FLU SEASON : a pandemic trilogy

Contrary to rumors, I have not been mindlessly lazing away my summer. I have been writing and editing the second volume of my pandemic trilogy, titled The Way of the Son, which as of this blog is around 75,000 words with about 30,000 to go in order to complete the story. It is a continuation of the first book, obviously, but do not allow that fact to be a spoiler.

Now that I finally have the cover artwork, I can continue the process of production and begin marketing this newest science fiction novel of mine. Here is a summary (as much as I can reveal) of Book I:

I. The Book of Mom

In the beginning was the virus and the virus was with us. Or something like that. Just as you and I experienced in 2020. We faced uncertainty, fear, the unknown, and reacted to what politicians and scientists thought was the best way to deal with the emergency. What we know now in 2022 may be different than our initial thoughts and actions. But what if it continued unabated? We feel safe again, returning to some kind of normal life yet with some elements not quite the same as we knew them before the pandemic. Yet what if we were in a longer crisis?

In FLU SEASON, a stand-alone novel that has blossomed into a trilogy, we follow teenage son Sandy as he accompanies his mother in fleeing their city. With the pandemic in its sixth year, everything has collapsed into an unbearable situation. Mom decides it's time to leave the chaos of the city for what she believes will be relative safety at her parents' farm. After the struggle to get to the farm, however, they find the chaos has invaded the rural areas, as well. Violence and the stark reality of survival hit them hard. What to do? They cannot return to the city.

They will go to Mom's older sister's house in another city. But everything there is also not what they expected and not a good place to stay, so they travel on to the other sister's home. There they face a big turning point in their plans, one that shapes the rest of the trilogy. Along the way we experience as they do the ways the world has changed, what the new normal actually means with random violence, no law and order, lack of food and fuel, as well as the on-going pandemic and the necessary precautions everyone must take. We follow how they figure out how to live in this altered world. They encounter others along the way, who represent various views of what is happening, some who have a better chance of surviving than others.

Ultimately, Mom takes Sandy and his cousins to the barrier island where the family has a beach house, a place they often visited when Mom and her sisters were young. It is a place with special memories for Mom - memories which she has kept hidden from Sandy all his life. On the island, however, are already people who are trying to survive. Their leader has set the island community on a path to become some kind of utopian society, but one that is not very appealing to Mom. But what can they do? Endure the strict rules for a year or so then leave when the mainland is safe again? Or can Mom make the island community into a safe place for as long as sanctuary is needed?

Our narrator is 19-year old Sandy but his focus is on his 36-year old mother, a single, never-married woman who had a wild side during his childhood yet became a professional tuba player and music professor. Her precious tuba is a family heirloom, not to be left behind or mistreated. Music saves her and she relies on her tuba in times of stress. Sandy doesn't get it; all he knows is his Mom has been his whole life, the only person he has been able to rely on. The pandemic suddenly throws everything out of balance and he grasps at whatever stability he can find while struggling with his Asperger's syndrome (high-functioning autism) and his Mom's often erratic behavior.

FLU SEASON : Book I. The Book of Mom is coming this fall...which is only a few weeks away...available in paperback and for Kindle.

[NOTE: FLU SEASON contains scenes of violence and adult situations but none are gratuitously portrayed.]

You can read the blog post introduction to the FLU SEASON trilogy here.

Read about the challenges of writing a disaster story here.

The writer as main character (or not), using FLU SEASON as an example, is here.

Tying FLU SEASON to the long line of apocalyptic fiction is discussed here.

How to write Young Adult Erotica, like in FLU SEASON, is explored here.

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

(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 Writing Young Adult Erotica

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 5

For years I've been teasing fellow writers with my plan to write "YA erotica" which on its face seemed to be a misnomer. How could I dare write about young people engaged in the wild throes of lust? Or, more realistically, how could I not?

It's all in the details. How much to tell - or, as we say in the industry, how much to show. While many novels include romantic relationships, some also depicting sexual encounters, the line between "ordinary" love and affection and true erotica has been a matter of explicitness. How graphic are descriptions? Are we reading a nuts and bolts level of instruction? Is flowery, poetic language used - which may soften the otherwise rough exhortations? Where is the focus and, indeed, the intent of the writing? Is it to further the plot and character development or simply to titillate the reader? These are questions which define whether the writing is mainstream fiction or the genre of erotica.

