to let see him as he becomes uglier. He sees himself condemned to a painful, miserable, lonely existence: complete loss of identity, agency, and love.

People lose lots of things. Some things are given away, purposefully or haphazardly, with or without regret. Others are taken away. Car keys, card games, a race to a traffic light, the city's sports team's championship. People lose first grandparents, then parents, sometimes siblings, sometimes children. Fathers lose wives, mothers lose babies, babies lose fights with nature. People lose jobs. People lose weight. They lose pets. They lose homes. They lose their sense of well-being. They lose their safety. They lose their peace. They lose a pair of shoes they somehow misplaced. But misplacement means the shoes still exist, only they are in another realm. And loss itself can be when something you have is destroyed, whether deliberately or accidentally. You no longer have it. When the tornado comes, people cry out that all is lost--and it often is.

Or loss can be when you hope or expect or anticipate having something and then it doesn't arrive. It's rather like a child's Christmas wish. You have sat on Santa's lap begging for that special toy and the big guy assures you that you'll get it. Parents confirm you'll get it. So you wait anxiously through the days, even counting them off, looking forward to that wonderful day. But instead of that gift you have desired, there is nothing. Not a lump of coal, not even a stocking hung with care. Nothing. It's as though Christmas has been canceled and all the trappings have been taken down. It's as though the holiday never existed and your hopes and dreams never were hoped, never were dreamed. And everything is as it was before. You are returned to the heat of summer and Christmas seems years away again. That is what real loss is: never having that one precious thing.

So grab hold of all you have and be glad for it. Take pictures and stencil id numbers on everything. Lock them away. Then stare into the nearest mirror and make sure you are who you want to be. And always love your bunnies.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 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.

Christmas O'Clock - holiday stories for a good cause!

And now, for something completely different, I present the annual holiday story collection Christmas O'Clock, full of stories by my fellow Myrddin Publishing authors.

It's a completely charitable publication dedicated to Water Is Life, an international organization devoted to securing access to drinkable water around the world. As someone who drinks a ton of water every week, I certainly take it for granted. Help out the people who don't have clean water (especially those suffering from natural disasters around the globe) and get some great holiday-themed stories to enjoy!

Try this link for the lowest paperback price: https://www.createspace.com/4546231

Otherwise, you can still enjoy the collection of holiday stories for Kindle here and paperback here.

Myrddin Publishing Group has been instrumental in helping bring THE DREAM LAND Trilogy to your favorite neighborhood Amazon webpage. Also through Myrddin is my contemporary romantic adventure novel AFTER ILIUM (paperback here) and my forthcoming literary novel A BEAUTIFUL CHILL. Thanks so much for your support, encouragement, and all the jokes.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 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.