Sun Singer's Travels

Remembering Suzie Wong

2012-01-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, USA Today told its readers that Penguin is re-releasing Richard Mason's bestselling 1957 novel The World of Suzie Wong (on January 31) with its original cover artwork by James Avati. I read the book and saw the William Holden/Nancy Kwan film adaptation (1960) when I was in high school.

As a teenager living in the Florida panhandle, the worlds of sailors, sailor bars, and hourly rental hotels in Hong Kong were many worlds away in terms of my piney woods and college town experience. Other than books and movies--some of which my parents didn't want me to read/see--I led a sheltered life, I guess.

In Richard Mason's story, an architect named Robert Lomax (played by William Holden in the film) moves to Hong Kong where he hopes he can figure out how to become an artist. He meets Suzie Wong (played by Nancy Kwan) because he checks into a cheap hotel, not knowing at the outset that most of the men who stayed there rented rooms by the hour.

As a writer to be, I saw parallels between the outlook of Robert Lomax and myself. Exotic locations, exotic women and the struggles of writers and artists were all tangled up in my imagination. I was too young to know that the "prostitute with a heart of gold" was a very old theme. More of a myth, actuallty, though the prospective wonderment of it might have been influenced by my schoolboy crush on actress Nancy Kwan.

The Seedy Realities

In 1957, I couldn't have predicted that eleven years later I would be a sailor in Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines and see first hand that the world of bargirls and sailors was for the most part harsh, seedy and dark. The old hands aboard ship knew the bars in every port and they felt quite strongly that green recruits who were assigned to the ship just out of bootcamp needed a tour.

What I saw was nothing to dream upon, as you might guess from this picture of the bars in Olongapo, Republic of the Philippines. The sailors were drunk and profane. The girls were expedient and provocative. The men worshipped easy sex ("If you're not in bed by 9 o'clock, you might as well go back to the ship") and the girls worshipped the money ("You want me to be your honeyko in air conditioned hotel, I love you good for your Navy money.")

When I showed no interest, one girl threw a beer at me (it missed), another threatened me with a knife, several scratched my neck, one tried to steal my ID card and my dogtags, and many told jokes in mixtures of English, Chinese, Japanese and Tagalog. The Filipina girls said I was discounting them in favor of "those whores" in Japan. The Japanese bargirls were overtly nasty at the idea that I was probably spending my Navy money in the Wanchai district of Hong Kong.

The Magic Words: "I'm Engaged"

Once they knew I was engaged, I was considered off limits. No hassle, no threats. I was amazed at how the conversation changed from sex/booze/hotel to dreams, homes, children, regular jobs and the weather. The Suzie Wongs in the bars where I hid away from the world and captured impressions in Blue Horse composition books (for the great novels I planned to write) sat next to me and kept away all the preditors. "This writer man engaged, get lost slut!"

The Navy wrenched me away (against my will) from everything I knew and I learned to keep my clinical depression at bay by being a very quiet loner. My letters home sounded like the old me and were filled with shipboard doings and the sites I saw on special services tours in every port. I said nothing about the Blue Horse notebooks or the tables in the backs of smoke-filled bars. Naturally, I didn't mention the "guardian girls" who sat at my table and kept the rest of the world away.

I haven't forgotten their names, though they would have forgotten mine soon after the last time I was in any of those sailor bars. Those "clubs" were, after all sailor bars, and there were thousands of guys and thousands of names, and most of the sailors who stopped by for a drink and a cigarette never went away with a girl, much less actually talked to them. Men had a few drinks and moved on. Some of us stayed in one place for hours, in the dark and rather invisible to the madding crowds.

Those who noticed us, assumed we were stoned or drunk, and except for Suzy Wong, I saw no reason to correct their impressions. Those days are a blur that I remember in precise detail. I fictionalized some of that detail in my novel Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey. But otherwise, I usually keep it to myself because most interactions in the sheltered world of a writer don't lend themselves to saying "Suzy Wong's quiet conversation in a smoke-filled bar saved my life."

It's nice to see The World of Suzie Wong coming out in a new edition. But I won't read it again because my memories are still crystal clear.

--Malcolm

Have You Rescued Your Books on GoodReads Yet?

2012-01-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

GoodReads has announced that it is no longer going to import book data from Amazon. They say they are doing this to make sure they have the most accurate data possible.

Since Amazon is the default method of adding books to GoodReads, this policy change represents a potential nightmare for readers, authors and publishers even if the data ends up being more accurate over the long term. If your book(s) were placed on GoodReads by either you or your publisher importing the data from the Amazon listings, the book(s) might be removed if GoodReads doesn't find another valid online source of data.

To check your book's status, look at its GoodReads listing. If you see a message at the top of the screen that says the book is in danger of being removed, you have until January 30th to rescue it. Click on the button available next to the message and enter the book's data and cover art either from a valid (non-seller) URL or by checking a box that states you have a copy of the book yourself.

While this isn't difficult, it's tedious. I've spent the last hour working on it and hope I found everything for my four novels and five Kindle e-books.

Good luck with your rescues!

Malcolm

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Writing Notions: Thoughts in the Middle of Dialogue

2012-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

Authors customarily insert the thoughts of a novel’s point-of-view character into the middle of dialogue or action scenes in large paragraphs. Let's look at an example:

Initial Thoughts

The author has used a rather routine conversation between a husband and wife as a way of bringing up (or reinforcing) the fact that Mary doesn't feel heard. Out of context with the rest of the story, it's hard to say whether this is a throw-away exchange being used to transition between scenes or chapters or whether it's part of a pattern of similar bits of dialogue.

Looking at this sample as though it were a page in a book, what do you make of Mary's paragraph of thoughts? Is it lengthy--at least in terms of its space on the page--because the author wanted to break up short lines of dialogue for purposes of pacing or visual appeal?

Clearly, the author didn't want to make an issue out of our usual because Mary didn't sigh, frown, use a pained voice tone or say anything. If I saw this exchange early in a story, I would assume it's there for a reason, either indicating possible arguments to come or indicating that Mary "suffers in silence" and feels "put upon."

Another Consideration

What we have here is a fairly customary approach to weaving a character's private thoughts into a scene. Quite possibly, I have written thoughts and dialogue like this myself. Nonetheless, this approach others me. Why?

Because I want to know what Bob is doing while Mary is sitting there thinking about the pizza. Bob doesn't say anything about Mary suddenly being lost in thought in the middle of an otherwise quick conversation. Since he doesn't say, "you seemed to zone out there for a moment" or ask "is everything all right?" I have to assume the author is pretending that all those thoughts either happened in zero time or are--with the reader's acceptance--are understood not to be a linear moment within the story.

If the characters had been moving around, talking while checking the mail and walking from one room to another, Mary could have had these thoughts and they wouldn't have seemed intrusive. Yes, I know, it's common to do this and to pretend the thoughts are somehow parenthetical to the dialogue or action. However, I would feel better about it if--in this case--Bob had stepped out in the hall to hang up his coat or had rummaged through a drawer, giving Mary to have time to have these thoughts.

Experimental Techniques

I have always been interested in ways an author might show simultanaeous thoughts, actions and events in novels that are linear compositions. I have put text in columns, using one to show the action and one to show what a character is thinking about while the action is happening. I've also interwoven the dialogue lines when people are talking on top of each other. If my novels had been printed with a color option for text, I would have put one color on top of the other to show things happening all in the same moment.

My publisher hates it when I do that. It complicates printing and (as of the last time out) cannot be properly shown in an e-book. Readers freak out when they see it. I'm always focused on time when I write, so paragrapghs like the one in our sample stand out when I read them even though I think most people don't notice.

Nonetheless, I offer it has food for thought, the notion being that the reader might be impacted by these kinds of pretenses of thoughts happening in zero time even though s/he takes part in the game by (usually) accepting them without question.

--Malcolm

Shhh, I write hero's journey and heroine's journey novels

2012-01-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

A quick Google search returns 87,900,000 hits for hero's journey and 25,500,000 hits for heroine's journey.

Does this suggest that novels marketed as heroes journeys and heroines journeys ought to have a few readers out there? Some publishers say "no." They say that if you mention journeys of any kind, readers' eyes will glaze over and they'll think, "OMG, this book is literary fiction."

My offended response is, "So what?"

Publisher: 'Literary fiction doesn't sell."

Me: "How do you explain the success of The Tiger's Wife, The Night Circus, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Shadow of the Wind and a long list of other novels that can easily be labelled 'literary fiction'?"

Publisher: "Those books have something you don't have."

Me: "What?"

Publisher: "Publishers' marketing campaigns."

Me: "So, if I had written either The Night Circus or The Tiger's Wife and then tried to market them with restrained Tweets (we don't want to sound like SPAM), casual Facebook references (friends don't want to hear 'buy my book' every day), blog tours on other people's blogs and excerpts on my blog, neither book would be on anyone's radar at the end of the year."

Publisher: "You broke the code, ace."

Limbo

These are the realities we all face when we decide what to write and how to tell people about it.

These realities include an infinite number of "disconnects" for a writer. One of them is this: If you can't find an agent who will pitch your work to a big publisher who will support your book with advertising, don't write anything like The Tiger's Wife, The Night Circus, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Shadow of the Wind.

On the flip side of the coin, if you write a book like one of those and then do a light-hearted blog tour that promotes the book as "a quick read" that you can "finish in between drinks" at a spa in Vegas, then: (a) people will be angry when they discover they're into something more substantial and (b) Any reader who was looking for, say, a heroine's journey or a hero's journey would never find the book because everyone avoided saying it was what it was.

Truth be told, very few novels sell without traditional marketing no matter how much we ooh and ahh about the democratic wonders of everyone in the world writing a book and then going on a blog tour to "sell it." So, I'm thinking that every once in a while I should admit that my books are what they are.

The Truth About My Books

I started this blog in 2004 after writing a hero's journey novel called The Sun Singer. In 2010, I followed that up with another hero's journey called Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey. And then, last August, my heroine's journey novel Sarabande was released.

I hope you'll keep the truth under wraps unless you're pretty sure you're talking to one of the people responsible for all those hero's journey and heroine's journey hits on Google.

--Malcolm

2012, and so it begins

2012-01-01T12:16:00.000-08:00

After watching the entire "Lord of the Rings" DVD set during the holidays, I feel like my wife and I have suddenly emerged from Middle Earth to discover a new year has arrived here in our world. But thank goodness for the DVD: our regular shows were all in re-runs.

First things first: Thanks to everyone who entered by Sarabande book give-away challenge. The object of the challenge was to guess--or use your psychic powers to discover--the object I left on the table in the magical cabin that appears in my novels.

FIRST PLACE: Smoky Zeidel correctly guessed there was an osprey feather on the table. She wins a signed copy of Sarabande. Since hers was the only correct guess, the second and third place winners were selected out of a figurative had from a small handful of wonderful guesses.

SECOND PLACE: Judith Mercardo wins an e-book copy of Sarabande.

THIRD PLACE: Ramey Channell wins a colorful Sun Singer bookmark.

-

You May Also Like:

Blog interview no.233 with writer Malcolm R Campbell on Morgen Bailey's blog
Awaiting another voice on the new year on Malcolm's Round Table

--Malcolm

Seasons Greetings

2011-12-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

A big thank you to all of my readers this year. I appreciate your visits and comments. Winter is a time of rest, mulling over prospective ideas for the coming seasons. It's my favorite time of the year. Hoervrt you celebrate the holidays, I hope they are warm and memorable.

Malcolm

P.S. You may also like Winter's Waiting Wonder Child about the symbols of the season.

December 16 Blog Hop

2011-12-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Twelve small-press authors are writing inspirational posts for the holiday season at tomorrow's Sleigh Bells and Inkwells Blog Hop.

They are Smoky Zeidel, T. K. Thorne, Patricia Damery, Debra Brenegan, Anne K. Albert, Elizabeth Clark-Stern, Collin Kelley, Sharon Heath, Melinda Clayton, Ramey Channell, Leah Shelleda, and myself. Stop by and say "hello" or ask a question.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that the roofers are half way done repairing the damaged caused by the strange incident of the tree falling and then bouncing up against the house. I still think dwarves or pixies did it. Of course, there are a lot of deer in the yard at times that fit our "critters of interest" list in the investigation.

--Malcolm

P. S. If you click on that sleigh bells link before the blog hop goes live, you'll see the latest Malcolm's Round Table post that explains how to tell the difference between a blog hop and the bunny hop.

Saturday Stuff

2011-12-10T13:15:00.001-08:00

A slightly chilly but sunny Saturday here in Jackson County 60 miles northeast of Atlanta. A good day to get some work done and that included making a squash casserole for tonight's supper. Here are a few random items:

Amazon is getting a lot of backlash from its price-check application even though many malls offer such apps. Add to that, its new program for authors that prohibits them from selling their books anywhere but Amazon. Sounds like a bad deal to me. My satire about it is here: Octopus Books Launches TDP-or-Else Publishing Program to Control Reading from Cradle to Grave
You can find an article about the program in the Huffington Post here.
So far, I'm getting no entries in my book give-away contest. Kind of surprised. Hint: you don't really have to be psychic to tell me what you think I left in the magic cabin in my novels. Since nobody will probaby get the answer right, a guess will get you into the random drawing for a free paperback copy of Sarabande.
The roofers will be here next week to fix the hole in the roof caused by that tree that fell far away in the middle of the yard and somehow jumped over toward the house. Fortunately, the homeowners insurance will cover most of the costs.
If you're an author or publisher and have the dates and times for bricks-and-mortar book signings and other events, I'll be happy to put them in Book Bits, my daily posting of links for writers. Send me the date, time, location (including city and state), and the name of the book and/or the name of the event to malcolmrcampbell[at]yahoo[dot]com.
If you're looking for books for holiday giving, my list of the 40+ books I reviewed in 2011 is here. Perhaps you'll find something you like.

I hope you're having a nice weekend with either plenty of rest and relaxation or a lot of exciting things to do.

--Malcolm

this post is the Word Nerd's fault

2011-12-08T10:22:00.001-08:00

Recently, the Word Nerd, who--among other things--describes herself as "bookishly dorkalicious," stopped by my blog on the pretext of reading an announcement about a book give-away challenge for my contemporary fantasy movel Sarabande. But she had hidden motives.

"Meanwhile," she wrote coyly, "I’ve awarded you for your utter awesomeness" a TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF AWARD. Well, it's not the Pulitzer or the Pushcart, and its "goodies" force the recipient to reveal seven things about himself or herself and then stick 15 other bloggers with the award.

While Word Nerd confessed that she was "nerdariffic" in high school, she knows me well enough to understand that the odds of my revealing anything so personal about myself are slim and/or will be a pack of lies anyway. Yet, in the spirit of the award, here are the magnificent seven.

A girl I had a crush on in high school told me 20 years later she also had a crush on me in high school but was afraid I might think she was too popular for a guy like me from the other side of the tracks to risk asking out on a date, but that if I did ask her out, we'd have to date in another town where nobody knew us well enough to tattle, much think we were going steady.
The large angel fish in the aquarium next to my bed used to stare at me when I was trying to sleep.
My favorite movie is "The Apartment."
I was sent to the principal's office in grade school for saying "yes" rather than "yes ma'am" to my teacher. (Since I wasn't born in the South, and had no idea I was supposed to say "ma'am" and "sir" to my elders.) When I refused to apologize, my parents were called and they told my teacher to stuff it.
My first car was a 1954 Chevrolet that had a driver's side window that wouldn't close and that burned oil faster than gasoline.
My favorite car was a 1970 Jeep CJ5 that saw IL, GA, KY, MN, SD, MT, TN and a few other states before the repair bills became too much for a starving college teacher.
Yes, I really was a college teacher, but I got in trouble because I refused to say "yes ma'am" and "yes sir" to the deans, full professors and other tenured academics.

I'm not going to tell you whether (or if) I "bestow" this award on any other bloggers because some of them might work for the mob or the Feds or other groups that really don't want people to know who they are or what they're doing.

--Malcolm

Sarabande book give away challenge

2011-12-05T12:06:00.001-08:00

Today I announced Malcolm’s Genuine Sub Rosa SARABANDE Book Give-Away Challenge on my author's web site and Round Table blog.

It's one way I can call attention to some new magic and fantasy pages on the web site for Sarabande, and it's one way you might win a free copy of the novel.

You don't have to be psychic to win. All that's required is a good imagination or a lucky chance guess. Or, if nobody discovers the secret, I'll draw a name at random from all the entries.

Stop by my announcement, and go for it. . .

--Malcolm

Apparently Dwarves are Evil: the tribulations of a book reviewer

2011-12-02T12:48:00.001-08:00

Dwarves pushed a tree over on my house because they didn't want me to finish writing a positive review of Lisa Goldstein's "The Uncertain Places."

It happened Monday at high noon.

When I heard the noise, I just naturally assumed that either the cats had pushed over a bookshelf or that my diet had fallen on hard times.

Finally, I looked out the front door and saw that a tree had somehow leapt from the center of the front yard, turned end over end, and poked a hole in the roof before bashing in the eaves above the garage.

Unfortunately, my insurance isn't going to pay for the entire cost of fixing the roof. Heck, it cost $75 just to have a guy cut up and haul away the tree. I wonder if I can write this off as, say, hazardous duty pay or business expenses on my next income tax return. Or, perhaps I should send Lisa Goldstein a bill. After all, if she hadn't written the novel, I wouldn't have read the novel and written a review that drew the attention of dwarves and other denizens from the world of faerie to my doorstep.

It's not like I was doing spells or anything to attract folks from areas where worlds overlap or where boundaries are thin or where a phrase (accoding to Goldstein) like "Rick Rack Ruck" can cause the earth to open up.

Even though I'm currently reading and enjoying "The Night Circus," I'm thinking twice (at least) about writing a review. Goodness knows, I don't need a circus tent in my yard, much less an illusionist knocking at the front door.

--Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism and contemporary fantasy novels that do not cause bad things to happen to readers and reviewers.

Developing rain and nightmare travel and hopes for safe travel

2011-11-27T17:28:00.001-08:00

Every year, Thanksgiving begins with such promise. The action begins at the grocery store, moves to the kitchen, then to the car or the airport for the trip to "grandmother's house," onward through naps and football and once-a-year conversations.

