S.J. Lewis's Blog

Writing is not like riding a bike. I'm discovering this as I try to get back in the saddle. It doesn't help that I'm now stuck with WordPerfect, which has a lot of features of no use to me and some features that I liked on Word that either don't exist now or are so well hidden as to require an epic quest to find them. Also, WordPerfect seems to have a fetish about hyphenating wherever and whenever it can.
That said, I'm making good progress on two novellas set in Gordburg: Hobson's Choice and The Way It's Done. If all goes well they'll be published in one book titled 'What Happens In Gordburg'.
THAT said, I have a few too many options when it comes to my next book, so I'm hoping that my readers may help to narrow the field a bit. Is/Are there any characters, male or female, that you would like to see again? Are there any single books that you think warrant sequels? I have in mind a follow-up book to 'Hunting Party'.
I also have on hand a half-finished venture into paranormal romance.
I welcome any thoughts or comments.

It's been a while since I posted here, and even longer since I finished writing a new book. Sad to say, I was suffering from some minor but debilitating health problems, and when I finally got those sorted out I began developing cataracts. I didn't know that's what they were at first and put it down to my decrepitude affecting my vision. After I discovered that they were cataracts, I went to a local eye hospital to get surgery.
It took six months to finally have one of my eyes operated on. That one works pretty well now, but the other sees nothing but brown-tinted blurs.
The various minor health problems left me without the energy or drive to write. The cataracts left me unable to even type without laborious and even painful hunt-and-pecking, with many misspellings.

I've begun writing 'Gordburg Revisited' again, and I hope to have it finished soon. Ron and Elizabeth (from 'Urban Prey' and 'Gordburg') will be returning to that unique resort town. There's an important reason for this...

Having Elf-Girl learn her way around Gordburg as she went made it possible to describe and explain the resort to readers without having to go to a massive data dump. It also meant that I didn't have to explain everything, just what Elf-Girl happened to learn as she went along. I didn't even have to explain all of that, as she sometimes had only glimpses of some things. I think this worked out much better. There were still things to learn about Gordburg even at the end of the book, and a little mystery can be intriguing. Still, there were some things that needed to be laid out right from the beginning. One of those was the office of Proctor. Proctors act as referees, advisors and concierges at need. They are always female, and they all wear what amounts to a uniform, a long, high-necked and full-sleeved dress that makes them look something like old-time Western schoolmarms. A Proctor's word is law in Gordburg, and ignoring a Proctor is one way to get yourself forever banned from the place. That threat is often enough to keep visitors, who are already rigorously screened, in line, but if it isn't there are usually some very no-nonsense male personnel around to help. Don't bother trying to spot them.
Proctors themselves are always trained and conditioned submissives who take their positions seriously. Experienced as they are, they can tell when another female is perilously close to her limits and needs relief. This is especially important to the proper functioning of Gordburg, since, in spite of how it might appear to others, the resort aims to fulfill the fantasies of adventurous female submissives in a relatively safe setting.

Once I'd decided on a sequel to Kimberley's carnal adventure in 'Female Prey' I had to come up with a new setting for the story. It wouldn't do for the intrepid Elf-Girl (Kimberley) to just go on another wilderness adventure. I needed something bigger, more elaborate and more interesting that could serve as the backdrop for more stories with different characters later. It also gave Kimberley more to see and do on her very special location. I started with old Gordburg, which looked much like an old Western town, except that it had electricity, computers and indoor plumbing. The town was big enough to have several attractions, including the Slave Market, housed in a huge converted barn, but it occurred to me that some visitors might want more in the way of amenities, so I added a newer section to the east of the old town. That's where I located some small modern hotels, a couple of bars, and a small nightclub. Most people who visit Gordburg stay at one of those hotels.
For Kimberley's adventure, I sketched out a map and placed five small hamlets along a dirt road south of Gordburg. They were all constructed in the Old West motif of Old Gordburg, and the only regularly scheduled transportation between them and Gordburg was by stagecoach.
As Elf-girl set out on her adventure, much of Gordburg was no more than sketched out in my mind, or on paper. I was still developing the concept, and I thought that I would learn more about it as Elf-Girl did, through experience.

