New Site

Hello All,

You can find me now at www.cameronmcvey.com.

I'll leave this up here for a few months to get people used to the new place but after that...
only the Shadow knows.

Author in a Cape

A whole lot has been happening since I last posted. My panel at Salt Lake Comic Con was a blast and this Thursday (January 18th, 2018) I will be a guest on the podcast MotherF**ker in a Cape by R. Alan Burns. I live in a mountain town (Steamboat Springs) in Colorado and Alan is from the Front Range (Denver, etc.). He'll be up here doing a live podcast at the Bud Werner Memorial Library which is where I work when I'm not working away at the keyboard. I'm really looking forward to it.

MotherF**ker in a Cape is available on iTunes and, I assume, other podcast platforms.

This podcast has been planned for a couple of months and its focus on geek culture/superheroes sent me back to my roots, so to speak. For me, superhero comics where my gateway drug into science fiction and fantasy stories. I was five (maybe six) when Origins of Marvel Comics was published. I got that as a Christmas present. I devoured it. I must have read it over one hundred times. And not just the collected comics but also the introduction/behind the scenes sections written by Stan Lee. Reading about how the characters and plot lines were developed then reading the actual issue itself was a mini-education in the creative process. One that I dipped into over and over again over a few years.

Of course, I grew up and for a while put aside childish things, one of them being comic books. Put I didn't put them away too long. I swore when I went off to college that I was done with comics. A few months later, the first issues of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns were published. I was sucked right back in.

I made the same promise to myself when I headed to grad. school. BUT there happened to be a great little comic store about a half mile from where I first lived. I swear I didn't plan that (I don't think). I was once again sucked back into the world.

Over the years and a numbers of moves around the country (Massachusetts, Tennessee, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon then back to Colorado) my comic book reading waxed and waned. Work, life, marriage, paying the bills, etc. took priority and I put superhero and geek stuff on the back burner. But my interests never went away completely. So, when I decided to dedicate myself to writing, superheroes were always in the background of my work. I wrote a short story set in a world of superheroes a few years back and, when the podcast came up, I went back to review it. It was good but not as good as I could make it. I took it down off Amazon and debated whether to re-do it or, possibly, expand it. It had a great deal of promise but it was still rough.

I put that particular story aside for a couple of weeks and delved into a momentary, month-long Warren Zevon obsession. I listened to many of his albums and read a few articles and one biography on him. Zevon, if you don't know, is the singer/songwriter famous for Werewolves of London, Lawyers, Guns and Money and many, many other songs. Longtime friend Jackson Browne said of Zevon, "He was able to mythologize and satirize all in one stroke." That comment stuck with me and stuck with me. Zevon himself said when the topic of "selling out" came up, "If you're not entertaining then what are you doing?" These two comments bounced around in my head and mixed up with my own ruminations about superheroes. I mulled it all over for a couple of weeks then on the day after Thanksgiving I sat down at the computer and started a new story.

Six weeks later I had a rough draft of a first book in a series. A superhero series. The working title (and I stress that, this will not be its final title) is "His Name is Laser Boy." My goal is to finish the rough draft of the three (maybe four) books by April/May then spend time polishing them up and sending them out to publishers/agents. So, wish me luck. I'll be posting rough draft material here on the blog as I go along.

The Far Shores of Saucerland: FREE

The Far Shores of Saucerland is now (and has been for a few months, oops!) available on Amazon both in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Here is the link: 

https://www.amazon.com/Far-Shores-Saucerland-invasion-aftermath-ebook/dp/B06XRLNDCW

Saucerland will be available for free from 9/22 - 9/24 as a SLCC special (see previous post)

In addition, Monsters of Utopia will be available for $0.99 during the same days as a Kindle Countdown Deal.

Here is that link:

https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Utopia-fairy-tale-manifesto-ebook/dp/B01MXX81UA

Thanks,

Cameron

Salt Lake Comic Con, here I come!

