New Book Cover...to be or not to be?

Once upon a time there was a book called AFTER ILIUM that was not too happy sitting on a shelf, waiting to be discovered. That was common in those days of the late 1990s. Yes, it was the best of times and the worst of times. Books were paper and sat on shelves. To get to an agent or editor they went out in boxes. Then, in summer 2011, the novella known as AFTER ILIUM was crafted into a full novel and offered for sacrifice to the Fates.

That was history--ancient history, ironically. Then came electronic books, a brave new contest and a reading revolution, and inevitably a book cover. I took a deep breath and dove into the Photoshop ocean and tried to swim. I could dog-paddle well enough, but I longed to win Olympic gold. That was not to be. Others assisted me in my cover creations and all was calm. Then a storm whipped up on the horizon, a tempest in a teapot, and blew my book cover away.

So once again, I pulled out my trusty Photoshop and set to work teaching myself everything all over again. The result is that in less than 19 hours I have made a new cover for my novel, AFTER ILIUM. What do you think? It may be bright enough, but does it grab your attention? Especially in a thumbnail form? This is the test for it before I send it out of the nest to fly on its own....

FURTHER UPDATE (FEBRUARY)

Fantasy Island Book Publishing's own staff artist Ceri Clark created the newest cover, which shall grace  all ebooks and print books from here on out.

***UPDATE***

Even newer covers made! In response to feedback, I have reduced the "red eye" effect, give Paris some shadow, and popped the title text. This time it only took 2 hours because I still remember how   to do it from a couple days ago. It is better now? (Compare to the previous "new" cover below.)

The old new covers:

front cover

front and back covers

So what do you think? Would you click on this pic? Would you turn it over to read the blurb? Would you buy it after reading the blurb? Would you be scared away by the author's portrait? 


Thanks in advance for your comments.


Here is my Amazon.com author page with links for ebook and print editions of After Ilium.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2011 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.

It's ABNA season!

With the start of a new year the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards is once again open! 

Among my writer colleagues, impressions of this event seems to be equally divided between enthusiastic and wary. I tend to fall in the middle, as usual. I see the good and the bad. First, a little history, then a major plug for my indulgences....

After a hospital stay which had me worried about the future, I decided to shift into higher gear with regard to my writing, the only thing that really mattered to me. The first thing that came up was ABNA. I thought it might be a good test of my "best" novel, A BEAUTIFUL CHILL. At least I could claim to have something "out there" in some form. Meanwhile, I learned a lot from discussions with fellow writers. I got a query together and began sending them out. As I said, at least I was doing something.

Previously, I had revised my novels to within an inch of their lives, then set them comfortably on the shelves inside my computer. Too busy with other matters, I longed for the day I'd dust them off and hand them over to an agent or a publisher who would shower me with the praise and money from all my dear readers. Dreams tend to wait patiently, I've learned, especially if you don't call them forth to do something.

In the 2011 competition I was, as they say, pitched at the "pitch" stage. I think we all agree it's rather difficult to condense the essence of a 100,000 word novel into 300 words. Hook the reader rather than tell the whole story seemed to be the consensus of advice. Others thought we had to hint at the direction of the story. Others still complained that the instructions for writing the pitch led many to write something that would not be effective.

That led to my excerpt being dismissed. Since then, I have further revised the first chapter until it was so thick with blubber that it needed to be taken to a meat slicer. But amazing things did happen. I didn't win anything but I got noticed. And in that moment of time, that was quite enough.

I submitted my ABNA entry to an independent publisher and it is now on its way to being published (A BEAUTIFUL CHILL). I also was able to submit another novel to a publisher who noticed my writing through ABNA, and it is now "out there" for mass consumption (AFTER ILIUM). (Shameless plug: Available now at Amazon.com in ebook and paperback editions!)

So I'd chalk it up as an overall good thing. Some of my colleagues had less pleasant experiences. On the discussion boards where writers in general but particularly ABNA participants asked questions and received answers, shared writing samples and various links, and critiqued each others' work, it seemed at times to become a battlefield full of conflict. Noses were bloodied and backs were stabbed! I twisted an ankle.

Having sat through a few writing workshops over the years, I know how easy it is for personalities to clash and how different interpretations of a text can cause people to come to blows. I was not too involved in that side of ABNA; however, as a result of being supportive of some of the people there, I was also attacked. Attack, in this case, means an especially hateful critique was posted about my novel excerpt, more general vitriol than substantive criticism. The fighting went on.

I was out of the competition anyway, was now working with two independent publishers, and so I gradually faded from the discussion boards. Until now....

Once again, like spring following winter, the ABNA has returned! With two novels spoken for already, and another "on order," I had to choose something new for my entry. My remaining crown jewel, however, is a science-fiction novel: THE DREAM LAND (click to read ABNA excerpt).

Sci-fi never gets far at ABNA, apparently. There has been much discussion of genre bias, though much may depend on the personal tastes of the judges along the way. If any sci-fi work was to succeed, I considered, it would be mine. Why? Because my sci-fi tome is about as minimally sci-fi as any sci-fi novel could be. Indeed, it is overall a relationship story. It just happens to be set half the time on another planet, reached through an interdimensional doorway. Once there, my characters engage in the usual business of life: loving, fighting, traveling, eating and drinking, more loving and fighting, learning alien languages and adapting to alien customs. Like I said, the usual.