If you live in a metro area such as Atlanta, you know--from experience or listening to the news--that the holiday often ends in a travel nightmare. In this neck of the woods, we see giant traffic jams on I-75 and I-85 south as cars heading through the metro area sometimes back up to the Tennessee and South Carolina borders. The reports out of the airports are equally grim.

If I were suddenly appointed Tsar of Thanksgiving, I think I would issue an edict stating that the Monday after Thanksgiving would be a random holiday, held on a scattered basis so that everyone in the country isn't headed back to work at the same time.

Florida and Georgia would celebrate the holiday in alternating years. So would most other adjacent states. Then, like the staggered quitting times proposed in some metro areas to reduce the rush hour traffic, we might see fewer traffic jams, fewer wrecks, fewer injuries and fewer fatalities.

This year, rain moved into north and central Georgia, and I'm happy to say that my wife and I beat the rain back to the house. We had to leave her dad's farm a few hours earlier than planned, but it was worth it. A lot of people are still out there on the road now or sitting in an airport worrying about airport delays and cancelled flights.

It's a heck of a way to end the holiday. There are years when my list of things to be thankful for includes making it safely back home. I don't hear much rain on the roof yet here in Jackson County. But it's close.

And without driving out past the McDonalds and the QuickTrip and the KFC at the I-85 interchange, I know that there's a long line of red railights southbound toward the Sugar Hill exit, Gwinnett County and Atlanta. Many of those cars are headed for Macon and points south on into Florida with many miles to go before they're safely back home.

Since my wife and I are cozy and warm back inside our house with a tasty leftovers left to consume, I'm happy to say that as nice as Thanksgiving is, I'm a bit glad it's now a memory, and I send out white light to those on the roads and in the air in hopes they'll travel safe.

--Malcolm

Fantasy Reading Marathon

2011-11-20T12:28:00.001-08:00

After reading the first two books in the Stephen R. Donaldson's epic fantasy trilogy The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant several years after the books were published in the late 1970s, I stopped reading fantasy. I was thinking seriously about writing a fantasy novel of my own and was concerned that I might be influenced by Donaldson's work.

Like the trilogy's novels, Lord Foul's Bane (1977), The Illearth War (1978) and The Power that Preserves (1979), my on-the-drawing board novel also included a respect for the power of nature and wooden staffs which focused a young avatar's own power. We both use the term "arch of time," but for vastly different intents. And, like Donaldson, I am a pacifist.

I probably didn't need to worry about unintentionally using Donaldson's themes, but his trilogy was having such a profound impact on me that I felt better putting it aside while working on the book that--some years later--ultimately was published as The Sun Singer. After finishing Sarabande, a follow-up novel to The Sun Singer this fall, I finally went back to Donaldson's critically acclaimed work.

In a reading marathon, I read the six novels that comprise The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Wounded Land, The One Tree, and White Gold Wielder), a total of 2,129 pages. Fans of the series know that after a hiatus, Donaldson came back to is epic stories about "The Land" in 2004 with the first book in a quartrology to be called The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

I'll read the quartrology some day, but I'm worn out and ready for something else. I still like Donaldson's dark, highly complex series with its gruff anti-hero. But I'm not the same person I was 34 years ago. As I said in my post Fantasies with ‘personal stories’ that mirror our lives, I'm more interested now in fantasies that focus on individual protagonists rather than on world-changing struggles between the forces of good an evil.

Returning to Donaldson's epic after all these years involved a bit of time travel, and I'm not just talking about the 3,000-year gap (in the time-frame in "The Land") between the end of The Power That Preserves and the beginning of The Wounded Land. Reading a series that I started and then set aside 34 years ago was a bit nostalgic. It took me back to the years when I left college teaching and went into technical writing with plans to morph into a novelist.

Before Donaldson, I read a lot of science fiction, but was beginning to find myself more interested in the fantasy elements in SciFi than in the science. I was a fan of Frank Herbert's Dune because of its magic and (as Donaldson would call it), its Lore. Along with Dune, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant convinced me that the stories I wanted to tell could be told as fantasies.

So, reading-wise, you can "go home again," back to those novels that influenced your writing career even though you're not transformed back into the person you were then. I feel like I've just returned from a journey of several thousand years. I highly recommend Donald's "Chronicles" to those who like epic fantasies that compare very favorably in scope to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and George R.R. Martin's series that began with A Game of Thrones.

As for me, I'm only too happy to be reading Lisa Goldstein's sparkling 237-page contemporary fantasy The Uncertain Places with Erin Morgenstern's wild and crazy The Night Circus next on the list.

Magic Moments

2011-11-12T18:22:00.001-08:00

Magic, moments,
When two hearts are carin’,
Magic, moments,
Memories we’ve been sharin’ . . .

I’ll never forget the moment we kissed,
The night of the hayride,
The way that we hugged to try to keep warm,
While takin' a sleigh ride.

--from Magic Moments by Burt Bacharach and Hal David

During my senior year in high school, Perry Como's hit version of "Magic Moments" was on the radio so often that it was impossible not to memorize the song, much less get the lyrical music out of one's head. Anyone in love--or who wanted to be in love--could identify with the concept of magic moments, those special times spent with the person they were going steady with (as we said then).

I can testify that after one is married the song still applies--not that I'm still listening to that old song. I can hear it, though as I type this post.

In those days, I was buying my first books about psychic and mystic phenomena. Like today's books, most of them offered recipes for various techniques that (purportedly) would yield wonderful results in faithfully practiced. I can testify, after years of reading those books, that if one doesn't practice those techniques faithfully, there will still be magic moments.

How to replicate them on demand is a skill I have not mastered. Nonetheless, I get a lot of vicarious pleasure watching the characters in my novels do the magic that still remains the stuff of my dreams. In an interview with author Smoky Zeidel, I said that my characters to what I cannot. At the time, I was referring to primarily to travel and mountain climbing.

Amazon used to have a concordance that could be accessed on most of its books listings that showed the significant phrases used in the text. Quite often, most phrases were the names of the primary characters, their figures of speech, and the book's primary locations and settings. ("Holy Bear Puke" was a "significant phrase" in my 2004 novel The Sun Singer because it was a pet phrase of my character Cinnabar.)

At any rate, with the proper algorithms, perhaps such a concordance might also list a book's magic moments. Some of these might be kisses, rainbows and starry nights. Others would demonstrate true magic. In contemporary fantasies like The Sun Singer and Sarabande, the instances of magic per one thousand words would be higher than chance. Certainly, books by Tolkien, Rowling and Bradley would also have an above average amount of magic. Unlike real life where magic isn't usually accepted as real (much less as good), magic is a common and expected moment in fantasy novels.

That's why I write them. They show the world I believe exists just slightly beyond my everyday perception. Had I practiced the techniques in those books, I might see farther than I do. My protagonist in Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey (magical realism) climbed K2 and Mt. Everest, mountains I planned (while listening to that Perry Como song) to climb one day.

Likewise, in all three of these novels, characters borne out of my youthful dreaming and my adult imagination can see what the eye cannot see, hear what the ear cannot detect, and raise healing energy into the sky in the colors of the northern lights. I have given them many magic moments, and I am content with that.

--Malcolm

Seeking Wider Reading Horizons

2011-11-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

In this morning's edition of Book Bits, my blog of links for readers and writers, I lamented the fact that with up to 300,000 books being published each year, many review sites and best books sites state that they only consider books from "major publishers." I understand the problem. I can't keep up either, and leaving out small-press books is an easy way to reduce the chaos.

Obviously, publications and websites want traffic, so that goal rather lends itself to looking at books everybody's talking about. On the other hand, I don't think it would be that difficult for some of the book sites to widen their horizons by changing the major-publishers-only approach to "we consider books from major publishers and selected small presses."

By saying "selected small presses," book sites could still control the potential tidal wave of ARCs and review requests that would arrive on their doorsteps if they had no gatekeeper rules in place at all. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than providing more publicity only to the books that are already getting the lion's share of publicity.

As a writer and reader of fantasy, I look forward to the day when more reviwers widen their horizons and admit the fact that some very good fantasy is coming from small presses. It won't be easy, for the publicity saturating the market from "big publishing" is very hard to resist. I can't resist it: the minute I read about Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus (Doubleday), I was hooked. I haven't read it yet, but I will.

On the other hand, with my horizons pushed outward just a little bit, I see that The Uncertain Places by Lisa Goldstein (Tachyon Publications, June 2011) is also very tempting even though it probably won't get the same amount of play as The Night Circus in spite of its veteran author. The publisher's description includes this: In this long-awaited new novel from American Book Award winner Lisa Goldstein, an ages-old family secret breaches the boundaries between reality and magic, revealing the places between them.

I'm thinking, I must have it. I'm glad to see the book is doing well on Amazon even though some sites and reviewers are keeping their horizons so narrow they won't discover it. Such reviewers can do better, I think.

Twitter and Other Sorrows

2011-11-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

I wonder: if a person stops talking and starts listening on the Internet, does anyone notice?

As I watch the Tweets scroll past my window like acid rain on a grey day, I wonder what percentage of the them are read. Or, is it a matter of everyone's talking and nobody's listening?

Sometimes when I tweet a blog post I happen to like, I get a response back saying, "thanks for the shout out." I appreciate the thank you note, but since my shout is one of millions, did it matter?

Do you ever wonder about such things?

We all want to be heard whether we're promoting books, web sites or simply shooting the breeze about family life. I'm tweeting about my book and you're tweeting about your book, but we're both in dire financial trouble, so (truth be told) neither one of us can affort to buy the other's book.

Meanwhile, neither one of us has time to really stop and talk about each other's books or families or day at the office because (truth be told) there are still a hundred tweets and Facebook updates left to check out. We understand each other, I think. That means we're each aware that between us we have a thousand friends and followers and that the day no longer permits such luxuries as a real conversation.

I LIKE you. You RT me. I tweet your post. You share my update. We're just moving shoutouts around without listening. I feel a lot of sorrow about this, about the fact that expediency has made our interactions so shallow and so expedient.

What about you? If you have a thousand Twitter followers, how many are really there? Listening, that is? If you have a thousand Facebook friends, how many of them are stopping by your page a couple of times a week to listen?

I feel like blogs, social networking and other related Internet sites are like a fast train, and my belief is that it's not bound for glory.

Perhaps I'm just not "wired probably" for all this dangling conversation.

--Malcolm

Complimentary Vanilla Heart Publishing Sampler

2011-10-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

In this complimentary sampler, you will find generous samples of novels by our Core Group Authors...along with Book Club and Reader Extras for each title with full color 3D cover, author biography and photo, Book Club Discussion Starters, and printable full color bookmarks.

Each author is available by phone, internet chat, or Skype (in some cases) to join you at a book gathering. Just email our Club Department at BookClub@VanillaHeartBooksAndAuthors.com for easy access. Please include contact information, preferred gathering dates, and title of your selection.

Also, these authors can send you an autographed cover page through Kindlegraph and if you would like a personalized inscription, please let us know in the Kindlegraph contact information. Each author's Kindlegraph page is listed at the end of this book.

Click here for your free download.

Table of Contents

Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, The Cabin, 2nd Edition - James-Cyrus Hoffmann has just inherited his grandfather's farm, and with it a mysterious cabin deep in the woods on Hoffmann mountain; a cabin he has dreamed about since childhood. When James-Cyrus enters the cabin, he is vaulted back through time to the Civil War era, where he meets Elizabeth, the brave young woman who lives in the cabin, and Malachi, a runaway slave. James-Cyrus realizes his dreams of the cabin were visions of the past, and that Elizabeth is his great-great aunt—a woman who vanished without a trace from the family tree. He also learns of his ancestors' pivotal role in the lives of dozens of runaway slaves who were offered a safe haven at the cabin, a station on the underground railroad.
Chelle Cordero, Hostage Heart - Life was hard after the hurricanes swept through, destroying her parents' home and livelihood... An errand for her boss - a chance encounter with a crew of bank robbers - a kind man who tried to help her ... a man who isn't all he seems...no, he is so much more
Marilyn C. Morris, Sabbath's Gift - When New York writer, Joanna Elliott, flees her abusive husband to the Texas Hill Country, she and her six-year old son, Jason, unwittingly become a killer's prey. Joanna adopts a cat from the local veterinarian, Sam Kelly, who tells her that Sabbath "had belonged to a witch." Unexplained events unfold...what will happen?
Robert Hays, The Baby River Angel - When Birdie Wilson and his two boys find a baby floating in a basket on the Ohio River, they can’t begin to imagine the impact their discovery is to have on their little town of Cambria.
L.E. Harvey, Imperfect - Carol Mathers, in her mid-thirties, a highly sought-after IT guru in St. Louis. She has built a great life for herself with her partner, Alexandria, even though the two face prejudice as lesbians, and as an interracial couple -fighting tragedy and sometimes, triumphing amidst the chaos...
Victoria Howard, The House on the Shore, 2nd Edition - This visually magical tale takes the reader on a journey from the remote shores of Loch Hourn in the Scottish Highlands to the singular beauty of Cape Cod. When Anna MacDonald leaves Edinburgh to find peace in the Scottish Highlands, she gets a twofold surprise: a lost sailor teaches her to love again...while a mysterious stranger has plans to kill her.
Collin Kelley, Remain in Light - In 1968, Irène Laureux's husband was murdered during the Paris riots and his body dumped near Notre-Dame cathedral. Thirty years later, she finally catches up with his killer. With the help of American writer Martin Paige, Irène will illuminate decades of secrets and lies only to discover that her husband's death is part of something far more sinister.
Malcolm R. Campbell, Sarabande - After her sister, Dryad, haunts her from beyond the grave for three long and torturous years, Sarabande undertakes a dangerous journey into the past– to either raise her cruel sister from the dead, ending the torment...or to take her place in the safe darkness of the earth.
Charmaine Gordon, Reconstructing Charlie - Charlie Costigan has a secret. Home life gone from bad to the worst when she protects her mother from another vicious attack by her drunken father. Midnight. Clothes thrown into an old suitcase, she races for the bus with a letter to an unknown aunt and uncle. "This is my daughter. Embrace her as if she were your own." Determined, Charlie begins again. Alone with her secret.
Janet Lane Walters, The Warrior of Bast - Tira is offered refuge from her deadly future….in an unknown ancient past, but she must remain there forever. Since the rebellion twenty years ago, the Two Lands has been without a ruler. Kashe wants to become a warrior of Horu. His father has other plans. Together, Kashe and Tira face nearly insurmountable challenges in their sacred quest, and find passion along the way.
Anne K. Albert, Frank, Incense, and Muriel (Book One of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries) - What happens when a gullible intellectual reluctantly joins forces with her sexy high school nemesis, now an even sexier private investigator, to find a missing woman? The stress of the holiday season is enough to frazzle anyone's nerves, but Frank and Muriel must also deal with... an embezzler, a femme fatale, a kidnapper, and of course, Muriel's eccentric, (but loveable) family.
S.R. Claridge, Russian Uprising (A Just Call Me Angel Mystery Suspense) - After a brutal attack on Tetterbaum’s Pub...the five Chicago families are infiltrated by the Russian Bratva. Angel is forced to take drastic measures to flush out the infiltrators before more people die. Traitors are friends and friends become enemies in this deceptive Mafia world, where Angel’s only hope of stopping the Russian uprising is to turn against her own blood.
Melinda Clayton, Return to Crutcher Mountain - Jessie is a success, at least by all outward appearances. She's helped establish a wilderness retreat for special needs children on top of Crutcher Mountain. Everything has come together beautifully, until a series of strange events threatens to shut down the operation. Unsure what to expect, Jessie returns to West Virginia in search of answers and finds more than she bargained for.
Angela Kay Austin, Sweet Victory - For her employees' sakes, Victoria James quits her job to save theirs and loses the man she thought she loved. Back to Memphis, Tennessee to a forgotten relationship with her grandfather, where everything she has is stolen. Chad Kirkpatrick, her childhood love, the first man to break her heart, now a police officer, comes to her aid. Will she put her past behind her? Will Chad forgive her?

Enjoy the sampler!

Malcolm

A Good Cabin for a Writer

2011-10-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

My wife and I spent several days this past week with my youngest brother and his wife at a rental cabin in the north Georgia mountains near Blue Ridge. Unlike the rustic get-away cabins writers are supposed to want for their personal hide-aways, this cabin had central heat, satellite TV, phone service, a basement game room that included a pool table, and WiFi.

It was hard not to wonder: could I write in a place like this?

The answer seemed to be "Yes." I could take my morning coffee out onto the deck and look at the view of the national forest and mountains and make wonderful progress on my novel in progress. I'm sure the IRS would see such a cabin as a valid business expense so that when it came to the bottom line, the cabin, cleaning service, utilities and maintenance costs would actually be free. If I started to get writer's block, the deck's hot tub would ease it away without need for excessive amounts of Scotch.

On the plus side, the ambiance, setting and views are just what a writer needs. And since the cabin is off the beaten track and only accessible by a winding gravel road that takes a fair amount of time to navigate without knocking one's car out of alignment, I would not be deluged with people looking for handouts, wanting me to join their religions, or sit around and shoot the breeze during writing hours.

On the minus side, the winding gravel road is the only way to the grocery store, post office and the book store. To live at the cabin, I would have to be better at planning logistics than I am now. In the small town where I live, the grocery is five minutes away. If I run out of milk or wine, no problem. Working at the cabin would require stocking up enough food for a week at a time. Maybe longer. Maybe for the entire winter when that gravel road is hidden by snow and ice.

Where Have Have All The Patrons Gone?

In the old days, when a king or a duke wanted music, art or written entertainments, he found a composer, artist or poet and gave him a castle, a castle staff, a stable filled with impressive horses, and enough money to live almost, but not quite, like a king or a duke.

What's happened to all of that?

Really, I don't want a castle. I certainly don't want a staff sniffing around watching what I'm doing, taking notes for the tabloids, and sneaking parts of my manuscripts down off the mountain for the operatives of rival publishers. Seriously, I don't want to be part of the pampered elite of rich movie stars who live in $100000000000000000 mansions and get their pictures taken every time they stop at a comic book store and buy the lastest copy of Green Lantern or Wonder Woman.

