Winning the Trifecta!!!

In honor of the launching of the second book in my third trilogy, FLU SEASON, I thought I would wax poetic over my three trilogies and how they came about and how they proceeded. Of course the third book of my third trilogy has yet to be published but it is complete and considered finished, so it counts. Now I have a set of three trilogies and thus have achieved the Trifecta! These nine volumes make up fully half of my writing output of 17 novels. (All novels are available in paperback and for Kindle; click on links at the top right corner of this blog.)

THE DREAM LAND

The first book, originally titled The Dreamland, was composed back in those days of typewriters and mailing a box of paper to a publisher. It was intended to be a stand-alone novel. Yet being full of interdimensional intrigue on an alien world, there was much room for utilizing the world I'd created. The first book, retitled Long-Distance Voyager, covered everything I had intended for the story and I had no idea for a second book. I eventually had an idea and launched right into the second book. But I got stopped a short way into it. I ran into a plot conundrum and sat it aside to figure out how to proceed. Then life got in the way and I did not return to it for ten years. 

The conundrum was figured out by then and I continued it, taking it into a kind of time travel plot that was quite mind-twisting. When I was ready to throw book 1 into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, I was also finishing writing book 2. By the time I finally got book 1 published, I knew it would be a trilogy so I came upon the idea for book 3 without too much gnashing of plot lines. As book 2 Dreams of Future's Past, was being published I was already writing book 3, titled Diaspora. It followed immediately after book 2 in the publishing schedule and I was very happy, thinking I might not be able to write more. I did dabble at a book 4 but didn't get very far and have not resumed writing it.

Being first, and introducing a new world of steampunk fashion and geopolitical skulduggery, it did well enough. Book 2, while being more ambitious and thought-provoking, sat on the shelf. Book 3, while deemed by me my most humorous of the three as well as the most horrifying, was hardly touched. That is the issue with trilogies, I suppose.

THE STEFAN SZEKELY TRILOGY

After a while, I decided to join the vampire trend and wrote a novel purportedly a medically accurate vampire story. My hero was Stefan Szekely, an ordinary guy, American of Hungarian ancestry, with an odd background. I threw a lot of personal angst into it, and came to realize I could make a pretty good vampire myself, given the chance. One and done, was my intention. But the ending nagged me through the writing of two other completely unrelated novels.

What happened to our vampire hero after the first novel ended? Because I'd set the story in the same year as I was writing it (2013-14), I began to jump ahead in the timeline. Thirteen years into the future we pick up our story - and a trilogy was born, both novels conceived at the same time although the exact story line was still vague. It was really an exercise in traveling in my head and doing research about Croatia and Hungary and calling them novels.

I wrote SUNRISE and SUNSET back to back. The first novel, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, was well-received and garnered attention among the vampiric crowd. Book 2 was less popular, perhaps because the vampire trend was already receding. So Book 3 received little attention, although I thought I put some amazingly evocative material in it. I planned a book 4 and started writing it but got stopped when the even-further-into-the-future world I set it in began to overwhelm me with technologies I didn't have the patience to figure out.

Then I wrote three stand-alone novels: a sci-fi story with a non-human hero, a contemporary crime thriller, and an action/adventure story about a man-eating tiger. Then I was bored.

FLU SEASON: A Pandemic Trilogy

I've blogged about this trilogy in the past few months, so let me go over some of the history of its creation. I started something at the beginning of our real pandemic but didn't get far. The idea boiled inside my head for another year. When I found a way to start it and thought what would occur in the journey plotline, I still believed it was going to be a stand-alone novel. However, a journey is all well and good, but what happens when our hero and his Mom arrive? What then? 

Giving the first book the subtitle of The Book of Mom, I let it be a narrative by a teen boy about his single mother and all her quirks and whims while fighting to get them to safety from both viruses and violence. Once they arrived at a kind of sanctuary, I knew it had to be a trilogy. I already had ideas of what would happen next. By the end of book 1, I definitely knew how book 2 would begin and end.

By the end of book 2, The Way of the Son, I had book 3 planned - although I do not write out an outline like many authors do. Just as book 2 picks up where book 1 ends (like on the same day!), book 3 also picks up where book 2 ends. The difference is that book 3, Dawn of the Daughters, has a lot of ground to cover story-wise. It could be a stand-alone in its own right, if I had conceived of the story first instead of the book 1 we now have. 

Too early to tell how this trilogy will be received. As of this blog posting, books 1 and 2 are out and available with book 3 scheduled to be published in the fall of 2023. The main thing, I think, is that I've enjoyed creating these various worlds and the characters who inhabit them. I only hope that others will enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The FLU SEASON Trilogy: Doing What I Do

It has been a week since my new novel FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON launched and the excitement of that minimalistic day still lingers. The thrill of seeing my finger push that button to send a tweet into the void sizzles even now. It's all about the thrill, you see. I really can't stop. It's like a role-playing game and I get to play all the characters and make them do what I want them to do. By the end, I feel like I have put together a million-piece jigsaw puzzle and can finally see the big picture.