THE DREAM LAND must be classified for ABNA purposes as sci-fi because it does involve interdimensional traveling, but it also has significant elements of contemporary hard-luck stories of working class people trying to get by in government jobs, a police case involving the search for a serial killer, a reluctant psychiatrist trying to help a recent widower regain his connection with society. And, on the other side, we have two high school sweethearts who discover an invisible doorway through which to enter a strange new world. What follows are their sordid adventures, repeatedly returning to Earth and back to the world of Ghoupallesz, where they eventually become a famous warrior and his queen, both with families and responsibilities. Then, as all good stories must, there are twists, and twists upon twists which bring everything together in a stunning climax meant to blow readers' minds!

Wow, that should have been my pitch! I can't complain. It won't win. Probably the judges will never see it. I could be pitched at the pitch stage again, or I could go on living another few weeks as the 5000 word excerpt is scrutinized. Beyond that is the uncharted territory of the full manuscript, quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. By then, of course, we will all be staring at the summer. By then, many of us will have started our next projects. Or we will be revising the one we tried at ABNA. (See a sample of THE DREAM LAND.) By then, ABNA 2012 will be forgotten and few will be thinking ahead to 2013.

It is a valuable learning experience, no matter the outcome. Even hard lessons are valuable. My skin is a couple layers thicker now, thanks to that experience. And my writing has improved. Or, perhaps, it is my revision skills that are better now. Either way, I give two thumbs up to ABNA and encourage anyone who has a novel length work to give it a try. I did, and I'm doing it again.

So...good luck to everyone! 
But better luck to me!


p.s., Reading The Dream Land will greatly benefit those who may wish to understand everything about the Sekuatean Empire.
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(C) Copyright 2010-2011 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.

Dealing with the "Mom" Review

It was not actually supposed to happen. Not in this lifetime, anyway.


My mother read my book!

Freshly out in the marketplace, my novel AFTER ILIUM (Fantasy Island Book Publishing, 2011) was always intended for an audience of everyone older than 16 and not my parents.

I'm no prude, but my novels deal with realistic, believable situations (yes, sci-fi included!) where characters act in rational or believably irrational ways when dealing with the situations in which they find themselves. That does mean sex and violence happen.

That does not mean "They kissed and the next morning he got out of bed and left her." Or "He threw a punch and missed."

Rather than go full porno ("erotica" to those gentler souls), I had the sex scenes told through the Point of View of the naive young man who experiences it. Needless to say, Alex has a romanticized lens through which to have his first experience with a woman, the older and exotic Elena, who he meets on the way to the ruins of ancient Ilium.

And the story features brutality on both sides: fighting, maiming, killing, and a sexual assault. People are hurt, some die, some survive but in a lesser form. What I attempted to conjure was hardcore reality--yet what would be believable for the characters and situations presented. Fortunately, our hero is not party to such violence--until later, that is, when he thinks he's killed someone.

Given this kind of story (young man meets older woman, has affair, gets into trouble, struggles to make his way back), I advised my parents that it was not suitable fare for them.

As former teachers, my father is an avid reader of history, politics, biography while my mother reads romance and Christian how-to books. I thought I was in the clear because my book was not among their usual genres. (My father, once upon a time when I was a young writer, stated firmly that he did not read fiction because it was not true; why read something that's fake?) I cautioned my mother that she would not be well-served by pushing my novel to her church friends. She should simply be happy for me for finally getting one of my "hobbies" published. I thought that was the end of it.

But no! Through the wonders of technology, a neighbor of my parents (who are deep into retirement) had a Kindle. They downloaded my ebook. Then the unthinkable happened: they lent the Kindle (with enovel on board) to my mother! Less than 24 hours later I received a phone call. It was time for The Mom Review.

I prepared for a grilling, as though I were still 9 or so and had been caught being mischievous. Actually, I had been mischievous--in my writing.

Rather than a verbal assault for the inappropriate content I'd written, my mother began with a list of items she thought needed to be fixed. No typos, thanks to my intense proofreading, but a few curious sentence constructions nevertheless. She pointed out grammar errors in the speeches of the Greek woman who is speaking English imperfectly. She questioned whether or not my use of Turkish phrases were correct. She asked about particular plot points, not understanding some of them. She compared the Iliad she had learned in school long ago (not as far back as Homer, however) with my version, as though there were more than one. I dared quote chapter and verse to back up my case.

And then came...the delicate parts!

In the scene where young Alex Parris is making love with the seductive Elena for the first time, the word "sailing" does indeed set up a metaphorical description of what happens. No body parts are mentioned. Everything is couched in nautical terms, to whit: She guided him on a tour of her body, and he was willing to explore each port of entry, languishing there until she called him to continue sailing her fragrant seas. You get the idea. I quickly deflected further discussion of the scene and allowed my mother to move on to her next area of concern.