While I can write on a deck with a great view or next to a fireplace with a warm fire, I can't write if CNN is parked in my yard waiting to see when "Mr. Campbell is going to set foot outside his castle." Castles attract attention. Cabins don't.

The more I think of the cabin plan, the more sense it makes. I'd even be willing to share. For a modest investment--say, $150 per night--other writers in need of a retreat could retreat to the cabin and write, think, meditate or play a relaxing game of pool in the basement game room.

It's win win for everyone!

Malcolm R. Campbell, author of the recently released contemporary fantasy "Sarabande," probably would have finished that novel five years ago if he'd only had a cabin.

Get Your 2012 Coyote Calendar

2011-10-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

When I decided that a coyote would play a strong role in my contemporary fantasy Sarabande, I needed to find a good source of information about them. Unfortunately, most people see them as pests. Just as unfortunately, coyotes and human neighborhoods don't mix well a lot of the time. But, we go too far, I think, with our fear and distrust of coyotes and wolves.

Fortunately, I found a loving source of coyote information through Shreve Stockton's story about raising a coyote (ultimately named "Charlie") in her 2008 book The Daily Coyote. Publishers Weekly said, in part, "This moving account of writer/photographer Stockton's first year with her pet coyote, Charlie, expands on her popular blog, the Daily Coyote, but newcomers and the authors many fans will find that this memoir offers a complete—if not yet completed—story about love and life in a small Wyoming town. On a cross-country move from San Francisco to New York City in 2005, Stockton fell in love with the beauty of Wyomings Bighorn Mountains and decided to settle there."

I enjoyed the book as well as e-mailed updates from her blog. Shreve also provided some great answers to my questions about what it was like to be up close with a coyote. Now, since the coyote in my novel is a totem animal as well as a real (maybe) four-legged critter in Glacier National Park, I may not have translated her advice into a realistic coyote like Charlie.

While writing the novel, I was inspired by the coyote photographs on her website. Now, as I move into my "talking about the novel" phase, I can continue to be inspired by her 2012 Calendar. Thanks, Shreve, and may your work help all of us achieve a better understanding of all the Charlies out there.

--Malcolm

What reality? What fiction?

2011-10-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

In a humorous post from Golden Eagle called Definitions of Genres: a Comprehensive Guide, we learn that the fantasy genre "comes from people who have a hard time with the separation between reality and fiction, and a fondness for the utterly . . . fantastical."

Seriously, I have to agree. I often wonder, though, where the boundary line between reality and fiction lies. Is it a carefully calculated line such as the boundary between Florida and Georgia. Or is it a bit more flexible like, say, where the ocean ends and the land begins?

The real or imagined uncertainty between reality and fiction is, of course, one of the tools in the fantasy author's cabinet. We really do want the reader to wonder: is this monster real? Or, is it what's making that odd sound outside my bedroom window on this dark and stormy night?

Wondering whether a story just might have happened or might be about to happen keeps readers turning those pages while experiencing the joyfully dissonant feeling that everything that is "out there" might really be inside their thoughts. Or maybe "it" is dancing on the boundary line of reality and fiction and can only be found with intuition and a good imagination.

Meanwhile, thank you for your great post, Golden Eagle.

--Malcolm

You May Also Like:

Breathing in the Land - finding something new through a ritual like hiking a familiar trail over and over.
Moon Mysteries: Books for Your Shelf - while writing my contemporary fantasy Sarbande, I found some great resources about the moon
Exploring the Deep Soul of Man - My review of Mark Winborn's Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey, a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys listening to the blues.
Phenomenon of Portals: Malcolm Campbell’s The Sun Singer and Smoky Trudeau’s The Cabin - author and psychoanalyst Patricia Damery considers the novelist's use of portals in books by myself and my good friend Smoky Trudeau Zeidel.

'Why do you write?' they demanded

2011-10-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

Why do you write?

That question is similar to these questions:

Why did you start doing drugs?
What were you thinking when you let yourself get knocked up?
Why did you back your pickup truck over little Johnny's bike?
When you said, "Run, it's the cops," did you think things would be okay?
How many times have I told you to do your homework before doing Twitter?

Experience has taught most of us that those who ask such questions are not expecting a rational answer. They want an apology or, perhaps, revenge.

When my mother asked, "Why did you throw a baseball through the bedroom window?" she didn't want to hear a story that made it look like throwing a baseball through a bedroom window was okay. Here's what I did not say:

Mom, I've wanted to throw a baseball through a bedroom window ever since Dad taught me how to throw a fastball. In little league, coach said I had good stuff and that if I put my heart and soul into it, I would one day be able to throw like Nolan Ryan. Breakking this window has been a dream of mine.

The only place a writer can use a story like that about why he or she writes is on a blog tour. The rest of the time, people don't want to hear it. In addition to that apology, they expect the accused writer to be contrite, confess fully, and do penance. When all is said and done, they will say, "Go and write no more."

There is no cure for writing. You take it one day at a time knowing that if you pick up a pencil or open a dictionary, months of abstinence will disappear in a heartbeat. Quitting and staying clean require constant vigilance, and a daily prayer for writer's block.

--Malcolm

What's your book about?

2011-10-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

"What's your book about?" is a fair question whether it comes from a prospective reader, interviewer, CIA operative or hit man.

But I don't like it.

I want to answer: "Why don't you read the book and then tell me what it's about?"

People take that as sarcasm. But seriously, it isn't. In the realm of psychics, alternative realities, an the imagination, perception is reality. In fact, that's partly what my latest novel Sarabande is about. Is this realm, your expectations impact the experience you will have. In fact, they may even keep you from seeing everything (books, the world, your dreams) in a fresh and creative way.

So, I don't really want to tell you--or anyone else---that Sarabande is about a woman who is accosted on a lonely road at night because that's not the whole story. In fact, when you read the book, you might think that, yes, that happens, but it's not the central thing you took away from the book.

Nonetheless, people tend to feel uncomfortable when they don't know what a book is about. With that in mind, I added a page to my website that tells what I think Sarabande might be about. My thoughts on the matter certainly aren't gospel. Here it is. See what you think.

There's a certain level of comfort in knowing what a book is about. I understand prospective readers' wants and needs in that regard and will do all I can to help. My eyes my glaze over if you ask me directly. I'll fumble through something and hope for the best.

Otherwise, you're on your own recognizance whenever you pick up a copy of Sarabande--or any novel, for that matter. It's supposed to set you free. You can imagine the story anyway you like.

--Malcolm

Congratulations to the 'Sarabande' Winners

2011-10-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

Howdy,

I appreciate the 558 people who entered the GoodReads Giveaway for my concemporary fantasy Sarabande. The winners are Heather Moulton, Alison Witiak and Ayushi Sangoi. Hope you enjoy your copy of the novel. The copies are signed, packaged, addressed and ready to go out in Monday morning's mail. If you haven't seen an excerpt from Sarabande yet, I invite you to stop by the novel's listing on Smashwords where reading the first 35% of the story is free.

Two Vanilla Heart Publishing authors have stopped by my Malcolm's Round Table blog in recent days. L. E. Harvey, author of the recently released Impeccable, contributed a guest post on September 9th called "My Birthday Gift to You." On September 6th, Robert Hays, author of Blood on the Roses contributed "A Writer's Comfort Zone ." Malcolm's Round Table features author interviews, writing tips, book reviews and an occasional editorial about novels and publishing.

If you're on Twitter, I hope you will follow me at MalcolmCampbell . If you're on Facebook, stop by my Malcolm R.Campbell author's page.

Have a great weekend!

Malcolm

Banned Book Week Reminds Us We Have More Work to Do

2011-09-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

These days, most banned books in the U.S. are those removed from school and public libraries when Person A or Person B doesn't like a book. Those who challenge books are among our weakest links. They believe, I think, that their children are so weak and/or that their parenting skills are so ineffectual that rather than suggesting that BRAVE NEW WORLD (for example) is better left unread for now, they prefer to deprive all of the students in the school of the right to read that book.

What arrogance. Mrs. Smith or Mr. Jones doesn't want their kids to read, say, the latest Ellen Hopkins young adult novel, so they challenge it. If they succeed, they're also saying they don't want your kids to read "Crank" or "Perfect" either. You had no say in the matter. The gutless people on the school board voted to cave in to the wishes of one person.

Banned Books Week reminds us that Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones are still out there and that they don't care about you or your family.

Outside the U. S.

Worse yet, of course, is the censorship in other countries. Amnesty International (AI) reminds us during Banned Books Week that the threats to free expression include prison and sometimes death.

Author Nurmemet Yasin, for example, is in prison in China for writing an allegory that officials thought challenged their rule. Isa Saharkhiz, a journalist, is in prison in Iran for criticizing the Ayatollah. And across the border in Mexico, journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro is living with death threats because her work has exposed prostitution and the trafficking of women .

I marvel at the risks that writers and others are willing to take in such countries as Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand. If you're not a member of AI, the International Campaign for Tibet or a similar organization, you won't hear about most of the torture, imprisonment and deathl. It doesn't make the news. Our media either doesn't care or we don't read deep enough to find the stories.

When it comes to the freedom expression and the right to read, we have more work to do to get ride of the dark ages.

--Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of "Sarabande," a new contemporary fantasy published by Vanilla Heart in August 2011 in trade paperback and e-book editions.

Reading into the weekend

2011-09-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

I recently finished THE HELP, which I liked (review is here) and have finally started Laura Hillenbrand's well-researched and well-written UNBROKEN. Once again, I'm amazed by the grim World War II battle statistics--men lost, men killed in non-combat plane crashes, the low percentage of men rescued after their planes ditched or crashed in the ocean. Thank goodness, we take a different view of war today.

If you find yourself searching for writers links, you might run across my new blog "Book Bits." It comes out more or less daily with links to book news, contests, interviews and reviews. I see a lot of writing and review links every week anyway, so thought I would started sharing some of them.

As I work on marketing and publicity for my new contemporary fantasy Sarabande, I've been talking (online, mostly) about the reasons I like fantasy. In Sarabande's Journey, I focus on the sense of wonder we feel when we hear beautiful music, see astounding sunsets, and read stories that kindle our imagtinations.

At Malcolm's Round Table, I focus on author Stephen R. Donaldson's viewpoint that most of today's fiction rests on a sense of powerlessness and alienation--with the exception of fantasy. Since my world view is that we are capable of solving the great issues and challenges of the world by primarily transforming ourselves first, I like fantasy for the same reason Donaldson and storyteller Jane Yolen like it. It allows us to see life as it could/should be lived even though the "world out there" tries to tell us otherwise.

Perhaps an all things are possible perspective drew me to read THE HELP. I lived in a white Southern neighborhood that hired black maids during the same era about which Kathryn Stockett's novel is written. Her characters felt powerless to change the status quo. Then, rather than attacking the huge issues of segregation head on, they elected to simply tell their stories. What a beautfiful approach.

That's how many of us as writers find our places in the world. We tell our stories and, while doing so, we transform ourselves in the process.

--Malcolm

Now I can finish 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant'

2011-09-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

When I began my first novel The Sun Singer, I was reading the widely praised, award-winning epic fantasy by Stephen R. Donaldson called The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I was captivated by it and thought then, as I still do, that it's the best epic fantasy since The Lord of the Rings.

But I put the trilogy high up on a dusty bookshelf and skipped the sequel trilogy as well. Now, as the follow-up tetralogy is one book from being complete, I finally going back to Donaldson's epic.

When I began The Sun Singer, I was concerned about being influenced by Donaldson. After all, book critics, reviewers, writing instructors and others warned that writers could be influenced by their favorite books without even knowning it. As I understood the problem, my subconscious would beam Donaldson material into my work while I was asleep.

In my defense, I should mention that for The Sun Singer, I was creating an alternative world named Pyrrha, named after the wife of the Deucalion and Pyrrha flood myth. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant also features an alternative world as do The Lord of the Rings and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

By the time I discovered The Sun Singer was evolving as contemporary fantasy rather than epic fantasy, time had passed and I'd fallen so far behind with Donaldson that I never picked it up again. As fantasy fans know, contemporary fantasy features events in our own world and/or in our own world as well as an alternate world, so there was no need to worry about borrowing from another fantasy sub-genre. But I was younger then and had more fears.

Now that my recent contemporary fantasy, Sarabande, has been released, I'm feeling rather at loose ends. I'm not really that addicted to Facebook or Twitter, and while I do watch television on most days, it's fairly restricted. So...what to do?

"Aha," I thought, "I can go back to reading Donaldson." That's almost like a reward for finishing my novel. And, while there may yet be another book after Sarabande, I no longer believe other fantasies will influence what I'm doing. Goodness knows, I saw the epic The Lord of the Rings films and read Rowling's contemporary fantasy series without putting a look-alike Frodo or a look-alike Harry into Sarabande. Perhaps I'm just too set in my ways to subconsciously borrow a bit from Middle Earth or Hogwarts.

Christine Barkley gets it right, I think (with some bias, I know) when she says in the preface of Stephen R. Donaldson and the Modern Epic Vision that "In scope and imagination [Donaldson] rivals J. R. R. Tolkien; in complexity, one might argue, only Shakespeare's Hamlet equals Thomas Covenant." Donaldson is by no means escapist reading, but he is very addictive for anyone with an active imagination. I'm looking forward to many hours of time well spent!

--Malcolm

Writers, are we losing our originality?

2011-09-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

If you watch many of the shows on the Food Network, you know that while those of us at home cook with A-1 Sauce, Campbell's condensed soups, Hamburger Helper and processed everything, chefs in competition are expected to make meals from scratch. Theoretically, writers are encouraged to do this, too.

The show "Chopped" takes a different approach. It specializes in giving competing chefs odd combinations of strange ingredients which must then be artfully combined into an appetizer, an entre and a desert in timed cooking rushes. The ingredients often include many unregonizable "foods" (like squid ink) that you can't find at your neighborhood Kroger along with many foods that we all know and love such as fig bars, cheese crackers and a variety of cereals displayed in a generic sense so that nobody can scream "product placement."

Chefs competing on "Chopped" quickly learn that ALL of the weird stuff in their baskets of mandatory ingredients must be combined into the meal. Woe be unto the chef who thinks s/he can shake the cheese crackers on top of an entre like croutons or that the squid ink can go into a bowl for dipping or sipping. The word of choice on the show is "re-purposing." This means taking recognizable products and grinding, dicing, and otherwise destroying them to that they are born again out of the ashes of the chefs' new creations.

"Re-purposing" is an interresting concept on "Chopped," especially when most other cooking shows shun the use of any pre-processed food of any kind. As I watch "Chopped," it's clear to me that the producers and directors learned their trade well in college English, Journalism, and Creative Writing courses where the use of pre-processed works (like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" or Hemingway's war reporting) was considered plagiarism while disgusing it was considered creative.

In "the old days" teachers had to trudge over to the library when they found unattributed sentences and paragraphs in a student's theme, essay, book report or term paper that sounded oddly familiar--"pre-processed," so to speak. Now colleges have plagarism software that can ferret out copyrighted material in the blink of an eye. Colleges, as I discovered both as a student and an instructor, have long-favored "re-purposing" based on the dogmas that there's nothing new under the sun and that there are only X number of stories out there and they were all written years ago.
Students are encouraged to go to the great canon of novels, non-fiction books, articles and short stories (and now, the Internet) and grind up what they find there and make something new out of it. This is rather pragmatic in a fast-food, low-attention-span world where time is short when it comes to anything from a movie to a novel to a meatloaf out of original ingredients.

If you sprinkle fig bars or triscuits on top of your salad on "Chopped," you will be chopped--that is to say, eliminated from the competition. If you sprinkle slabs of prose wirtten by Betty Smith or Hemingway into your short story or term paper in a college class, you'll also be chopped--that is to say, in most colleges such behavior is an automatic F in the course. Crafty re-purposing is championed with $10,000 on "Chopped" and a magna cum laude graduation from a college writing class or MFA program.

I fear the day will come when no cook or writer will know that original ingredients exist. "You mean, ketchup doesn't come right out of the garden and novels aren't created by combining a cup of blog material, several teaspoons of wikpedia and a dash of Grisham or Gabaldon for seasoning?"

Seeking Stories that Live within Us

2011-09-06T06:11:00.001-07:00

A living myth is told and retold as the centuries pass. Poets, painters, musicians are nourished by its imagery, and in each retelling something is added from the collective attitudes, conscious and unconscious, of the time and from the individual vision of the artist.” – Helen M. Luke in “The Laughter at the Heart of things.”

As I read Helen M. Luke’s analysis of the myth of the ring as viewed by Richard Wagner in The Ring of the Nibelungen (known as the four-part “Ring Series”) and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, I was struck by the fact this story is now part of our world view. Whether we learned of the myth through the original source materials, Wagner’s musical dramas, Tolkien’s books, or the feature film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, the story lives inside us as though it actually happened.

Tolkien expressed contempt for Wagner’s version of the old Norse myth drawn from the 13^th century Icelandic Volsung Saga. Yet most critics believe Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelungen (consisting of “Das Rheingold,” “Die Walküre” Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung”), composed between 1848 and 1874, and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, written between 1937 and 1949, are different interpretations of the same myth, and that Tolkien was also influenced by Wagner. Myths often have as many interpretations as history as though they refer to actual events.

Listen to the discussions about J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and you will hear people talking about Harry, Snape, Dumbledore and Voldemort in the same way they speak of celebrities, world leaders and newsmakers who come into their lives television, concerts and the Internet. All of these people, fictional or actual, are larger than life. While novel readers and film audiences know there is a difference between Tolkien’s characters and Rowling’s characters on one hand and well-known people within our culture, all of them are part of our shared story.

Earlier generations were impacted by Star Trek and Star Wars events and characters just as strongly. We know the difference between fictional characters aren’t read and that real people aren’t fictional, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all the same. While even the most fanatical fans don’t expect to see Captain Kirk, Spock, Frodo or Hagrid searching for salad greens in the produce department at Kroger or addressing Congress about the state of the galaxy, the worlds of those characters is part of our lives as though it’s a living and breathing reality.