The fictional setting of Gordburg grew out of my decision to write a sequel to 'Female Prey', and 'Female Prey' was inspired in part by a videotape, so I'll start there.
The video was titled 'Gold Diggers'. Much of it consists of a rough-looking man leading a bound and naked female captive on a hike through the woods to a place where he can sell her. The female captive in question has her hands bound behind her with plastic police restraints. There is a light chain padlocked around her neck, and a chain leash attached to that. She's also quite comprehensively naked: No clothes, no jewelry, and no shoes. So for much of the trek they're moving slowly so the captive can carefully pick her way along the forest trails in her bare feet.
That video was the inspiration for 'Female Prey'. In fact, a still from the video was used for the book cover.
The book did well, and I began thinking about writing a sequel to Kimberley's wilderness adventure, because I didn't think her story was over.

Miss Jackson was my English teacher during my senior year in high school. She was a good teacher, but she had a quirk that sometimes drove me to distraction in class: Miss Jackson had a thing about symbolism in literature.
By my senior year I was already getting stories published in the school literary magazine (Yes, we had a literary magazine, but no school newspaper until I was close to graduation.) and it seemed to me that it was difficult enough to write an entertaining tale without having to lard it up with symbolism as well.
Then came the day when the class had to discuss the symbolism of 'Moby Dick'. More specifically, we had to consider the symbolism of a white whale. Why a white whale? I listened to my classmates as they suggested different possibilities, some of which were quite creative: Purity, an unattainable goal, and so on. I thought about it, and finally raised my hand. Miss Jackson looked at me and nodded. I'm sure she regretted that later.
"How else," I asked, "Is Ahab going to know he's got the right whale?"

Way back in the waning decades of the 20th Century there was a place not too far from where I lived known as the Downingtown Farmer's Market.There was one store at the eastern end of the long, low building that actually sold meat, dairy and vegetable products, but the rest of the place was taken up by an assortment of small businesses, flea markets and yard sales in a building maybe forty feet wide and longer than a football field, end zones included. It was only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and was never quite the same thing from one long weekend to the next.
My sons used to love to go there, some times just to look at all the junk and some times to see what treasures they could pick up for a dollar or two.
On one occasion my youngest son stayed with me rather than wander off. He had a question for me. There was a particular song he'd heard some time ago, and liked very much. He'd been looking for it ever since, but with no luck. He knew the name of the song, but didn't know what band had put it out. Did I think it might be possible to find it?
I replied that there was a good place to look nearby, one of the few permanent small businesses in the Market. It was called Beggar's Banquet, and it bought and sold records and cassettes. (CDs were as yet undreamed-of in those dark ages. Indeed, the Internet was still a legendary thing, much like a unicorn.)
We went into the Beggar's Banquet, and I asked one of the salespeople if they had 'We Built This City' by Jefferson Starship. They indeed had it, on one remaining copy of the cassette of the album that the song was from. The clerk retrieved it from the back room and handed it to my son so he could see that that song was there.
I watched my son as he held the cassette in his hands and read the title of the song he had been looking for for so long. As I did, I realized that I was going to have to buy that cassette. In some sense, I had already bought it. There was no way I could not just show my son his Holy Grail, but let him hold it in his hands, and then have us both walk away from it. It seemed as if my son was wondering if he could ask me to buy it for him, but was hesitating. So I asked the clerk how much it cost and paid for it.
It was a long time ago. The Market has long since been torn down to make room for a big strip mall, and I don't know if my son still has that cassette. But I will have that memory forever.