Whenever anyone might ask me why I write - a typical question in writing communities online - I pause thoughtfully, then launch into a diatribe about how it is all fun and games until I come to the end. Then I feel a great emptiness as the published book leaves the nest and tries to fly on its own. But the game analogy is valid. When I really think about it, that is what it is: a game. It gets me up in the mornings to play it. I want to see what happens next to these invented characters - blithely acknowledging that I have the power to make things happen in a certain way.

Puppet master? I think not. For as the characters come on stage more and more, they become real and often argue with me, demand a different turn of events, threaten to sit and pout. I offer a quick way out in the form of a murder or unlucky fall, but usually I cannot part with them. Even the villains compel me to assist in their crimes. Sure, there is some clear-headed planning and crafting a narrative that goes this way and that, making arcs, dropping seeds, foreshadowing, flashing back, information dumping but only in spoonfuls here and there. I know what to do.

However, at the bottom of all of that writerly stuff is the game. An old adage for writers goes a little bit like this: Write the story you want to read. And I do. I don't often know what kind of story I want to read when I start, but it comes to me soon enough. It usually comes to me when I've written about 10,000 words. By then, the story stays with me when I'm not actively writing. I start to think of what happens next - and what just happened and what I may have missed and need to add or change - through the day and into the evening. As the story progresses, I may be so driven as to sit down in the middle of the afternoon and type out another scene. Or, surprisingly, delve back in late in the evening just as I was certain it was time to sleep. It's a crazy process, but there it is.

For my FLU SEASON trilogy, which began as a stand-alone book, THE BOOK OF MOM, until 2/3 of the way into writing it, I developed a regular routine (me being a retired fool with little to occupy my hours). I would rise and get coffee while booting up the beast (an old desktop computer running Windows whatever-number, using Word of some kind). I'd sit and open the file, a running manuscript in which I add the next bit straight into the file, which is already set in book format - all the better to see how it will look in the final version. While starting the session, I begin listening to the "soundtrack" I've put together: music which fits the scene, always instrumental (don't need sung words getting in the way of the words in my head).

I usually begin by addressing spots I thought about since the previous session and fix those. Then I might read through the last scene I wrote and revise/edit it, which leaves me ready to dive into the next scene or chapter. In the alternative, if an idea is hot when I'm starting, I may go straight to typing out that scene while it rages, then return to my normal routine. Depending on the scene - writing coaches talk about the goal of a scene - I may begin with a little setting information, or jump into dialog to get it started. I'm always thinking of the mood of the scene - mood of the characters as well as what comes from the setting, like the difference between the same dialog and action in a sunny setting versus a dark and rainy setting. I know from a lot of previous writing how to mix exposition ("telling") with live action and dialog ("showing"), with the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

However, I tend to "write lean" just to get the story down in a basic form, knowing I will go back over it and make it richer. Sometimes an exchange of dialog runs the scene. Other times, getting the look and feel of the place and situation is most important. I find I have the uncanny ability to "become" a character and think, speak, and act as that character would. And yet I was never a great actor! Yet, in becoming my characters, I feel what they feel and that makes the writing effort exhausting - or occasionally energizing. It is almost like going to the gym for a hard workout, depending on the conflict in the scene I'm writing. A lot of that is driven by whatever is happening in my head when my fingers hit the keyboard. I might say it is magic but I don't truly know. Probably a form of mental illness of which I can make full use of its quirky features. Living in one's head is not just a metaphor.

I will write as long as I can. When the scene is finished I will go back immediately and read it through, revising as I go. I add more description (a sentence here or there), fill out dialogue (can't just have the necessary words but also need the extra phrases that make dialog sound real), and add thoughts and feelings (of the protagonist; can't know what other characters are thinking and feeling but I can suggest those through what the protagonist notices). When I get tired or I run up against having to do some other task, I'll pack it up, save everything in 6 places (3 places off the desktop computer), and call it a day.

Then I think about the story as I go through my day. I'll drive to the grocery store but there is the next scene in my mind's eye as I'm sitting at the traffic light. I push the cart through the store and I'm thinking through that last exchange of dialog, perhaps deciding a better phrase to have my character speak. Or I might realize I forgot to include something or I discover in reviewing what I just wrote that I need to add some important detail - something a reader would point out. Later, often lying in bed ready to sleep, I will also find "plot holes" (seldom these days, despite being a make-it-up-as-I-go-along kind of writer) or other spots I need to address. Then, if I'm lucky, I will go on to sleep. And sometimes I will have a dream which relates to the story I'm writing and I'll pop up in the darkness to scribble something on a note pad next to my bed and deal with it in the morning.

So for the two years in which I've worked on three novels, this has been my usual daily work routine. It is good to have a regular schedule when nothing else such as getting to work is there to keep me on track. I often confuse the day of the week now, unless the TV schedule reminds me. After a while they all run together as one big writing session, anyway, and I don't mind that.

I'm not sure what comes next. The FLU SEASON Trilogy is finished with Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS - coming in fall 2023. I have teased that I will have an artificial intelligence app read my trilogy and then create a fourth book. Then a fifth book. And I shall be reduced to mere editor. We shall see. At least read Book 3, the final fully human-written novel of my career!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON Launches!

