All About THE GRANDSONS

You may notice that this blog has been going for 15 years. That in itself may seem amazing, but it hasn't been without its ups and downs. My goal now is to maintain it with one post per month minimum so I have a neat calendar listing on the right side.

As I posted on various social media platforms in the past week, THE GRANDSONS, my latest novel and the next volume in the FLU SEASON Saga, has launched. In fact, launched early - not that it wasn't ready; it was.

Funny story: It was late and I thought to do a last-minute check of the details in all the spaces and pages of the publication process only to come up to the final button. I mistook that button for the "save" button and, having pressed it, the book was launched. But, not to worry, for it was finished, polished, and ready to go. I simply wished to make July 1 the publication date. Seeing the next day that it had actually been launched, I scrambled to check the details of the print edition, then went ahead and launched the paperback, too. Now both are "live" and available to you.

Get them both here: Da Link!

Get the entire series here: Flu Season Saga!

THE GRANDSONS concludes the Flu Season Saga in epic fashion: a feisty Western set in the future, with unexpected science-fiction oddities, outlandish courtroom theatrics, and tear-jerking family drama. 

The Principal Players:

Jake Baumann - flaneur/narrator of the 'present' storyline, dentist and coroner

Assorted townsfolk: Deputy Cal; Doc Baker; Judge Robinson; Mr. Duda & Mr. Hitchens, attorneys-at-law; colorful trial witnesses; random phantoms and freaks 

Maggie Baumann - Jake's grandmother (his mother was adopted by Maggie) & Bart's mother

Bart Baumann - son of Maggie, a teenage boy at the start, full grown man later*

The Culpepper Sisters: Trinity, eldest, "the mean one"; **Trina, "the quiet one"; Triss, "the silly one", outlaws

Nick Ramos - gamekeeper at The Facility

Marina Kvashenaya - scientist at The Facility

Jesus Alvarez - a traveler, follower of the Brethren

*The "15 years earlier" section is written in 3rd-person, as though it's been pieced together by a writer telling what he's heard.

**Who is the "main character" in THE GRANDSONS? I'll just say that Trina is in the first scene and the final scene, connecting with both Bart and Jake. Anything more would be spoiler.

click to enlarge

The Story:

Part 1 - A stranger comes to town bearing two bodies on a cart. The woman is well-known and the deputy takes her into custody to get answers to questions left unanswered for fifteen years. A trial begins, trying to tie her to the crimes of her sisters and an outlaw known as Bad Bart. Jake, town dentist and coroner, gets involved: he sees the woman as someone to save. Jake's grandmother, Maggie (from Book 5), just wants to know what happened to her son the past fifteen years when everyone thought he was dead.

Part 2 - More than 100 years after a pandemic and civil war broke apart the nation (Books 1-3), a new reconstituted America struggles between tyranny in the east and survival in the west (Books 4 & 5). In this western territory, fatherless teen Bart Baumann is stuck between his nagging mother and a domineering uncle, the sheriff, Bart is in a hurry to grow up. Going on a posse after an outlaw gang gives Bart the chance to show everyone he's a man. But that plan doesn't go as expected and his life is forever changed.

Young Bart becomes lost in the wilderness. He stumbles upon the camp of a trio of gunslinger sisters who take him in, teach him the business. As Bart grows up he comes into conflict with the older sister while entering a romance with the middle sister. When his bad deeds earn him a high bounty, he realizes it's better to go straight and live a normal life, but where can he and his young family go? He checks the surrounding towns for a good home.

The answer is forced on him as they are chased by a posse of lawmen into the "forbidden zone", the land west of the western territory. There they discover what has happened to the nation: destruction that has left the land devoid of people. They try to survive in the new environment, a daily struggle finding food and defending against dangers - until they find a hidden facility of scientists who believe the air and land outdoors is poisonous, even as they work to create children immune to the poisons. However, Bart can't help himself: acting badly once more, they must flee again.

