A Medieval Future in Mirth & Madness!

Greetings, weary readers! 

I hear your claims, feel your pains, and in most ways agree. You have need of summerly encounters with worthy word-hoards. You have found the fare lacking thus far. Yet fear not for the summer has yet to conclude and in the interval we may yet partake of a tome or two.

Those of you who have followed this blog may have already found a means by which to endure the summer days. I speak of the ribald comedy THE WARRIORS BAUMANN. This comic relief has been available since this past December (2025) though it is rightly a summer tale. You may read about its origins and some of its delicious content hither (part 1) and thither (part 2).

Next on our future medieval line up we have the might epic A TIME OF KINGS, which shall become available to you and yours upon the 8 of August in this summer. Much has been said about this dramatic turn, according to those responsible for and those so engaged in the War of the Five Princes. This seminal event in our future history is mentioned in my earlier written work: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS - where it is treated with the reverence of an ancient legend. And so I have emboldened a fine descendant of the family Baumann, a Royal physician, to tell us this great tale in impressive and passionate detail.

While A TIME OF KINGS is true to its realistic nature, a brief mention of dragons is included in order to anticipate the scourge of  aerial beasts in that earlier written tome which is set much later in the timeline. While THE WARRIORS BAUMANN is set in 2353 Missouri, A TIME OF KINGS covers the range from Tulsa to Louis, from Chicageaux to Cinnati, from 2988 to 3079. This leads us to EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS set in the year 8000. 

However, behold the sacred interval! 

Between the end of A TIME OF KINGS and the start of EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, we have a brand-new book of the kind oft called the "cozy" version of a "romantasy" (romance + fantasy; yet are not all romances actually fantasies? I ask you.). This tale sees the wayward grandson of our fine narrator in A TIME OF KINGS set out on his own quest across the remnants of the upper midwest region of the Americus. This lively tale has just concluded and should be available for the winter holiday gift-giving event. Let us title it thus: BARON HARON TELLS THE TALE OF "A POET, A PRIEST, AND A PRINCE GO INTO A TAVERN". 

It should be noted that this 93,000 word "romantasy" novel began on March 15 and the complete draft was finished on June 15. It bears some sort of a notable accounting. All this was done while awaiting beta reader feedback on the final version of A TIME OF KINGS. Now the revision and editing work begins on Baron Haron's fine tale. More details revealed soon.

And then, just as we put the final word count upon this quest/cozy/romantasy novel, we have suddenly proposed the next book in a series which had not existed only seven years ago. It should be a story of desperation, of survival of the fittest, of the extended Baumann family in, say, the year 3220. But I get ahead of myself. 

To Recap: When Polly Baumann (music professor and tuba player) takes her teen son Sandy out of the city in the sixth year of a worsening pandemic, our grand narrative is set in motion. All does not end well in each volume's entry, yet some member of the family carries on, pushes the narrative forward, and so we come episode by episode through the lawlessness, the civil war, the reconstruction of a new "Ideal Society" - only to have to escape from its tyranny to a western enclave in what many may know today as southwest Kansas. Descendants of that Kansas family hold on....

This covers the six books of the FLU SEASON SAGA. We then advance to 2353 with THE WARRIORS BAUMANN in a medieval Missouri, then to 2988-3079 with A TIME OF KINGS. You can see the pattern: try and try again yet fail and fail again to set our world aright, ever and ever, each in its interval, each in its turn, until we are at the year 8000 with dragons reigning the skies.

In other news, we can now report that this grand narrative and its timeline include the largest novels I've written: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (233,000), DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Flu Season, Book 3) (151,000), THE GRANDSONS (Flu Season, Book 6) (178,000), and A TIME OF KINGS (187,000). And yet they each read surprisingly quick; the story moves along. Sandwiched between these are a pair of thinner works of equal delight: THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (94,000) and the just-finished BARON HARON TELLS THE TALE... (93,000). 

Furthermore, I can reveal that in all 23 of my published or soon-to-be published novels I have composed collectively with 2,755,000 words. For those deeper into statistics, I can declare that the 6 books of the Flu Season Saga + The Warriors Baumann, A Time of Kings, and Baron Haron consist of 1,129,000 words in total. For those interested in my smallest books, they are AFTER ILIUM (79,000) and A GIRL CALLED WOLF (86,000).

NEXT TIME: All about A TIME OF KINGS: A Who's Who of Ne'er-do-wells!

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

(C) Copyright 2010-2026 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.

A Medieval Trilogy . . . of a sort!

Last month I formally introduced my forthcoming epic novel A TIME OF KINGS. Its premise is a war between twin princes which tears apart the realm. The war is fought between Chicageaux and Cinnati. Simple enough, I thought. Based on a story idea I had in junior high school and fully realized as a screenplay in college, with attempts at novelization that failed, I finally have finished this labor of love and now find the great tome complete in every way. In fact, much to my satisfaction. Better than I ever could've imagined as a 13-year old who never expected to write novels in his later years. You can read more about the story and its origins in my previous blog post. In this post, I shall discuss some interesting statistics I've found.