Hurray! The Way of the Son, the second book in my pandemic trilogy, FLU SEASON, has launched! Paperback is available now and the ebook for Kindle will be delivered May 15 although you can pre-order it now. Click the links.

Sanctuary from a pandemic is only good if you can stay there. When Sandy and his young family are exiled from the island, he struggles to find a way to save them while they face the worsening situation. Without Mom to guide him, Sandy must now take on all the responsibilities of survival in the lawless Outerlands.

It's hard to believe that a couple years ago I was fumbling around for a way to write a novel based on the very same pandemic we were all going through and constantly getting to a dead end, no pun intended. Now I've achieved a miraculous goal of writing three novels in two years, with two of them published and the third book already completed.

Meanwhile, I've interacted with other writers on various social media platforms, and an interesting question keeps coming up about my pandemic trilogy. What's the genre? My immediate knee-jerk reply is "science fiction". But then I have to stop myself and wonder. I worry that many sci-fi readers might be confused by the story I've put together in this trilogy. 

In this on-going interaction with other writers I came upon the term "psychological sci-fi" which seemed to be used for stories like Orwell's 1984, in which the focus is on the psychological (and social/cultural) aspects of the setting and how characters face it. The term doesn't mean it is about the psychology of the characters, not their mental illnesses or such, but rather, how the story may influence the psychological aspects of the reader's experience. In this way, the story need not have a fantastical setting or be filled with wonderful new technology.

Psychological science fiction = involves a "complex theme, ethical dilemma, existential questions" and exists "beyond time and space", involving "what it means to be human"; it may "reflect on the influence of science and technology", focus on "reality and consciousness", and morality. (cobbled together from remarks spoken in a video, link lost)

This may be compared to "literary sci-fi" in that both sub-genre might have similar subject matter but "literary" - at least to my thinking - is more about the style and depth of the writing and not specifically the setting or subject of the story. Note that in all three books the narrator speaks in first-person so we get the style of that person's manner of speech, which grows more uneducated and uses more Southern dialect as the story unfolds.

The FLU SEASON trilogy is traditional sci-fi only in that the people in the story are in distress as a result of science (virus) and technology (electric grid down, fuel runs out, etc.), and the story shows how they find solutions to the problems or find other ways to get by. This is done in a world/setting that is realistic in today's terms rather than fantastic or only plausible in the future or in extreme circumstances. The closeness to the present moment and the lack of things more typical of post-apocalyptic fiction makes FLU SEASON psychological sci-fi. But it is also action and adventure fiction. It also has a teen romance story line. There is humor and dark humor. And...well, you get the idea: it's like life itself, full of everything.

The immediate cause of both my writing and the story's setting is the coronavirus outbreak of late 2019 through late 2022. I pondered, in the days when our society seemed most set upon, what people would do if it got even worse. Suppose this "present situation" (think summer and fall of 2020) lasted six years - four more years beyond our "present" experience. How much worse would everything get? How would, say, an autistic teen and his single mother cope? What would they do? What would be the results of their efforts? And that was my story. And what would become of Mom's *tuba?

I wasn't but a little past the half-way point when I knew this stand-alone novel had to be a trilogy, although I had no firm idea what would happen next. As I finished Book 1 The Book of Mom and waited through all the miscellaneous hassles (cover art, etc.), I started right in on Book 2 The Way of the Son. Here, that teenage boy is on his own, without Mom to guide him, and he learns an awful lot on his journey.

Book 3 Dawn of the Daughters (now in the 'tweaking, then tweaking back' stage) picks up the story from the end of Book 2 and takes readers through the lives of our hero's growing family, in epic multi-generational tradition, as they experience a bloody civil war and the painful reconstruction of society afterwards - much like Gone With the Wind but set in 2035 with a deadly virus.

*Mom (of The Book of Mom) is a professional tubist and music professor, who refuses to leave her instrument behind when they flee the chaos of the city. Her son dutifully takes care of the tuba (Book 2), and his daughter eventually learns the backstory of the instrument and why it is so precious (Book 3).

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Pandemic Fiction: The Evil That Writers Do

Actually, I don't know what I'm doing.

For a while now, I've gotten up in the mornings and gone immediately to my computer to write the next whatever in this file some might call a role-playing game. Before I fully awaken I am immersing myself into a fantasy world, not as a character, not even as an observer (well, sometimes), but as a god, creating everything, pulling all the strings (though some may break), directing the action. And in this way, I entertain myself. I like entering the story each day. I like adding the next episode. I like seeing how my creations react to what I throw at them. And in this way I become evil.

In my latest evil incarnation, I've taken our very real pandemic and its associated unpleasantries and extended it into the future. I've introduced a family consisting of a teen boy and his single mother and thrown them into this near-future situation. Just to see what would happen if... if the pandemic, at its worst, continued for six more years. While other writers have taken viral pandemic-caused apocalypses into seriously bizarre or otherworldly directions, I've bent over backwards to 'keep it real'. Because the scariest situations come from real possibilities.