We've become accustomed to violence, more so than sex, it seems. ("I don't mind blowing men's heads off in a war movie but I'll not sit still for bare tits on the screen!" I've heard before.) So there were few objections to the fight scenes. I was afraid she'd ask something about the sexual assault, but she passed it by. Too awkward, perhaps. Instead, she wanted to know the fate of Benson, the victim of the assault. I directed her to the page where that information could be found. [Nope, you ain't getting a spoiler here.]


Once through her list of concerns, I got the final assessment. Try to hear her voice in the way I've written it: "It was...um, g-good." I wondered at that moment how many stars I'd be getting. And then, leaving me in dismay, she added: "I think it's all right for [her church friends]." I suppose that's some kind of assessment, right? Kind of a "not as bad as I expected" review. Thanks, Mom! 


Dare she pass it on to my father now? If she does, there goes my inheritance. I wonder how to explain to any family member why I would write such sick, twisted scenes in my novels. What kind of person am I? They would no doubt be thinking: "Did we ever really know Stephen?"


How have my fellow writers dealt with their own "Mom" and "Dad" reviews? 


[I should point out--because they'll never read my blog!--that poor Alex's parents are modeled after my own, but, ironically, my mother only asked if Alex's father was supposed to be my father. She never asked about Alex's too doting mother. Hmmm. We write what we know....]




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(C) Copyright 2010-2011 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.

Am I a Masochist? Entering ABNA 2012

It is that time of year once more, the season of the contest! The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards!

I did it last year, on a whim. My book, a literary novel about a doomed relationship (A Beautiful Chill), did not get very far at all in the process. Nevertheless, the contest proved beneficial. Through associations I made I was able to get that book in the hands of a publisher and the book will be available later this year. I also was able to offer another novel (After Ilium) to a different publisher I met through contest participation. After Ilium is now available for purchase in ebook and print formats.

Although I may not show it by jumping up and down in the bookstore aisles (not yet, anyway) or putting my editors in my will, I am pleased with the way things are moving along.

Now it comes again: the Contest. 

I have nothing else to offer that has not already been spoken for in other venues...except one.

Based on last year's rough, cutthroat, backstabbing, heartshredding experience (somewhat for me and distinctly more for some of my colleagues), I know some of us do not relish the idea of diving back into those shark-infested waters, to use a dumb cliche. Some of us don't mind, of course, because we are, by nature, masochists.

Is it oxymoronic to use the words 'writer' and 'masochist' together? Perhaps. Especially in instances where a writer offers up his or her "baby" to the judgment of strangers. Yes, I am speaking of competitions and contests, typically of the sort where hopeful wordsmiths submit their manuscripts to the scrutiny of others. We work hard on a story, crafting it in ways that we believe render it effective and entertaining. That's what we believe, anyway. To be sure of it, we share it. But the process is a little strange.

Imagine if we took our child and treated him or her the way we treat our books? I've worked on this child for several years. We've changed hairstyles, fashions, interests and abilities, but it still has basically the same plot. And we did move from one setting to another, which may have some influence on the latter years. Still waiting to see what happens. So...what do you think? Good? Do you want more? Oh, I can dress him like a girl, if that's what you want. I can also make her talk like a grumpy old man. I can change anything, just please, love my child!

Fortunately, the book baby is a bit easier to deal with. I can take plenty of criticism about myself, my behavior, my quirks, my misanthropic tendencies (in writing, that is), but darned if I'll sit back and let people who don't know me and have no vested interest in what I do or do not do paste their judgments for all to see! Then again, that is part of the process. This is what we expect:

I made this book (that much is obvious). I worked hard on it (perhaps in futility; length of effort does not always correlate with improvement). I like how it turned out (which can possibly be confused with simply being glad that the thing's done). Now I want to know what you think of it (which in many cases seems to be an invitation to shower praise). --Really? That's what you think of my book?

And we swiftly unfriend. And start a new book. Because we are masochists. Because we are writers. Because masochist and writer are synonymous.

So, on that happy, uplifting conclusion, let me announce that for this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, I will offer up for sacrifice the first volume of my sci-fi trilogy The Dream Land. One slant that I shall cleverly take is to label the novel a psychological thriller rather than a work of science-fiction.


The story, you will see if you check here, is about an ordinary guy who quite likely is venturing through an interdimensional portal to another world where he is a lover and a fighter. Or he may be dreaming it all. This matters to folks back home because some people have gone missing and he is the last to see them. Did he accidentaly leave them on the "other side", or have they been conveniently murdered? Ah hah! you might be thinking. I get it! Psycho thrilla masquerading as sci-fi!

In case you are not convinced of my ultimate Winnerness, please consider this cute girl (click her to receive a happy thought)!

Good luck to everyone entering ABNA 2012... but better luck to me!



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(C) Copyright 2010-2012 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.

There Will Be Blog!

Good Morning and Happy New Year! 
The world did not end! No, wait. That's this year. Never mind.

Many New Year's Resolutions are being broken, here on the third day of the year. But fear not, I am blogging. That is the least of my troubles. You see, as seems to always be the case, trouble follows me like a forlorn, starving puppy. This tends to happen most when I am away from what constitutes my normal environs, i.e., work, the day job, my position as a teacher of writing at a local university. It's a bittersweet effort, like most things in life. When it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad...well, let's not talk about that. We are still on winter break, thankfully or not, so I have some time left to fall into mischief.