I began The Book of Mom back in 2020 - what turned out to be the first book of the FLU SEASON Saga. That was the start of our beloved pandemic, the source of six books of family drama. Well enough. First a trilogy. Then a sequel, and another book, and a final book to complete a second trilogy. Then it got interesting when I jumped head-first into the future by a couple of centuries to offer a medieval world where two brothers, descendants of the Flu Season Saga's Baumann family, set out on a journey across Missouri to the capital city of Louis in 2353. 

THE WARRIORS BAUMANN is written as a ribald comedy, the humor unhidden and often bordering on the ridiculous, with twists and turns that no reader would expect, right up to the final unlikely scene sometime in the past. Is this novel the final volume of the FLU SEASON Saga, or is it the start of a new trilogy? A trilogy with each volume set in the future medieval America where former states are now kingdoms and wars are fought with swords and arrows? Could it be so? Following THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (intro post here), we go further into the future, deeper into a medieval society that America never had but will have in the future. Like, maybe try 3000 AD - long enough for survivors of catastrophe to rebuild and eventually reach the level of a medieval society.

Hold on! Wait a minute. That's never been tried before. Stories set in a future America, sure. They tend to be full of technology, perhaps oppressive technology, the true dystopia disguised as utopia. Yet has there been a future America, with places named, which is based on a medieval society? I think not. Show me the scrolls where scribes tell it, if you can! This was my idea back in the late '70s when the Oil Crisis had me predicting we would eventually be back to riding horses. No gunpowder would force us to use swords (I was into fencing at that time). And the rest followed logically. Jump to 2020 and we have instead a convenient pandemic to crush civilization (in the FLU SEASON Saga the pandemic goes on for 10 to 14 years depending on location).

I was finalizing my apocalyptic Western, THE GRANDSONS (Book 6 of the FLU SEASON Saga) when I got the "crazy" idea for THE WARRIORS BAUMANN. I began taking notes on Sept. 10 in 2025 and made a file to begin writing the book on Oct. 14, 2025. I completed the full draft of the novel on Dec. 6, 2025 - a truly quick write. I was having so much fun the book practically wrote itself while I got credit for slapping the keyboard 2-3 hours each day. At a "slim" 290 pages, my computer notes that I spent 24 hours in total for editing it (time with the file open following the date it was first completed). The published book came to 94,000 words. As a cross-over or genre-mashing novel, it is having a hard time finding its best audience. Yet a few have come upon it (see this review from Goodreads).

While I waited for a new artist to [not] deliver the cover art (not my usual, trusty artist), I began what I had been planning to work on during my retirement years: A TIME OF KINGS. I knew it would be a bear of an epic, so I decided to wait until I had the time to devote to it completely. Fancy that! I finished this most magnificent epic in record time. I felt the story flowing through me, straight onto the page. I made the file for the manuscript on August 6, 2025 - knowing I would write it next. I came to the end of the full draft on March 7, 2026 - a few weeks ago. Again, my computer counts 340 hours of editing! Final page count is 545 with 187,000 words - an epic for sure!

The way I write is to compose new scenes each morning, then edit previous scenes. Or vice-versa. Thus, I do not write and rewrite full drafts. There is no true "second draft" and "third draft" - only when I've finished the whole thing do I go back over an already well-edited manuscript to make changes. By working constantly on revision and editing even while writing new pages, the finished manuscript is close to its final form. That's is my method, and the more I write and the more "natural" the story flows from me, the fewer changes are needed in the final reading.

Today I finished my final read-through of A TIME OF KINGS, making minor changes as needed (a changed word here, a cut sentence there, a line of dialogue added, a pesky error corrected). Now we proceed to the beta reader while I occupy myself on...what? Another new novel? Seriously? I'm like a shark: if it doesn't keep swimming it dies. If I don't keep writing, I will probably get bored and fall asleep. 

So I started a new novel, set in the same world as A TIME OF KINGS. I see it as a quest/journey story, a kind of Canterbury Tales where multiple characters appear, tell their tales, and exit while our narrator continues on. That narrator is [spoiler] the offspring of a major player in A TIME OF KINGS. Furthermore, I can say - because a certain faction of fellow authors may wish to know - this final book of my Medieval America Trilogy(tm) seems to be turning into a "Cozy Romantasy" even as I type this blog post. Pshaw! 

Just you wait and see! 

A TIME OF KINGS comes out later this year, as early as July, as late as September.

