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.

End of 2024 Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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(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.