Writing Edgy in 2023

Whoa! That last blog post nearly ended the year for me. Seriously, a couple days after posting it I came down with a true illness not seen since August 2019 before anyone gave it a name. But I've recovered, thankfully. (By the way, greetings and salutations for the new year!)

However, something good came out of my drug-induced stupor: creativity. Dreams turn into notes, that turn into outlines, then become paragraphs on pages. And before you know it the first chapter exists. And the writing has not stopped. I'm in a zone where I cannot sleep at night or in an afternoon nap because of the on-going scene construction that would be better done by a Hollywood studio.

Back in 2020 when everybody was alarmed by a mysterious illness and we engaged in lockdowns and all sorts of lifestyle changes, I thought it would be the perfect time to write a post-apocalyptic novel. That lasted about two weeks. I read a few novels on the theme during the following year. Finally I was ready to write mine. When I found a way into the story (e.g., a single mom, her teen son, and a tuba), I could begin.

The first book of my FLU SEASON pandemic trilogy The Book of Mom came out late last year (click that link!). That was all well and good, but during the weeks of cover art and during the publication process, I finished book 2 in the trilogy The Way of the Son, which I expect to be available sometime in spring. Again, a good effort: two full novels within a year. But wait! There's more.

I couldn't find the entrance to the story for book 3 in the trilogy, Dawn of the Daughters, even though I knew the basic story. Then I got sick, swooned a while, and arose at the keyboard to pound out that manuscript. As I stare at this blog post, book 3 sits at what I consider to be 2/3 of the way to the end. That could change, of course. The story left to tell could be a full novel in its own right. I'm tempted to add a fourth book....

But here's the thing. I had two overarching goals for the first book - before I decided half-way that this would be a trilogy - and those were (are!):

1. a story of ordinary (if quirky) people and how they handle an on-going pandemic - without resorting to unusual motifs like zombies or other more sci-fi elements of most stories of this genre.

2. push myself to the edge of the envelope with regard to the sex and violence meter - not to throw gratuitously depicted action in readers' faces but to address the unfortunate likelihood of such aspects in a pandemic-ruined society.

So I let her rip. Book 1 opens with an anecdote of how our narrator was conceived on a nude beach when his mother was technically underage. I let "Mom" be her true self (not in any way based on my own mother), teasing and flirting yet offering quips of wisdom and songs played on her tuba. I introduce a love interest for our narrator, becoming a teen romance - but allowing our teen lovers to do what teens will do.

And the violence! It doesn't appear to shock or to drive an agenda. Rather, the violence our characters encounter is what may very well occur in that lawless situation. It pushed home the real nature of what we might expect were we to be them on the road, seeking sanctuary not only from a virus but from other people who would kill us for an old sandwich. It escalates as they travel from one destination to the next, expecting but not finding a refuge.

But the destination, a barrier island where the family's vacation home still sits, is not truly a sanctuary. Gathering people who are not infected, a kind of community has formed, but not a free society. They are, instead, something of a cult. Again, I push myself to press that envelope to its tearing point. Book 2 takes it much further as our characters try another way to varying degrees of success - yet not enough to settle down.

As I crash through Book 3, having a new narrator tell the story, the opportunities for my twisted mind to unfold schemes is enhanced. And I take full pleasure in the dirty and the dangerous which they encounter in their experiences. They gradually come into the greater world and we see how society is trying to rebuild. It seems a better place and readers may get a sense of hope, but soon the darker underbelly shows through the cracks.

I've stated on my social media how this trilogy may be my final work, with me getting old and surly, my fingers less sure on the keys, my mind taken to greater flights of fancy. Therefore, I'm allowing myself to be as naughty and violent as I can imagine for my characters. They all hate me for it, obviously. And yet I persist. I push and press and kick them forward into their fate! Why? Because I can. Because I'm mean and gnarly, and want to see them suffer. Because I want them to cry out to the universe their misery and pain! To shriek how their suffering brings universal truths to light. And they finally get it: the message. 