Finally settling with one of the scientists from the facility in an abandoned house outside a long-destroyed city, they think they are alone and can just live their lives - only to be caught in battles between religious fanatics and foreign soldiers. A wandering wiseman convinces Bart there's no need to go further west: nothing there. Then a devastating tragedy compels them to return east, where they hope to meet up with the other sisters and live a normal life. 

Part 3 - But the sisters have gotten into more serious trouble while they've been away. Bart becomes an unwitting participant in a final tragedy that threatens to separate him from his found family. The trial in Part 1 concludes with agonizing testimony and an explanation for the nuclear holocaust threatening them. Questions are answered. Yet it is left to Bart's cousin Jake to reconcile everything, especially setting the record straight for future generations.

Stats for Nerds:

File created: May 21, 2024

Draft finished: February 17, 2025
(Approximately 1 year between launch of Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD and THE GRANDSONS, with Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER between them.)

Final revision completed (not counting extra tweaks/edits): April 27, 2025

Pages (including blank pages between chapters; not including frontmatter and endmatter pages): 542

Final word count (not including chapter division marks, etc.): 148,000 

Sessions (opening file to work on it): 1561 

Is this actually the conclusion of the FLU SEASON Saga?

Well, folks.... Before THE GRANDSONS was even half-way done with revisions, I started another book, set 200+ years after the end of THE GRANDSONS, to be titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, which follows two ancestors of the family in Book 6 as the world further descends into chaos and a plain medieval society becomes the norm in Missouri. It is written as a comedy, a farce, if you will, yet with a warm-hearted finish that connects with my earlier novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, which is set 8000 years in the future. 

Happy reading!

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

(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.

Writing Motivations: An Exercise in Self Therapy

Sure, writing a story is about creating something chiefly for entertainment. You could also include a message or two. Add some personal episodes. Tell some idea you may have about something, relevant or not. A lot of stories (and novels!) are based to some degree on the author's own experiences. That's not a requirement; usually it's because the real event fits nicely into the story and it's often easier to borrow than to invent from whole cloth. I've certainly done that with my 20 novels.

I began with a cool idea. What if this happened? I wrote it out, exploring the idea, testing it. Not too interesting in itself, I soon learned. Have to add characters who are interesting; they can deal with the problem. Then the problem becomes interesting because readers see it through the eyes and mind of the character. Most of my books begin with an interesting premise but it is always explored through the main characters' experiences.

What about exploring yourself? 

My first completed novel was back in 1981 (remains unpublished). I was not exploring my own issues in that. It took another novel (1983; published in 2020) for me to see something in it that reflected my own condition. In my youth, I often would explore a situation as if I were only an example, a test subject, even though - had I been pressed - I might have realized I was figuring out something about myself. 

That side effort of writing a fictional piece became more apparent as I got to grad school and entered an MFA program I believed would help launch my career (it didn't although I did learn some valuable things). Since then, I've noticed how the things in my real life that nag me, that cause me grief, or puzzle me can be worked out through invented characters substituting for me. I can have characters do what I would never dare do, say, or even think, in my real life.

A few examples.

The example that comes most quickly to my mind, is my so-called crime thriller novel EXCHANGE (May 2020). Although the plot of story doesn't involve anything in my real life, I did draw liberally from my real life to inform certain scenes and find the grief in the main character, making it more real and visceral. Early in 2019 my elderly mother died. Although we knew it was getting close, it still came as a surprise when I received the phone call from the hospice. I didn't feel anything for a while, even as I went through the steps I was supposed to go through, e.g., grieving, settling her estate, etc. But something was boiling deep in me and I let it come out in my writing: the main character in the novel suffers the murder of family members in a mass shooting (not a spoiler). I put everything I was feeling into what I had the character feel, what he said to the psychologist, how he acted. In a strange way, it was easy to write; I felt it and it flowed out my fingers onto the page. And in that way, that letting it out through the page, I did manage to find closure.

