Happy New Year from the Future!

Hey, Fragger and I just wanted to wish all of you a great 2010! Next year, I'll continue working on the next book in the Fragger series. It's titled "The Blood of Fragger Sparks," and the adventure continues! I won't tell you how because...I don't know!

One of the wonderful things about writing is that you can have an adventure every day in your mind and you have no idea where that adventure will take you!

So, stay tuned for more musings and ramblings...and another trip into a very dangerous future!

Happy New Year! - Steve

The Blood of Fragger Sparks

Hi, everyone! I'm working on my fourth novel in the Fragger Sparks scifi series, The Blood of Fragger Sparks. If you haven't read one of more of the previous three, then...Spoiler Alert! Don't read on!

For those of you who have read the series, you know that the protagonist, Colonel Sparks, bit the dust in the third novel defending his family and his friends. From a personal point of view, I would have preferred to keep Fragger going because I liked the character so much. From a professional point of view, I realized I'd nearly beat him up beyond recognition and he (and the reader) wouldn't be able to take much more!

So, it was time for a new generation of the Sparks' line. After all, the future's ass needs a lot of kicking who better to do it than Fragger's son? So, the book is in slow progress.

Now, for those of you with an interest in writing, I've run up against an old but interesting problem - point of view. Basically, the POV in the first three books was that of Fragger since he was the "stranger in a strange land," and we needed to see things through his eyes.

But, now, I've got a very young character who's obviously not mature, so I can't use his POV, at least at the start of the book. So, at present, I'm doing what a lot of writers do to solve the problem - muck around until I find a solution!

That's right, I simply sit down and write it one way....throw that out and try another way...and, well, you get the idea! It's trial and error all the way.

Some writers hate that. Me, I did at first, and then I realized it was great and thrilling fun - a voyage of discovery and I'm master and commander of a very erratic creative ship.

You never know where you'll end up, of course, but, heck, that's the great part about it. Mysterious people in exotic lands live in your head, and you never know they're there.

All I've got to say is, I'm glad I've got a lot of room inside my mind!

Hey, have a great holiday and an even better New Year! And don't forget to go out and buy the Fragger Sparks series so you can live inside your head as well!

Steve

Alien Squirrels and the Reasons I'm Nuts About Writing

Two to three inches of snow on ground here in Madison, WI. For a science fiction writer, it's the perfect day to create a frozen planet somewhere in the frigid reaches of the galaxy. Will I actually do so? Who knows? It's just a perfect example of how a writer can use what's right in front of him to stitch together the fabric of an alien society...a disturbing human dystopia...or a light-hearted space farce.

Have you ever gone to the refrigerator looking for, say, that last piece of pumpkin pie and been unable to find it? After subjecting everyone in the house to an inquisition, you go back to the fridge, and there the pie is - right in front of you!

It's the same with ideas for fiction. Often, they're right in front of you; you're simply not looking in the right place...or too busy looking elsewhere to see what's obvious.

So, when stuck for ideas, I often just remind myself to look out the window. It's amazing what inspiration you can find in the lawn, the trees, and the street of an upper Midwestern town.

That squirrel in the maple can transform itself in an insidiously vicious little pest plaguing the settlers on the planet Lithorn...the hawk just above the tops of the elms suddenly becomes a dropship fighter seeking to destroy our heroes...the fireflies (in the summer) become a race of sweet aliens with deadly defenses....and so on.

I'm sure you see my point by now - the ideas, the inspiration, it's all there right in front of you. All you have to do is look...and then apply hard work!