Perhaps enough said on mischief, the better. Right? And yet, speaking of mischief...


Please read the preceding blog entry and click appropriately to quickly receive a copy of my new novel AFTER ILIUM, a modern retelling of Homer's infamous epic of the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus trying to return home after the war. In my take, a young college graduate named Alex Parris goes to see the site of ancient Ilium (Troy) and gets into trouble.

Not simple mischief as I tend to do, but serious, hardcore, desperate trouble. First, there's the woman: Elena (Greek for "Helen") who is older, mysterious, exotic, voluptuous, you get the picture. Elena and Parris, kind of a coincidence, huh? She lets him fall for her only to send him off on his own odyssey across the wild Turkish coast, trying to return to her. What young Mr. Parris experiences in what quickly becomes a fight for survival will teach him a lot more about life than four years of college ever taught him. He will be a very different person After Ilium.

Today After Ilium goes "live" on Amazon.com, available in ebook and paperback formats.
(Don't be alarmed by the glitchy "preview"; the real book you get is perfect and looks perfect.)

Be careful, however. It will make you horny, then make you cry. That's what readers have told me. Which is good, because that's what I intended. I love it when a plan comes together! (My parents are not allowed to read this book, so you know it's juicy.) Romance/betrayal/adventure/desperation/farmer's daughters and Navy doctors/goat piles and eye patches! Yes, youthful exuberance will get you in trouble every time!

The End is Near. Long live the Future!

Greetings and salutations bloggers, bloggettes, and bloggophiles (and the Freudian-slipped mistyped bloogers)!

I had sincerely believed I had put away the blogosphere for the year, having made plans to do unto others what has been done unto me, shorthand for making merry in the holiday tradition of my kinfolk. But, twas not to be. With a funeral trip and a lengthy stay in the sick bed (had an outstanding assortment of weird dreams), some quick final editing of my debut masterpiece AFTER ILIUM and even quicker academic conference proposal dashings off pre-deadlines, my break from the Day Job has hardly seemed the thing of endless possibility it began as. (I love long sentences, don't you?)

So now that the end is near, I feel rather jittery, full of unspent energy I barely used the preceding three weeks. As I spent some time perusing the proof copy of my novel AFTER ILIUM and finding a dozen spots to correct, it occurred to me that there may yet be a sequel in the works. Mind you, it won't likely be as intense in either sex or violence as the original. In fact, it would not even include any of the same characters, although I reserve the right to bring in the mythological undead, as hero Alex Parris often did in the original book.

This sequel would be titled WAY AFTER ILIUM. It would concern the journey, nay, odyssey of the author of AFTER ILIUM as he travels from his home away from heart in central Oklahoma to the deep south, to a town appropriately named Troy, in the state of Alabama. There he has planned an event at the local institution of higher education. Among the buildings of that institution squats a small yet magical Barnes & Noble store, ostensibly for the procurement of textbooks and the sordid what-nots of student life, of course. However, because it has gained a phenomenal reputation for magically launching the first works of several famous artisans, writers, skilled people of all makes and models, the Author of AFTER ILIUM wishes to likewise partake of the magical influences of that sacred venue.

The trip, of course, would be the bulk of the story. All manner of adventures might test him, everything from car trouble to bad weather, criminal mischief and indulging temptations, the innocent misdirections of well-intended community leaders and snarky local cops--all providing as great an odyssey as poor Alex Parris faced on his unexpected journey across the Turkish coastline, hoping to be reunited with the woman he loves--yes, that older, mysterious, exotic Greek woman he meets on the cruise ship to Istanbul and whom he sees as his personal Helen of Troy (perhaps, she's from Alabama, after all)--until his own physical survival must become foremost in his mind. Indeed, another morality play. The world of literature is full of them. One more won't hurt, eh?

"Never look a gift horse in the mouth," they say...because you may find Odysseus staring back with some choice-yet-unkind words to give!

Look for the original AFTER ILIUM coming in January! Available from the publisher Fantasy Island, and from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. (The Amazon "preview" is glitchy but will be fixed shortly; don't let that dissuade you from diving in.) Available both as ebook for your new holiday Kindle and in traditional paperback that you can take to the beach or read during class behind your textbook.

And the sequel WAY AFTER ILIUM will be forthcoming in a couple years or so. Well, at least after the Author has lived through the adventure--because we all know writers must write about what they know in order for it to be authentic and believable, right?

Until we meet again in print or ebook, may you all (especially my potential readers!) have the merriest end of year celebrations you can safely have, and may the coming year be full of amazing adventures and many purchases of books (especially of mine, thankyouverymuch!), and good fortune in all of your deeds, sordid and otherwise.

The Author of AFTER ILIUM pretending he has just found a kick ass novel on the shelf in the local Barnes & Noble store, hoping others will wonder what he is reading and open a dialog with him through which he might tell them exactly what he is reading and perchance they might wish to read it, too, because miracles never cease and sometimes stars fall from the sky, long before Hell might one day freeze over!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2012 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.