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

(C) Copyright 2010-2026 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 WARRIORS BAUMANN & The Writing Life, part 3

Rather than a 'Welcome to 2026' post, I'm continuing promotion of my newest novel THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, a ribald comedy set in medieval Missouri. Although this book is the latest installment in the FLU SEASON Saga, it is only tangentially connected. Our main characters are two Baumann descendants, brothers on a mission in the year 2353 - long after civilization has collapsed and then risen again but only to a medieval level, where former states are now kingdoms. The story is ripe for ruse and witty wiles, with a burly warrior, his clever brother, an out-on-his-luck actor, a girl warrior, a pouty princess, a dastardly duke, a wily wizard, a wayward traveler of the timestream, and a Waffle House waitress. Most of the action occurs along the Royal Road and its towns and in the capital city of Louis. (click to enlarge)

Even as I type this blog post, work continues on my next novel, a more serious epic titled A TIME OF KINGS which concerns the war between Chicageaux and Cinnati in 3030 AD, as told by another Baumann descendent. As I near the end of the initial draft, sitting at 165,000 words with two chapters to go, I am deepening and enriching the original story which I thought up at age 13 and typed up in a screenplay format while in college just to get the whole thing down on paper. More on this medieval story in a future blog post.

Where we left off in the previous blog post about my writing life, I'd thought my novel writing was done. I had published all of my books written prior to the ABNA competition (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award) in 2011, 2012, and 2013 (The Dream Land, Book 3: Diaspora was newer than ABNA but it piggybacked off Book 2, obviously.). I had achieved my goal and could sit back satisfied as I continued my teaching career. Then we discovered vampires. Rather, my daughter did: the Twilight series, which became her obsession - to the point of collecting everything and writing fan fiction.

I told her what I knew about vampirism, based chiefly on a TV magazine show about a poor fellow who suffered from porphyria, a hideous disease which caused many of the terrible symptoms we typically associate with vampires. Rather than glittery skin as in the Twilight books and movies, real vampires had dry, scaly skin from a lack of blood flow. They also, based on my research, tended to be from one blood type and that blood type happened to be most concentrated in a little place I like to call Transylvania. Perhaps Bram Stoker also did his research and located his famous vampire in that region. So I sought to write a medically accurate vampire novel just to show my daughter the truth. 

I began with a protagonist who transforms over a short time into a vampire - unaware that his parents did the same and hid away without telling him the family curse. I lived in Oklahoma City at the time, which was 2013, and so I set the story right in my own backyard, and in the same time period as I was actually writing it. Therefore, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN was published on Halloween 2014 - at the very moment he completed his transformation in Zagreb, Croatia - while searching for a cure. It was a big hit, vampires being popular in those years. Even my own doctor deemed it medically sound and praised my research and extrapolation of the cause and effect of the syndrome.

Then life turned strange. I was invited to come and teach a summer course at a university in Beijing, China. The course I chose to teach was American Business English. The university paid for my airfare and my hotel across from the campus, and gave me a salary.  When I was not in the classroom for a couple hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I was free to go sightseeing. Or stay in my hotel room and write a new novel.

The equally strange story of how I came to write A GIRL CALLED WOLF (2015) should be made into a movie. A relative of a Facebook friend saw my vampire book, read it and liked it. We "talked" online and I learned of her background, which seemed like a fascinating story. I encouraged her to write it for 

NaNoWRiMo (National Novel Writing Month [November]) of which I had participated as a way to push myself to write. She tried but didn't get far. So we agreed to work together because I felt her story was interesting and deserved to be told. We started a collaboration where she told me about her childhood and youth, and I wrote it as a novel - fictionalizing where necessary. What was amazing was how I packed up all my Greenland maps and books to take with me to Beijing in the heat of the summer so I could keep on writing it! I cranked down the A/C in my room to better get in the mood for writing about life in Greenland.

That semi-biographical effort was followed the next summer in Beijing (2016) teaching the same course again with EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (2017), what was to be my epic tome that said everything I wished to say about life, the universe, and dragons. Again, I toted my materials to that hotel in Beijing and wrote when not in class. The story that I'm sticking to is that my fellow authors at Myrddin Publishing, mostly of the fantasy genre, challenged me to also write a fantasy novel. I'd written sci-fi before (The Dream Land trilogy) but I knew I had to follow some tropes for my book to be fantasy. At the last moment, I was told my epic fantasy had to include dragons - so it did. 

I took the story as a spoof of epic fantasy (think Tolkien) at first, but as I got myself into the story I became compelled to tell a deeper narrative - with dragons. I treated the dragons as real biological creatures (no talking, no hoarding of gold, no sacrificial virgins). An exiled dragonslayer is determined to locate the dragons nesting place and kill them all to be rid of the menaces once and for all - only to discover on the journey a lot of truths that make him realize things about the nature of the universe. The novel was long enough, but during that month in Beijing I also wrote a novella which I broke into chapters to insert as interludes in the novel, making the work my longest novel. 

