With a whimper....

If you have been reading the FLU SEASON Saga these past four years, you likely already know how the world ends. It's with a whimper, not a bang. As poet T. S. Eliot ends his poem "The Hollow Men":

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

I studied the poem in college, took inspiration from its bleak outlook (albeit dark inspiration, but I digress). As a fledgling science fiction aficionado in the 1970s, I believed in the nuclear holocaust version of the end. That's what we were taught throughout the 1960s, after all. And yet, in the late 1970s, with oil shortages, long gas lines, cars being switched from large domestic models to small foreign vehicles, I could easily see how this would be how the world ended: in shortages that became...well, nothing. A whimper of industry slowly fading away.

Things got better and we forgot what we'd feared. Not me. I continued to walk the talk of doom and gloom. I saw the oil crisis of the late 1970s extending until there was no petrol for anybody and we were thrown back into a pre-industrial age. Worried at the real possibility, I sought to improve my swordfighting skills and relearned how to ride a horse. But we had time. How far? I counted back to the Middle Ages (roughly 500 to 1400 A.D.) and considered how society then compared to society today. Then I flipped the years around and projected into the future by the same interval. My thesis was: If society had developed this much in a thousand years, then how much would it regress after a thousand years of decay?

Bingo! I had a story. Or at least a premise. Suppose something happened that shut down our entire industrial society? After 1000 years we would be similar to how society was 1000 years ago. Think: no petroleum refining, no electricity generation, none of the products relying on gas and electricity. Think: farming - back to ox and plow (but you'd eat that ox eventually and pull the plow yourself). It takes a year to grow tonight's dinner, I've read in doomsday and 'prepper' resources. Yet all is good and well.

Good and well if you are a writer coming up with a story. The worst things are, the better for writers. The only flaw in the proposal is that books may not be published in that dire situation. Until then, I can write about the fall of civilization. And that is exactly what I did with my FLU SEASON series, a family saga starting with the real Covid pandemic we experienced 2020-22, then taking it further - much further; several generations into the future. So far, in fact, that I can almost connect it to my once-planned and narrowly composed "fantasy" epic that is set 1000 years into the future when society does indeed resemble a medieval civilization.

Interestingly, I attempted to continue my Stefan Szekely Vampire Trilogy (Book 1 is 2014-15; Book 2 is 2027-28, and Book 3 is 2099 to 2106). I employed the next generation as the main characters, setting them further into the future. It was a technologically dense society, cyberpunk-esque, which seemed the right way to go with the story. However, I quickly became overwhelmed trying to describe such a society. I realized I was not tech savvy enough to pull it off in plausible fashion. So I abandoned the project. I'm much more comfortable with a society that simplifies rather than complicates. Without an electric grid or nuclear energy - wind and solar power is not, as of this blog, sufficient to provide most of our energy needs - there isn't much to hold society together. One need only look at a city-wide power outage to see how people react. What if it were an everyday situation? Or an entire country goes dark (e.g., Spain this month) to understand how only a few weeks of that depredation could affect a society. People would go mad, get vicious. Forget the scramble for toilet paper. And three months of being on your own? A year of it? Forever...?

So here we are: a world familiar yet falling down, becoming less and less. In my FLU SEASON Saga, THE BOOK OF MOM (1) opens the series six years into a pandemic when  Mom and her son no longer believe things will get better and flee their city for the hope of safety in the countryside. In THE WAY OF THE SON (2), everything does get worse: society has collapsed and it's every person for themselves. By DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (3) a new society has developed, split between survivalists in the woods and those who start to rebuild cities, get a functioning electric grid up, reforming government, but through tyrannical means. 

THE BOOK OF DAD (4) takes us through the new Ideal Society that emerges on the ruins of the old nation. Our family manages to escape, settles in the western territory and gains some freedom in THE GRANDDAUGHTER (5), where the title character uses music to try to make a kinder, gentler life. By then everything is broken, the nation divided between desperate cities on the east coast and the struggling residents of the western territory, a reversion to outlaws, farmers, and tribal bands. In my forthcoming book THE GRANDSONS (6), we experience what remains of a forgotten nation as characters explore further west.

As you can see, I have a distinct philosophy regarding the future. I'm a downer. One might say I'm a Debbie Downer. I believe in degradation, in regression, in collapse. Not in amazing tech that saves us, saturating our world with all sorts of conveniences - with or without oppression, no privacy or private ownership, and other aspects suggested by Huxley and Orwell, and their imitators. No, for me it's all about entropy.

It is also easier for me to write about a 'lesser' setting, which I can handle well, than a technological overwhelming new world. In fact, I still have not upgraded my computer or its apps for years now and those corporations have threatened to cut me off.

I've started a new trilogy (Book 7), one which is set even further into the future - with even further degradation, returning ever-steadily back (ahead?) to a medieval future which will culminate in the War of the Five Princes in 3030 A.D. an important event eulogized by characters in my EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (set in 8000 A.D.). They think of it as nearly forgotten history. It's a full-circle circle and a perfect way to end my writing career, circa 2030.

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(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!

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(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).

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(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.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2025 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Welcome to 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks again for your support!

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(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.