Most authors don’t write with the expectation that their stories will impact readers with such force that the characters will suddenly take on independent lives of their own. At best, authors hope their stories and characters will seem real while their books are being read. For a reader, there’s nothing better than plunging into a good story, becoming enchanted by it, and following it with the fervor they follow family dramas and the biggest news stories of the day.

Yet some stories catch our fancy and stay with us long after we put the book down or leave the theater. Those are the stories we seek because they take us on flights of fancy, display new worlds before our mind’s eye, and take us on physical and emotional journeys that expand our lives and enrich our imaginations. Ask any reader what his or her favorite books are, and s/he will tell you about good guys and bad guys and things that go bump in the night and awesome landscapes that are just as much a part of his or her life as co-workers, neighbors and family.

As readers, finding such novels is part of a never-ending quest for a real page turner of a story we will never forget because it lives inside us and evolves every time we read it, talk about it and think about it. As readers, we love our living fiction.
-

Many thanks to Pat Bertram for using this essay as a guest post on her blog.

--Malcolm

'Sarabande' paperback edition now "live" on Amazon

2011-08-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that my new fantasy "Sarabande" was released today in trade paperback. Now, I'm on pins and needles waiting for my author's copies. I have the cover art and the PDF, but it's not the same.

Told from a young woman's point of view, this is fantasy with an edge. My protaonist, Sarabande, undertakes a 1,600 mile journey alone to find the powerful Sun Singer in hopes he will get rid of the ghost who has haunted haunted her for three years. Her journey will take her from the mountains of Montana to the corn and soybean country of central Illinois.

Sarabande is warned that the journey is dangerous. She is told to carry a sharp knife. But on a foggy night in a desolate spot on the Montana plains, the knife isn't enough to help her and Sarabande's world changes forever.

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Sarabande's Journey, "Release Date Nostalgia"

The Write Type, "Sarabande by Malcolm R. Campbell" (a snyopsis and an excerpt)

--Malcolm

'Sarabande' GiveAway on GoodReads

2011-08-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Three free copies of my new fantasy "Sarabande" are available on GoodReads in a giveaway celebrating the pending release of the paperback edition. To enter, just click on the widget in the right-hand column of this blog.

The novel is already available in an e-book format on Kindle and Smashwords as well as on Kindlegraph.

New Blog for Writers

I have started a WordPress blog called Malcolm's Book Bits and Notions. I come across so many reviews, news and feature stories, and other bits and pieces of book information every week, I decided to put the links into posts so others can pick and choose.

Hope you find some helpful links there.

--Malcolm

People tend to Google everything - so why write a book review in the dark?

2011-08-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Going on a date with somebody? Google him or Google her and see what they've been up to. That's part of today's dating ritual.

See a bit of history on a TV show and think it's wrong? Google it. If you're wrong, nobody's going to know. If you're right, you can tell your friends, make an enlightened comment on Facebook, or leave a comment on the program's blog or website.

In this Google world, I was surprised to read an online book review today about a well known, award winning book set in another country in another era and find that the reviewer didn't understand some of the political terms in the novel. The reviewer enjoyed the book, but was a bit puzzled by the politics.

This seems to be a common reader complaint: being puzzled by a book due to lack of knowledge that's really easy to look up. Quite often, the author will fill in some of the details about political parties, movements, geographical areas, cities and their histories, etc. as it applies to the plot and to the characters' motivations.

If not, why not Google the name of the political party, town, forest, mountain range or famous person out of the past? You'll know the answer in an instarnt and the novel will make more sense--especially if you plan to review the book.

Now, I don't expect people who are searching for random facts in novels to be a major online force when Yahoo and other search engines track what's trending at the moment. But really, typing "Rabat" or "Tory" or "Virginia Woolf" into search field doesn't take any longer than typing "Burger King Ads," "Hershey Walkout" or "Daniel Radcliffe."

That's my two cents for this Friday afternoon.

--Malcolm

Fantasy often begins with an old myth or legend

2011-08-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

“We call it Lightning Falls,” said Marten. “Deucalion named it so. A holy man appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Stand inside the storm and you will find nothing but the freedom of your dreams.’ The sky was black at noon, so the story goes, when lightning struck the rock, creating a tunnel. A thousand people walked through before time closed the portal and guarded it with a pillar of fire.” -- from "The Sun Singer"

Alice steps into a fantasy world via a rabbit hole. Lucy finds Narnia via a wardrobe in a professor's house. Harry Potter walks through a hidden passageway at a London train station. In my 2004 novel The Sun Singer, Robert Adams finds Pyrrha via a remote mountain cabin.

Hidden worlds in fantasy novels are frequently reached via portals or tunnels, and they open up before the reader and the protagonist as realities complete with customs, characters, background myths and legends. My alternative world is called Pyrrha, named after the wife of Deucalion from the Greek myth of the flood. (The graphic here shows Deucalion and his Pyrrha in the version of the story told my Ovid.)

North American Connection

In The Sun Singer, the residents of Pyrrha believe that Deucalion and Pyrrha came to North America as they fulfilled their orders from Zeus to repopulate the world. To avoid conflict, they left the reality that would ultimately become Glacier National Park and followed a tunnel into a look-alike world they named Pyrrha.

Greece, Zeus, Deucalion and Pyrrha have nothing to do with the plot of The Sun Singer. I included them in the book to give the world of Pyrrha a solid foundation. Likewise, readers of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone also find secret worlds that not only exist in the here and now, but also have a history to them. Tolkien, of course, went further than anyone in creating a living and breathing world in Lord of the Rings.

Sarabande Leaves Pyrrha and Returns

Fantasy, like its cousin magical realism, needs an anchor to keep it from becoming wholly speculative and ephemeral. I grew up with the Athurian legends, Middle Earth, and Narnia, and was always impressed by the fact that the masters of fantasy gave readers a lot more than a thinly constructed arena for the here-and-now adventures of their stories. They created worlds with as much depth as our own.

Like The Sun Singer, my upcoming fantasy adventure novel Sarabande gets its depth from the myths and legends behind the world or Pyrrha as well as the very real mountain world of Glacier National Park. My intention here is to give the reader the impression that my protagonist Sarabande's journey begins and ends at a place so real, her story quite possibly is true.

In The Sun Singer, young Robert Adams finds adventure by leaving his home in Illinois, traveling to Glacier Park and discovering Pyrrha. In Sarabande, the young Sarabande finds adventure by leaving and then returning to Pyrrha. That is, her trials and tribulations occur on both sides of the magic doorway between worlds.

Readers already believe in the stuff of which their own world is made. If I can lure them into believing in the stuff of my fantasy world, then I have a strong foundation for telling them a good story. Background myths and legends are an old writing technique that can be a writer's best friends.

--Malcolm

If only we stayed as curious as children

2011-08-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Just watching my granddaughter puzzle out how things work makes me smile.

With toys, computers, or her mother's digital camera, she wants to know all the variations the object is capable of performing. And then she experiments. What does the world look like when the camera is upside down, closer, farther way. Which toys float and which do not? How does one peel an orange or open up a small, individual pack of Gouda cheese? The red covering of the cheese fits on one's nose, one's ear, on the end of a crayon, did you know?

Writers, I think maintain some of this curiosity. So, too, with artists, actors, musicians--how many ways can one improvise on what is or what might be?

There's unconcerned innocence in my granddaughter's improvisation, for while she knows that certain actions make things break, she isn't to the point of anticipating what untried actions might also be dangerous in some way.

Unfortunately, we give up some of our innocent play when we ldearn to think ahead and consider the consequences of one thing vs. another thing. A necessary step, I suppose, but we give up so much when we finally take it.

How dull life can seem without the what if of a writer, a painter or a child. I like watching my granddaughter's what if play because it reminds me of how I was--and of how I can be for short periods of time when I write.

Writers Open Windows to Unknown Worlds

2011-07-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

"How is it that a work of art, bearing the mark of the artist's deep unconscious resources, can act on other people, on someone other than the artist himself? It is because the archetypes which flood the unconscious of all of us are part of a much larger collective unconscious. The work of art, being thus charged with the unconscious material we share with the artist, is able to arouse resonances within us." -- Jean E. Charon in "Man in Search of Himself"

I read Man in Search of Himself about the same time I read Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and they became a mantra. Using art to include fiction and poetry, it was clear to me just why the hero's journey had such a profound influence on so many novels and feature films. Over and above the action in the storylines, the myths that formed the basis of the work resonated with readers and viewers in profound ways.

The writer (publisher, producers, actors) seldom meet any of the readers and viewers who are drawn to their work. So, they seldom have a chance to compare notes about what they found in the work.

Whether it's a movie or a novel, the story--and advertisements and word of mouth promoting that story--is usually what draws people to a film or novel. Once there, the resonances that occur when writers and directors open windows to unseen worlds may not be imediately conscious. Quite often, readers and viewers will say a book or movie is a favorite, perhaps that they have gone back to it again and again, yet they will struggle trying to find the words to explain why.

The reason is often that some aspect of the myth--the mythos--behind the plot has struck a deep and emerging need within the reader or viewer that s/he has not yet discovered. In fact, as Marianne Burke writes in her book Re-Imagining Mary, artists who have provided sacred "scenes have provided us with 'windows' into depths unknown perhaps even to them."

The resonances, windows, depths, and myths may be unknown when the works are produced, only to be discovered later as artists, authors, producers, critics, readers and reviewers begin discussing just what it was that drew them into the story and, once there, what they found.

Carl Jung wrote in his Red Book that "To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation." This birth happens because the writer/artist has conciously or subconsciously been drawn to an archetype and/or an old need within himself or herself to explore something that his/her life requires. So, s/he opens a window into a world that's been personally unknown within his or her experience.

Once that window is open, whatever is "out there" becomes part of the artist and--if it produces a strong impact--his or her paintings, screenplays and novels as well. While working on my novel Sarabande (due out this fall), I was drawn to the myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld. The story dates back thousands of years. Why did it resonate with me like one tuning fork next to another tuning fork?

Why the resonances now?

Perhaps the old story resonated with me now because it works so well as part of a heroine's journey novel. When you read Sarabande, you'll find the Inanna myth within it, and it will either resonate with you or it will pass you by as just another wrinkle in the plot. "Myths or mythos," writes Marianne Burke, "express truth closer to life's meaning than facts."

Such truths may be truths I have needed to deal with. That is, the Inanna myth may well have come forward now because it expressed truths my life was ready to accept. I tend to think this is the case rather than seeing the trials of an ancient Sumerian goddess as an interesting theme only within my novel.

Usually, rushing to answer such a question obliterates the question. It's rather like trying too hard to capture a dream that was so clear just moments before waking up. So, I tend to let the matter sit, simmering on the back burner, until the reasons it's important to me become clear. It's like that with readers and film viewers as well, I think. They come away from films and novels with truths and experiences that won't become evident for years to come.

--Malcolm

Nine writers having a great discussion

2011-07-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Author Smoky Trudeau Zeidel is hosting nine writers from Vanilla Heart Publishing in a chat on her review site this week. Stop by and ask a question or leave a comment, and you'll have a chance to win an e-book.

From her introduction: I invited all VHP authors to take part in a Q & A session with me where they could talk about themselves and their books. Nine authors choose to participate: Malcolm R. Campbell, S R Claridge, Melinda Clayton, Charmaine Gordon, Robert Hays, Collin Kelley, Marilyn Celeste Morris, Vila Spiderhawk, and Janet Lane Walters. Some were chattier than others, as you will see! They write in a variety of genres: romance, mystery and suspense, contemporary, fantasy; you name it, they write it, because they are a gifted bunch of writers.

The Glacier Park Connection

I've finally put up a web page about my three Montana novels and their connection to Glacier National Park. "The Sun Singer," "Garden of Heaven," and "Sarabande" (coming this fall) all have major scenes in the eastern side of the park within hiking distance of Many Glacier Hotel.

You May Also Like: Women's Rights - There's Still Work to be Done

--Malcolm

Thanks to the Witch of Babylon, I finished my novel

2011-07-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

In the early 1980s, I came up with the basic plot for a heroine's journey novel called SARABANDE. Today, I finally sent the manuscript to my publisher.

I avoided writing the novel for almost 30 years because it took me that long to feel confident enough to write a novel told from the viewpoint of a female protagonist. Heroine's journeys, also called lunar journeys, are dark. SARABANDE has some dark scenes that were painful for me to write.

As I finished up my editing and rewriting--much of which focused on those scenes in chapters three and seven--The Witch of Babylon arrived on my doorstep from Penguin. Written by D. J. McIntosh, the book is billed as the first in the "Mesopotamian Trilogy."

Those of you who have enjoyed the "ancient secrets" books by Dan Brown, Katherine Neville, and Raymond Khoury will love this book. I am enjoying the book because it's (as they say) a page-turner. It's also what I needed while editing SARABANDE.

Why? Because it diverted my attention from those painful scenes. I really did need to come up for air, take a break, smell the roses and zone out. "The Witch of Babylon" was the strong and addictive medicine I needed.

This morning, with the witch's help, SARABANDE is now sitting at Vanilla Heart Publishing waiting for my trusty editor to go through it and my wonderful publisher to turn it into a book.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the closing chapters of "The Witch of Babylon."

--Malcolm

Becoming uplugged from the rat race is so hard to do

2011-07-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

There are days when the "Zen" and the "Create Your Own Reality" of my fiction seems a lot more like fiction than I normally believe. If one can remain relaxed and placid and depend on the magic of apparent coincidences, then s/he will be in the flow without having to twist, turn and fret about making positive serendipity happen. My peaceful life would be spent in a mountain cabin alongside a peaceful mountain stream.

All it takes (apparently) is a computer problem to prove just how much the PC I would like to ignore has become an indispensable part of my daily life. Since I don't know who else to blame for this problem, I'm blaming whoever came up with the idea that writers need to do their own promotion.

In the old days--as I nostalgically fictionalize this problem--a writer sent his/her stuff to an agent. The agent sent it to the publisher. The publisher sold millions of copies. The author got royalty checks while keeping the beer cold in the bubbling, glacier-fed creek behind the house.

We can't do that any more because, as the new gurus tell us, we need to spend 100 hours promoting our work online for every hour we spend actually writing and editing. Enter, the evil computer with the hundreds of little connections to blogs, authors' bulletin boards and chat rooms, marketing gurus, social networking places, and a thousand other rat race highways where one has to maintain a presence to sell any books.

My primary computer, a two-year-old Dell Inspiron 330, has been down for two days. It won't boot. The hard drive is bad, corrupted, missing...nobody knows. It will probably be cheaper to replace it than to fix it. Meanwhile, the disruption is worse than the problem itself.

With the computer, I'm stuck in the very rat race my friend Nancy Reiter described in her book Unplugged: How to Disconnect from the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment. Without the computer, I'm out of the rat race and out of touch.

I don't have an answer to this. It's just that as a preacher of an unplugged lifestyle, I feel like I'm an Elmer Gantry con man. Perhaps my books should come with a disclaimer: "Don't do as I do. Do as my characters do."

I like the idea of moving away and finding that mountain stream, but so far the biggest drawback is going to be that the stream doesn't have WiFi.

--Malcolm

House Funding Bill Reverses Policy to Protect Grand Canyon

2011-07-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

from the National Parks and Conservation Association:

Rider on Interior Appropriations Would Severely Degrade National Park, Reduce Overall National Park Funding

July 7, 2011 Statement by NPCA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Craig Obey

“Today, the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee unveiled legislation that is a direct assault on the preservation of Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River. The bill includes a rider to prevent a much-needed temporary moratorium that protects Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River from contamination by uranium mining.

“The moratorium recently announced by Interior Secretary Salazar protects one million acres of federal lands around the Grand Canyon from uranium mining. This decision ensures future generations will be able to enjoy a Grand Canyon unmarred from this development, and a Colorado River that has a fragile ecology is protected. The House rider would overturn this important decision.

“By keeping this beloved national park unspoiled by inappropriate development, the moratorium allows the Grand Canyon to continue to be a major economic engine for Arizona and across the region, estimated in a Northern Arizona University study as being responsible for bringing $687 million in revenue to the region and creating more than 12,000 full-time jobs. And, in addition to securing the Grand Canyon’s natural beauty and its place as an economic jewel, this moratorium will also prevent further infiltration of dangerous contaminants, including uranium itself, into the Colorado River, which supplies drinking water to 25 million people.

“Proposed funding under the bill is also worrisome. The overall funding level in the Interior appropriations bill is fundamentally insufficient to meet many basic conservation needs. In relative terms, the Interior bill cuts National Park Service operations funding far less than many other programs, and it is clear the subcommittee did its best to protect this fundamentally important area. Nonetheless, the $18 million in operational cuts would mark the second consecutive year of reductions in the NPS operating account—unprecedented in post-World War II history—beginning a slow but steady return to the crisis days the parks experienced only a few short years ago.

“That cut, together with the virtual eradication of the Land and Water Conservation fund and an appropriation for construction more than 30 percent below the level the Park Service received in FY 2010means that overall funding for National Park Service programs would be, in real terms, $480 million below FY 2002.

“For all of these reasons, National Parks Conservation Association must oppose this bill.”
-

As a long-time member of the National Parks and Conservation Association, I see many articles and news releases about threats to the environment. One of the greatest insults, I think, is when they come from the very people who are supposed to be working on our behalf to protect wild places.

--Malcolm

Sarabande to be Released This Fall

2011-07-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that "Sarabande" will be released by Vanilla Heart Publishing in the Fall of 2011.

After Dryad haunts her from beyond the grave for three years, Sarabande undertakes a dangerous journey into the past to either raise her cruel sister from the dead, ending the torment, or to take her place in the safe darkness of the earth.

Sarabande leaves the mountains of Montana for the cornfields of Illinois on a black horse to seek help from Robert Adams, the once powerful Sun Singer, in spite of Gem’s prophecy of shame. Siobhan tries to help her with the gift of an enchanted Rowan staff, Danny tries to kill her alongside a deserted prairie road, Billy tries to save her with ancient wisdom, and Robert tries to send her away.

Even if Sarabande persuades Robert to bring the remnants of his magic to Dryad’s shallow grave, the desperate man who follows desires the staff for ill intent and the malicious sister who awaits desires much more than a mere return to life.