When I wrote the first volume of my vampire trilogy, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN (October 2014), I was determined to stay in a hyper-realistic mode. I set the story in the same city and the same time as I was writing it. I used my real feelings to infuse the main character's feelings in regard to his relationship, the love interest, and about his own morality. That was me doing the feeling, doing the thinking, and putting it on the page for others to "enjoy". When I wrote about his relationship with his parents in the second book, SUNRISE (April 2018), I could draw from the relationship I had with my own parents (although they were not vampires). Again I cut and pasted from actual everyday experiences I had with them.

In my FLU SEASON series, which began with what I believed would be a one-off stand-alone novel about a single mother and her teen son surviving a worse pandemic/lockdown than what most of us experienced in real life, I found a lot of connections to exploit. 

The first book, THE BOOK OF MOM (November 2022), is narrated by the teen son who "suffers" from Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. I chose to have the character that way because I was, at the time, becoming informed about it. Random sources sparked something in me that made me wonder, through the long line of experiences in my life, if I might not also have that syndrome undiagnosed. Turns out many adults find out later in life that they have actually been living (sometimes unsuccessfully) through the unusual aspects of the syndrome. I hadn't been diagnosed at the time I started writing; I merely thought it would make an interesting character - and it did. 

And speaking of Father's Day (which it is as I post this), we have THE BOOK OF DAD (June 2024) which was written as a sequel to the original trilogy. I had more ideas so I wrote another book. In it, I saw a twist on Orwell's "1984" but only inasmuch as the new capital was a repressive place where thought and history were strictly controlled. I let fly all my paranoia and neuroticism in the character of Frank (Isla's last child). I explored my own beliefs about the role of a man in society, as a provider, as a protector, and how society (government) sought to replace those roles, leaving a man with nothing to stand for, nothing to do but manual labor. He rages at his society - as we rage against ours today. But it was therapeutic for me, letting it out of my system, so to speak.

As the series continued through the family lineage, that body of traits is passed along to a greater or lesser degree, right up to Book 6: THE GRANDSONS (coming July 1, 2025). We don't know if the syndrome affects the main character there, if he suspects it or even knows about the possibility. If you know from reading the other books in the series, seeing it unfold in other characters, or you know from your own research, then you may well see it in his actions, but it is not specifically suggested. They say to write what you know, but sometimes you write what you know without knowing you know it. You know?


So I cheat. But at least it's my own life I draw from. There's a lot to draw from, although it's never been my intention to simply write a memoir. I did try that a couple of times. It got boring fast. My advice for new writers, however, would be to try to write your own life. See what is true and see what isn't but may sound true enough to be included. Then you can fictionalize it. A good exercise.

Now, with the FLU SEASON Saga coming to an end (or so they say), I can look back on multiple generations across the six books and see quite clearly the themes, the tropes, the messages I wanted to offer. I think of some words: redemption (in nearly every book I've written), reconciliation (making things right again, especially with other family members), and always: continuity. Maybe too often in these six books a character will remark on those who came before and those who will follow after, and feel a sense of relief at that. Maybe the character thinking it simply feels relief that he/she doesn't need to keep carrying on, that the next generation will take over, will carry the family forward another few decades then pass it off to yet another new generation.

How to make sense of it all? An old MFA professor once told us: "If you want to send a message, put it in a letter, not a story." And yet, where better than a story to offer something valuable? The trick is to let it slip in like a letter under the door, unobtrusive, almost an afterthought yet full of wisdom of a sort when it finally becomes clear to us. 

THE GRANDSONS launches July 1, 2025. I'll be blogging on it between now and then.

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

(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.

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.

Novel vs Short Story?

In my writing life, I've been confronted many times buy this age-old question: to write short or to write long. If you've followed my so-called career, you likely know that I prefer the longform writing. I suppose it's because in the longer format I have room to tell a full story according to my imagination. The short story format, in my humble opinion, is meant to present a singular incident. The longform presents a series of incidents. In that way, a short story could, if a writer had a mind to do so, be simply one of many incidents that could be expanded into a novel.