I’m excited and a bit nervous. I have the great, good luck of being a panelist at Salt Lake Comic Con this Friday, 9/22/17. I’ll enjoy attending the con as a fan and I’m nervous/excited about being part of one of the many panels the con hosts throughout its three days.

For the past several years, my wife and I have attended both the Salt Lake Comic Con (Fall) and the FanXperience (Spring) in Salt Lake City, UT. From where we live, Salt Lake is a few hours away via a beautiful drive through mountains and high desert. When we first went, I had my doubts. I’ve been more of a quiet nerd for most of my life keeping my extensive knowledge of comic books and science fiction under wraps until I got to know people pretty well. So, going to a place where everybody was letting it all hang out, so to speak, was fairly daunting to me. 

I am glad to say that whatever doubts I had were erased within the first few minutes of attending SLCC. The atmosphere at the con (I’ve attended since 2014, it’s been in existence since 2013) is amazing. There are whole families who make the trip as well as couples, singles and large groups. And, everyone is there to have fun and be nice. That last part sounds a bit weird but it may very well be the best part of the experience. I’ve traveled to a number of foreign countries and been in some very large crowds (Tiananmen Square on May Day in the early 2000s was a sight to behold!) both in the United States and abroad. I’ve never felt anything like the warmth and collegiality of the crowds at Salt Lake Comic Con. There were 130,000 or so people at the last con but it felt like I was walking around my home town bumping into familiar people (that I didn’t really know but I had a common bond with). Everyone is happy, excited, happy, occasionally loud, happy, tired from walking around so much because there is so much to see, taking lots of pictures and happy. SLCC is like the ultimate county fair for fans of science fiction and fantasy. If you get a chance, you should go. Just go.

Here’s the site: http://saltlakecomiccon.com

My panel is: Star Trek and Star Wars: Better Together :: 255C Friday at 2PM

An Unexpected Trilogy

Over the past year and a half, I’ve published/worked on three books (Monsters of Utopia, The Far Shores of Saucerland and an as yet unpublished work in progress) that started out as completely separate from each other but have (kinda, sorta) developed into a trilogy. Not your traditional type of trilogy by any means. There is no over-arching story that continues from one book to the next. There are no recurring characters (with one, possible exception). But there is a certain thematic similarity and a structural element that they share in common.

This Unexpected Trilogy starts with Monsters of Utopia. I like to think of Monsters as a somewhat off-kilter, amusing, slightly surreal take on the alien invasion trope. The aliens this time are giant, flying jellyfish (there are other aliens and the jellyfish may not be, in fact, alien to this planet but you have to read the book to get the details). At a certain point in the story one of the characters switches up his verbal style. It was that section and the fun I had in writing it plus the visit by two of the main characters to a place referred to simply as “The City” that (this is all obvious in hindsight but I was not consciously aware of it at the time) led me to writing Saucerland and to do so in what I call “stanza format,” which is the same format that I am using for my work in progress. I don’t consider myself a poet (I really don’t pay attention to rhyme scheme, meter, etc.) but being that I am in the middle of my second long-form, narrative poem(ish) work I might have to reassess that assessment. 

So, parts of Monsters led me to write Saucerland which is a riff on epic poems such as the Iliad, De Rerum Natura and the Aeneid. I did take seven years of Latin in high school and college and that part of my education is leaking through into my creative output. Why now? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the alignment of the planets.

Saucerland led me to my current work (in progress, have I noted that before?). I found writing in the short lines of the stanza format to be liberating. This is where I start to sound like a a pretentious artist. I hate that. But it’s hard to discuss my work without coming off that way. That’s why I don’t discuss my work that much. I’ll need to get over that. Anyway, the stanza format has for me a “spoken word performance” element to it. I sent a copy of Saucerland to my best friend from college (he’s a Theater professor) to get some feedback. He noted the choral/spoken word element, too, so I know that I’m not going crazy. The Iliad was (as far as scholars can tell) part of an ancient, oral tradition before it was put into written format. I tried to capture that sense of sitting around a campfire listening to a great storyteller. I think I succeeded.