--Malcolm

Alice Ozma's 'The Reading Promise'

2011-06-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Imagine this: your nine-year-old daugher asks you to promise to read her a story every day for a hundred days. Then, once the habit gets going and a streak is underway, the reading lasts for 3,218 days until your daugher leaves for college.

This is the basic story behind Alice Ozma's book The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared. I like the concept of the promise, the idea that stories and story time can mean a lot and make a difference, and then become a tradition.

Osma told NPR that "I think that once you start something like that, it's very difficult to stop; it seems very weird after 100 nights of reading in a row to say, 'Let's not read tonight.'"

My parents read me stories when I was young. I don't think any of us thought about continuing the streak until we left home for college. At some point, my brothers and I shifted over to reading the books we received for birthdays and Christmas, and then those we could check out from the school library.

We had other traditions, one of them being our own "Jeopardy"-style question and answer game that we played from time to time around the dinner table. This was our tradition. The idea, in this day and time, that families can establish traditions, whether they're storytelling or reading, is one that gives me confidence that we, as a people, are not as doomed as some of the news reports might make us appear.

The Reading Promise was released in May from Grand Central Publishing. Publisher's Weekly wrote in its review that "Ozma's account percolates chronologically through her adolescence, as father and daughter persevered in their streak of nightly reading despite occasional inconveniences such as coming home late, sleepovers (they read over the phone), and a rare case of the father's laryngitis. Ozma's work is humorous, generous, and warmly felt, and with a terrific reading list included, there is no better argument for the benefits of reading to a child than this rich, imaginative work."

I hope the book is a success and gives a lot of parents and children the idea of doing the same thing.

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Once Upon a Time - The significance of stories in our lifes on "Sarabande's Journey"

--Malcolm

Black Swan, Glacier Park, Sarabande and Rain

2011-06-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

First, the rain. How nice to hear a serenade of thunder as a soaker of a rainshower moves through the Commerce, Jefferson and Athens realm of northeast Georgia. It has been very dry again this year. Almost wish I had a tin roof to hear the percussion of the drops.

I am nearing the end of "Sarabande," my sequel to "The Sun Singer." Now I'm in limbo, the limbo of being excited about sending it off to the publisher, yet still having a little bit left to do. My protagonist, Sarabande, and her giant Friesian horse Sikimi have taken me on a journey I never expected. What a trip. I hope my readers will like it, too.

As I wrote in a recent post called Me and My Shadow, the events in an authors life impact his fiction. Had I written "Sarabande" a year ago, it would be a different book. Perhaps better, perhaps not. My muse, I think, leads me to write it when I'm "supposed to" write it.

Black Swan

When I finally watched Black Swan on the DISH-pay-per-view, "Sarabande" changed. I'm not sure how or how much. As a heroine's journey, "Sarabande" is about a female protagonist on a journey toward wholeness. This is not the plot, but the result of the plot. To achieve wholeness, one must confront the parts of himself/herself that have been repressed or denied. In Jungian psychoanalysis, such attributes form "The Shadow."

The film Black Swan dramatized the fight between a ballerina and her shadow. As a thriller, Black Swan made the battle literal rather than internal to the Natalie Portman character, Nina. Sarabande is also confronting her shadow, though unlike the director of the film, I'm not making thoughts/fears appear in the story as actual events. The film impacted me as well as my manuscript. I may never know exactly how, but I'm pleased about it.

Glacier National Park

My new e-book Bears; Where They Fought: Life in Glacier Park's Swiftcurrent Valley went live today on Kindle and on Smashwords (multiple formats). The 99-cent e-book looks at some of the historical milestones on the eastern side of Montana's Glacier National Park.

The title comes from a chance siting by a Piegan hunting party of two fighting grizzly bears in the present-day location of Lake Sherburne. The Piegans named the location after what they saw and the story that came out of it. Later, a mining boom town sprang up on that site, giving rise to cries of copper, gold and riches. The town didn't last because the mineral deposits were less than expected. Today, the remnants of the 1900-1910 town of Altyn lie at the bottom of the lake.

The boom town's location is less than a mile away from Many Glacier Hotel, and it makes up just one of the stories that history books, the four winds and the shining mountains have to tell about the valley that attracts so many tourists each year. I'm partial to this valley because I worked there as a seasonal employee years ago and am now finishing the third novel I've placed in the world stair-step valleys and glacier-fed lakes.

--Malcolm

Saturday's Story

2011-06-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

While writing a post about writing prompts, it occurred to me that the best writing prompt is probably "Get Off Your Ass and Write."

Otherwise, Jack Heffron does sum it up when he says, "If you want to write, you must begin by beginning, continue by continuing, finish by finishing. This is the great secret of all. Tell no one." Yet, I find that that's easier said than done.

I seem to be impacted by every uproar that comes through our lives. It might be financial worries or somebody's health or car trouble or a sick pet, but it gets between me and my writing. What about you. Do various crunches, hassles, worries and issues make it hard for you to get off your ass and write?

In my Malcolm's Round Table blog I note that most of the summer reads the newspapers and magazines are talking about come from BIG PUBLISHING. Somehow, we're all failing to get the right kind of word out to the right kind of people about independent publishers and their novels.

If you live in Montana, this post has some Glacier National Park volunteer opportunities.

We're having hot, sunny weather here in Jefferson, Georgia. Too hot to consider mowing the yard, even though it needs it. I'd rather continue reading THE HISTORIAN and doing a few updates for my website.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend filled with manuscripts and books.

--Malcolm

Not flu, not strep nor staph, but WINDOWS RECOVERY B

2011-06-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was virus day. So, here we go again.

The last time a rogue warning-of-dire-consequences virus hit my computer--in spite of my existing virus protection software--STOPzilla was the only application that would get rid of it.

Yesterday, STOPzilla saw the threat, but didn't block it. My screen was filled with a purported virus-fixing program that was, itself, the virus. It pretends to run tests. It keeps pretending to run them no matter what one clicks on. In the process, it hid all the files and programs on my computer except for my browser. This made it appear that all the HARD DRIVE FAILURE and RAM MEMORY FAILURE warnings were true.

The virus, called "Windows Recovery B" and its associated "Explorer Policies No Desktop" left my browser there so I could click on their BUY NOW fix it solution (for a mere $69). I didn't buy.

STOPzilla went nuts with its warnings. When it displayed a warning, I had it erase the infection and reboot the computer. The thing is, the virus was still there.

If you get this one, I finally got rid of it with the Norton Utilities. That didn't get all of it, but the package includes a hyperlink for the Norton Eraser and that got rid of the rest...almost. I still had to find and download a copy of unhide.exe to restore my files and programs.

Things are getting back to normal except for the little hijacker virus that came along with the package. It re-directs the web links I click on to ads and other pages. So far, two programs that are supposed to clean it up HITMAN and ADVANCED SYSTEM OPTIMIZER are not getting rid of it.

Needless to say, I once again come to the inclusion that the Internet is more dangerous than a jungle.

Weekend Update - 'The Historian,' 'Healwoman,' and the Novel in Progress

2011-05-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

Other than the fang-in-cheek vampire spoof by Rhett Devane and Larry Rock, Evenings on Dark Island, I don't recall ever reading a vampire novel. But, since I enjoyed reading Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves, I couldn't resist turning to her earlier book The Historian. Quite likely, I'm the last person in the universe to read it.

I'm enjoying it, though I do question why some of the place descriptions are detailed to the point of approaching the kind of focus I'd expect in a travel book. Nonetheless, it's keeping my attention very well.

Teaser Tuesday

If you follow the Teaser Tuesday meme from Should be Reading, my teaser for this week is Janet Lane Walter's Healwoman: Dark Moon. You'll find it on my Writer's Notebook blog.

Old Poetic Form

I tinkered around with an old poetic form for my Memorial Day status on Facebook called bob and wheel. It's most often associated with the Pearl Poet's 14th century romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I won't claim to match that wonderful old classic, but I had fun playing with the form to express my opinion about the use of a day intended to remember our fallen troops for sales and bargain hunting trips:

You’re gone,
Men of station and steel and story,
In memory soldiering on,
While we praise your power and glory
Seeking bargains for house and lawn.

Sarabande: My Novel in Progress

When I'm working on the final portions of a novel in progress, I often feel rather drained. Everything I've imagined saying, now has to be said--with strength, with grace and with excitement without spoiling the effect with purple prose or missed opportunities. Sarabande is no exception.

The novel is the story of a young woman who is haunted by the ghost of the sister she killed three years earlier in self-defense. Now she goes to the underworld to find and confront the malicious ghost. The holiday weekend has given me a great opportunity to dive into that confrontation. To keep myself grounded, I wrote a lighthearted post on my Sarabande's Journey blog about leaving characters in tight spots.

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I hope you have had a great weekend filled with reading, writing, memories and families.

--Malcolm

New from Vanilla Heart Publishing: Jock Talks - The Collection. For satirical e-books in one for only $3.33 on AllRomance. Enjoy the humor!

How to Avoid Becoming Dr. Gregory House

2011-05-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Insanity is like steam in a pressure cooker. It's persistent, and if it isn't released into the world in small doses on a regular basis, an explosion occurs. If you've ever cooked with a pressure cooker with a faulty safety value, you know how unpleasant such explosions can be.

This past season, the writers of FOX Broadcasting's House, M.D. ended up with a faulty safety valve. The show exploded all over the network ceiling. (It's not yet clear whether the writers or the network are aware of this yet.)

Like House (the show and/or the character), a little bit of insanity goes a long way. In small doses, insanity is creative and rather bracing. In large doses, it drives people crazy.

As a writer, I use insanity the way power companies use nuclear fission. I create stories; power companies create electricity. Stories and electricity are pretty much the same thing because they come from the same place.

If you're not a writer, you don't want to go to that place. It's best to leave such journeys to the professionals rather than trying them at home. Once you go to that place, you have to keep going because the demons and other strange powers who live there know your name. Your absence from their world will not make their hearts grow fonder.

Once you go there, don't be a stranger. As long as your mind has a functioning safety valve, you'll probably be okay. You will avoid turning into House by confronting your demons often and by letting bits and pieces of them into the mainstream through your music, writing and other forms of art.

In her recent book, The Use and Abuse of Literature, Majorie Garber concerns herself with the way literature means what it means. The book has an interesting, albeit a false premise. Literature doesn't mean anything because that's not its intent. It's escaping steam. It's electricity. It's how writers avoid becoming Dr. Gregory House.

I have tried a variety of safety valves to keep the pressure of my demons from exploding like spaghetti sauce in an unfortunate pressure cooker. Writing is the only thing that works. Writing is, by no means, the perfect answer. The best answer is not to journey into the world of demons in the first place.

But they (whoever runs the dark side) have done such a great job with the place. It feels like home. It has a porch light on every night. It has everything a person could ever want. That's the problem, of course.

Writers often wax philosophical or poetical or cute when they discuss the house of demons. We say it's our muse. We say that our best stuff comes from our muses and, while that's true, our muses are more like Darth Vader and Gregory House than Betty Crocker.

So, here's where we are. Once you step into the house of demons, the only way to avoid becoming Dr. Gregory House is by: (a) Visiting (rather than ignoring) the house on a daily basis, (b) Placing the pearls of wisdom and weirdness found in the house into politically correct poems, paintings and sweet-looking animals and cherubs, (c) Leaving the house before it's too late.

The writers who control Dr. Gregory House forgot the rules and ended up with a House who is too much House. Sensible writers need to avoid that, and when they're successful the result is literature.

--Malcolm R. Campbell releases the dark side into the world in part through the satire of his alter ego Jock Stewart, most recently in "Jock Talks Lightning Safety," co-authored by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel.

The Week in Books

2011-05-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

This past week, I finished two wildly diverse books, Dorothea Benton Frank's Lowcountry Summer and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky's Adagio and Lamentation. Then, even though I never thought I'd read a vampire-related book, the strength of Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves lured me into starting The Historian.

In a return to Tall Pines Plantation, Lowcountry Summer looks into the troubled lives of Caroline, Trip, and Rusty in the Southern world still under the influence of the late Miss Lavinia. Dot Frank fans won't be disappointed.

I already know the work of Naomi Ruth Lowinsky through her wonderful memoir The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way and The Motherline: Every Woman's Journey to Find Her Female Roots, so I looked forward to reading her collection of poems, Adagio and Lamentation. I wasn't disappointed. I posted my review of the book today on Malcolm's Round Table.

More Satire on Kindle

Vanilla Heart Publishing
released the latest e-book in the "Jock Talks" satire series yesterday. I co-authored Jock Talks Lightning Safety with Smoky Trudeau Zeidel as a parody of the helpful hints feature stories often found in newspapers. En route to a lot of laughs, we debunk real, widely accepted lightning myths.

Here in northeast Georgia, we're expecting another hot weekend. It might be the perfect time to stay inside and read.

--Malcolm

'Jock Talks' Series Now in All E-Book Formats

2011-05-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

The "Jock Talks" series of noir satirical news stories is now available at OmniLit and Smashwords as well as on Kindle. Jock is the first name of my old-style investigative reporter, not an allusion to sports!

Available formats at Smashwords, all for 99 cents are online Java or HTML and downloadable Epub (Stanza), Kindle (mobi), PDF, RTF, LRF (Sony), PDB (Palm) and plaintext. Free samples are available in most of the formats.

Take a look and have fun.

--Malcolm

What's it like to be struck by lightning?

2011-05-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Smoky Trudeau Zeidel (The Cabin, Redeeming Grace) has written a Kindle e-book called In a Flash about getting struck by lightning 22 years ago.

As it turns out, the aftermath was worse than the event because the lightning bolt blotted out her short-term memory. Witnesses had to tell her what it was like because she didn't know it happened until she woke up in the hospital.

The years since June 11, 1989 have been a perilous journey of pain, hospitals and multiple surgeries. She stopped by Malcolm's Round Table today to talk about the experience and the book. I hope you'll drop by for a visit.

Sarabande

I'm currently working on the last chapter of my novel in progress, my sequel to The Sun Singer. While the work has been slow, I'm happy with the overall plot, theme and approach. Needless to say, there's plenty of work left to do.

Have a great weekend!

--Malcolm

If you like the fake news stories in "The Onion," you'll love the tongue-in-cheek satire of my "Jock Talks" series of e-books. They reature the insane reporting of my alter ego Jock Stewart. They're available on Kindle and at Smashwords. To tempt you, the first book, "Jock Talks Satirical News," is free!

A Rare Commentary: another closed door

2011-05-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

Writers are advised by everyone to never utter a discouraging word in public about anything in the publishing industry. I could spend the entire post saying why it's not a good idea for me to write anything under a title called "A Rare Commentary: another closed door."

It's generally assumed that successful writers have no reason to grip, so griping just draws attention to one's lack of success. Or, griping indicates sour grapes or garden variety jealousy.

However, since I do not write short stories or have any desire to edit a collection of short stories, that means I have no dog in this hunt.

The Closed Door

I find it disappointing that a publisher with a brilliant series of short story books, namely the Akashic Books Noir Series, can (on the plus side) state that they are dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who are either ignored by the mainstream, or who have no interest in working within the ever-consolidating ranks of the major corporate publishers.

But then on the other hand, state on their submissions policy page that Unfortunately, Akashic Books is not accepting new submissions at this time, as our small staff is overwhelmed with work on our current release schedule and forthcoming books. To uncover other publishing opportunities, we suggest you follow the threads at Publishers Marketing Association and SPAN: Small Publishers of North America, both organizations of independent publishers.

I Understand Their Pain

Almost nobody expects the handling of unsolicited query letters, much less actual manuscripts, to pay dividends to a publisher's or an agent's staff. Yet, it seems somewhat paradoxical for a publisher that wants to offer an alternative to BIG NEW YORK PUBLISHERS to use the very same closed door submissions policy statement that BIG NEW YORK PUBLISHERS use.

Most of the publishers and agents who still accept unsolicited queries have a disclaimer that says, "if you don't hear from us within six months, it means your manuscript is not right for us." Unlike the old days, nobody has to send out a rejection slip. A good editor can click through e-mails at light speed, rejecting (by deleting them) queries at light speed.

So, allowing unsolicited queries won't break the backs of the staff; and, it's simply the right thing to do if one really is who they say they are: an alternative.

It's The Thought That Counts

If Akashic Books weren't stepping forward as an alternative to the same old, same old of mainstream publishers it might help the PR and marketing side of the business if the submissions policy sounded slightly less mainstream. And, it would look better to the writers who, one day, the publisher might actually be interested in hearing from.

--Malcolm

The Grandmother I Never Met

2011-05-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

Many of us on Facebook have posted photographs of our mothers and/or our grandmothers just in time for Mother's Day. I posted the old phot shown here, a long-time favorite of mine. Here my grandmother Edythe is holding my mother Kaye in 1914 when Mother was about a year old. Notice the steam tractor in the background.

Unfortunately, I never met my Grandmother. She died of typhoid within a year of when this photograph was taken. Mother's memories of her were sketchy and my grandfather didn't see fit to speak of Edythe, to fill in the gaps in the family history. One commenter on Facebook says my eyes and my grandmother's eyes are the same. That pleases me.

Edythe, ever the enigma, was the inspiration behind protagonist David Ward's grandmother in my novel Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey. He never knew her either. When David is standing at the summit of a mountain after a long climb, he can almost see the spot where his grandmother was born in Montana. (The real Edythe lived in Illinois.) And he imagines her this way:

Edythe, ‘the contrary side of the sibling coin’ who was five years older heard more distant drums from the outside world, brought to her by the National Geographic’s pictures of exotic lands, Sam Griffith dashing out the front door of the post office with the latest mail from far away, and Tom Nolan blowing the whistle on the narrow gauge steam engine running the Turkey Track from Lethbridge to Great Falls hauling Canadian coal. Edythe bolted from the house when she was barely old enough to blush and stormed 142 miles southwest—as ravens fly—into her young future before she died of typhoid next to a small well outside the greater circle of David’s horizons.

The real Edythe died outside my horizons, and I will always wonder about her, with eyes like mine watching from this old photograph.

--Malcolm

Vanilla Heart Publishing Announces "Jock Talks" E-Book Series

2011-05-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

Vanilla Heart Publishing has announced a new Jock Talks series beginning with four e-books available on Smashwords and Kindle. Written by Malcolm R. Campbell, the books feature the work of alter-ego Jock Stewart, the noir reporter from Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire.