In my first published novel, AFTER ILIUM, a young college graduate meets an older woman on a post-graduation trip to the ruins of ancient Troy (also known as Ilium). It features quite romantic descriptions which, seen through his inexperienced eyes, are ridiculously written in lusty metaphors. Yet the scenes could easily be considered erotica. It was my first intentional writing deemed erotic. However, both were adults at the time of publication.

I've had love scenes in every one of my novels, some more than others, because expressing love and making love is a natural activity for humans. It must be part of the plot, but fit plausibly with the character's normal behavior within the framework of the story. A character may change, of course, and acting lustful or becoming less interested is also part of a normal character arc. But the actual descriptions in the scenes remains the issue: how much to show or how far to go?

Shakespeare set the standard, I believe, in his play Romeo and Juliet. While the principal characters seem to be in their teenage years, film depictions typically show Romeo as being, say, 16 and his love interest Juliet as being 13 or 14. (No more than 18 and 16, respectively, I'd say.) At any rate they are not considered adults in the play or in films. Yet they meet, fall in love, and...consummate their love (well, on celluloid). In the 1968 film we get a waking up in bed together scene, complete with a bit of gratuitous nudity. Nudity in a scene is not, in my estimation, a marker in itself of erotica.

I was too young to see that film when it came out, given its rating, but seeing it later, as a youngish curmudgeon, I thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of young love. Only after a few decades did I realize that what "got to me" was the sense of memory the film brought out in me: the flashes of love I recalled feeling at this or that moment in my youth. Having always been a Romantic, I was more interested in a love-interest than merely a sex session - but that's a discussion for another time, likely in my therapist's office. A stream of "young sex" films shot forth during the '70s, culminating in the borderline kinky Blue Lagoon.

In writing my forthcoming novel, FLU SEASON, I willingly took myself back to that fateful time in junior high school when I had my first "crush". It was magical, to say the least. At the end of the school year, the whole class (a small school) had a field day at the local lake, and we suddenly found ourselves walking hand in hand down the tree-shaded trail...but with her jealous gal pal following us so we couldn't have a moment to ourselves. But when she got fed up with her friend not giving her any attention, she stormed off and we finally had a moment for that glorious first awkward kiss. But I digress....

In short, we were all young once, and in love for the first time, and that experience, good or not so good, sticks with us. If we have pushed it back out of the way, closing the door to that room, as it were, then the right story or a movie may unlock that door and there we are: back in that flash of feelings that once overwhelmed us. That is the beauty of youth, of first encounters, of that frozen moment in time which is not naughty or vulgar but a confirmation of our existence and our ability to love beyond ourselves. It is a necessity in our development. Without certain milestones in our development, according to psychologist Erik Erikson, we do not develop normally. 

So I finally did it! My forthcoming "pandemic" novel FLU SEASON features what I think is a nifty teen romance - what could be called YA erotica. In my defense, I believe I've balanced quite well walking the tightrope between a believable encounter between two young people and what may make readers uncomfortable. The narrator of the story is a just-turned nineteen year old son of the main character ("Mom") who meets his 16 going on 17 year old cousin and falls instantly in love. But, fleeing the chaos of a city ravaged by pandemic, times are hard, and hard decisions need to be made, as his 30-ish single Mom keeps reminding him, the product of young love himself. As the story of fleeing danger and seeking sanctuary unfolds, the love story also unfolds, in a sweet way, then with more urgency, both characters recognizing their feelings for each other and eventually doing something about it, something which will change everything...and give us a trilogy rather than a stand-alone novel. 

But enough spoilers. FLU SEASON: The Book of Mom comes out later this year. Cover reveal soon. Look for it on your favorite YA erotica shelf. And remember: nobody will know what you're reading; they will only see the cover, which suggests an apocalyptic sci-fi story, not the steamy exploration inside - or Mom's constant teasing of her son about needing to repopulate the world once the pandemic ends.

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

(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.

Censorship and a confusion of sexy words!

Once upon a time happens every half-year or so, it seems, when book retailers suddenly act insane and throw out a lot of books and their authors for no sensible reason. Panic attack!

Once again someone complaining about a self-published book of erotica caused a panic in the industry. The result? Of course the book in question was burned. Then other books of erotica were tossed. Then any book that was self-published was given the heave-ho. The "reasoning" seemed to be that because erotica is generally self-published that by association all self-published books are suspect. After all, there are no purveyors of "good taste" to filter the good erotica from the back alley variety.

• You can read about the scandal here.   
• And here (Telegraph.UK).   
• And on a lovely blog post.