Whew! That was an effort, although I was very proud of the story I produced. I thought I really said some things that needed to be put into words. I felt satisfied with this "final" book. Again, I thought I was done writing books - and continued my teaching. But thoughts nagged me about my vampire hero. I wondered what he would be doing now. So I got back into the story - now 13 years into the future (what would be 2027-8) when he leaves his dour home in Croatia (an abandoned villa) for life as a playboy in Budapest, Hungary. In SUNRISE (Book 2, 2018), things happen, obviously, which leads to the third book, SUNSET (Book 3, 2019) in what became a trilogy. A problem which developed later was that I never described the 2020-22 pandemic when a character mentions what she has done through the years up to 2027 in the story. I learned never to give exact dates in a story and followed that advice for the FLU SEASON Saga.

I completed the vampire trilogy, and felt NOW I was finished writing. But then things happened again. A couple of events came together to spark a new idea for me: a crime thriller, which would be a new genre for me to wrote. But I love a challenge (dragons, anyone?) and so I set myself up to write it - only to be stopped in the middle by falling sick with what turned out to be, named a few months later, as something called Covid-19. More on the next phase of My Writing Life in the next blog post. Next time: the covid-era novels.

Meantime, get your copies of the FLU SEASON novels + THE WARRIORS BAUMANN.

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

(C) Copyright 2010-2026 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.

Legacy Media and the time of death

Legacy. It's a big word. It means everything, all you've done, all you hoped to do but didn't get around to it, your hopes and dreams, and perhaps things you've said. It can mean something or go for naught. I don't make the rules.

Those of you who may have followed this blog know when and how it began. You may recall why I started it. (Recap: as a place for supplementary material for my interdimensional sci-fi trilogy THE DREAM LAND.) It has evolved  in many different ways. Now it is contracting to one post per month. Trends come and go; it used to be the thing but now, with all the podcasting and TikTok videos, a blog - which you actually have to read to get anything out of - is a dying commodity. However, it's the only medium I'm good at.

That said, I've come to realize how my writing legacy - what may be made of it - is likely to go. In 2010 I found myself declaring that if I were able to do one thing before I died, it would be to get a novel of mine published. By 2011, I had done that albeit in a disagreeable mode; then had to do it again in 2012 to make things right. But it counted. I had a few novels already written from pre-internet days which I revised again and published. Then I found myself writing completely new books. That seemed just fine. I enjoyed telling the stories I told.

We faced an unexpected situation in 2020 that became untenable as the months went on. All I could do, staying at home, was imagine what I could write during this 'free time': a pandemic novel. Sure, a lot of writers took on the theme. As a science-fiction reader/writer, a plague similar to what we were all experiencing at that time didn't seem too fantastic. How to make it a more interesting story? I would start my pandemic book in the sixth year of the pandemic, after everything we experienced (lockdowns, shortages, fear, tyranny, etc.) got much worse.

That began the FLU SEASON saga - actually a stand-alone novel which blossomed into a trilogy before the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM (2022), was published. I quickly built on that story with a second book using the same characters; what would happen next in this situation? THE WAY OF THE SON (2023) was published, and before I finished revisions I started the next book, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (2023), which I believed would complete the trilogy. I got our fictional family through the pandemic, the lawlessness, the reconstruction of a new society. I felt comfortable leaving them at that time.

However, funny how muses work. One night a mysterious voice spoke to me: "If you write it they will read it." I had an idea for the next chapter and so I wrote what I called a sequel, not realizing it would be the start of a new trilogy: THE BOOK OF DAD (2024). Of course, the ideas did not stop there and before I published that sequel, I'd started a newer sequel, THE GRANDDAUGHTER (2024), a more light-hearted, more romantic story that would leave a sweet taste in readers. However, when I get to the final chapter, I always want to think ahead to what would happen after that final page.

Therefore, I began writing THE GRANDSONS (forthcoming in 2025) which picks up the story at the end of THE GRANDDAUGHTER and jumps ahead fifteen years. The western territory of the rebuilt nation is a rough land and only our heroine has made it a nice place with her musical talents. But her son is a problem. This becomes an epic tale of relationships and sheer survival, the struggle to survive in a harsh land and what our main characters learn about each other and themselves by going through that gauntlet. (More details in the next blog post.)

THE GRANDSONS was meant to be my final novel even as I read back through it, revising and editing as I went. I began the publication process, still expecting this book to be the end of the family saga, now up to the year 2185 by the final page. I declared my writing career done. Oh, I might put together a collection of my short stories just for sheets and googles. But it didn't take more than a few days for me to realize that without a writing project I would likely die sooner rather than later. I needed a project - but what?