While the style and focus of the fake news stories is similar to that found on the popular The Onion web site, Campbell began writing satirical news before the Internet was a gleam in anybody's eye.

Jock Talks...Satirical News, the introductory book in the series, is available free on Smashwords. E-books on Smashwords can be downloaded in multiple formats. The Kindle version will appear in the near future.

Jock Talks...Politics, Jock Talks...Strange People and Jock Talks...Outlandish Happenings are available on Smashwords and on Amazon for Kindle at only 99 cents.

Excerpt

DRUG BUST NETS ROUGH NOTES AND BLACK EYE FOR COP

Police raided WSXX radio during the Sunday Afternoon Literary Hour here today when author Caine Molasses said, "while writing a novel, I keep my heroine with me at all times."

Junction City police and various alphabet soup federal drug agencies kicked open the studio door at 3:08 p.m. while Molasses was reading an excerpt from his upcoming novel Vampire Bait, "The first time Lucretia stuck her neck out in life, she got bitten."

"Up against the wall, you low-life scum," shouted police sergeant Vlad Smith.

"We're on the air," explained program host Nancy Jones.

"I don't care what you're on," said Smith, "put your hands where I can see them. You, too, Molasses."

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Click here for more information about the series--and a few more excerpts. Hope you enjoy it.

--Malcolm

Yellow Journalism is Alive and Well in Pennsylvania

2011-04-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

An English teacher in a small Pennsylvania town writes erotic romances under a pseudonym. The romances are available on Amazon. The teacher's author's blog makes no mention of her real name or the school where she teaches.

She has a teacher's website associated with her school website that contains information about classroom rules, assignments, and required reading, but no mention of her novels. She hasn't presented information in class about her writing or otherwise spoken of it to students on or off school grounds. I've never read any of her books. So, how do I know about her work?

I know about it because a non-news event is making the rounds of Internet sites under the guide of actual news. (I won't spread the gossip here by using the name or pen name of the author or the name of the parent.)

Apparently, a parent heard that the English teacher was writing romance novels and--when she couldn't arrange a confrontational meeting with the teacher--went over and told a local TV station about it. I don't need to search through my journalism school notes or textbooks or the notes I used as a college journalism teacher for the class in news reporting to know that this matter is not news.

Had the parent staged a rally, gotten the issue of this teacher's off-hours writing placed on the agenda of a public school board meeting or barged into the teacher's English class and created an incident, the story would be news.

If the teacher were breaking the law, violating her contract with the school system or disrupting her own classes by using her own books as required reading, the TV station could have investigated the matter. However, there was nothing to investigate.

Lacking a news story, the station reported that the teacher was writing the books and that one or more parents weren't happy about it. Once the story was reported, it began to become news in much the same way that gossip spreads.

News outlets and bloggers and at least one Facebook page have now gotten into the mix. The writer on one site went so far as to call erotic romance novels "soft porn," without using any evidence to prove what kind of content in the author's books pushed them from romance fiction into a pornography genre.

The parent who brought the matter to the TV station's attention says the teacher is a good one but wants her to be more discreet. What a red herring that comment is. The parent is the one who's spreading the word about the books, ensuring that students, teachers, school staff, parents, news outlets, bloggers and others know about the teacher's work.

In the old days, we called sensationalistic reporting, yellow journalism. These days, it's the stuff of supermarket tabloids. In many ways, it's a voyeuristic invasion of privacy with the subtext innuendo that there's something seedy or suspect about a romance novelist teaching sweet kids how to diagram a sentence or develop an appreciation for classic literature.

What a shame.
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Posts on my Other Blogs

Light Conquers All - Author Pat Bertram discusses the theme behind her new novel Light Bringer in a guest post on Malcolm's Round Table

Writing a sequel 26 years after writing the first novel - As is work on a sequel to "The Sun Singer," I can't help but note there's been a lot of water under the bridge since I wrote it.

--Malcolm

Zora, a book of poems and a wedding

2011-04-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, I mentioned reading an old copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston. My paperback copy included a foreword by Alice Walker about Hurston, including Walker's search for Hurston's grave. With that in mind, I very much enjoyed Judith Mercado's short story about a young woman trying to find that grave called Visiting Zora.

Leah Shelleda's collection of poetry called "After the Jug Was Broken" is pure magic. In fact, it transcends magic. You'll find my review of the book on Malcolm's Round Table as well as on Amazon and GoodReads.

I read a news story somewhere saying that the upcoming royal wedding will cost the British economy a lot of money simply because the day's been proclaimed a holiday. While many here in the States will get up early to watch the wedding coverage, I don't plan to. However, I couldn't resist posting a bit of Jock Stewart satire about the wedding here on Morning Satirical News.

Brian Knight has posted a review of Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey on Amazon and elsewhere including this blog. I appreciate his comment: "I recommend this book to those with a vivid imagination and a mind ready to see a larger scene."

--Malcolm

The weekend: a long poem, a writing contest, weaving and 'Swan Thieves'

2011-04-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

The following headline on the NPR website caught my attention: 'Crossing State Lines': 54 Writers, One American Poem

This is collaborative poetry--a relay, so to speak, for National Poetry Month. Each poet writes ten lines in two days, and then the next person on the list takes over. It will be interesting to see how the "renga" poem turns out.

If you like writing contests, consider the Black Warrior Review's annual competition. I posted about it HERE on Writer's Notebook. Deadline is September 1 for three poems, a short story or a work of nonfiction.

As I work on my novel Sarabande this weekend, I'm focused a lot on weaving, both as a traditional "women's work task" and a metaphor for the creation of oneself or the world. If you're drawn to the subject, see my post "Women, Weaving and Storytelling."

I continue to read and enjoy Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves, advancing from page 123 to page 180 where the story jumps for a second time back into the 1870s. So far, Kostova hasn't divulged just how a young woman (who's an artist) in this time period figures into to our present day story. The lack of a more-obvious tie-in makes for a somewhat disruptive side-trip at this point, but the primary focus of the novel is strong enough to keep me reading.

Meanwhile, after reading Lee Libro's review of Bella Pollen's "The Summer of the Bear," (due out in June), I now have another novel to add to my TBR list. Thanks Lee.

Happy reading and writing this weekend.
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You May Also Like: Characters with Cameo Roles in 'Sarabande' - I never get a chance to miss my characters when a book is done because they might just show up in another book

--Malcolm

Happiness is a copy of 'The Swan Thieves' for the weekend

2011-04-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today's weather is grey, rainy and cool, just the kind of Friday afternoon that makes one consider starting the weekend a bit early--especially if they have an interesting book to read.

I'm on page 123 of Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves that begins, "Kate had set her coffee cup, with its ring of glazed blackberries, on a table at her elbow. She made a small gesture, as if asking me to let her stop talking. I nodded and sat back at once; I wondered if there were tears gathering in her eyes."

The end of the book is on page 561. Good, there's plenty of the story left to read.

This is a story of obsession. The characters are well developed: Andrew the psychiatrist; his patient, the artist Robert Oliver; Kate, Oliver's ex-wife. The prose is carefully handled, especially in the descriptions of artists and their works. Kostova uses the device of letters to help tell her story; a little bit of this goes a long way, and I think she's gone a letter or so too far. But, no matter, I'll grant her that stylisitc device and keep reading anyhow because the story is pulling me along.

In the HuffPost Books review, M. L. Johnson writes that As in "The Historian," Kostova's visual images are stunning. She uses words to paint the pictures crucial to the plot and then carefully directs readers' attention to background characters, facial expressions and colors important to uncovering the novel's central mystery. The mental images she evokes in some cases linger longer than images seen in real life. It's difficult to believe the paintings don't really exist.

The mysteries behind patient Robert Oliver include: Why did he attack a painting of a woman and a swan at the art gallery? Why does he remain silent when Andrew Marlow offers him multiple opportunities to talk?

If you read this novel, did you like it? How does it compare to Kostova's debut novel "The Historian"?
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You May Also Like: The first time I drove to the lake it was a lake - This is my Earth Day post about a once pristine lake that now exists only in my memory.

--Malcolm

A Gift to Help You Celebrate Earth Day

2011-04-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

Vanilla Heart Publishing is helping you remember Earth Day this year with a free e-book called Celebrating Earth Day 2011. The anthology includes short stories, recipes, puzzles, crafts and poetry. Click HERE to download your free copy from PayLoadz.

The e-book features the work of Anne K. Albert, Charmaine Gordon, Chelle Cordero, L.E. Harvey, Malcolm R. Campbell, Marilyn Celeste Morris, Melinda Clayton, Robert Hays, S.R. Claridge, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, Victoria Howard, and Vila SpiderHawk.

Earth Day 1970

For many, April 22, 1970 seems long ago and far away. So does the Vietnam War and Flower Children cultures that were in place, and at odds with each other, when Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson came up with the Earth Day idea.

According to the Earth Day 2011 Organizer's Guide, "The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. "It was a gamble," Gaylord recalled, 'but it worked.'"

This year's Earth Day theme is "A Billion Acts of Green." Click HERE to learn more about what you can do to help.

You May Also Like

What are you doing for Earth Day? Katie Alexander's post includes ideas and links.

On Writing as Entertainment Author L. E. Harvey, whose work is included in the earth day anthology, is my guest today on Malcolm's Round Table.

Book Reviews - Do You Read Them and, If So, Where?

2011-04-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

A 2009 Verso Advertising Survey of book buying behavior found that readers place more stock in an author's reputation and recommendations from friends than book reviews. 37% of the readers based their buying decisions on reviews.

Yet, from the last I heard, sites like GoodReads continue to grow and prosper. So to book review blogs. I post reviews on my Malcolm's Round Table blog, most recently The Tiger's Wife and The Seas.

Predictably, books that already have a lot of buzz get more hits on Malcolm's Round Table than small press and self-published books. Malcolm's Round Table covers a variety of subjects, so I tend to get more hits on book posts via searches on the title, author or subject than by people who regularly stop by the blog every week to see what books are being covered.

I write reviews because I buy the books and like talking about them and because authors and small publishers send them to me. While I enjoy the buzz and the comments associated with "name" authors and books, I prefer reviewing small press books. Why? Because the struggle to get reviews.

Mainstream reviewers and critics are going to cover most of the BIG BOOKS. So, pretty much everyone is going to be aware of new releases such as "The Tiger's Wife," while my author friends at Vanilla Heart Publishing, Second Wind Publishing, Chalet, Weaving Dreams and Fisher King cannot count on anyone at Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, Book List, New Pages, or the San Francisco Book Review for any coverage, much less the prestige literary magazines.

I don't kid myself. A Malcolm's Round Table review isn't going to ramp up the buzz for any book. For one thing, I'm not getting the books multiple months before the release date. For another, a hundred hits on one of my reviews isn't going to have a lot of impact on a new title compared to the thousands of people who see a Kirkus review on a book's Amazon page. But, I hope it helps.

What about you? Are you drawn to book reviews written only by professional critics? What about reviews written by bloggers who simply like books? And when you read those reviews, are you looking for new books or are you drawn to posts about books you've already heard of somewhere else?

--Malcolm

Three Books of Poems for National Poetry Month

2011-04-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

Today's mail brought three gems by Leah Shelleda, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and Paul Watsky for this year's National Poetry Month celebration. I have been looking forward to these collections from il piccolo editions from Fisher King Press for ages, and now plan to take time every day to unplug from the hectic outer world.

After I've read, re-read and absorbed these poems, I'll report back and tell you about the journey. For now, here's what I'll be reading, along with the publisher's information for each book.

"After the Jug Was Broken" by Leah Shelleda

The poetry of Leah Shelleda inhabits a realm of magic and marvels. The poet is a shape-shifter. Meet the Lamia, those "Madonna-faced/serpent below the waist"; creatures, whose songs Shelleda sings. Meet Kitsune, the Spirit Fox, who is nine hundred ninety nine years old--about to grow nine tails. Meet Asherah, the Hebrew Goddess, her graven image shaped in bread--about to be eaten. Shelleda's poems play at the edge of the wild and the forbidden; they dive down to the depths, bringing up treasure from the collective unconscious and the wisdom traditions; they enchant, seduce and bless; they transport us in the four directions and into the three worlds; they touch all the chakras. Leah Shelleda gathers the shards of our broken world and gives us sacred space.

"adagio & lamentation" by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky was the first child born in the New World to a family of German Jewish refugees from the Shoah. Many in her family were lost in the death camps. It has been the subject and the gift of her poetry and prose-to write herself out of the terror, into life. Naomi had a special tie with her only surviving grandparent, the painter Emma Hoffman, whom she called "Oma." Oma showed her that making art can be a way to transmute grief, a way to bear the unbearable. The cover of Adagio and Lamentation is a watercolor by Emma Hoffman-an interior view of the Berkeley home where Naomi visited her often as a teenager. Oma tried her best to make a painter of her, but Naomi was no good at it. Poetry was to be her vehicle. Adagio and Lamentation is Naomi's offering to her ancestors, a handing back in gratitude and love. It is also her way of bringing them news of their legacy-the cycle of life has survived all they suffered-Naomi has been blessed by many grandchildren.

"Telling the Difference" by Paul Watsky

"To quote Norman O. Brown quoting Euripedes, "God made an opening for the unexpected," and at long last we have what many of us have greatly desired: a collection of poems by Paul Watsky. His is a singular voice in contemporary poetry, with a range that encompasses the wry, the mordant, the laugh-out-loud funny and the deeply moving, often within the same poem. One of Ovid's earliest critics complained that he did not know when to leave well enough alone. In this he resembles the eponymous hero of Watsky's "The Magnificent Goldstein," and, come to think of it, Watsky himself, for which we have cause to rejoice." -Charles Martin

You May Also Like

And Now The Story Lives Inside You - This post in my heroine's journey series includes a review of a wonderful book of nature poems called "And Now The Story Lives Inside You," by Elizabeth Reninger.

--Malcolm

Recent Reviews and Other Posts

2011-04-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

Have you read "The Tiger's Wife" yet? It's number 67 on Amazon's top 100 list. "Bossypants" is number three, and a couple of diet books sit at number one and number nine. That alone is an omen. Here's my review of "The Tiger's Wife."

Along with my "Jock Talks" satire e-books, Vanilla Heart Publishing has released some wonderful short stories, also at only 99 cents. I especially liked the stories by Robert Hays and Smoky Trudeau Zeidel. Here are my reviews of Hays' Equinox and Zeidel's Goodbye, Emily Dickinson.

I continue to work slowly on my sequel to "The Sun Singer," Sarabande.
As I write, I discover more and more about the heroine's journey. I write about that on my "Sarabande's Journey" weblog. Recent posts there are And Now the Story Lives Inside You and The Light of Nature.

If you're more in a satirical frame of mind, you might like my recent "Morning Satirical News" post If Only I Dreamt of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.

Meanwhile, if you live in or near Jackson County, Georgia, I hope you will visit the Crawford W. Long Museum's new Civil War Medicine Exhibt. It opens at the museum in Jefferson Friday, April 15 (10-5) and Saturday, April 16 (10-4). At 2 p.m. on Friday, authors Barry Brown and Gordon Elwell will be signing their book "Crossroads of Conflict: Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia."

A consultant for the museum, my wife Lesa, is in charge of the new exhibits. I've been there as a laborer to help place objects in the display cases.

I hope you are well, reading a lot, and perhaps writing a lot as well.

--Malcolm

Oh no, I'm multitasking again

2011-04-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

I like being totally present in the task at hand. I'm not sure what that means exctly because I seldom experience it. But I think it means, figuratively speaking, not thinking of Sue while kissing Jane.

In my case, it means keeping my worlds of satire and serious fiction separate. In the world of serious fiction, I'm still at work on my heroine's journey novel Sarabande. And, I'm still talking about heroine's journey resources at my Sarabande's Journey web log. My most recent post focused on "The Light of Nature," the information we learn directly from nature.

During the past few days, though, I've been multitasking. Vanilla Heart Publisling has just released three "Jock Talks" e-books. Available at 99 cents on Kindle and in multiple formats at Smashwords, these collections feature the more insane, bothered and bewildered of the posts on my Morning Satirical News weblog from the last several years. I've had fun working on them even though I can still hear Sarabande's voice inside my head saying, "Hey, you left me stranded on a mountain top and I'm getting cold and hungry."

Meanwhile, I've been doing a little more volunteer work at the Crawford W. Long Museum as the April 15th opening day of the Civil War Medicine exhibit approaches. Last night, we were carefully removing the fabrics and weaving exhibit from two display cases in the general store building to make room for the new exhibit.

I feel like a juggler with 20 swords in the air. Does this happen to you?

--Malcolm

“Holy bear puke,” she screeched.

2011-04-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

Malcolm's Wednesday Teaser

The Teaser:

She grabbed an apron off the table next to the door and put it on. “I fell asleep in the damn tub.” Her eyes were puffy and her face was redder than her tangled hair.

“You must thank me,” Sonny said.

“What?”

“I have saved your life,” he said enthusiastically. “If I had not whistled like this—Hoooo hoo-oooo, hoo hoo—you might have drowned.”

“Shut up before I put a fist in your mouth,” Cinnabar shouted. She was wiping her face off with a dish towel, and the harsh motion and the fire in her eyes told him well enough this was not a good time for more sarcasm. “Mother, get him out of my house by tomorrow night,” she said, gesturing at Sonny as though he were some stray dog Gem had brought home.

The Title: "The Sun Singer"

The Reviewer Says: “The Sun Singer is gloriously convoluted, with threads that turn on themselves and lyrical prose on which you can float down the mysterious, sun-shaded channels of this charmingly liquid story.” — Diana Gabaldon

The Price: $4.99 on Kindle

Later This Year: Vanilla Heart Publishing will release "Sarabande," the sequel with more mountain magic.

Search For Peace Displays Poetry and Art

2011-04-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Portland, Oregon's Search for Peace is now displaying art and poetry honoring the search for peace in 2011. As a concientious objector during the Vietnam War, I'm happy to see a site that focuses on a non-violent approach.