Let me give you a little history of my writing. In my younger days I had pen and paper to write my stories. That was a limitation: my ideas had to be short. When I gained the technology of a typewriter (first the Smith-Corona manual, then an IBM Selectric, an electric machine) I could write with more ease and my output expanded.

However, I still faced limitations. Hit the wrong key and you had to type the whole page all over again. I regularly typed my homework nevertheless. In high school, in fact, I typed out my ideas once in the form of a 66-page single-spaced rip-off of 1984. I stapled the pages together and let a friend read it. He passed it to other friends. Before I got it back, it probably had been read by half the school (a small student body in those days).

I planned a long epic book in middle school, started writing by hand in a notebook, made notes and planned the rest of it. With a typewriter, I could (a few years later) type out a screenplay version of the novel I had planned. It was a quicker way to complete the story, get it on paper, with the expectation I could novelize it later. (Still haven't done that!) 

So in my typewriter days, a short story was merely a novel in outline form. Later, with my first computer (Tandy 1000) - enabling me to save my writing and return to it later for editing - my stories gained length. I composed a pair of novellas (short novels), trying to write longer works. My advancement to a full PC machine with Windows 3.1 completed my transformation into a novel writer.

By then I knew I wanted to write books - not merely stories. I read a lot of novels (mostly sci-fi an fantasy) and knew I wanted to tell big stories. Epic stories. With my acceptance into an MFA program - where I'd hoped to learn how to get a break into the wonderful world of novelism - I was forced to write short stories. 

We crafted the New Yorker magazine's style of story: urbane, subtle, restrained, focused on thoughts and feelings rather than overt action. Translation: not much happens yet it devastates a character in the story. I got it: it was a fair exercise for learning to write fiction. I switched from sci-fi and fantasy stories (my mini-novels) to these "literary" fictions. I saw the light, as it were, and became a true believer. Characters before cool stuff.

Point taken. I switched from the cool idea being the center of the story to a main character who readers would care about and follow through the story as said character dealt with the cool idea. My MFA thesis was a novel I titled A BEAUTIFUL CHILL which is a fine example of literary fiction: the action is almost exclusively in dialog and sublime moments of relationship conflicts. I also tried to skewer the English department and its vagaries. It remains one of my most favorite novels.

But I did write short stories, measured by length of pages and number of words. Also counted by the plot or conflict in them: a single thing/problem/incident/episode/ moment-in-time. For me, the story idea came to dictate whether it would become a short story, a novella, or a full novel. I liked big ideas and that is why I've mostly written novels. However, I did write enough stories to fill an anthology. That may be my next or final project once this final volume of my FLU SEASON Saga comes out later this year with THE GRANDSONS.

As a Myrddin author, I've shared a few stories in the anthologies we've put out over the past few years (click on the covers for links). One of my better short stories was deemed so good (effective, compelling) that I built a whole novel around it. Another short story came from a prompt the anthology editor gave us. Others were more silly passages, humorous even, like a writing exercise and yet they were worth the reading. 

I fashioned a short story from 2 chapters in my novel A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and titled the story "Lust" because it illustrates a variety of definitions of that word. So, again, the idea determines the format I use; most of my ideas require the larger format of a novel. I need elbow room to tell the complete story.

This is my one and only TEDTalk. Thank you for coming!

Oh, wait! There's more! Speaking of my final volume in the FLU SEASON Saga, I am deep into a thorough revision - usually the word count expands during this phase as I fill out scenes and make the narrative richer - and will set it aside for a month before returning for a close final edit. I expect the finished novel to be available by the end of this year (2025).

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

(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.

The FLU SEASON SAGA ends!

Dear Friends and Followers,

Back in the ancient year of 2019 the beginning of the end began. That's a mouthful but not an incorrect tautology. Things happened, which prompted me to want to write something. I had trouble getting started. I spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 planning a story which I finally got started later that year. I imagined what was then our present situation - lockdowns, restrictions, shortages, desperation, fear - and took it six years into the future - a possible future, granted.