In Book 1 of my FLU SEASON trilogy, The Book of Mom (available now; click title to read more), an autistic teen son and his tuba-playing mom escape a city in chaos to seek refuge at the grandparents' farm - only to discover upon arrival that the location is undesirable as a sanctuary. Traveling onward to first one of the mom's sisters then another sister, trying to save other relatives, then to an island where the family has vacationed previously, we experience the kind of shocking episodes people in that kind of long-term pandemic would face: precautions for the virus, yes, but more likely and more often the violence of fellow survivors trying to get by in an every-man-for-himself 'new normal' world.

In Book 2, The Way of the Son (coming May 2023), our teen boy hero is a couple years older and has a family. But the situation has turned ugly. Exiled from their island sanctuary, the young family faces an uncertain existence in the dangerous outerlands where the deadly virus is less of a problem than are other survivors of the pandemic. Faced with greater responsibilities, they must grow up quickly and fight to stay together in this new normal. 

For the back cover blurb, I borrowed from text in the novel:

Everything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it's your responsibility to protect her and you fail. 

Now you have a wife and baby to protect in the savage outerlands - where danger lurks in every shadow, every man for himself.

I call it the Way of the Son - definitely not the way Mom would've gone. 

“The road is finite, and well-marked, so you only need to go along it, following the path that’s already set before you. Yet sometimes it will lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes you will end up in the wrong place.” 

You have to find your way home again, wherever that may be - even through a pandemic and the chaos that comes after.

(Pre-order the Kindle version here! Delivered May 15, 2023.)

In Book 3, Dawn of the Daughters (coming Fall 2023), our family is hidden away in the forest of a national park - or so they think. Giving in to changing situations, new dangers and new opportunities pull them apart, leading to story lines that take us on the characters' contrasting journeys covering the decades of civil war and the reconstruction of a new world. We also learn the history of the precious tuba and why it matters.

To define "pandemic fiction" I want to ask: What is post-apocalyptic fiction? 

Answer:  A made-up story of how life is following some worldwide disaster that shatters the long-standing, ordinary, stable society of before and forces people to try to survive in new circumstances, none of which are easy. Imagining that kind of awful future isn't easy - mostly because we, being stuck in the present, can only guess how it will be. This brings me back to an assignment I gave my college composition students years ago.

I called it the Future Project. I allowed them to make it fiction (i.e., a post-apocalyptic story) or non-fiction (e.g., reporting on some technological development). Most students found the project fun and I got many great results from them. In the prompt, I asked students to look back 20 years and compare life then with life today. How much had things changed in 20 years? Then turn it around and consider the same degree of change that would occur in 20 years from today. To illustrate, we sampled music from 20 years ago with music today: what was popular back then vs. what is popular today. One requirement was to tie the subject of the paper to something that was real today; they couldn't simply go off into fantasy land and make up something that had no connection to what exists today.

I tried a similar approach when I wrote my vampire trilogy. The story began in the same year in which I wrote it (2013-2014), but the second book was set in 2027-2028. There was an awkward development in Book 2, however: one character, in looking back from 2028, describes what happened in 2020 - yet never mentions any pandemic. Book 3 was easier because it was set in 2099. But you get the idea: it's hard to stay current with future events. 

For my FLU SEASON trilogy, I deliberately kept things vague with regard to years. We acknowledge the start of the pandemic in 2020 but start the story six years later, what would be 2026. Obviously, the pandemic we experienced has been called off now (early 2023), no longer an emergency, so this trilogy becomes a great What-If exercise. I could calculate that Book 1 covers 2026-2028 and Book 2 covers 2028-2029. Book 3 is the generational epic and so it covers the years 2030 to 2098 - although the number of the years are never mentioned. Everything is different, anyway: ruined then rebuilt. So it hardly matters what the actual year is; it's a fresh start.

Bad things happen; that is what makes a story. (I promise my next novel will be full of happy events, one after another, and our characters will have easy lives and never lack anything, and nothing much ever happens.) For a post-apocalyptic adventure tale, however, bad things must happen, and they must:

1) be realistic or plausible in the story's context (that is, not just thrown in for the sake of drama), and

2) cause the reader to feel unnerved, sick/disgusted, uncomfortable, off-balance, shocked, and/or deeply concerned without using too many cheat codes (i.e., emotional tropes).

In the FLU SEASON trilogy, I "let" bad things happen, because they likely would happen in that situation. While I feel bad for putting the characters through these episodes, I know the reader will be better off for following them through. That is my hope. As one character says to another while writing events down in a notebook: "Every page is a lesson."

FLU SEASON is more than a cautionary tale of what you might have to face in an extended emergency (although you might glean some survival tips from the text). It is a story like most stories where you identify with characters who seem real, get to know them, care about them, and want to shout "Don't open the door!" when you can feel that moment coming on the page. That is what I do, like a mad scientist, like an evil god with a whole world to play with. That is what gets me up in the mornings.

FLU SEASON Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON 

Available mid-May 2023 for Kindle and in paperback!

(Pre-Order for Kindle version here!)