Greats Stories for a Great Cause!

FLASH! COMPLETELY NEW NEWS!

Not much time has passed since my last post, but here is something I must add!


The anthology from Fantasy Island Book Publishing is now available at Amazon.


Here is the link: The Story Tellers' Anthology

Contents
Shaun Allan - Final Entry
Shaun Allan – The Tooth, The Whole Tooth and but The Tooth
Alison DeLuca – Crown Phoenix
Alison DeLuca – Beta Test
Stephen Swartz – Rendezvous
J Darroll Hall – Appalachian Passages
Connie J Jasperson – Long Hard Run To Alpharse
Connie J Jasperson – Once Upon A Time
Lynette Ferreira – All Over Again
Marilyn Rucker Norrod – From The Ashes
Lisa Zhang Wharton – The Adult Book Store
Lisa Zhang Wharton – Butterflies: A Surrealistic Writing Class
Nicole Antonia Carson – The Last Five Pounds
Nicole Antonia Carson – Women of Wal-Mart
Rachel Tsoumbakos – Mildred the Ghost
Danielle Raver – The Enchantress
Kathleen Barker – O Canada
Joan Hazel – The Orbs of Taliesin
Elaine Gannon – Bits on Display
Ceri Clark – Mind Games

(and a fantastic cover by Ceri Clark, too!)

You might notice that one particular name and story title is in boldface. Mine. (Well, this is my blog, right?) Just wanted you to know, in a non-threatening way, that one of my stories is included. Now, that's not the only reason to click on over and download that baby. (My story is "Rendezvous"; it's my only entry in the urban fantasy genre, trying to impress my Twilight-obsessed daughter with my own vampire/reincarnation hybrid tale.)


The real reason, aside from some great stories in a variety of genre, is that all proceeds from the purchase of this anthology are going to a charity, Samaritan's Purse, whose focus is on providing safe, clean drinking water in devastated areas. You can learn more here: Samaritanspurse.org

So...Happy Reading!  And thanks for your contribution to good stories and clean water!





(C) Copyright 2010-2011 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.

December Muse Tells All....

Dear Decembrists (if you're offended, you can google the term),

I kept looking at the calendar this past week, day after day, feeling as though I should write a blog post. It's been a while, though I have nothing much to confess. Or comment on. Problems everywhere. More of the same out there in the real world. Even the fantasy realms are somewhat boring this time of year.

The only news of any worthiness, I suppose, would be the fact that I recently sent back my so-called final look at the final manuscript version of my debut novel* AFTER ILIUM, the sordid tale of the innocent young man tricked by the evil older woman, and so on. Been done many times before. I've tried to put a unique spin on the template by creating a parallel to the Trojan War couple's story.

I had the idea back in 1998 when a few bits of impetus came together in fortuitous ways. My goal then was to have the modern plot parallel the ancient plot without seeming contrived. In other words, our hero had to see the parallels without the author intruding and saying to the reader "See how this parallels Homer's Odyssey?"

In a summer creative writing workshop, it became a fun exercise to me. As a what-if kind of story it was easy to plot...if one is deliberately plotting to follow the plot of a well-known classic. (In that summer, however, I only managed to put it into an 11,000 word story; definitely too much telling, less showing.)

1. Find a young man, recently graduated from college, a nerdy, geeky, bookwormish fellow who likes studying history, has some computer skills (I suppose that may be redundant with "geeky"), and sees the world always through rose-colored lenses. Give him the name Paris, but not too obviously. Make it a surname: Parris. Then send him to Turkey, to the site of the ruins of ancient Troy, often also called Ilium (hence the name of Homer's other book, the Iliad). So far, so good. What could happen?

2. Introduce a "Helen" character in a believable way. Can't name her Helen outright because that would be too obvious, so name her Elena--close enough. The young man, Parris, becomes enamored with this woman, of course: she is sexy in an older woman way, voluptuous, sensual, seductive. Let her be running away, seeking some adventure. And they meet. It's easy for him to like her, but she...? She will need to gradually warm to him, decide to flirt and seduce him, to toy with him for the few days of this trip.

3. Then, as young men are prone to do, this Parris fellow decides that this Elena woman is Ms. Right, especially after she lets him play with her in bed and other venues. Voila! They are a couple. Believable enough so far, eh? So, from this point, do they live happily ever after? Or does something else happen? In the Homer epics, they remain a happy couple until Paris, the Trojan, dies in battle. Helen is recaptured by her husband, Menelaus, and returned to her home. But here in modern times, there is no war to solve the plot conundrum.

4. Or is there? If not a war, then at least a fight. If this Parris fellow is so hot for that Elena woman, let him try to protect her when she seems to be threatened. Then he would get into a fight, say, with some men...yes, at the site of ancient Ilium! Perfect. But in a modern tale, what would likely happen? He would be arrested by the local police. That's believable. But just as Odysseus had a crew of sailors on his voyage back home to Ithaca from Troy, this Parris fellow needs helpers--some of the sidekicks who inevitable get killed off so the hero can live to the final credits.