Along with the stanza format/rhythm of speaking structural element, all three of the books (Monsters, Saucerland and Untitled Unpublished, look for it in the next couple of months) concern themselves in one way or another with the fairy world. The fairy world, to me, is a general term used to refer to the place(s) that we as humans have had encounters with throughout our recorded history (and, I suspect, long before we invented writing). Fairy World is, according to the tales told by people who have encountered some of its denizens and/or had the good/terrifying luck to visit it, magical, mysterious and confounding as well as essential to our human nature and vital to our well-being as a species. Is fairy world the source of creativity and genius? I don’t know for certain but it sure seems like it. To answer your question, yes, I have had some, minor experiences with fairy world. More on those some other time.

What does this all mean? I haven’t the slightest. But I am intrigued that a pattern has emerged from these three books that I had no intention of designing. So, something’s going on. I just don’t know what.

Saucerland - Selection III

I just added the last selection from "The Far Shores of Saucerland." These three, nonconsecutive excerpts should give you a enough of a sense of the work. I don't want to give it all away, after all.

Saucerland - Selection II

I added a second excerpt from Saucerland to that page today. I'll be adding more over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Saucerland

Over the next few weeks I will post selections from my current project "The Far Shores of Saucerland." It is my first (though I suspect not my last) attempt at long form, narrative poetry. That's a clunky description but it's the best I've got. It's not epic poetry because that, if I remember my college classes accurately, refers to a specific rhyming form. I was definitely inspired by The Iliad, The Aeneid and a handful of other long form, narrative poems that I've read over the years. If you haven't read Toby Barlow's "Sharp Teeth" do yourself a favor and go and do that now.

I've done a few editing passes on Saucerland and have it out to a couple of beta readers now. I aim to publish it in a month or so. Click on the Saucerland link under Pages to the right to read the selections.

New Pages

Today I added a couple of pages about "Monsters of Utopia." One page is a description and notes and the other pages is three selections from the book.

Below I have added the notes section for those who want to take a quick look at them.

Notes:

I was working on one project, a story that started in a South American jungle (ayahuasca, shamanism, giant snakes, etc.) then moved north into the U.S., when I came up with the idea of a specific type of VR device. The more I wrote scenes with the VR device, the more my thoughting and plotting turned from the that project to what became Monsters. I ended up mixing in the concept of "Imaginal Creatures," a touch of the "third man" phenomena experienced by mountain climbers and other people who find themselves alone in very hazardous conditions and a twist or two from various fairytales. What came out of that literary fricassee is Monsters.

I'd been playing around with writing a "modern day fairy tale" for a while by then and Monsters took on that flair to such an extent that I ended up subtitling it "a fairy tale manifesto." Perhaps the most obvious (to me, at least) fairy tale aspect in Monsters is the character of Sebastian. He doesn't arrive until later in the story but when he does make his appearance, it's hard to ignore. I named the main character of my next book, "The Far Shores of Saucerland (not yet published)," Sebastian as I so loved writing his speeches/diatribes. His tone and word choice inspired me to push my limits even further with Saucerland which is written in a loose free verse.

When people ask me (it happens sometimes) what I enjoy most about writing, I tell them about how it fascinates me the way these characters which nominally I've created start to take on lives of their own. The surprising changes they insist on me making even though I started out with an entirely different plan in mind are both inspiring and maddening. As I write this, I've just realized my resisting this dynamic is what has been causing me such difficulty with Time Swerve Terminal (see previous blog posts for more info). I need to go back to those characters and let them tell me what I should do with that story.