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 (C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Reconciling Past & Present

Life happens a little too fast sometimes. For example, I was minding my own business, hard at work revising the second book in my pandemic trilogy, FLU SEASON, when I was contacted by another author concerning a semi-biographical novel I wrote a few years ago: A GIRL CALLED WOLF.

Well, I do like to talk about my books. So the result was me being interviewed for a podcast by Nick Alimonos, author of the Aenya books, a series of fantasy novels (click the link to check them out). You can hear the podcast here - from his author webpage. Nick read the novel and apparently was impressed enough to want to ask me questions about it. He found me through social media and we set up an online meeting. He was particularly interested in how I took the mostly true experiences of the heroine and turned it into a novel. Our conversation, however, ranged far and wide, covering a variety of writer issues and our opinions of other books. (My voice doesn't sound too awful.)

The Writer's Abyss

It's starting to hurt again.

Even before I am completely finished, like with revisions and editing, I feel that shadow creeping up behind me, ready to engulf me. 

It's the writer's greatest fear: the abyss.

What abyss?

You know: that one: the bottomless pit of deadly indolence, where writers who've just finished a book go to scream at the walls for another story idea and hear only the echo of their own pitiful voices. It's a curse.

You throw all of your being into promulgating a lie, a beautiful/hideous multi-layered intriguing tale of invented characters going about a make-believe world all to illustrate some esoteric point you decided had to be made, based off a spark of insight late one night long ago that returns in a flash as you sip your morning coffee, ready to go over that difficult chapter one more time. 

Then it's done and you have nothing. Oh, sure, you have your baby. But it's just a heap of words and punctuation that may make sense to a few people. But there it is. 

Now you have nothing. You stare into the mirror and see the abyss looking back. Did you actually write that book? Is it any good? Will anyone want to read it? And if any dare to read it will they bother to click on a star or even type a few words by way of sharing their opinion of the book? Will the words be positive or a sharp critique of everything you have ever believed about the world and all the beings in it and how they interact and whether you have plausibly represented them to such a degree that a reader will not only be compelled forward through the pages but perhaps be moved in some way, emotionally, spiritually, maybe get up and go do something helpful in the world, a turn in their life, something like that?

So you get a few words by way of a review. Good comments. Thank you. So good, in fact, that you want to read it, as though you are not the author but just another reader. You pick up your personal copy from your trophy shelf and begin. A number of pages in you find the first mine and it explodes in your face, rips your eyes from their sockets: the error, the most grotesque of all errors because a mere spellchecker could not find it and thrash it.

It reads "form" when, in the context of the sentence, it should read as "from".

And the shadow takes you completely. What is the use? Can never get it right. Why try?

Because without that compulsion to pound keys you are nothing. There is nothing else that causes you to awaken each day. Without an idea, a story to compose, you have nothing. You are an automaton, going through each day in the simplest routine of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, TV, naps and night sleeping, dreams abandoning you. You are a mere husk of your former self. Waiting.

Then, when you least expect it, a whirlwind of narratives spin up from the abyss, circling around you, closing in, rubbing your mind raw, until you see a ghost in the machine and you lean forward and you type again.

My latest effort is FLU SEASON, a pandemic trilogy, with Book 1 The Book of Mom available now. Books 2 and 3 are finished and will be available soon.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Writing Edgy in 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Narrative and Writing a Compelling Story

Please note that if you are currently in the stages of holiday shopping, books make a fine gift and several books composed by me are available for your reading enjoyment. You will find them all with purchase links, cover art, and blurbs/descriptions on my previous blog post, so click here and be happy!

Pardon me. I awoke too late after not getting a good sleep. I'm doing the best I can to fulfill my obligations to what I imagine are throngs of blog readers anxiously sitting before their screens in eager anticipation for what words of wisdom or whimsy I might offer to them. And, to tell the truth, I seldom have any idea what will come from my keyboard until it does - and then it may be too late to prevent the ruination of my typing skills or my pedantic bent. In most cases, I prefer to confer everything I think about practically everything through the pages of a novel.

First, however, we must invent a compelling story - a narrative so bold and beautiful that none can resist following it to its end. You got to hook 'em and cook' em, a professor in my MFA program was wont to remind us plebes - mere word cobblers to him. I've written previously in blog posts about the abuse we endured in those hallowed halls. Suffice to say, the vaunted professor preferred one and only one kind of story and all others were dismissed outright or ridiculed to the point where the poor young author had to flee in tears.

I learned a few things nevertheless. One: put the characters first. That is, craft an interesting character your readers will want to know about and want to follow through the story no matter what happens in the story. At the time of that MFA program, I felt my protagonists were compelling characters; they were, after all, largely modeled after me. That seldom was a delicious recipe, as you can imagine, because seldom would my protagonist act as I would act. Communication between us was unsteady and I was frequently frustrated. Still, we carried on and came to certain understandings about who does what and what the terms of engagement were to be.