Then, without trying to think of a new idea - not even considering continuing this same series - an idea popped into my head as I sat waiting for the trailers to start before the movie I'd chosen to see. Before the trailers! I saw a barbarian fellow in a forest with a sword - and I knew it was the same series but further into the future, say 2350 or so, a couple hundred years beyond the end of THE GRANDSONS. The world has gotten more barbaric, medieval even, heading to the great epic tome I plotted as a 13 year old boy. I titled it A TIME OF KINGS after the overture we were playing at the time in my junior high band because the music perfectly fit the story I was devising. Later I turned my outline and notes into a screenplay in college, then attempted to novelize it later but got busy with other things.

In my only Epic Fantasy - titled EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (2017) - characters in year 8000 would mention ancient times and the War of the Five Princes which is a direct reference to my early novel idea/screenplay, covering events of the years 2980-3070. And voila! as they say in France. A new novel was born: something to tie the FLU SEASON Saga to this EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS. The Baumann family, fleeing a city in chaos during the sixth year of the pandemic, survives through many hardships to eventually produce a boy who is saved from battle by the King of the Missourites (capital city: Louis) in 2980. That boy grows up at court, but becomes instrumental in instigating the War of the Five Princes and, in the war's aftermath, he becomes .... [spoiler alert].

So I have started this new novel, more epic fantasy than sci-fi/post-apocalyptic America. I'm titling it THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, focused on two brothers of a brood of brothers, hoping to make good in their destinies in the barbaric land. And, not to have to wait for another idea, the book which would come next shall be titled SONS OF STANK (Stank a.k.a. Stanley K. Baumann). After this book comes the infamous A TIME OF KINGS in which I finally finish novelizing the screenplay (plus notes made since then), regardless of any similarities with the GAME OF THRONES universe. First of all, my series is set in future America, not a fantasy world.

I still may not get to all of that. It's the reason I have written each book in the series to work well as a stand-alone: a complete story, satisfying in itself, without the requirement to read previous books or to read the following books. I give readers all they need to know from previous books to understand the current book but without too much backstory. Keep checking back to see my progress. I may falter and fail to finish this final trilogy, but I shall give my all to the project for without something to keep me out of trouble I shall without fail get into trouble, and that isn't good for anyone.

UPDATE: THE GRANDSONS was such a delightful project that it simply flowed. I have moved up the publication date from mid-fall to mid-summer. Look for it!

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

(C) Copyright 2010-2025 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 Usual February Blues

In the greater scheme of things, February is clean-up time. Saddled with both fresh starts and fading glory, the second month is inexplicably stuffed full of many major events. 

First comes Groundhog Day which applies only to Pennsylvania but for whom many other folks rely. 

Next comes the Super Bowl, the biggest bowl ever to be filled! This year, however, the vaunted champions did not capture the trifecta. Never fear, I fully expect the team to return to the big game next season, perhaps facing the same opponent.

After the big game comes the little one's birthday, although she is not so little now, all grown up and on her own in an exciting career. 

Then we have the Day of Presidents, formerly Mr. Lincoln's birthday. Rather than celebrate the two most important presidents, Lincoln and Washington, Congress swept all the top politicians into a single day. Thus, such chief executives as Millard Fillmore and William Henry Harrison (president for only eight days) get equal billing with the heavy hitters, like Mr. Taft and Mr. McKinley.

It is a slow slog into March and hopes of Spring Break after that, but we need those two weeks to rest and prepare for what we've all been waiting for. And what is that, you may be wondering?

The completion of the first full draft of the final volume in my FLU SEASON Saga (formerly a trilogy and two sequels), THE GRANDSONS (a.k.a. Book 6).

Now I shall read and revise, as is my usual routine, ready or not. THE GRANDSONS is a long story, a novel within a novel, but I trust the story will be sufficiently engaging to keep the pages turning as you experience the post-apocalyptic landscape though a host of Western tropes and outlaw vibes, futuristic cities, religious fervor, territorial conquests, nuclear disaster and impending doom for everyone! Yes, an uplifting epic for everyone!

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter:

A crowd gathers to see who this figure might be, as none have come from the east for years – none worth addressing, at the least. Stragglers with tales of flameless fire and putrid illness. A wave of death. Fleeing criminals hoping for a break. The rare lost tax man or some ignorant seeker of opportunity, random scalawags and bold outlaws. A gunslinger or two. A foolish family hoping to survive.

Dark in road-rough garb, the figure glares from beneath the rim of the felt hat at the townsfolk gathered: passersby, the curious, morning shoppers, businessmen going to offices. Another cow town, the stranger seems to acknowledge with a disappointed shift of chin. They’re harmless, and unarmed, the dark figure notes.

The figure, looking more to be a woman in man’s clothing as the people examine, lays her hand upon the grip of one of two pistols set upon her hips, ready to use it.

“Skinner Canyon?” asks the stranger in mild tone.

“Yes, ma’am,” says an older man, wiping his moist brow, beady eyes set in a permanent squint. “This’s the place.” He gives her a long look, not approving. “What’s yer bidness in town?”