Tidying up the Past Year

MONSTERS
Here is the new link and new cover for Monsters of Utopia. Long story short, I had it up for a while with another cover and for various reasons took it down, massaged the book a little, added a new cover and now it's available again.

https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Utopia-fairy-tale-manifesto-ebook/dp/B01MXX81UA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1486140243&sr=8-2&keywords=monsters+of+utopia

TIME SWERVE
I am still working on "Time Swerve Terminal." As I stated in my last post, it will either end up being my best work or my worst. I'm compelled to write this story but still have not found the way to wrap it all up. As such, it sits in limbo - for now.

NEW PROJECT
In the next couple of days, I will post a selection (or two, or ten) from my latest work "The Far Shores of Saucerland." Saucerland is different than my other works as it is written in free verse, my first ever attempt at long form narrative poetry. Inspired by my love for The Iliad, The Aeneid and other classic epics, I've put my mind to a modern story of alien invasion and its aftermath. I've had a couple of beta readers give me feedback so far and am in the midst of heavy editing. Wish me luck!

Time Swerve....again

Since I've finished "Monsters of Utopia," I've gone back to look over all the other writing I did in the past couple of years. If you look at the publishing dates on my books, you'll see that "Hold Still the Sky" came out in December of 2013. I haven't published anything since then until Monsters. It did not take me two years to write Monsters. I started a book (see earlier posts) that I eventually called (after a few working titles) "Time Swerve Terminal."

After finishing the rough draft of Time Swerve, I sent it to my beta readers. They were confused by it. And that's putting it nicely. I took in their feedback (without too much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair) and reworked it and reworked it and reworked it. I reworked the book so much it became a different book and I put Time Swerve aside (just for a while I told myself). Then the book that came out of Time Swerve turned into a different book and that book turned into yet another book which turned out in the end to be "Monsters of Utopia."

So, after taking a few deep breaths I opened up the Time Swerve files again. I was pleasantly surprised. In my mind, Time Swerve had become this ugly mess of a narrative. Good, solid ideas but poor narrative flow. Jumping from one context to another without enough linkage to carry the reader along. And all that turned out to be true.

But what is also true is that there are sections of Time Swerve that are damn good. I know. Of course, I would say that. I wrote it after all. But, seriously. There are some good parts to Time Swerve. So I once again (into the breach) am reworking Time Swerve and hope to have it out in the next couple of months.

It will either be the worst book I've written or the best (fingers crossed).

----

Monsters is now available in a print version, too. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Utopia-fairy-tale-manifesto/dp/1530643945

Monsters and other things

For my latest book, I've chosen to work with bookbaby.com. My newest title, "Monsters of Utopia" is now available on amazon.

Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Utopia-Fairy-Tale-Manifesto-ebook/dp/B01CIRJU44

Here's the cover:

I'm over 50K words into my next project. The working title is Doppelgänger. If the past is any guide to the future, the title will be different by the time I'm ready to publish. The story is set in the near future where America has been attacked by bombs and a plague. Society is geared around defending itself against terrorists. The latest attack blew off the head of the Statue of Liberty. The powers that be have a suspect in custody but he claims it was his doppelgänger that committed the crime.

Doppelgänger is very much a work in progress and I am sure the story will go through many changes  before I publish it. That's the process after all. Write, re-write, re-re-write, throw out a bunch of stuff, start over with the good parts, write, re-write, re-re-write...

I'll let you know when Monsters is listed on the other ebook stores.

Submission

A few moments ago, I submitted my work to a publishing house. This isn't the first time I've sent my work to a publisher but it is the first time in a long while. Back in the last century (ok, 1999), I sent off a query letter regarding my then current project to over a hundred literary agents and publishers. Most of them were located in NYC. I received letters back from two of them. Two. I admit that - for a while - I was bitter. But I got over that a few years later when digital technology flattened the playing field, so to speak, and gave us independent authors a chance to get our work seen without having to jump through hoops.