Naturally, there was an uproar by self-published authors of all genre, not only erotica. Unfair, they claimed, that all self-published books were taken down from online retailers Kobo and W.H. Smith in the U.K. Sales are hard enough to come by without such negative publicity and removal from the sales venue, even if, as the retail entities were quick to explain, the books would eventually be made available again "as soon as possible." We know how that goes.

Sure, this could be seen as "par for the course"; we've been through this kind of mass censorship before. A few of my colleagues declare this is not censorship because retailers can sell whatever they wish to sell, and no one is forced to sell someone else's book, erotica or any other genre. That's true; they are in business, after all. And yet, "censorship" comes not in some political definition but as more common sense jargon. Those retailers chose to make products unavailable for sale based on a hot, rushed decision made from scantily clad evidence related to a particular slutty book. (So the story goes....)

They have that right, yet I would still call it censorship because their actions were because of the content of those books, hence touching upon freedom of speech--which, of course, has never really existed except in some limited, brief conditions. They determined that others should not have access to that content. Someone deciding that someone else cannot have something made by a further someone is censorship, regardless whether a government entity is responsible for it or a business. Said another way:

Joe won't let Mary read the book Terry wrote because Joe thinks the book is not suitable for Mary. Joe does not allow Mary, therefore, to judge Terry's book for herself. Thus, Mary does not get the experience of reading the book and Terry does not get the benefit of compensation for writing the book. Joe, however, gets the satisfaction of affecting control over both Mary's pleasure and Terry's livelihood. In the end, only Joe gets off cleanly...though in a dirty way.

Well, I was not personally inconvenienced by this latest incident. And it did not seem to raise as much of a storm as the previous episode did. Perhaps we self- and indie-published authors take it as the cost of doing business. The rush to judgment, casting the widest possible net to catch any and all who may have slipped in a clever double entendre or an innocent first kiss or the simple delight of a bodice-ripped heroines pining for manly men in Romance novels is the offending act. I noted in subsequent discussions online that erotica written by better known authors (e.g., E. L. James) and published by traditional publishers (the popular Fifty Shades series) was not thrown out.

That certainly smells like a double standard. Is traditionally published erotica more (or less) sexy than self-published erotica? Which is more dangerous? Are the fantasies of midnight novelists somehow less wholesome than those of 24/7 erotica authors who are promoted onto bestseller lists by big company marketing departments? And in the final analysis, isn't all erotica the same? Aren't there only a few basic moves and all the rest mere variations on what seems, practiced over millennia, to work best? Granted, there are "how-to" books which may offer some tricks and gimmicks to dress up the behavior of the undressed. Even so, one aroused person's trick is another aroused person's fetish. Right?

I've even dabbled in some nasty bits, but I tend to "keep it real"--plausible, that is. Nothing that is physically challenging for the more idealistic acrobats of the bedroom--or, as the case might be, in a janitor's closet in a foodcourt restroom in a shopping mall...or whatever.* I tried using metaphors in my romantic adventure novel, AFTER ILIUM, but nobody figured out what was going on. Not good erotica, I suppose. Here's a sample from the big sex scene:

He continued collecting souvenirs as she directed him southward, showing him a lush garden of delicious, juicy fruit to sample, even daring him to taste the puckered kumquat. The festive banquet of Eden spread before him! Drowning in the sea of pleasure, she sighed, like the wind in the sails, and encouraged him to gather all the treasures that he could. He responded by lapping furiously at the fountain of youth, growing not younger but older, gaining maturity. And when he feared he might finally be satiated, she called for him to return to port, to push hard into the harbor until his vessel was fully docked and his wares completely unloaded. (p. 41)

It's all sailing terminology! What is so objectionable about that? Docking...harbor...unloading ware...?

So, in the end, everything remains the same: business as usual: you get what you pay for. Unless someone decides it's not worth your money. Granted, there are subjects, especially in erotica, which make me uncomfortable or disgusts me. I have a threshold. So I don't read them. I don't buy them. But I'm not about to set up a wall to keep people out. Their business is none of my business. Unless...?

On the other hand, I trust people--I want to trust that people are reasonable, that they don't like certain "filth" (rape, incest, abuse, etc., as alleged by the complaint) because of a desire to act out what they read, that they are not likely to be as bad as characters in fiction might be. Faith in humanity. Yes, we've been fooled before by people committing heinous crimes, but we must hold fast to the basic belief in the rightness of the majority of our neighbors. Or we stop being human. End of lecture.

Now, everyone please turn to Porn #69 in your hymnals....

*Did not really happen!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(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.