Two: what is interesting to readers (caveat: most readers, although the adage came at us as every reader) is not what happens in the story but what happens to the character because of what happens in the story. That may seem an infernal circle yet it does make a crude kind of sense. If we are "caring" about the hero/heroine then we "care" what happens to them - almost as though they were real people who we actually know and worry about, like Kevin who lives down the street. I came to realize I did treat my characters as though they were real, and I worried about them, waking in the mornings wondering if they would get out of that predicament I'd let them slip into, or whether they would still obey me after I helped them escape a conundrum I'd set up for them.

For a story to be compelling - a word this professor used - it must involve a primary character we care about and a situation that is not immediately disturbing but has the hint of great disturbance to come. Nuances and subtleties. Like laying out a puzzle. Will readers catch it, or should I bash them over the head with the idea? Bread crumbs here and there along the dark forest path or a nicely paved way with neon signs? I think I've learned the art of nuances, as intended by that professor. Of course, I can never know  - short of a book review, perhaps, or an angry tweet - whether a reader catches the subtle clues or not. I can only try my best to tip-toe through the daisies along the primrose path and up Strawberry Hill to Mary Sue's house.

Sorry. I slipped into a purple prose paragraph again. It happens on these kind of late mornings when I haven't slept well yet need to produce a blog post to let the world know I remain alive and verbose. So, I suppose I've achieved my goal. Actually, my goal was the notice at the top to potential readers of my library. Simple as that. But then I kept typing and, well, this is the result. I'm not ashamed; I enjoy typing although the number of mistypes and the corrections increase with each passing day.

Did I mention I have a new novel out now? It's Book 1 of a series called FLU SEASON. The first book is titled THE BOOK OF MOM, a kind of memoir. It's a near-future (almost contemporary) story of a teen boy and his single mother who try to survive the chaos of a pandemic and its worsening society by fleeing the city for what they hope will be relative safety at the grandparents farm, only to find that life in the country isn't much better and they must come up with Plan B, then Plan C, until they reach a small coastal island where the family previously vacationed and have a house - but the survivors there have set up their own strange community and the teen son and his mom must decide whether to stay and obey or hold off the strict requirements until it is safe to leave for a better place. It is a tale of survival, of family relations, of dark secrets, and a teen romance - as well as the dystopian undertones of an odd collection of characters trying their best to get by in the new normal. And Mom plays her tuba quite a lot, I should add.

Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON is complete and coming in late spring.
Book 3 DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS is started and the writing continues. 

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 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 Season of Reading

Small Business Saturday meets CyberMonday!

For end of year holiday shopping, no day is more celebrated than Black Friday and its opulent pre-dawn sales. Then comes Small Business Saturday when our shopping attention is supposed to go to the smaller mom-and-pop stores. Of course, nobody has a smaller business than an independent author who dreams, writes, researches, revises, edits and proofreads, and may get some help with editing and cover art. Finally on the weekend of retail madness comes CyberMonday, the day when everyone who didn't find what they were looking for goes online when they are back to work, more often than not searching for a good book to read or to give to the readers in their families.

This is where I come in. I've never been big on marketing, despite actually passing two courses in college. Granted, I mostly wrote advertising copy for those classes but it did help me get a job at a local TV station. People do not seem to like marketing - or promotion, as it is often referred to in the book world - beyond a few commercials during Super Bowl Sunday. A brief mention of the existence of a product or service is all many of us require. Social media platforms may be the worst. I often must sit through 6 ads to watch even a 3 minute video on YouTube. And scrolling down my Twitter feed is like leafing through a department store catalogue rather than my followers' clever posts.

I've written before on judging books by their covers but, for me, the cover draws me to the shelf, gets me to pick up the book, and then comes the real judging. I flip that book over and read what it is about - the blurb. I don't need to know what other authors thought of it, even famous authors. I don't need to know what awards it won. Just tell me what happens. I may open to the first page of the story and read a little to get a sense of the voice and the style. I may turn to a middle page (the Amazon "surprise me" feature) or skip to the end. If it is non-fiction, I study the table of contents, sometimes the index. If the story seems compelling, the narrator interesting (either it is the author or a character doing the telling), and the setting may be out of the ordinary or appropriate for the story, I'll take chance on it. 

So now we come to the holiday gift giving season and it is important to note that books are one of the easiest gifts to give - often a 1-click purchase and instant electronic delivery or on its way via a delivery service. A book is also one of the more valuable gifts anyone would be thrilled to receive. I know this from personal, first-hand experience. The only real issue is to match the genre to the reader. Therefore, it is my duty to inform you that I write in a variety of genre so there is a book for nearly everyone. And on that note, allow me to share my collection with you for your holiday reading and gift consideration.

First is my forthcoming pandemic novel, the first in a trilogy called FLU SEASON. Book 1 is titled THE BOOK OF MOM, a reference to the main character, as told by her teenage son, a kind of "mom"-memoir set in the near future - actually quite close to now. You can pre-order the ebook for Kindle now (click here) and it will be automatically delivered on November 29. The print version will follow about a week later. Note: Book 2 is finished (I know a lot of readers don't like to start a series if they have to wait for the next book), and Book 3 is started. UPDATE: both paperback and Kindle versions are  now available (click title link above).

Teaser:

A boy and his mom and her tuba try to flee the chaos of a world-wide pandemic.