5. So here we have this Parris guy, sensitive, intelligent, but not a leader or a fighter, mooning for his lady, trying to reason his way out of his predicament. He has to find his way back to her. That has "odyssey" written all over it. The rest is mere parallelism. In the Odyssey, Homer has his hero visit different places, each with unique challenges and each leaving him with new lessons learned. Eventually he makes his way home, of course, and even there he faces challenges. So does this Parris fellow, only his must conform to the realism and available technology of the modern era.

6. Instead of a cyclops, Parris encounters a constable with an eye patch. Rather than his crew being incapacitated from eating lotus plants, his odyssey buddies get stoned on wild hashish. A quartet of farmer's daughters take the place of Sirens. The stormy sea and the rugged cliffs Parris must traverse replace the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. And he is found washed up on the beach not by King Alcinous and his lovely daughter Nausicaa but by a lonely Greek fisherman. Instead of calling the gods for assistance with a message via Hermes, our Parris fellow gains access to a computer with internet connection. He is finally on his way back to his lady, Elena.

The ancient Paris never returned to Troy; he died there. Our modern Parris does return, expecting to find his lovely Elena there. Instead, he meets....whoa! What was I thinking? That would be quite an egregious faux pas, giving away the ending like that. Nobody likes a spoiler. However, to complete the point of this report, it is perhaps enough that you can now see how the challenge of retelling an ancient tale in a modern setting can be accomplished. Has it been done successfully? That is the only worthwhile question in need of answering. And I, unfortunately, am not allowed to answer it. Only our dear readers may do so.

And for that, I have much gratitude and appreciation, no matter the result. Enjoy your reading!


Available soon from Fantasy Island Book Publishing, and via ebook sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with print format following quickly after.


*Although I have written 7 novels to date, After Ilium will be the first to be made available to the purchasing public. Some of the others will be published in coming years.


(C) Copyright 2010-2011 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 After-Turkey Lull - Gift or Curse?

UPDATE (Dec. 3): Despite my assistance, my daughter placed 4th of 18 in her class of "engineering" students! (See below for details of the project.)

Or, how I spent my post-Thanksgiving days....

Now that the tryptophan-induced coma has yielded, I return to the real world with a line of gnomes carefully pinching me to prove I am in reality as we know it.

So what can we make of the post-Thanksgiving lull? Riots in shopping centers? Pepper spray as holiday gifts? Crowds of poverty-stricken materialists breaking down doors to get the latest things they don't need. Sure, it's a holiday season, which by definition is a "holy" day (but which by modern definition is a shopping day), so everyone seems entitled to his or her full measure of merriment and mirth, frivolity and fragmentation--which I mean in a good way. And football!

For me, it was an odd triad of days in which never-before-attempted efforts were brought to bear on the construction of a contraption based on the six simple tools. Trips to hardware stores, Walmart, lumber yards, and back again, combining parts, using tools, measuring twice, cutting once or more. What a weekend! I'm speaking of the father-daughter project known as "science project"--a quixotic attempt to make a small car go forward, ideally hitting a solid wall with such force that it ricochets backwards as far as possible. The total distance traveled will be measured and he or she who attains the longest distance shall be rewarded...what, with a turkey dinner? I hope not. But it was a worthy effort, no matter the results.

The weekend of turkey and stuffing was also filled with many conflicting thoughts. One step forward and two steps back? Or two steps forward and one step back? Hard to tell. Maybe sit for a few hours and see if the lighting changes. I'm being cryptic, I'll admit. Not sure what I can say other than a year of positive direction has suddenly begun to pitter. I'm waiting to see how chips fall, waiting for the sunrise. As any viking-wannabe, I remain stalwart and eager to sally forth (though not, obviously, with Sally, who dumped me back in college after only two dates) with battle axe and battle scars, ready to claim my territory on the bookshelves of distance lands, come what may.

So I remain a positive, cheerful fellow. I know that's strange and certainly unlike me to put readers through such an embarrassingly intimate revelation. However, as is common for me, I have time between the past and the future and tend to fill it, briefly, with words that on occasion have meaning and in other particular situations take on the feel of dictionaries cut apart and pages scattered to the winds. You know what I mean. And if you don't, stop reading. There are, after all, graphic novels available.

Finally, as you go out to shop for fun, for health, for promotions, for compliments, for self-fulfillment, be sure to Buy a Book! Either one of the traditional things full of paper or one of the new-fangled electronic compilations of faux paper called "ebook" will do. As long as it is something written/composed and intending to be read with eyes or fingers, let it appear on your shopping list. Keep the Art of Reading alive! Buy a Book! Buy many Books! Buy armfuls of books! Give out your extra books! Share your books! Have read-a-thons! Keep Reading Alive!




And, if you so choose, and the timing is fortunate, you may yet be able to buy MY Book, AFTER ILIUM.


It's a fun-filled tale of what can go wrong when Alex Parris, a naive young college grad goes on a summer trip to ancient Troy and means an exotic older woman he mistakes for Helen of Troy. What could go wrong, right? Half-romance, half-adventure, 100% Levantine pathos!


Next holiday shopping season, I will have another book to offer you! Stay tuned....

Ready to stoke the turkey?