Townsfolk can see the two pieces of cargo lain in the cart. There is a crudely constructed wooden box, looking like pine, large enough and in the shape to hold a laid-out man. The wood is well-smudged with dirt, grimy like it was dragged up from the earth. A coffin, they presume, nailed tightly shut. Who could be inside? 

The trend these days when querying agents and publishers is to construct what is called a Mood Board or Vision Board using snippets of images, perhaps brief text, to help entice would-be investors in the story. I get it. Like a Pinterest posting, which I did long ago. Here is one I threw together last night. It should give you a good feel for the story.

More details next time. I'll give away some of the plot but with no spoilers. You will recognize some characters from Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER and some of the setting from that novel. This novel, however, moves far from that town into truly sci-fi territory without (I hope) getting too sci-fi techy or relying too much on familiar tropes of a post-apocalyptic world (zombies, etc.). I have an overall positive view of the future, but one which turns away from the technology that kills us all in most sci-fi movies. The ending here may not be "happy" in a Mary Sue sense, but will be satisfying.

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

(C) Copyright 2010-2025 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.

Welcome to 2025

Just as January follows December and 2025 follows 2024, I follow also with another blog post - and let me tell you it is tough these days. However, in my stupidity, I dare not let it lapse. To lapse is to make the mountain of return steeper. And I shall not endure that effort. As it is a new year I shall begin by wishing everyone, friend and follower, the best possible collection of days one may possibly experience. Hopefully, some of them will bring you joy, enlightenment, and a satisfying sigh of pleasure. I am not without the same desires for a carefree expanse of days.

Let us first acknowledge the onset of the Year of the Snake, a zodiac animal with which I have no affinity. I resonate much better with the Dog, the Cow, and the Tiger. I accept the Dragon and the Mouse. I have little awareness of what a Snake year may bring; I remain stricken by that snake offering fruit long ago and all that has come from that encounter. I have, however, once long ago sampled rattlesnake at a restaurant also serving elk and bison. (Tasted like chicken.)

Thus acknowledged, I shall invite you to indulge in my on-going saga of the family Baumann whose exploits through several generations and five novels continues into one more book: THE GRANDSONS. I expect this is the final book in the series, a total of 6 novels, woven together yet perfectly arranged for each volume to stand alone as a unique story in itself. It is fitting that the family saga end with a massive tome rivaling the epic fantasy bricks of the past only with a post-apocalyptic Western setting.

I won't share much today; I leave that for subsequent blog posts. I have been at work on this great epic since concluding Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER, the lightest and most uplifting of the series of pandemic/survivalist and reconstruction/oppressive society novels. This new novel does indeed relate to Book 5 as the title characters are the grandsons of the heroine of Book 5 (which may be a spoiler for Book 5, sorry). 

In writing a long story, I continue to come up against the length. And yet, I realize I could tell the same events in leaner portions and still cover everything. However, that hardly makes a good story. More like a newspaper report: just the facts, ma'am. No, I must fill in every scene and make it dramatic, let the reader languish in a scene and setting, to be in the scene and experience it as though just another character.

It is rather like this short form: He got up one morning and spent the day doing tasks. In the evening he had dinner, read a book, and fell asleep. The end.

Or I can "draw it out" by adding details, giving descriptions, letting things happen, letting them unfold, introduce other characters, give the main character some purpose, a problem to solve, disagreeable events to deal with, a love interest, and reveal all manner of thoughts and feelings.

That is what makes a story worth reading. Otherwise it is only an account of someone doing something akin to journalism or a memoir.

So I have devised a novel within a novel, as it turns out. THE GRANDSONS begins in the present-day of the story - which is 15 years after the end of THE GRANDDAUGHTER - and presents a situation: a stranger coming to town (Skinner Canyon of Book 5 fame, a western outpost of a dying nation). The confrontation sends us back 15 years to experience everything that happened. This 'middle novel' leads us to up to the present-day once more and, now that we understand all that happened, our thoughts and feelings will likely change for the concluding chapters. It will have a satisfying ending, I promise, yet with a dramatic twist in the final chapter. I've written a draft of that chapter already so I know it to be true.

That is enough for now. I shall keep you updated. I expect THE GRANDSONS will be available later this year.

Meantime, you may wish to enjoy the five currently existing novels of the FLU SEASON Saga  which can be found in paperback and e-book form here. 

I have other novels, too, in several genre, all available in both formats here. 

Thanks again for your support!

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

(C) Copyright 2010-2025 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.

End of 2024 Review

The year 2024 has been a year of regrets, I regret to say. Regrets for things I didn't do; for things I did do but perhaps shouldn't have; for things I said and failed to say; for looking back far too much; for not getting that time machine built.

This has been one of the most difficult years I've had since my toddler years when much was not actually my fault. A lot happened. Some good, some not so good. I'll try to keep it light for the holiday season.