And so the FLU SEASON saga was born. At first intended to be a single novel, it expanded into a trilogy before the first book was completed. I had only a rough idea of what would happen in those next two books, yet I wasn't worried. The characters would tell me everything and I would just write about it. They had compelling stories full of heartache and heartbreak to share but also triumphs and joys. I cried and cheered along with them, I confess, unwilling to acknowledge my fingers were the cause of all their ups and downs. THE GRANDDAUGHTER, the fifth book in the saga (out in September 2024), was a particular pleasure to write, being lighter even amusing more than the other books.

After three books, I thought the series was finished at a trilogy. Yet a new idea kept pestering me so I started a fourth book, calling it a sequel. But the sequel led to an even newer idea, something lighter as I imagined it. As I concluded that fifth book, I had ideas for a sixth book, which I am working on now. I feel that I can end the series with this final book - but it will be a long one, covering a lot of territory as we venture further into the uncertain future. I may introduce zombie-like denizens of the desert at some point (medically accurate, of course).

THE GRANDSONS is the final volume of this saga, following the lives of two grandsons and introducing a third grandson. Life has gotten worse for the citizens of Skinner Canyon with a new menace from the destruction of the cities on the east coast coming for them and more criminality in their own locale. They don't know what has happened in the east, only that it can't be anything good. They are much too concerned with the big trial in town. The body of an infamous outlaw has turned up and everyone wants to know how he met his end - being related to a prominent citizen of the town. 

This final book is a frame story. We begin in their present day, set up the situation and get the trial started. Then we jump back fifteen years to see how we got to this present day situation. Classic framework. However, as I am literally (literally!) making it up as I go along, it is moving slowly. I have a roadmap but the curves are sharp, the hills steep, and there are plenty of chuck holes slowing me, but I know the way forward and will get to the destination eventually - likely late in 2025, possibly early 2026.

I frequently vowed to write a Western, a genre I never believed I was capable of, having little knowledge of that era in American history or the nomenclature of horses, etc. But like how it took some time to "find the way in" to the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM, the way in was a scene in a dream I didn't ask for. I wrote out that scene and the start could begin. Now there is a lot of webs to weave building the story, and then unweave them as the story unwinds to its shocking yet heartfelt conclusion. I have already written that final scene.

As I create this final volume of the saga, doing what I love to do, please enjoy reading the previously completed books in the saga. You can find them all in paperback or for Kindle at this universal link: https://mybook.to/PaxnhJD

Your support has been and always will be greatly appreciated! 

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

(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.

Summer Update & Wine Tasting!

Here in these dog days of summer, we pause to reflect on what could've been but wasn't. A taste, yes, but not a full drunken orgy of disease and destruction. The 10-year FLU SEASON that was, in our reality, nipped in the bud. A six-book series (five thus far) that came from that momentary hiccup to our daily lives in the ripe old year of 2020. Drink up!

Last month Book 4 of the series launched. THE BOOK OF DAD was billed as a sequel to the trilogy and continues the saga of the Baumann family. The drama begins with the tuba saved after World War II (we learn that fact in Book 3) and it is subsequently passed down from generation to generation. Along the way, as family members struggle through the pandemic and the lawlessness that follows, we follow the emergence of a very different society. In the capital city of the restored nation, Fritz, the poor hero of Book 4, tries to sort out his miserable life after returning from mandatory rehabilitation, now estranged from his family, given a menial job and a tiny unit to sleep in, surveilled constantly with weekly counseling sessions to prevent backsliding. The city is run by Big Sister who models her efforts on the farm where she grew up - or is it just as much of a lie as what they claim he professes in that video he made of his elderly mother (Isla) telling the truth about everything that happened?