I'm also pleased that the site is displaying art work and three poems by my brother Doug Campbell. His acrylic painting is entitled I Pledge Allegiance to the Fish. His three poems are Balancing Act, The Journey, and Things.

There is much to like in the 2011 selections.

--Malcolm

'Garden of Heaven' Give-Away Winner

2011-04-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

I put a handful of names into a figurative hat yesterday just before midnight to select the winner of the April 1 Garden of Heaven Give-Away.

Congratulations, Leah! I drew your name. I hope you enjoy the book, a hero's journey adventure about a man who discovers that his first lover might be his last and that there are times when the roads to heaven and hell get mixed up.
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You might also like:

On Not Looking Inward - Sometimes we forget to take time for quiet contemplation.

Mysteries of the Dark Moon - A look at Demetra George's book as a reference in the heroine's journey.

--Malcolm

Four Fools in Three Minutes

2011-04-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

On April Fool's Day, the fool's thoughts turn to literature. I've swiped this information from the publishers to make sure it's neither foolhardy nor foolish.

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #19: April Fool's Day by Carolyn Keene

"Nancy, George, and Bess have been invited to an April Fool's Day party at their new schoolmate's house. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun — each guest is bringing a gag to the party, and the best prank will win a special prize.

When two of the guests' fancy new electronics go missing, Nancy knows something's up. Is this someone's idea of a joke? The Clue Crew certainly isn't laughing, and they're on the case to find the missing gadgets."
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Ship of Fools (the film) by Katherine Anne Porter

Porter's only novel, released in 1962, was released as a black and white movie in 1965. Directed by Stanley Kramer, it starred Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Oscar Werner and Lee Marvin.

"An all-star drama in the grandest of Hollywood traditions, Ship of Fools is now a glossy, Oscar®-nominated relic from a bygone era, when actors were valued more than special effects. "Prestige" is the keyword in describing this high-toned Stanley Kramer production, and the passage of time brings the pros and cons of Kramer's filmmaking into stark relief. In adapting Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel set aboard a German liner sailing from Mexico to Germany, Kramer and screenwriter Abby Mann (who shifted the story from 1931 to 1933) attempted to display the oncoming horror of Nazi Germany in microcosm, as represented by the ship's colorful variety of passengers, including maritally combative artists (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley); a has-been baseball star (Lee Marvin); a pair of illicit lovers (Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret); a despondent divorcée (Vivien Leigh, shockingly garish in her final film); and several others who play symbolic roles with varying degrees of obviousness."

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Fools Die by Mario Puzo

"From the blockbuster author of The Godfather comes this bold international best-seller about the feverish world of a big-time gambler. Merlyn and his brother, Artie, obey their own code of honor in the ferment of contemporary America, where law and organized crime are one and the same.

"Set within America's golden triangle of corruption and excess-New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas-the novel plunges into the glittering and ruthless worlds of gambling, publishing, and the film industry, where greed, lust, and violence hold sway. As high rollers, hustlers, and scheming manipulators use power, sex, and betrayal to win, the strongest survive-but fools die."
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Fools (a play) by Neil Simon

"Leon Tolchinsky is ecstatic. He's landed a terrific teaching job in an idyllic Russian hamlet. When he arrives he finds people sweeping dust from the stoops back into their houses and people milking upside down to get more cream. The town has been cursed with Chronic Stupidity for 200 years and Leon's job is to break the curse. No one tells him that if he stays over 24 hours and fails to break the curse, he too becomes Stupid. But, he has fallen in love with a girl so Stupid that she has only recently learned how to sit down."

Happy reading and viewing.

--Malcolm

What are you looking forward to reading ASAP

2011-03-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

You have a wish list, right? Or, possibly, a large TBR pile of books next to your computer? If you don't have a Kindle, perhaps you have another list of books now in hardback that you're trying not to buy until they come out in paperback.

As for me, I can say yes to all of the above. Sure, I'm supposed to be moving ahead on my novel in progress Sarabande. For goodness sakes, my publisher is already tinkering with the cover art work. Sorry Kimberlee, but I'm not going to stop reading for anyone. (heh heh)

I have two books on my ASAP reading list, one old, and another I finally got around to buying.

The new one is the widely discussed The Tiger's Wife from the highly touted Tea Obreht. I generally avoid books from people who are highly touted because I think all that touting is simply BIG PUBLISHER publicity and/or because I'm jealous that I'm not being highly touted.

The Publisher's Weekly review begins with the words: "The sometimes crushing power of myth, story, and memory is explored in the brilliant debut of Obreht, the youngest of the New Yorker's 20-under-40."

We'd all like a review like that, right? The book is here on my desk, and after peeking inside, I think all the touting might be right. One negative review on Amazon gave me pause, that from a reviewer who's apparently familiar with the locale Obreht used for her book. The reviewer says she should have stuck to the real legends rather than making up new ones and misinterpreting old ones. Fair point, but I intend to see for myself.

You can find the LA Times review of the book here. And here you'll find the story about Obreht's Orange Prize nomination.

THE OLDER BOOK

Also here on my desk is a paperback copy of Samantha Hunt's The Seas. More recently, she released The Invention of Everything Else.

The very thing that makes this book NOT some people's cup of tea, makes it mine. Here's a woman in a "bleak northern fishing town" (as Publisher's Weekly sees it) who's fallen for a shell-shocked sailor. She thinks she's a mermaid. Reality and truth are mixed up here with a whole lot of ocean.

In addition to the Amazon link above, you can learn more about the book here.

ANOTHER FOR YOUR LIST

Okay, I'm cheating here to include a book I've already read. If you're a writer, take a look at The Sister from Below by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky.

That sister is your muse. As the publisher says, she speaks "to all those who want to cultivate an unlived promise, those on a spiritual path, those who are filled with the urgency of poems that have to be written, paintings that must be painted, journeys that yearn to be taken." I mentioned the book in The Spookiness of Written Truth.

Here's Lowinsky's blog with more information about the author and the book.

THAT ARE YOU READING?

What's on your ASAP reading list. Let me know in a comment. I hate running out of fresh reading material, so I really would like to know what your eager to get a copy of and start reading.
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YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THIS POST: Heroines' Voices in Literature

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--Malcolm

Heroine's Journey Blog

2011-03-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

I have started a new blog called Sarabande's Journey to focus on the heroine's journey as I discover it while working on my sequel to The Sun Singer called Sarabande.

For years, pscyhotherapists, mythologists, authors and others have said that the hero's journey structure doesn't directly apply to the inner work done by women throughout their lives, much less to transformational literature about their paths to wholeness. As an author, I approach the subject as a generalist, researcher, reporter and--I hope--a sensitive interpretor.

I am relying, therefore, on two worlds of information as I write Sarabande. The story my muse and my imagination bring to me. And, the work done by such authors as Jules Cashford, Anne Baring and Laurens Van Der Post; Maureen Murdock; Sylvia Brinton Perera; Demetra George.

Writing a book is a journey in itself. It widens my horizons, it expands my consciousness, and it adds depth to my understanding of the world and of myself. This was very much the case insofar as the hero's journey was concerned as I wrote The Sun Singer and Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey. After the fact, as others began to ask where the themes and ideas originated from, I wished I'd kept a bibliography as the works progressed.

This time, I am. I make no claim to expert knowledge about the heroine's journey. I can sidestep that issue somewhat by saying I am, after all, writing fiction and not a definitive work on the journey itself. The books I discover are not the end of the journey for others who may be interested in this subject. They are a beginning.

I invite you to stop by Sarabande's Journey as the blog gets underway, evolves, twists and turns, gets stuck in labyrinths and, from time to time, finds ideas of interest to other seekers on the path.

--Malcolm

Author's Bookshelf: The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior

2011-03-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

You will know an author's passions, favorite topics and locales of choice by looking at the reference books on his shelf. Birds play important roles in my novels, especially ospreys, eagles, hawks, crows and ravens. Like many authors of my generation, I grew up with the Peterson Field Guides.

Whether you're a bird watcher with a "life list" or simply like to look up what you see while hiking or camping, the Peterson Guides are compact, encyclopedic, and small enough to fit in a knapsack. I refer to them often for quick reference about descriptions, size, range and bird calls.

However, if your characters are observing birds--or simply noting them in greater detail than comes from a casual glance or mention--then I recommend my favorite: The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. The picture shown here is of the cover of my hardback edition from 2001. However, if you prefer the Internet for your research or want information about later editions, you can learn more about the Sibley guides to birds and trees on this website.

This book is large, lavishly illustrated by David Allen Sibley and, for the author or novice bird watcher, quite definitive. If you don't use a Peterson Guide for quick facts, this bird life and behavior book is a fine companion to the Sibley Guide to Birds.

From the publisher: I envisioned it as a book that would function the way a good field trip leader does – pointing out the things that make the birds more interesting and that relate the birds to other species and to their environment, enriching the whole birding experience. I drew on my 11 years experience as a professional bird tour leader to set the style and to choose the types of information that would be presented in the guide.

Example of my use of the book: I have seen Ospreys in Glacier National Park, but until I looked them up in The Sibley Guide, I did not know that once they caught a fish in a lake, they turned it facing forward as they flew. This excerpt comes from The Sun Singer, a novel that mentions ospreys quite frequently:

Fractured world, tangle of sunlight and water, burst of air bubbles, golden pebbles beneath the surface, white flowers above the surface, and he explodes into the sweet air, anarchy of water and wing. He pauses, is pausing and shaking out his plumage, adjusts the fish he’s taken with its eyes forward, and rises on great wings onto the soft back of brother Wind and scans the wide blue for Eagle, thief of fish. Fish-hawk, he owns the sky and gives bent wings into the air, then glides, is gliding over rock toward the tall pine and the safe nest with two young soon to fledge.

If you are fascinated by birds in general and/or use them as characters, totems, symbols or as simply part of the scenery, I believe you'll enjoy The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior.

PS: I also use The Peterson Guides, referring often to my shelf of blue-covered paperbacks. Yet, for reasons of nostalgia, I'm drawn most often to the autographed Roger Tory Peterson 1941 edition of A Field Guide to Western Birds that once belonged to my mother. Note how tattered the dust jacket has become.

--Malcolm

Who do I have to sleep with to get a drip coffee maker that lasts?

2011-03-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

Writers need coffee more than they need a muse.

Drip coffee makers make that coffee fairly quickly with a minimum* of hands-on labor. The trouble is, they don't last.

I discovered several years ago that $70 to $90 coffee makers don't last any longer than the inexpensive brands. This discovery occurred about the same time I wised up and noticed that $70 - $90 sneakers fall apart just as fast as $20 sneakers.

Our Proctor Silex PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker came into the house on January 20th. The day was sunny and cool and there were no ominous omens, portents or other warnings present near the Family Dollar store on Washington Street or in our neighborhood.

According to the appliance maker's web site, Proctor Silex (a Hamilton Beach Brand) products are tested and proven. I would think so, because one expects a company that's been around since 1920 to know how to make great products.

Truth be told, my fictional characters and I swore by that inexpensive ($12.00) PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker day after day since January 20th. Two pots a day, every day, except during the week we were in Florida when (I think) we used a Mr. Coffee.

Tonight at 9:15 (eastern) while the BIG MOON was somewhere out there behind clouds, Sarabande--the protagonist in my novel in progress--and I swore at our Proctor Silex PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker because it just sat the like a bump on a log, like a dog that won't hunt, like one of the huddled masses of other plastic appliances taken to the county dump after a few months of faithful service.

I feel so used. After two, long months of merrily dripping away, my Proctor Silex crapped out. I know what to do when a coffee maker craps out. Boil water in a pan (which is made of metal and has been in the family for 20 years), and pour it through the basket of Maxwell House ground coffee.

Yes, Mr. Proctor and/or Mr. Silex and/or Mr. Hamilton and/or Mr. Beach, I kept the sales slip and the coffee maker instructions, and I read about the warranty. It's good for a year. All I have to do is box up my PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker in a manner that will keep it as safe from harm as an infant in a new car seat and mail it (prepaid and insured) to you for inspection and replacement.

Who are you kidding? The postage will be more than the pot is worth. That, plus the cold turkey withdrawal of NO COFFEE for the for the two to three weeks it takes you to send back a replacement. I don't need tarot cards or the I Ching to tell me I'll be shopping for a coffee maker tomorrow.

Whatever I buy won't last. Today's world is plastic and throw-away as the growing size of our dumps and landfills proves. But coffee is a drug. I've been hooked on it since May 25, 1963, a cold Montana day when I spent the morning shoveling a snowbank the size of a house out of a hotel driveway. The transitory warmth of a steaming white mug of Chase & Sandborn coffee led to a lifetime addiction.

I should have known better, but I was young and immortal then. I thought I knew everything, but I didn't know about all the nights in all the cheap motel rooms with nothing but lousy coffee or all the mornings at truck stops and diners paying for one cup after another; I didn't know that 48 years later, I'd be ready for a dime bag of anything before I'd try to sit here at my desk and write without my drug of choice.

Writers aren't allowed to crap out. We do what it takes to keep our readers supplied with the humor, horror, sex and thrills of books filled with drug-induced words.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of three coffee-induced novels, "The Sun Singer," "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey," and "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

*Don't even try to convince me that my habit will be well-satisfied by making coffee with one of those contraptions that brews one cup of fru-fru coffee at a time.

Site for Writers: Polka Dot Banner

2011-03-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

The Polka Dot Banner advertises itself as "an author's gathering place." While I wonder if the word authors' might be more appropriate here, I think sites like this should be great for authors. I like the name of this gathering place, so I'm spending a little time finding out what's available.

There are interesting articles, blogs, a place to load your latest book, and a forum for questions. Personally, I think the least important aspect of this (and similar sites such as Author's Den) is uploading information about my book. Doing that tends to give people the impression the sites are great for selling.

Frankly, I don't think they are. When it comes down to it, most of the people uploading books want to sell and few of them want to buy. Why don't they buy? Because they make purchases based on buzz, including word of mouth, reviews, an author's commanding Internet presence and possibly what they stumble across on Amazon or in a bricks and mortar store.

It's hard to sell books on sites that are filled with would-be sellers and very few readers. To me, then, the value of a site like the Polka Dot Banner is finding information, tips, links and other information of value to writers. Now that's something a lot of us can use.

What has been your experience with Red Room, Gather, Author's Den and other authors sites and book selling?

Recent Posts on Malcolm's Round Table

The Father of Florida Folk - Remembering singer and songwriter Will McLean

Crown of the Continent Resources - Listing of some of the agencies working on behalf of the environment in Montana, Alberta and British Columbia

A powerful story of motherhood, seasons and snakes - A review of Patricia Damery's wonderful new novel

And, a St. Paddy's Day satire called Broccoli and Beer on the "Morning Satirical News."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

--Malcolm

Ides of March 99 Cent Sale

2011-03-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

There's no need to be scared of the Ides of March. As Infoplease reminds us, there's an Ides every month (if you use the old Roman Calendar).

But, since the words "Ides of March" tend to get people's attention, Vanilla Heart Publishing is having a 99 cent Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire e-book sale on Smashwords. The e-book is available on Smashwords in multiple formats. The Kindle edition is included in the sale.

OFFICIAL BOOK BLURB:

Mainstream humor with a dash of mystery... A throwback to Hollywood’s film noir reporters, Jock Stewart is out of touch with the looming world of digital journalism.

While he goes out of his way to mock those in authority by pretending to kowtow to them, he admits he does his best work by “being an asshole.” A mix of Don Rickles and Don Quixote, Stewart is the man for the job when the skirts are up and the chips are down.

Hard-boiled reporter Jock Stewart wakes up on the morning after the Star-Gazer office party with a hangover and an old flame in his bed and he cuddles up with the mayor’s wife in the back seat of a 1953 Desoto. Between these defining moments, he investigates the theft of the mayor’s race horse Sea of Fire and the murder of his publisher’s girl friend, Bambi Hill.

Stewart discovers the truth for his news stories via an interview style based on lies, pretense and audacious behavior.

--Malcolm

My reading inadvertently merged with my writing

2011-03-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

My work on Sarabande, a heroine's journey, novel-in-progress, is unfolding much like my work on three previous novels: it sends me to Amazon, my bookshelf and numerous Internet sites for facts and inspiration.

However, sometimes raw synchronicity steps into the picture and brings me well-timed nourishment I didn't count on for on-going research.

During a recent trip to Florida to visit my brother and his family, I finished reading the novel I took with me sooner than expected. So, I stole a copy of Zora Neale Hurston's poetic, heroine's journey novel off his bookshelf. Set in early 20th century Florida, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a strong, beautiful novel. It brought new perspectives about women seeking validation and authenticity into my consciousness.

Before an after the trip, I was busy reading an advance reader copy of Patricia Damery's novel Snakes, due out from il Piccolo editions March 21st. The novel focuses on the story of a woman who leaves the family farm in the Midwest to go to college in California, and then wonders about the choices she's made.

In my review of this book in Literary Afiionado, I write that "Snakes is a poetic meditation about the intertwined cycles of life and farming. It is also an evolving letter of love from Angela to her recently deceased father about life as it was, mundane and unexpected daily events, and, of course, the snakes. Snakes and the cycles of life are constant images throughout the book; snakes in the corn crib, snakes in the garden, snakes in the kitchen. We fear snakes, yet we also see them as protectors of the land and as symbols of the natural stages of everlasting life."

There couldn't have been a better time for me to read and review Snakes because it is very much on point to my needs as an author struggling to tell a story from a woman's point of view. Janie, a black woman living in a long-ago culture of central Florida in Hurston's novel and Angela, a Midwestern-born white farmer's daughter transplanted to California in Damery's novel, are very different people in settings that could hardly be more disparate. Yet, there I found that my work on Sarabande made me a wonderful melting pot for the universal sentiments in two novels that inadvertently merged with my writing.

You May Also Like

The Shadow Knows – Books for the Journey - resources for understanding the concept of the shadow as it applies to the hero's journey.

Portrait of a Writer as a Young Man - I don't like being asked when I decided to become a writer, but that doesn't mean I can't answer the question.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey"

Save $$$ and trees: read an e-book this week

2011-03-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

I think that I shall never see
a billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
- Ogden Nash

I think that I shall never see
a paperback tall as a free.
Perhaps unless more e-books fly,
Fewer trees will each the sky
--Malcolm R. Campbell

Welcome to the 2011 "Read an E-book" Celebration at Vanilla Heart Publishing and Smashwords. Get 25% off on our VHP featured books, including "The Sun Singer."