I began the year in the dark weeks of winter by deciding to move to a new residence out of spite for the changes the management made during the previous year (after I signed the lease). My new place was more in-town, a mere 3 miles south of the old place, was of a more traditional style. So far, it has been comfortable - but my neighbors changed and now I have loud talkers below me. I don't complain much because at least they are not loud music buffs.

I settled in and returned to working on whatever the latest book was, putting off unpacking for when the muses insisted on napping. Spring came over the land and I noticed. Didn't do anything, but I noticed. Had thoughts of this summer's road trip. Studied maps. 

Next I helped my daughter move. That is: sell a big house and buy a small house. Then the truck and the lifting and the carrying. You know the drill. That stressed me enough that I had to be checked out by my newest doctors. I say newest because I had moved here two years earlier upon retirement and had to switch from doctors in the old location in another state. Plus the hassle of setting up various government programs designed to keep paying taxes for as long as possible. So far, so good as I arrived at the summer. I was put back together and sent on my way. No road trip.

I decided to take it easy the rest of the year, relax and let the world come to me. I've actually accomplished that goal. In fact, I still have not finished unpacking since I moved in to this new home. I think about it. Instead, I get up, do some writing, check the socials, run errands as needed, take a nap, get up and watch TV, get dinner, watch YouTube videos or a movie or write more, then read and go to bed. An easy schedule. A simple life.

Next I shall elaborate on my writing during the year. If you've read about this topic in previous blog posts, that's fine. Thanks. I still urge you to read on; the grammar is better this time.

Professionally (if I may use the term for a non-paid vocation), I managed to complete Book 4 in my Flu Season series. I'd thought a trilogy was enough to hang my hat on - my third trilogy, achieving the trifecta! Yet another book idea kept pushing into my head until I had to write it in order to stop the noise. Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD continues the misadventures of one of the family members as he suffers through the 'Ideal Society' of the capital after the pandemic years and civil war have passed. The theme is about truth, what it is and how it can be so easily corrupted - as he learns from Big Sister. Appropriately, THE BOOK OF DAD launched on Father's Day.

By that publication date, I had already started yet another book in the series, calling Book 4 a sequel to the trilogy. However, starting Book 5 forced me to see the continuing project as a new trilogy. This new book is narrated by the daughter of the main character of Book 4. It is a lighter story with an emphasis on music as a vital aspect of human experience, lost during the previous reconstruction era. In Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER, a simple country girl living out west in this post-everything world decides to start a kids band in her little town. But she is noticed through some music events and rises to a full musical career. I often call this story a remake of the musical The Music Man but with a post-apocalyptic Western setting. THE GRANDDAUGHTER launched in September.

What does a pair of books need to become a trilogy? 

Yes, by then, I had started what I expect to be the final volume in the Flu Season Saga: THE GRANDSONS. As of this blog posting, this novel is, by my estimation, roughly half finished. It is a complex book using a frame story. We begin in the "present" of the story which is 15 years after the end of Book 5. Then we slip back in time to reveal what has been happening to the characters during that 15 year span. Finally, we arrive again at the book's present time and, having now learned all that happened, the concluding chapters are poignant and a fitting conclusion to the entire six-book series. When all is said and done, we are well into the future and on the way to connecting with my vampire series and my epic fantasy novel. Book 6: THE GRANDSONS should launch in fall 2025 if all goes well.

The end of the year is always a quiet time. I'm not much for lavish parties although I attend them sometimes. Not a fan of loud celebrations. Not much for the religious devotions yet still appreciate the music. That's just not me. Been that way most of my life. I prefer periods of quiet reflection. That often leads to a list of regrets. Thinking over what I've done, what I've witnessed through the year, and what could've been done better - not that I can go back and fix anything. I might be able to rewrite some things as fiction, a better version of the truth.

At this stage of my life, I make few plans. Other than finish the book mentioned above - and I have no plans to start another following it, although I have a couple manuscripts in unfinished condition I might take another look at - I will hopefully awaken each day and only then make a decision what to do. Then another decision as the day blossoms. Then another. Hard to say. It's something to do.

I wish you all the happiest of holidays now passed, and a better new year in 2025 than any past year!

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

(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 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.

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

(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 GRANDDAUGHTER Launches!

The fifth book in the FLU SEASON series, THE GRANDDAUGHTER, launches today or tomorrow depending on the internet gods, while the ebook version for Kindle has already been available since September 10. Click here to get the ebook - the paperback link will be here as soon as I get it (should be September 15). 

UPDATE (9/15): Due to the vagaries of the internet the paperback version's availability will be delayed by 2-3 days.

UPDATE (9/16)! The book gods have ruled! The paperback link is here. Thanks for your patience.

You can get the entire series (five books) here.