'Tis the season of the infamous turkey! 

This time a week hence, many will be slouching and slumping and snoring or snorting, content in the afterglow of their gluttonous indulgences, far and wide. That is our holiday tradition, no matter how the origins and historical developments and political corrections have affected it.

I recommend this source of information about Thanksgiving (<-click) because practically all of it is wrong, or considered wrong to someone. Or the official source, Plymouth Plantation, if you care to surround yourself with facts and speculations.

A bit of personal connection: I visited the Plymouth site as a child, gazed down upon the 1621-stamped big rock called Plymouth, yet did not travel there in a Plymouth automobile. The irony!

Nevertheless, holiday traditions die hard. From time immemorial I and all my relations would gather at the grandparents' residence with food in hand and have a grand feast. My cousins grew up and had their own families, grandparents passed on,and gradually Thanksgiving dinners became separate and self-contained. At some point it became pointless to go to the trouble of it, even at the risk of having no leftovers.

I remember the best of the worst:

• 2003. Stuck in my doctoral program in the snowy hills of western Pennsylvania, it did not make sense to travel back to Kansas for three days. Especially so when I had final papers to prepare. So I just made burritos at home and kept typing my papers.

• 2010. Nobody was interested in going to the trouble of cooking a big dinner, so I went out to the grocery and bought a portion of smoked turkey and side dishes from the deli in the store. Ended up I ate it all myself.

• 1988 and 1989. I was living in Japan so it wasn't even a holiday. And turkey was an unfamiliar bird. I cannot recall exactly what I ate on those days yet it was likely something with teriyaki sauce on it.

• 2007. I had the turkey dinner, which was fine. On the drive back to Pennsylvania, however, I had a flat tire on a rainy Sunday night passing through the bad part of Columbus, Ohio, and had to stay over to get the tire fixed the next morning. I ate at the Waffle House, but no turkey.

• Another year in my youth I agreed to attend a "starve-in" at a local church. Young people would empathize with the starving masses of the world by not eating Thanksgiving dinner. At all. To help us endure our hunger we played games and had other entertainments. When it was done, I went home and dove into the leftovers my parents' had. I only went to that event to impress a girl. What a turkey I was!

• Not sure of the year but it was while I was living at my parents' house, so I must have been young. We had a goose, at my request. Richer taste, oily meat, less meat for leftovers, a free portion of pate de fois gras (liver), and a bad case of indigestion which was later identified as ptomaine poisoning. Cook your bird thoroughly!

Or, as the early founding chefs had the menu, stick with venison and lobster! Or, in the alternative, try soybean pudding, sometimes called "tofu." Perhaps a turkey substitute could be created from various local vegetables and exotic fruits. Use your imagination. And don't forget the turkey chili . . . for the next two weeks!

No matter what happens this year, indulge in moderation and may your moderation be indulgent. See you on the other side.

FIBP Author Danielle Raver's Book Launch!

Congratulations, Danielle!


not so breaking now BREAKING NEWS!


Anyone near Troy, Alabama, stop in at the University B&N now 11-11-11 & get Danielle Raver's new fantasy novel "Brother Betrayed"!

Danielle Raver (center), Author of Brother, Betrayed at her book  launch on 11-11-11.

Until then...check out this: "Brother, Betrayed"

Don't be a Betrayer! 


Buy this book! 


Help a Betrayed Brother out!


Fantasy as Real as it gets!








Click for some Book Reading happening.

Blogging and the Curse of 11-11-11

I have been getting emails and Tweets and Facebook messages (even a few Hallmark cards) asking me--indeed, beseeching me--to write another post on my blog.

It is a little surprising because there are not so many people in the world (Earth, that is) who even know this blog exists. That bespeaks volumes about the multiple reasons I had for creating this home away from house in the first place. And, with the venerable 11-11-11 time cue due to grace our lives tomorrow (11/11/11, that is), it seems completely unrelated.

Which brings me to my first point: not too much I ever write seems related to much of anything else. Especially all that I choose not to write. It seems to please some people more when I don't write. Sure, there is the occasional linguistic parsimony or the dabbling in daunting deliberations that tend to confuse and frustrate the prurient purists. However, in general, I am occasionally lucid and as engaging as a handful of sand. That may yet be my downfall. (Did I answer the question? Or shall I pose a question, then answer it? This is what I'm getting at.)

There are times when I post something about my writing, either an excerpt or a how-I-did-that discussion, or the more bewildering why-I-did-that report. Other times, I have news to share which is new (for a brief moment in time, that is), which typically has some connection to my writing, or to the writing of my friends and associates, or to the art and craft and science of fictionalization in all its many, many forms.

And still other times I seize upon the opportunity to throw down a bagful of words and arrange them--or try to arrange them--into something comprehensible and loathsomely profound. Such seems to be the case today, as I digress between preparing a lecture on analysis and interpretation for a research writing class and my own semi-serious babblings about the non-uniqueness of the 11-11-11 phenomena. (Yes, I actually did "tweet" that I was holding out for 15-15-15!)