I've toyed with the idea of submitting my work to publishers on and off over the past few years. I've read and heard stories both fantastic and nightmarish about working with publishing companies. In that sense, publishing is like any other field - there are some good companies out there and there are some stinkers. I had the opportunity to meet some of the staff members of this company in person and was impressed by their honesty and experience. That's why I decided to send my current book to them. Even if the work isn't for them, I'll know that they gave it a fair shot. Since the book is out for review, I'll hold off publishing via amazon for a few weeks yet.

For the time being, it's on to the next project.

Nova Sol now on Noisetrade

I've recently added Nova Sol to Noisetrade.com. The site facilitates authors sharing their material with readers. You can now download all of Nova Sol for free. You do need to leave an email address in exchange for the the book. I will be adding some of my short stories to Noisetrade in the next month or so, too.

You'll find the link for Noisetrade on the right of the blog.

Bad Author

Once again, my focus on writing and re-writing has turned me away from making regular blog entries. I'm sure glad blogging wasn't a new year's resolution for me because I would have failed miserably. Alas.

Enough of that. On to the important news.

I'm releasing a book in the next couple of weeks. Yes, it's finally done. And it's completely different from what it was when I posted last. Writing, re-writing, writing, re-writing, etc. Time Swerve Terminal and its variations are on the back burner for now. I will get back to them some time (next month? next year? I don't know).

The cover for the new book is below:

This is what I have so far and I don't think the cover will change much between now and the release. If I do change the details (i.e I've been playing around with variations of the title for the past few days), I'll let you know here when I post the amazon link to the book.

So, there it is. I haven't been not posting because I haven't been writing. No, those are untrue rumors. I haven't been posting because I have been writing and re-writing and writing....okay, you know what I mean.

And so it continues....

Writing, re-writing, re-doing, re-setting, re-booting. This is what i've been doing for the past several months. Time Swerve Terminal has changed. It's not the same book anymore. It's gone through at least two major overhauls. I've kept the names of some of the characters but changed others. I've changed the starting point of the story. I've changed its guts, its bones, its blood.

And it's all for the better.

As I went back through (what used to be) TST and tweaked a section here, changed the pace there, added a detail then took out some others, I saw the story anew. It shifted. It morphed. It faded to black then reappeared as a different beast. One that I had to write from scratch.

That's what I've been doing since the last post. I meant to write this post a while back. In fact, I'd convinced myself I did write it. That I'd sat down at the computer and posted it. But I didn't. Because when I sat down, I opened up the (what used to be) TST file to go over what I'd written that morning. An idea came to me. Then another. And another. I had to take notes. Then I had to write a paragraph. Then another. Then I lost track of the reason I'd sat down. I forgot about the blog entry. Then kept forgetting about it. Now, here I am months later.

I don't have a title for the redone book (Evo-Earth is the working title). It won't be out for a few months. I'm debating whether to make it a long book (c. 100K words, maybe 120K) or to break that down into two shorter books which I would publish at the same time. For all the talk about people having shorter attention spans these days many of the longer books published are the better selling ones. When we find something we like, we don't mind reading longer books. But maybe offering the public a shorter, cheaper start to a series (this will be a series) is the better way to go. I still need to think about it.

Warning: Rampant Killing

Whoever said the "little darlings" quotation (I see online that is has been attributed to many authors over the years), had it right. As a writer you must be merciless when it comes to editing. I know that sounds a bit bloody, but it's true. You must be willing to cut out the parts (no matter how proud of your writing you may be) that don't serve the story. That awesome metaphor, that cool scene, that great piece of world building - if they don't serve the story, they gotta go.

I've been struggling with this recently. I had been massaging my rough draft and working it and reworking it but I just wasn't satisfied with how TST was turing out. The draft had a lot of cool parts but it wasn't hanging together as a whole. So, about two weeks ago, I got rid of the last two thirds of the book. Yup. Two thirds. I kept the beginning and have started over again. After a moment or two of kicking myself, I feel good about it. That two thirds will reappear in some other work in some other form. I'll use similar imagery and similar scenes in my next work most likely but they didn't fit in TST. So, they're gone. They're gone and I'm free to develop the story as it should be developed instead of trying to shoe horn in those cool parts.