Even in the most ordinary life there are occasions where one can do something at least sort of heroic.
Before the company I worked for went to direct deposit, I was in the habit of going to a local bank branch to cash my paycheck, after which I'd treat myself to a takeout lunch instead of my usual brown bag. It was usually a cheerful and welcoming place, but on one particular day I felt a distinct chill when I walked in. As I handed the check and the deposit slip to one of the tellers, I discovered the cause. The only other customer there, a large and loud woman at the far end of the tellers, was loudly berating, insulting and abusing the teller over some banking problem. She had her back to me as she went on, throwing in a hypothetical question about about if her best friend's child-care provider had a similar problem...
The teller she was so loudly abusing was a sweet older lady who had never been anything other than friendly and helpful to me. Now she was visibly shaken, her hands trembling as she tried to complete her tormenter's transaction.
Normally, the branch manager would have intervened, but at this time on this day she had gone to lunch, so that large and loud could run wild and free and nasty.
My own transaction was completed quickly, and I was free to leave.
Except that I couldn't.
'Excuse me!', I said, loudly enough for L&L to hear me over the sound of her own diatribe. She whirled on me immediately, glaring angrily. Have you ever heard the saying that beauty is only skin deep, but real ugly goes all the way to the bone? Well, it applied to this woman.
I suggested to her that if she had some problem with the bank she should take it up with the branch manager, not pick on the poor teller. As reasonable as such advice was, L%L was having none of it, and she began to unleash her considerable wrath on me. As she did, I saw the abused teller finally complete the transaction and flee to the calm and safety of a back room.
'And anyway,' L%L finished with a sneer. 'You don't know what you're talkin' about!'
I couldn't help smiling at the perfect opening she had given to me. 'That may be,' I said. "But I know what I'm lookin' at.'
With that, I turned and left the bank. Behind me I could hear the unpleasant woman sputtering angrily, and a barely suppressed snicker from one of the other tellers.

This occurred during the business trip to San Francisco that I mentioned in the previous post.
Any time I'm visiting a different part of the country, I try to make a point of having breakfast, lunch or dinner at some local establishment, rather than going to some national chain. I was passing through Oakland on my way to another customer when I realized that I hadn't had any breakfast, just some coffee, and no matter what the local clocks might say my own internal clock was quite insistent that I was now well past lunchtime, and getting well on towards dinnertime. Briefly, I considered getting a burger at some national chain.
I was passing through an industrial park when I saw a small restaurant that advertised itself as 'The Swiss Chalet'. It sat in the middle of a vast plain of asphalt parking lot, and it looked very out of place among the squat, utilitarian buildings surrounding it. In keeping with its name, it was build to look very much like a Swiss mountain chalet, complete with a very high peaked roof designed to keep all the Alpine snow from dangerous accumulations. It appeared to be open, though it was somewhere between lunchtime and dinner in California and there were no cars parked in front of the building. I figured that they had to serve at least passable food, or they would not have survived long, even in an industrial park,and it was certainly a local establishment, so I took a shot and went in.
The first thing I noticed was the decor. Seating was provided by rows of wooden picnic tables with the benches attached, each table covered by a checkered red-and-white plastic tablecloth. There was a jukebox on one wall, offering both kinds of music: Country AND Western. To top it all off, they served only Chinese food, cafeteria style.
The food was pretty good, as I recall, but I came away from The Swiss Chalet with something more than a full stomach: I came away with another travel story. I couldn't have gotten that at any fast-food chain outlet.

Life tends to be routine and ordinary, but it can still offer anyone surprises and challenges. Even the most average person can rise to meet these and, for the moment at least, be something other than ordinary. Some times one can end up with a great story that they just can't tell anyone. And some times one has a story that has to be told to somebody.
Way back in the 1980s I was sent to San Francisco on a business trip. The company I worked for had set up everything, from the flight to the car rental to the hotel reservation to the return flight. The only flaw I could see in those plans was that I would need a credit card for the rental car. I was still trying to recover financially from my divorce, and I had no such card. I was told that that wouldn't be a problem: They gave me a 'company card'.
It turned out that it was a problem when I tried to pick up my reserved car. The name on that 'company card' wasn't mine, and Hertz declined it. So did Avis. I had to go sit down and consider what to do. My hotel was miles away, in San Jose. Without a car I couldn't get there, let alone drive to the customer tomorrow. It was a little after 9:00 PM in San Francisco, but past midnight back in Pennsylvania, so it was unlikely that I could get any help over the phone. At least I had a generous travel advance, in cash.
I went to the airport terminal information booth and asked where the smallest car rental company was. I had to take a shuttle bus to get there, and once there I explained my predicament to the attractive young woman behind the counter. I'd figured that the smallest rental agency would be the most helpful in doing business, and that's how it turned out. They rented me a car and took down the credit card information, with the understanding that when I returned the car I would pay in cash, so that the actual name on the credit card wouldn't be a problem for anybody later.
Thanks to Alamo, I had a car and was able to take care of business. I also had a nice little tale of triumphing over adversity through intelligence and imagination.
When I told the story to a close friend of mine, though, her reaction surprised me:
"Doesn't it bother you," she asked, "When things like that happen?"