Sound familiar? We've been there. But everything has returned to normal for most of us.

Yet what if it didn't? What if the worst of the past couple years is now in its sixth year... with no end in sight?

What would you do? How would you get by? Where would you go to survive?

No, wait! There are other books!
 
Scroll backward in time - by publication date - and check out the following novels with links to ebook and print versions.

THE MASTERS' RIDDLE (July 2021)
[sci-fi]

Toog is a simple gardener living with a full-mate and a springling on a planet called Sebbol. Until one night The Masters arrive and capture him, taking him back to their world.

Awaking in a cold, dark cell, Toog fears he will never see his family again. Communicating with other prisoners he learns that The Masters have visited many worlds and brought many different beings back for their laboratory or their work camps. But why? Toog wonders as he vows to escape.

But even if he can get out of the prison or escape a work camp how can he ever hope to return to his world - before his family is long gone and his planet ravaged by time.

Perhaps his hardship is his destiny and serves a bigger purpose. Is that the Masters' Riddle? Only if he can solve the riddle can he go home.

YEAR OF THE TIGER (November 2020)
[action/adventure]

Every night Karl Edwards has strange, violent dreams. He sees the world as though he's looking through the eyes of a Bengal tiger and it's driving him insane. Fortunately, his sexy wife knows a hunky doctor who can help her have Karl committed, that is.

Locked up, the nightmares worsen as the tiger hunts down the men who killed its mate. Karl has a plan, however. All he has to do is persuade Althea, a young nurse, to help him escape. Next, he must get to India. Then he must find that one tiger and kill it. Only then will he have the mind they seem to share all to himself.

But others are also interested in joining the hunt. The doctor who put Karl in the mental hospital, fearing Karl will reveal his crimes. And famous big game hunter Colonel John Barrington will come out of retirement, with worldwide media in tow, for one last chance at a man-eating tiger!

(You can read a lovely review here.)

EXCHANGE (May 2020)

[contemporary crime drama]

An Unspeakable Crime.

High school teacher Bill Masters and his family have a comfortable life in suburban Oklahoma City - until his wife and teen daughter are killed in a mass shooting.

Overwhelmed with grief, Bill struggles to put his life back

together - or construct a new life from what remains - even as he must combat continuing crime that threatens him and his home.

A Second Chance.

When exchange student Wu Ting "Wendy" Wang arrives from China for her year at an American high school, she has no idea what has just happened to her host family.

She's a constant reminder to Bill of why his family is gone. Yet he is determined to protect her at any cost - ready to use his father's gun. And he will not fail this time.

(You can read a lovely review here.)

SUNSET (February 2019)

Book III of the Stefan Szekely, Vampire trilogy

Midnight 31 December 2099.

As the Empire of Europa celebrates the new centennial with battle lines in Ukraine and preparations underway for invading England, the Emperor in His capital of Budapest welcomes His guests, the elite of vampire society.

Yet all is not well in the empire. Different factions agree the time has come for new leadership. As rabid mobs protest and attack palace guards, Emperor Stefan and his closest staff huddle in the imperial suite, awaiting rescue.

But how do you get away from the clutches of the supreme demon who lives forever and exists everywhere? If Stefan can free himself, the world may yet be saved. If he fails, the destruction will continue...until the Anglo-American Union falls and vampire society rules the world.

SUNRISE (April 2018)

Book II of the Stefan Szekely, Vampire trilogy

For Stefan Székely it is a fate worse than death: To be dead yet stuck with his dead parents. 

After 13 years Stefan can endure it no longer. He wants a castle of his own. But first he must visit his family’s bank in Budapest.

With endless strife rumbling across Europe, Stefan hardly recognizes Budapest, now capital of the Hungarian Federation. The world has changed. 

Nevertheless, he embarks on the reign of terror he always denied himself, living the vampire playboy lifestyle. Until he gets a stern warning from the local vampire gang. He is not welcome - unless he plays by their rules.

Should Stefan fight for his right to party like it's 2027? Or will an encounter with a dangerous stranger change everything about his new existence? As clashes between vampire gangs and State Security escalate, Stefan just might be the key to changing the fate of Europe forever!

. . . If he can survive three bloody nights in Budapest.

The sequel to A DRY PATCH of SKIN continues the trials and tribulations of Stefan Székely, Vampire.

EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (March 2017)

[epic fantasy!]

CORLAN, MASTER DRAGONSLAYER, the best in the Guild, the best in the Burg!

And yet, returning from his latest expedition, Corlan discovers jealous rivals have conspired with the Prince to banish him from the city.

Sent into the Valley of Death, Corlan conjures a plan. He and his new sidekick, a runaway boy from the palace kitchen, will trek the thousand miles to the far end of the valley, where a vast marsh provides nesting grounds for the dragon horde. Once there, Corlan vows to smash dragon eggs and lance younglings, ending dragon terror once and for all time.

And yet, as dangers, distractions, and detours harry him along the way, Corlan learns ancient secrets that threaten to destroy everything in his world. Even with the aid of wizards and warriors, he must use all his guile, his bravado, and the force of his stubborn will just to survive - and perhaps return home - no matter how the gods challenge him with their harshest tests.