Oh, sure, I may, as happens with most of my novels, rein it in during revision. I tend to get the shivers. What would my mother think were she to read this? Well, Mom, I'm all grown up now, so I'm not holding back any longer. I'm being edgy now! Just remember, FLU SEASON is not a theater of the macabre but a view into the near future of what could be. It is a warning not to be too surprised when things don't go our way!

Book 1 THE BOOK OF MOM is available now in paperback and for Kindle. (click the link)

Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON will be available in spring. The manuscript is completed, revised, and edited. Cover art is in process.

Book 3 DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS is nearing completion and is expected to be available by the end of 2023. (We also get the story behind Mom's tuba and why it is so precious to her.)

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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.

Understanding the Horror in Horrible

It has been a horrible week. Reality has been too loud, too immediate, yet somehow distant when projected through the filters of social media and mainstream news reporting. What we feel is muted, in some way, because of the increasing frequency of events and the routine reportage. It may be similar to an aficionado of the horror genre who reads too much and becomes jaded, unable to be frightened any longer. Are we there yet?

October has just begun. As Halloween approaches, we accept the once a year opening of the door to the underworld and the unseen and possibly the undead, as well, it may be the best time to also reflect on what makes horror horrible...er, uh, scary. (You knew what I meant, right?)

Ever have a scary dream? Maybe it awakens you in the middle of the night and you don't know where you are. Maybe you still feel those pin picks or knife cuts in your skin. Perhaps your throat feels tight and the skin is rough from where the rope scraped. You might have been sensing the increasing pressure of heavy stones laid upon a barn door which was itself laid over you, all the better to extract a fictitious confession. 

Or perhaps your brand of scary is biting into a chocolate birthday cake and instead of pleasure, finding crunched up bits of cricket or other "foreign" matter there. Perhaps the beverage served reminds you a bit too much of freshly squeezed blood, donated by the kid who did not bring any gift. Or the sandwich you packed for lunch today somehow tastes strangely like human flesh instead of what it is: braised cow tongue. You open the lunch box and there are cockroaches squirming about. Is that your kind of scary?

Still another kind of scary is logging on the Internet - or, just as easily, flipping on the television - and there they are: so many stories of horror happening all around us and across the world. Killings of all kinds done in many creative forms. Solo assassins, self-designated mayhem artists, gangs of revengers, harmful idiots out for their own entertainment at the folly of anyone who gets in the way. Or the larger forms of them: armies of nations or parts of them doing the same thing: creating chaos for its own sake or the sake of someone's power structure. Where is the candy?

Or take it down to street level in your local town. Same thing: street thugs, simpletons with weapons, angry for anger's sake, and loners with axes to grind, guns to shoot, people to kill--for the sake of Halloween? Nope. Just people afraid of people, shooting before shaking hands. People afraid of their own shadows--or the lingering shadows of the previous night's dream. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" It's all the same in an unsettling way: a spark of angst in the middle of the brain and we shriek. Meeting the tiger in the jungle or the human on the street, which worries you more?

Whether the horror is on the screen in a movie theater or on the page in a book, the mind provokes the body into a certain set of sensations and we act or react. Let the horror be real or let it be a fictitious fright. We feel it the same way biologically. And yet, the fictitious kind usually leaves us stronger, more confident, even less afraid, while the real horrors leave us in constant terror, constant stress, that we cannot simply put down or walk away from when we've had enough. That is the true horror of the horrors around us. 

Halloween is coming. Is it too little an event now? Is it too unscary compared to the real world today? Is it more trick than treat? Is it becoming a little better, or are we not yet at the peak? Be safe in your own little world and, at least for a night, pretend that all you have to worry about is a bad dream that will go away when you open your eyes. Or (it's happened to me too often), a lot of children ringing the doorbell after you've already given out your last bag of candy corn.

Looking forward to a day when this is the scariest thing we will see.

If you liked this rant, I accept donations of Kit-Kat and Jelly Belly jelly beans (any flavor). Thanks.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2017 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.