In that novel, we meet his 10-year old daughter Maggie in a few scenes. In the sequel to the sequel, Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER (coming in fall 2024), we meet Maggie again but as a young woman living out west. We follow her through her efforts to start a kids' band in her small town with the help of a musical instrument salesman. There are many obstacles to overcome. But those efforts lead to bigger events in her life, including a major turn in society. Book 6: THE GRANDSON opens fifteen years after the end of Book 5, and is in the drafting stage (I know how it ends) and should be out in 2025.

I've been winging it from the start - a true "pantser" who writes by the seat of his pants - yet the story has been clear in my mind. I've played fast and loose with hard facts. I never name actual cities until Book 5. I never give precise dates so the series will not become "dated" years from now. I give a generic start as "the sixth year of the pandemic" when autistic teen Sandy and his single mother Polly, the tuba player, escape from a city in chaos for the hope of sanctuary on his grandparents' farm. Sandy's daughter, Isla, is born in the seventh year of the pandemic. In Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, Isla narrates her life from 4 years to her final day at age 79.

Now I have to count back and forward to make a proper timeline as I work on Book 6. But I know the overall story. If the series begins in our actual year of 2020, and Isla is born in the seventh year of the pandemic, that would, mathematically speaking, be in 2027. A life lived up to 79 would bring us, as readers, to the year 2106. Now go back 10 years to when the heroine of Book 5 was born. Then add 50 years to the story covered in Book 5. And so on. It can be quite maddening - maddening, I tell you!

But that is half (or maybe closer to three-quarters) of the fun of crafting a multi-generation family saga. 

I awaken with the thought "Wonder what he/she/they are doing today? What trouble will they get into that I alone may save them from? or should I let them be, just watch and see what happens and then write about it?" That is often the writer's craft. It is also the chief hobby of the retired class: to sit back and observe the world going by. In Book 6: The Grandson, I'm still deciding who will tell the story. So far, a few different characters have shared what they know. I am merely collecting their stories for easy reading. The most important character in the book is the one who is dead.

Ensconced in my air-cooled abode, I type. And, having typed, I move on.

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

(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.

On the Nature of Villainy

In my writing career I have seldom been able to make use of well-defined villains. Perhaps that was due to my definition of the role. I never saw a character acting against our hero/heroine out of sheer cussedness; they had to have motivation, and motivation which came from some logical or plausible origin or cause. That's me being a realist, I suppose. Villains acting out of pure evil is the stuff of comic books, to my mind.

In most of my novels, the hero/heroine (protagonist) generally struggles not against another character but against himself/herself (e.g., self-doubt, frustrations, lack of confidence, physical or mental flaws, etc.). They could struggle against another protagonist, each one being the other's antagonist while neither is truly a villain. They might also struggle against forces of nature (including dragons or even alien beings). I haven't used a distinct person to oppose the protagonist directly.

Having another character oppose the main character (protagonist) simply as a vehicle for drama never seemed quite fair to me. Add conflict, they say. No conflict and you have a Mary Sue story. It might be easy to create a kind of character who could be described as a monster, a character who acts against the protagonist for no more reason than to oppose almost as a matter of principle. Like: I'm the 'baddy' so I must act bad, no getting around it.

Usually characters act in their own interests and those interests tend to simply interfere with other characters' interests. That isn't a true villain, that's just normal human nature. Each one is usually an agreeable person most of the time but given a random incident and villainy can erupt - like road rage. They can be bad (disagreeable), clumsy (abusive), insensitive (rude), but are seldom actually evil. To manifest a completely evil character, such as may be found in some fantasy or science fiction stories, always seems a bit deus ex machina to me - an artificial device inserted to solve a dramatic problem.

In the first two books of the FLU SEASON trilogy, a lot of bad acts happen (it's pandemic time and our hero/heroine are escaping a city in chaos for what they hope will be sanctuary in the countryside). Yet the characters performing those bad acts are not what one could say are villains. They are merely "normal" people acting for themselves - to survive. A hungry person stealing bread from me is not so much a villain as a desperate normal person acting for self-preservation. In the same circumstance, I might do the same, but I wouldn't call myself a villain.