A GIRL CALLED WOLF  (December 2015)

[action/adventure]

Ice and snow are all 12 year old Anuka knows outside the hut in Greenland where she was born. 

When her mama dies, Anuka struggles to survive. The harsh winter forces her to finally journey across the frozen island to the village her mama always feared.

But the people of the village don’t know what to do with this girl. They try to educate and bring her into the modern world, but Anuka won't make it easy for them. She sees dangers at every turn and every day hears her fate echoing in her mama’s voice.

Her mama gave her that name for a reason. She is A GIRL CALLED WOLF who searches for the place where she belongs, a destination always just out of reach, on a path she will always make her own.

(You can read a lovely review here.)

AIKO (May 2015)

[mystery/romance]

When the handwritten letter from Japan arrives, Benjamin cannot help but flash back to when he lived in Hawaii and met Hanako, a Japanese stewardess. 

But Addy, Benjamin’s wife of three years, knows what the letter really means: a love child was born.

Now Benjamin must save a child he has never met, learn the truth behind Hanako’s death, and risk his marriage and his career to do the right thing. But venturing into the lonely woods of northern Ishikawa throws him into an ancient world of strict customs and tight-lipped villagers.

AIKO, a love story wrapped around a mystery, is a modern version of the Madame Butterfly story told from his side.

(You can read a review here.)

A DRY PATCH OF SKIN (October 2014)

(the only medically accurate vampire novel)

Book I of the Stefan Szekely, Vampire trilogy

The truth about being a vampire: It is not cool, not sexy. It’s a painful, miserable existence.

Good reason to avoid that situation, thinks medical technician Stefan Székely. He's too busy falling in love with TV reporter Penny Park, anyway. Until one day when she notices a dry patch of skin on his face.

At first it's just annoying, nothing to worry about, some weird skin disease he can treat with lotions. However, as his affliction worsens, Stefan fears that his unsightly problem will ruin his relationship with Penny.

If only that was all Stefan has to worry about! He soon realizes there is a lot more at stake than his handsome face. To save himself, Stefan must go in search of a cure for the disease which is literally destroying him inch by inch. If only his parents had told him of the family legacy.

A BEAUTIFUL CHILL (February 2014)

[campus anti-romance]

Opposites may attract... but can they stay together?

Íris is a refugee from an abusive youth in Iceland, further abused on the streets of Toronto - until she sees Art as an escape. With a scholarship, she drifts from depression to nightmare to Wiccan rituals to the next exhibit. There's a lot she must forget to succeed in a life she refuses to take responsibility for.

Eric is settling in at Fairmont College, starting a new life after betrayal and heartbreak. Divorced and hitting forty, he has a lot to prove - to his father, his colleagues, and mostly to himself. The last thing he needs is a distraction - and there's nothing more distracting than Íris.

A Beautiful Chill is a contemporary romance set in the duplicitous world of academic rules and artistic license - in a roundabout way a prequel to A Girl Called Wolf.

(You can read a review here.)

AFTER ILIUM (October 2012)

[action/adventure/age-gap romance]

Troy! Ilium! 3000 years ago Greeks and Trojans battled below the fortress city.

Now comes Alex Parris in 1993, freshly graduated and eager to tour the ancient site. On his cruise to Istanbul, however, he meets Eléna, a mysterious older woman who draws him into an affair.

When the two lovers challenge Fate by visiting the ruins of Ilium, they are rudely separated – forcing Alex to embark on his own Odyssey. His struggle to return to Eléna becomes a fight for survival on the wild Turkish coast.

THE DREAM LAND Trilogy (2012-2013)

[sci-fi, steampunk, interdimensional doorways, teenage know-it-alls, world-ruining, political intrigue, time travel, battle hamsters & magic potions]

Book I  Long Distance Voyager  (December 2012)

Book II  Dreams of Future's Past  (June 2013)

Book III  Diaspora  (December 2013)

How far would you go to save the love of your life? Through a portal to another world?

High school sweethearts Sebastian and Gina discover a doorway to a new world. Adventure-loving Gina falls in love with the world of Ghoupallesz and wants to stay, but studious Sebastian fears losing touch with Earth, so he returns alone.

Years later, working the night shift at the IRS, Sebastian feels the cosmic pull once more. Gina is in trouble. Again. Of course he must return and save her! Perhaps this time, he hopes, they can remain together. Returning through the interdimensional doorway, Sebastian must gather his old comrades from the war, cross the towering Zet mountains, and free Gina from the evil Zetin warlord’s castle. 

Unfortunately, there are more questions to answer. Is his adventure on the other side real? Or is it just the dream of a psychotic killer? That’s what the police want to know when his friends and co-workers go missing.

THE DREAM LAND Trilogy is a tour-de-force genre-mashing Epic of Interdimensional intrigue and alien romance, a psychological thriller marbled with twisted humor, steampunk pathos, and time/space conundra. 

NOTE: Check your local Amazon listings. You may be able to get these for free if you are a Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime member!

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 (C) Copyright 2010-2022 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.