Does that end the series? Hmmm. I thought I was writing a stand-alone novel when I wrote the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM, but I realized half way into it that the story would have to continue. Because I couldn't see a two-book series, I immediately went for a trilogy while writing Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON. However, as I was concluding Book 3, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, I had ideas for another book. Then, while writing Book 4, THE BOOK OF DAD (out this past June), I had ideas for Book 5 THE GRANDDAUGHTER. I began to wonder when the madness would end while hoping it never would. (I am currently well into the writing of Book 6, THE GRANDSON, which should be the final book in the series.)

FLU SEASON is a series. Each book follows after the previous book. Each book, however, is a stand-alone novel, complete in itself. A lot of series are set up this way: yes, you are meant to read them in order for the best experience but each volume can stand as its own story regardless of having read other volumes. A character may appear in more than one book and the timeline traverses the series, and in that way they are linked. But standing as individual novels, the characters do catch you up and give you what you need to know from earlier books so you're not left confused. (Note: I never make use of the infamous "As you know, Bob..." constructions.

Here is a look at what you can expect in each novel of the series, as tweeted previously.

FLU SEASON (Book 1): THE BOOK OF MOM

Everything was fine, just me and Mom. And her precious tuba. Then the pandemic came and everyone had to adapt to a new normal. Until the new normal became unbearable.

We awoke one morning and the news was worse than before. Food rationing, no power, gas lines. Mom decided we should leave, wait it out at my grandparents' farm, but danger followed us, all the way to the coast, trying to find safety with family members who instead needed our help more than we needed theirs.

I had to trust Mom to find a sanctuary - hopefully not an island where other survivors are trying to set up their own society with rules as strict as back in the city. And definitely not a place where our family secrets will be exposed. 

That's the last thing we need as we wait for this pandemic to end.

FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON

Everything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it is your responsibility to protect her and you fail. 

Now you have a wife and baby to protect in the savage outerlands - where danger lurks in every shadow, and it's every man for himself.

I call it the Way of the Son - definitely not the way Mom would've gone. 

The road is finite, and well-marked, so you only need to go along it, following the path that’s already set before you. Yet sometimes it will lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes you will end up in the wrong place. You have to find your way back home again, wherever that may be - even through a deadly pandemic.

FLU SEASON 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS

It was hard enough trying to start from scratch after the pandemic destroyed half of everything. Best to settle far from anyone, hiding in the forest of a national park.

But with militia from the new government coming by, rebels still on the loose, and new neighbors settling nearby, the new normal was a mix of intense danger and surprising joy.

But which kind of life would win in the end?

How can you raise a bunch of daughters in this kind of world?

Hiding away in the forest of a national park, Sandy's family (from Books 1 & 2) waits for the world to return to normal.

But they soon discover other families have the same idea. As the survivalists of the national park work together, his family faces challenges and opportunities. They suffer through the vagaries of an on-going civil war between North and South territories. 

The conflict splits the family into convergent destinies, leaving Sandy's daughter, Isla, to carry the family into the future, living to witness the reconstruction of a new society.

Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD

Fritz is sent for rehabilitation, then assigned a street cleaner job in the city, just for making a video exposing the true history of the ten-year pandemic and civil war that followed - based on everything his mother, Isla, has told him all his life - whether he wanted to hear it or not.

 

Now he finds himself in trouble again in the capital city as he tries to make sense of this Ideal Society. With weekly counseling and constant surveillance, Fritz is going crazy. Only getting back his family's tuba might save him.

That crime sets him up for a crucial act which lands him in the Department of Social Order. Only a reprieve by the Governor herself - the self-styled Big Sister - can save him this time. But it comes with a cost, one he may not be able to pay.  

The next chapter in the FLU SEASON saga follows Isla's youngest child, now grown and a husband and father, as he fights for truth, justice, and a way out.

FLU SEASON 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER

Isla Baumann is born in the seventh year of the great pandemic (Books 1-3). Her last child, Fritz, goes to the capital (Books 3-4) and suffers under the restored government's oppression. His children escape to a small town in the western corner of the nation.

THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Book 5) follows Maggie's life as a young woman with ambition stuck in a dusty cowtown. She decides what this post-pandemic town needs is a children's band. But first she must return to the dirty capital to claim the family's tuba. 

Following in her great-great-grandmother's footsteps, she vows to play the tuba and gets a musical instrument salesman to help her start the band. But there are plenty of obstacles to achieving her goals, a struggle which brings her to the ultimate decision that will save the capital and the nation.

I hope you enjoy this pandemic/post-pandemic/dystopian family saga which, back in March 2020, I didn't intend to write. But I had some time on my hands while staying home the rest of the year. This is the result and I'm quite pleased with it. Even as I get older and other things work less well, my twisted mind can still dream up twisted stories to entertain myself - and you, if you so choose. Thanks as always for your support all of these years.

I expect FLU SEASON 6: THE GRANDSON to be finished sometime in 2025, likely toward autumn as I'm not in any hurry. 

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

(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.