Finally, in writing Book 3 of my FLU SEASON trilogy, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, I created a good set of great [sic!] villains. I did not relish bringing them to life, for they acted against my wishes. Yet I could not fault them for acting according to their own best interests. Their actions may result from having some animosity to our hero/heroine, of course. They are humans, after all. They are not, however, pure evil incarnate - although their victims may believe they are.

The first in chronological order is a figure named Parson Brown who meets our central family as the leader of a band of slavers. His backstory is one of abuse and opportunism. Even so, he is performing a useful function, he believes, and profits from it. It is his playful interactions in the course of evil acts which gives him depth, making his actions truly despicable. He could be said to possess no conscience, acting only for his own amusement.

My second favorite villain in that novel is the woman who runs the local brothel, Madame Delight. She stands almost as a female version of Brown. She delights in the abuse of her girls, openly stating she doesn't care about them; they only serve her. She has a backstory which includes her being bullied by the pretty girls when she was young. Now she rules over them, forcing them into sex work. And she enjoys every minute of her efforts to abuse them.

There are other villains but they are a little more morally gray. Such as Mr. Chesterfield who acts badly but feels bad about what he does. His brother, however, acts badly but doesn't feel bad about it. There are marauders and militia acting badly, and other devious characters who lie, cheat, and steal. Even our central family's supposed friends will lie and cheat to save themselves at the expense of our hero/heroine. Some will commit murder to save themselves - but is that the act of a villain?

I don't like villains - actors like to portray them because the roles are often richer than those of the hero/heroine. I feel like I am creating monsters and unleashing them upon innocent protagonists. That makes me feel bad. I would wish my good guys/gals to fight forces of nature or against other protagonists - so there isn't any actual villain but momentarily disagreeable characters who happen to get in the way. Then I feel less responsible.

So why do villains act bad? Self-preservation? Self-motivation? Some kind of reward, achievement or material gain? Satisfaction in causing harm? A feeling of superiority? Playing God? Controlling someone's actions or some physical space? Seldom is it going to be the simple desire for amusement alone.

I recall one time in high school when a guy my age kept hassling me. We were both about the same size so I couldn't say he was 'bullying' me but he was definitely annoying. I asked him why he kept bothering me. There didn't seem any logic to his actions. I'd done nothing to him. His reply, rather than a confession of being in league with the devil, was simply "Because it's fun." All right, that made sense. I strove to make bothering me less fun after that, mostly by avoiding him.

A villain wants something, just as the hero/heroine does. It could be the basic pleasure from an act that brings a sense of agency - the power to act in the world, to be present, to declare "I'm here and I matter!" A lot of criminals act out for such a reason: to prove they exist (violence), to leave their mark (graffiti, vandalism), and that's all. Others believe and follow the self-fulfilling mantra to 'tear down the system' as iconoclasts - a system they generally do not understand. Anyone who gets in the way of that effort could be hurt.

In real life a villain will seldom want to hurt the hero/heroine just for the heck of it - although the act may bring pleasure to the villain. The main motivating factor is going to be the desire to achieve something - just as the hero/heroine wants to achieve a certain something.

In my forthcoming novel, Book 4: THE WAY OF THE DAD, set in an authoritarian society rebuilt following the 10-year pandemic and decades of anarchy, our hero* is beset by the ultimate villain - I'm happy to announce. Allow me to introduce Big Sister. She will care for you, her citizen family, give you all you need - but only what is absolutely necessary, for your own good. But there are rules to follow and punishments if you don't. And that is where our hero finds himself. What can he do to escape the city? How can he save his family?

*The narrator and protagonist is grown-up Fritz, born in Book 3, the youngest son of Isla.

FLU SEASON 4: THE BOOK OF DAD (a sequel to the trilogy) is coming June 2024.

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

(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.