There you have it: a post! Wasn't that easy? Wasn't that meaningful? Not really? Well, it felt good for me, at least, getting out the excess of words that had been building up. What else could I have done? Pondered the meanings of political candidates' guffaws and gaffes? The mistakes of misanthropes? Compared the passing asteroid to a summer's day? Ranted on all that riles my sensitive sensibilities? Complain about having tornadoes, hail, flooding, and earthquakes all happening around me in the same weekend (true, I'm unhappy to say)? Or something else....

Frequently there is a sense of satisfaction that, if I type long enough and use enough words, that something will make sense to someone. I have heard that a certain number of chimpanzees typing on a certain number of typewriters (obviously before the age of computers), would, in a certain number of years (given a reasonable amount of nutritional sustenance), produce the works of Shakespeare. That, certainly, is a major digression, especially when all I've sought to do today is exercise my fingers.

It is that time once again:

May you all have something better, something more enjoyable, more productive, entertaining or enlightening to do today than read this posting a second time. Doing that (the second reading) would likely label you a true fan of moi. Yet I would not embarrass anyone by repeating that label. Further explanation of such devotion shall have to wait until another empty hour in my pre-fab life unfolds unceremoniously and grins something akin to a Cheshire cat.

And so, without additional adieu, I fade....

P.S.--I wish to throw a hearty "Good Luck" to everyone who has scheduled some important event on 11-11-11, especially to fellow Fantasy Island author Danielle Raver, who will have her fantasy novel's book launch (Brother, Betrayed), and to those particular sci-fi films coming out on 11-11-11. I hope everyone has much success!

The Interview

Must be the Halloween effect...spooky things happening, such as...the school newspaper wants to interview me tomorrow, especially about me teaching the Creative Writing course for the first time in 3 years. 


So...what are my qualifications? I have an MFA degree in Creative Writing and I have a novel coming out. 


See? Look at the cool cover (created by Claire Chilton):

From FANTASY ISLAND BOOK PUBLISHING (Click Here) and available soon at Fantasy Island Books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and my closest street corner!


Thanks for your support! 


I hope you enjoy the story. If not, please rewrite it following your own sense of morality.


Cover design by Claire Chilton, fellow Fantasy Island Book Publishing Author (Whatever Became of the Squishies?, also coming soon) and FIBP Graphic Designer, Webmistress, and unofficial York tour guide!

SCARY STORY CONTEST ENDS - BOOK COVER CONTEST BEGINS

ATTENTION! 
MANY THANKS TO ALL THE "SCARY STORY CONTEST" ENTRANTS!

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED (as of midnight, of course) AND STORIES ARE BEING READ AND VOTED ON BY THE AUTHORS AND EDITORS OF FANTASY ISLAND BOOK PUBLISHING.

RESULTS WILL BE POSTED AT THE FANTASY ISLAND WEBSITE  ON OCTOBER 31.


GOOD LUCK TO ALL!


AND...If you still feel like participating in more contests, please click over to this one at Shelfstealers Books and vote on the book cover for my upcoming novel A BEAUTIFUL CHILL, an anti-romance set on a college campus, about two opposites attracting yet struggling to get along with each other because they have to. NOT based on Real Life! (Yeah, right....)

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR CLICKS!


Have a fabulous Sunday!

The Horror You've Always Craved...with a side of brains!

October usually means a breath of cool air, colorful trees, and a welcome respite from the rigors of academia often dubbed "fall break". 

Another aspect of the month is the inevitable saturation of Halloween/Samhain paraphernalia in shades of black and orange. It all comes to a climax on the 31st, of course, when literally all Hell break loose upon the world.

As we enter the final run-up to that festive occasion, I wish to help celebrate the depravity deep within us all by alerting you to an event that is truly keeping with the spirit of the evil spirits of the season. 

Some of my fellow authors have written suitable fair for the season, while I have not. (OK, sure, I did write one story* that would be in the "urban fantasy" genre, something about a vampiress returning to save an ex-lover from certain death--written well before the Twilight phenomena.) But I digress...

The publisher of my novel AFTER ILIUM, Fantasy Island Book Publishing is having a "scary story" contest!

Scary Story Contest

Whether your cup of tea includes blood and gore or silent, simple psychological thrills or brutal, torturous knock'em-off one-at-a-time stealthy mayhem, the story you submit to the contest must be able to scare the pants off readers. Because we love seeing people's pants fall down. It's a complicated fetish. 

Digressing again!

Vampires, werewolves, zombies, serial killers and their cute pets, weird aliens and robotic machinery, psychopaths and their clones, or nefarious bugs and slithery snakes, colorful spiders and worrisome wraths, ghouls and ghosts, or that kid in third grade who you just knew would grow up to be trouble--anything is possible. 

The only thing that is NOT possible is for Fantasy Island's own authors to enter the contest. That would be like cheating, of course, because we ARE authors! You can be too!

So dig out that story you crafted in school, the one you secretly want to publish, the one that caused your grandmother to say extra prayers for you, the one that you know will make our blood run icy and our brains melt inside our skulls. 

Submit your story between October 22 and 30th following the instructions at the link:

Scary Story Contest

*My story "Rendezvous" will be included in an anthology of stories produced by the editors of Fantasy Island Book Publishing.