Needless to say, TST (which will be known by a different as yet unchosen title when it's released) will be come out not this month but a few months down the line. When it does come it, it will be a far better book than what I had ready a few months back.

Because I killed stuff.

Metaphorically.

The Joy of Rewriting

I used to hate rewriting. I love the creative flow of putting down the first draft. But not rewriting. The way the ideas, character arcs, plot devices and all the other details that make up a story come through to me is a rush. A high. Definitely an altered state of consciousness that is pleasurable in its own right and made even more so because of its outcome - a completed rough draft (or chapter or section or scene or whatever it is that I'm working on that day).

But then I have to rewrite. The time that flies by as I write the first draft now drags. The eagerness I approached my task as I wrote is now gone. I feel like I'm hacking away at my beautiful work, its precious ideas. I know my first draft is - by no means - perfect. But I see the beauty of its imperfection. Its awkward angles stand out like a half-hewn statue. Its uneven pace is like a toddler taking its first steps. It is a thing coming into itself and that process is delicate and gentle and unique. Never to be repeated in exactly the same way ever again.

However, as promising as the story is at that stage, it needs work. It can't grow on it own. It needs guidance. It needs polishing. I used to hate polishing. I felt like I was grinding down the details that made the story its own creature. I was stripping away its memorable and distinct qualities. Because of that, I hated rewriting. I plodded my way through it. I forced myself to do it. I felt like I was grinding myself down as I polished the story. And, to no one's surprise, the work wasn't as good. The stories were flatter, more predictable, more generic.

But that was four finished books and several dozen rough drafts along with a handful of short stories and their multiple drafts ago. Now, I look forward to rewriting. I am excited to finish the rough draft so that I can get my hands back in the clay, so to speak. With a fresh perspective, a new take, a different look at the material. Elements of the story that I had not consciously put in now jump out at me. I have several "ah ha" moments as I make new connections and the story grows fuller not lesser, more itself not less. Finishing the rough draft for me - now - is the true starting point of the story. The rough draft, as I rewrite it, begins to clarify and crystalize and shine with its own internal light and logic. When that light shines just so, I know the story done.

That's the joy of rewriting.

All Writing is Rewriting and Rewriting and Rewriting

Since my last post I have reworked Time Swerve Terminal significantly.  I received helpful feedback from my main beta readers which has lead me to re-evaluate the structure of the novel. Time travel stories, in my opinion, need to have a strong structure in order to sustain the moving back and forth in time. With TST I have attempted to make the time travel element not just a conceit or a convenient plot device but a inescapable element of the story. Inescapable for the main characters and the world portrayed as a whole.

I have cut some clunky scenes and added new material that helps clarify the main thrust of the narrative. These changes require that I go through the whole of the book several times over to make sure the changes all hang together as a coherent and, I hope, compelling story.

I find that every time I make a prediction as to when the rewriting will be complete, I then encounter another point in the story that begs for new focus. As such, I will say at this point that my goal (not a prediction) is to have TST ready by December.

Delay, Apology and Next Book

I have not released "Time Swerve Terminal" yet because I stumbled across an opportunity to have it checked over by another source, an experienced proofreader of science fiction who happens to live nearby. I meet with him on Wednesday and I'm sure I will take time to go through his feedback on the book. This will set the release back to sometime in October. I apologize to those waiting for it.

Since finishing TST, I have been working on my next book. The working title is "Familiar Monsters." It is about a five people who comprise a dream study group and the strange things that happen to them and their town of Fort Morgan. I have found my writing style adapting as I write FM. It has taken a turn more towards fantasy with a touch of magical realism. This, of course, is how the rough draft is right now and could possibly change (though I think it won't) by the time I publish it.

All for now. Updates will come in mid-october.