Exchange

Let's take a break from our regularly scheduled writing lessons to allow me to announce the launch of my latest novel EXCHANGE which was delayed because of the worldwide crisis which went viral.  The book was ready to launch when we were all ordered to stay at home for the sake of our collective health. Prior to this situation, it was gun violence which most occupied our national attention, and that is the subject of this novel.

Sure, most authors borrow bits from their own lives to stuff into stories, and I did, too. But only if you really knew me would you be able to detect those. I've never been involved in any shooting, but the mass shootings we've endured the past twenty years have still greatly affected me. Last summer (2019) there were two major incidents about a week apart. One problem with blogging, I've found, is that just when I was ready to post a light-hearted blog about nothing important, there would be some tragedy like a shooting to mar my attempt at humor. It was often difficult to post. I do not mean to say my blog posts are more important, however.

At the same time, I had been planning last spring (again 2019) for someone special to join me here - and that factored into the plot of the story, as well. So as I traveled around last summer, having not much to do while regretting that there would be no wonderful reunion after all, I put all the elements together. A what-if story! What if this happened and then this also happened? How would the people in the situation handle it? What would they do? That's got to be awkward. ...And the book was born.

EXCHANGE - from the phrase foreign exchange student, but having other connotations - is a contemporary (set in the world of today; I even set it in my own city), literary (focuses on the principal character's thoughts and feelings) crime thriller (there is a big crime to start the book and more crime that follows, leaving the reader wondering what will happen next and if the characters will survive) and romance (a subplot of flirtations and eroticism which may or may not lead to a relationship) - no spoilers. That covers everything, I think; I left out the dragons this time. 

Or, as the back blurb states:

An Unspeakable Crime.

High school teacher Bill Masters and his family

have a comfortable life in suburban Oklahoma City -

until his wife and teen daughter are killed in a mass shooting.

Overwhelmed with grief, Bill struggles to put his life back

together - or construct a new life from what remains -

even as he must combat continuing crime that threatens

him and his home.

A Second Chance.

When exchange student Wu Ting "Wendy" Wang arrives

from China for her year at an American high school,

she has no idea what has just happened to her host family.

She's a constant reminder to Bill of why his family is gone.

Yet he is determined to protect her at any cost - ready 

to use his father's gun. And he will not fail this time.

Beta readers have said it is a "slow burn" kind of story with a few 'red herrings' and unexpected twists that lead to a shocking conclusion. Just as I intended when I wrote it. Who could've known? 

Available now - finally! - in paperback and for Kindle. Thanks for your patience in waiting for it's release.

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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 Truth About Blogging

I have fallen slack in the task of blogging. That I call it a "task" may give you the idea it is loathsome or difficult. That is far from the truth. Rather, in the past year, on the eve of posting a blog entry, there has been some unexpected horror in the world or else some serious topic has garnered the nation's attention - thus, rendering my decidedly more frou-frou account of random esoterica pointless. Said differently, bad things have happened about every time I've posted a blog. 

I have found it difficult to complain in a light-hearted way about trivia things as a form of entertainment when real, awful things have been happening. I could wax poetic on what political, social, economic, or artistic angle seems appropriate. I could offer my take on a tragedy - which would elicit both agreement and rebuke, neither of which does much for me personally and certainly does not further a solution to any problem. One problem of social media is the inability to have much of a calm, rational, substantive conversation involving opposing views; it is too easy to simply block anything/anyone that we disagree with. As a sometime author and teacher, I would be very unCarnegie-esque in not making friends and influencing people.

Take the still too recent shooting at a school in Florida, for example. I wanted to say something at the moment I first saw the news report and in the days that followed, to express my emotions like so many others - and perhaps propose solutions like others have. With an earful/eyeful of details, it occurred to me to think backwards: The shooter should not have been able to enter the school. Before that, the shooter should not have had access to the firearms. Before that, the shooter should not have had the desire to kill. And so on. If I express my thoughts, I open myself to criticism at many points and on many levels which does nothing productive in the end. We who were not involved in the original event merely lay wounded and ashamed. If there is an agenda pushed by anyone, I find I must either agree (disagree) or risk being accused of taking the opposing side - typically through a practiced retort like "Your silence is complicity" or similar mantras that easily fit on marching placards.

The world and the things in it are much more complicated that the majority of us would wish. Few things have simple solutions. Talk is cheap, too. Political ambitions rise and fall on so-called back-room deals that have nothing to do with solving problems or representing the wishes of the people back home. Smoke and mirrors still exist. And the drama, whatever the event, is fresh fodder for so many whose lifeblood is drama itself. Did you see what I just did there? I wrote in a decidedly neutral way so every side could believe I was writing in support of their side. But is this a suitable style of writing? For a blog? 

I guess blogging can serve a purpose aside from the ranting and raving of too many social media pundits. I can practice my craft - and walk the thin line between uncertainty and absolutism. For now, I shall wish every blog post in the weeks to come were something akin to Valentine's Day, full of love poetry, pretty flowers, and perhaps cute fluffy bunnies. Unfortunately, writing it will not make it so.

Until then...back to fiction, where I decide how horrible the world can be.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2018 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.