The Sun Singer

Young Robert Adams is going on a family vacation unlike any other family vacation in the history of the universe. His parents worry about the family's secrets, but they refuse to share. His grandfather has been injured, so he no longer remembers, though he does know he left a mission incompleted and that those dear to him are in danger. Follow Robert into a world where magic runs deeper than the mountain rivers, and where he will have to use a rare talent he has up to now tried to forget.

Malcolm

When do all those book promo superlatives turn you into an addict?

2011-02-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

I enjoy reading through the ads and blurbs in the Baker&Talor book catalogue to find new titles for my TBR list and check in on what's happening in the world of copywriter superlatives.

As a reader, I need more an more superlatives every month because they are like cocaine. It used to be that the words "an enjoyable novel" got me to plunk down my money. Then, I became numb to that, and needed to see "a blazing and enjoyable novel." Soon, the word "novel" was forgotten altogether, and everything became "a read."

A gut-ripping read. A jaw-dropping read. A fast-paced read. A blood-curdling read.

In the February catalogue, there are enough superlatives in the full-paged ad for Delirious that I'm now delirious from the blurbs alone:

blistering
fast-paced
edge of sanity
mind-bending
great thriller
high-speed thrill ride
electrifying ride
non-stop suspense
fiendishly clever
techno savvy

If the novel delivers, then what? I'm going to be damaged goods until I can score a new book and that promises an even greater high. My mind will be bent as I try to cope with the withdrawal and the drain on my income and the inevitable fast-paced ride to the rehab center where I won't be allowd to escape until I can stand up in front of a group of people and admit that I was an addict out for a high-speed thrill ride.

Brothers and sisters, I will say meekly, one adjective leads to two, and two lead two four, and pretty soon you can't get enough no matter how fiendishly clever you think you are. Learn from those of us who have gone to Delirious and back and have lived to tell the tale. Think about your families and your self-esteem and what your brains look like when they're on adjectives.

Let us pray it's not too late.

Malcolm R. Campbell
Author of Soul-Strangling Hero's Journey Novels
Gardern of Heaven

Potentially shunned by Prince William and Catherine...and other matters

2011-02-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

Shockingly, my invitation to the royal wedding never arrived. I feel less depressed about it today, though, as I read that the President and the First Lady were also not invited. I don't know how the President feels, but I'm hoping the whole thing is a misunderstanding rather than an intentional shunning.

Teaser Tuesday

This week's Teaser Tuesday, "The Other Life" by Ellen Meister is here. After writing about alternate universes in The Sun Singer, I'm immediately intrigued by other novels about parallel lives in different realms.

Lee Libro's Review of The Sun Singer

Author Lee Libro (Swimming With Wings) posted a nice review of The Sun Singer on her Literary Magic blog. Thanks for reading, Lee.

You May Also Like

What do you need to become a successful author? Thoughts about the long haul to writing success along with a few links.

Hero's Journey: Books for the trip. I like the way Jonathan Shay has focused on war veterans and their needs with his hero's journey books Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America.

Malcolm R. Campbell
“Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey”
Author of hero’s journey novels
http://www.malcolmrcampbell.com

Books that help authors: Premium Promotional Tips for Writers

2011-02-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

Once you publish your novel, how will readers find out about it?

The question may be somewhat moot if your book is being hyped with a $200,000 promotional budget by one of the mega-publishing conglomerates. But, if you self-published or went with a small press, you have work to do.

Fortunately, others have figured out how to navigate the promotional road ahead of you and are willing to share. I like Jo-Anne Vandermeulen's approach in her pragmatic, real-world e-book Premium Promotional Tips for Writers.

I like her approach because, she's been there and done that. She didn't pay a marketing company to figure out how to sell her work; she learned what it took by going out and doing it. Her information in "Premium Promotional Tips for Writers" is the kind that you can implement today.

Malcolm R. Campbell
“Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey”
Author of hero’s journey novels
MalcolmRCampbell.Com

etc. pondering wolves in the scheme of things

2011-02-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

I'm a firm believer in the proposition that nature knows what it's doing.

We tinker, I think, at our peril. For example, some say life would be better in numerous ways if we got rid of the wolves. Look what happened to Little Red Riding Hood, for goodness sake.

I'm partial to wolves. I used a pair of white wolves, Lord and Lady Snowdrift, out of Montana's history as minor characters in Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey because they helped illustrate the insanity of one man who killed wolves with the relish of a preacher charging after Satan.

Learning to live with nature instead of separate from nature is, I think, not only good citizenship and good stewardship, but pragmatically essential to our own survival in our finite world. When we do not consider the consequences of our quick fixes to such challenges as living with wolves, a domino effect of consequences often occurs.

Case it point: removing wolves from Glacier National Park was previously a death warrant for news stands of aspen trees returning to fire-damaged areas. And that's just the beginning. Bringing wolves back has, however, helped the aspens. Why? Without the wolves, there were too many elk, and too many elk meant a lot of hungry critters munching their way through the trees.

Turns out, we need the wolves more than we thought we did. In fact, a whole ecosystem depended on them being there.

Conservation biologist Cristina Eisenberg has much to teach us as she explores the relationships between predators and prey in her wonderful book The Wolf's Tooth. While all of us may not need to read this book to craft a positive attitude toward nature as it was meant to be, the concept of trophic cascades--habitats, biodiversity, the food change from top to bottom--is an idea worthy of consideration each time we get the urge to tinker with an ecosystem that is already perfect.

As for how we might keep an excessive number of Little Red Riding Hoods in check, that is a challenge I'll leave for the philosophers to ponder.

--Malcolm

February Special - 'The Sun Singer'

2011-02-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

This month, you can purchase the PDF-format version of The Sun Singer for only $3.99. The novel, published by Vanilla Heart, is also available in paperback and Kindle versions. Here's the link for the special.

Book Description

When young Robert Adams sees the statue of the Sun Singer in a lonely meadow, he experiences a powerful flow of energy that brings him the gift of prophecy. Knowledge of the future is exhilarating: his friends even call him the Soothsayer of West Wood Street. Then the gift becomes deadly serious, and he tries to throw his cursed talent away.

In failing health, Grandfather Elliott sends Robert on a dangerous journey. The aging avatar has left old missions unfinished and lives are at stake. After stepping through a portal into look-alike world, Robert knows he must resurrect his dangerous gift to survive.

This hero's journey story takes readers deep into a hidden mountain world where time and space can be bent by an apple wood hiking staff--if one knows how to call forth its power. Robert must learn the secrets of the sun before his grandfather's friends are destroyed by the dark magic of the moon.

Not a small matter, but Robert hopes that in the process, he finds his way back home.

The Sun Singer is set in Glacier National Park.

Praise for "The Sun Singer"

“The Sun Singer is gloriously convoluted, with threads that turn on themselves and lyrical prose on which you can float down the mysterious, sun-shaded channels of this charmingly liquid story.” – Diana Gabaldon, Echo in the Bone (Outlander)

“It is high adventure that his grandfather plans for Robert and for all in the family. We are not surprised to learn that Mother disapproves of the journey. Do not mothers always disapprove of the fun grandfathers plan for the boy in the family? It is not just fun, in this case, that Mother opposes; she is against dabbling in magic.” – Living Jackson Magazine

“This magical coming-of-age tale takes the reader through a labyrinth as a teenage boy/man sets off into the cosmic dimensions of the unknown to redeem his grandfather's kingdom and rightfully claim his position in life as a true leader. What I'd give to have Malcolm Campbell's imagination, wisdom, wit, and mastery of the written word.” – Mel Mathews, SamSara (Malcolm Clay Series)

etc - brenda

2011-02-12T16:02:00.000-08:00

I thought about Brenda today while working on a scene in Sarabande.

Years have passed by since I saw her, that frail, dark-haired child whose world was defined by the walls of the state department of mental health center where she lived, where I was--for a brief time--a manager of one of the group homes.

In those days, I had high hopes for the adults, young adults and children who came to that center after years of being warehoused in an older state facility where nobody got a lot of care and the mentally ill and retarded individuals were simply out of place and out of mind.

Brenda was profoundly mentally retarded, quite likely autistic. Her paperwork said little. Her parents were unknown. I knew one thing, though, that had not been entered into her file.

She had been sexually abused. I knew because she told me. Not with words, but inadvertently one night when I was--in a Shamanistic way--asking what had happened and what we could do for her. The abuse played a primary role in who she was and who she had become.

I think of her as I work on my novel because I'm looking at womens issues, issues which go to the warp and weft of our society's fabric: rape, assault, abuse, stimulus deprivation. Like Brenda, many of the people in our facility of group homes would never have come there had they been cared for even minimally from the day they were born.

One of Eric Berne's more cynical comments comes to mind: words to the effect of, when you look at how a person has turned out, consider what you would have to do to them as children to create what you are now seeing. That gives you an idea about their background, what happened to them, why they are developmentally disabled and/or suffering from mental illness.

Brenda will always remain in my memory as the resident I could have helped more, had I known more, had I been in that job longer, had there been some obvious way to intervene in her life. In those days when my dreams were more psychic, I saw her playing with others while I--knowing I was moving to another town--saw myself looking out a window at the far stars.

I have no skills for handling such matters other than, perhaps, hope. Suffice it to say, I was not then or now a miracle worker. Nonetheless, I wonder if more could have been said and done.

She was part of a pivotal moment when I was opting not to go into psychology. This moment begins many of my what if? speculations about life's pathways.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of The Sun Singer.

Saturday's Bits and Pieces

2011-02-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

"If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?" -- Anonymous

The authors at Vanilla Heart Publishing are thinking about love and chocolate as Valentine's Day approaches. We're thinking about you, too, and hope you have a special someone to share the day with. If you enjoy reading to each other, we've got the perfect gift: a free PDF book filled with love, stories, humor, and recipes. For your copy, click here: Malcolm's Valentine's Gift.

Finally, Sunetra Gupta's latest novel Go Good in Black, published two years ago in New Delhi, has found a U.S. publisher. It will be released next month from Clockroot Books. The website includes a comment from my review of the earlier edition:

Well worth the wait: So Good in Black, Sunetra Gupta’s first novel in ten years, is character-driven literary fiction, featuring a non-linear plot, Spartan passages of stylized and pointed verbal jousting between characters, and highly evocative descriptive passages... Gupta’s most powerful work to date challenges the reader with the dynamic and often contradictory shadows cast by friendship across the illusory counterpane of certainty and time.

Deborah J. Ledford has followed up her stunning debut novel Staccato (Second Wind Publishing, 2009) with the highly readable, taut thriller Snare. Set in the Great Smoky Mountains and the Taos Pueblo in Central New Mexico, the novel has been nominated for a Hillerman Sky Award. My review is posted on March of Books.

And, for those of you who write, here's a tempting new anthology from PEN Canada coming out next week. See January Magazine's comments here.

My writing focus continues to be Sarabande, the heroine's journey sequel to The Sun Singer. Once NaNoWriMo was over, I returned to my usual leisurely writing pace where I listen to my muse when she has something to say and don't worry about deadlines when she doesn't.

Have a great weekend and a happy Valentine's Day.

--Malcolm

Win a free copy of 'Garden of Heaven'

2011-02-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

It's easy. Click here and you'll be transported to my Almanac web log where--if you leave a comment--you'll be entered in my Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey give-away.

Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey tells the story of David Ward after first love and a war derail his life again and again.

Excerpts

Jane’s laugh is obscured by the sound of a runner’s feet. A young woman, almost familiar, explodes in a flash of blue and white through a gap in the hedge and careens into me as startled cedar waxwings take flight. Her arms envelope me as we fall. Pinned beneath her, I awaken by degrees to her body rising and falling along the whole of me like incoming waves on a beach—have we not been together like this before, perhaps dreams—to her warm breath, and to the open front of her white poorboy sweater.

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Night was settling down over the hazy first lights of the bars and hourly rate hotels along Magsaysay Drive and the razor-sharp edges of Kalaklan Ridge like an old whore.

David dropped several 25-centavo coins over the railing, heard an explosion of whitewater, heard the laughter and the shouting, ‘Salamat, Joe, Salamat.’

He crossed Perimeter Road, ignored the hopeful greetings of the money changers behind their well-caged windows, then dodged a badly mixed throng of sailors, girls and honking multi-coloured jeepneys that swelled out into the Gordon Avenue intersection. He cut across the street, smiling, waving at imagined friends in the distance, and moved with the deliberate intent of a man who had crossed this street hundreds of times.

‘Casual alertness, that’s the key to surviving Olongapo’s jungle of thieves, gangs, girls, high-strung Marines, bored Shore Patrol and Hard Hats, and drunk boatswain’s mates and snipes,’ Lowell had said.

--Hey Joe, cold beer cold beer cold beer, nice girls.
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I'll draw one commenter's name out of a hat on April 1. Plenty of time, but don't forger.

Malcolm

Creative sparks and the real protagonist

2011-02-04T19:22:00.000-08:00

The main character in a novel or short story is called the protagonist. Within a typical story structure, the protagonist faces a problem or challenge that introduces conflict into his/her life. This conflict and its ultimate resolution are what draw us as readers into the story.

If the protagonist solves the problem too quickly and/or too easily, the story is usually boring and without sparks. If the protagonist tries multiple times over many pages to solve the problem, readers may drift away from the story unless they see movement in the plot. Again, the sparks have faded. I like literary fiction, so I am generally fairly patient with outcomes that take some time to evolve. But I like to see a purpose in it whether it's a puzzle of a subplot or a shift to another character's view point.

As a reader and as a reviewer, my eyes glaze over when I confront stasis in the work. I am comfortable with long interior monologues, flights of fancy, dreams, descriptions, explorations of place settings, and plots within plots within plots. But the story must move--somehow, somewhere. The spark cannot have gone out.

Stasis is unnatural in nature, yet when we allow it into our own lives it makes us feel stuck, hopeless, powerless, small, depressed and off-line with the world as it is. When I read a short story or a novel that is stuck--as opposed to the protagonist being or feeling stuck--I begin to question the author's state of mind when s/he wrote the material. Was s/he stuck in some way? If so, did his or her feeling of being stuck somehow find its way into the material?

As reader, I often ask that question. It's rhetorical, of course, because authors aren't likely to appreciate e-mails out of nowhere that imply that their own challenges may have extinguished the sparks their stories could have, should have, might have had.

As an author, I try to remain sensitive to the movement of my protagonist throughout the book. I realize that on days when I am stuck, my attitude about the protagonist shifts. I find myself making his or her lot in life more difficult and the chances of success less likely. I try not to write on such days because it spoils the story.

When I write, I feel that "behind the curtain" of my fiction, I am the real protagonist. I am being changed as I write even though the main character in the story may have little or nothing in common with me. When I stop being changed by what I am writing, the story stops being interesting.

That's when I have to step away from the work until I get my personal spark back from wherever I lost it.

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You may also like:

Review: 'Razor's Revenge' by Paul Chandler
Things That Are Puzzling (where I ask why writers seem to talk more about trivia than writing)
What if all our fiction becomes true? (where I dabble in quantum speculation)
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Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of The Sun Singer, Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey, and Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire.

His work also appears in Forever Friends, Nature's Gifts and 100 Years, 100 Stories.

The Day I Sat with Jesus on the Sundeck and a Wind Came Up and Blew My Kimono Open and He Saw My Breasts

2011-02-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

When she was 70, Edmonton, Alberta author Gloria Sawai collected the stories representing a lifetime of work into a spare and magical volume called A Song for Nettie Johnson that holds the beauty of the prairie and the pious, poor, dark, and delightful people who live there "on the margins" within its pages. The book won the Governor General's Literary Award in 2002.

Sawai likes the symbolism of stone and grace. Nora Foster Stovel said that the stone suits the "flinty side" of the work and the Governor General's Award said, "The power of grace illuminates her world." Sawai's spartan, plain-spoken use of language may remind some readers of Plainsong by Kent Haruf.

The opening novella from which the collection gets its title, "A Song for Nettie Johnson," begins: From her chair at the edge of the quarry she looks down at the the bottom of the pit--as wide and as long as a garden, as big as a front yard with grass, or the sunny porch of a white mansion far away.

And later, when describing the nearby town: If you were a bird, a large bird say, or better yet an angel, a young angel sent from the north of heaven, and if you were flying south on this day, over the town of Stone Creek, and if your muscles were strong and the sinews of your wings sturdy so you could balance above the town, resisting the winds that could blow you past Regina into Manitoba, and if you were looking down as you paused in your flight, you would see below you a huddle of rugged buildings beside slim and dusty roads.

I find the work stunning, and appreciate its confluence of magic and the natural world. Stovel summarizes the stories well: "Sawai's dedication of A Song for Nettie Johnson to her parents, brothers, and children suggests the core of kinship in this collection. The power and the pain of family, of blood relations, challenge and sustain the acute sensibility of the girl-child as she is initiated into the mysteries of the adult world in such sensitive stories as 'The Ground You Stand On' and 'Hosea's Children.' The cover image, 'Woman Dancing in Meadow' by Gary Isaacs, portrays a woman rooted to the earth but reaching for the sky--an apt symbol for the central consciousness of these stories."

The final story in the book, "The Day I Sat with Jesus on the Sundeck and a Wind Came Up and Blew My Kimono Open and He Saw My Breasts." previously appeared in twelve anthologies. It's not surprising. The title gets one's attention. It has been called blasphemous, and that's nonsense that misses the point and the message and the transcendence of the events of a windy day when Jesus stopped by for a visit.

Speaking of the clarity the world brings to a person during extraordinary events, the protagonist says, You can imagine how distinctly I remember the day Jesus of Nazareth, in person, climbed the hill in our backyard to our house, then up the outside stairs to the sundeck where I was sitting. And how he stayed with me for awhile. You can surely understand how clearly those details rest in my memory.

How matter-of-fact Sawai is in writing about His arrival: First he was a little bump on the far, far-off prairie. Then he was a mole way beyond the quarry. Then a larger animal, a dog, perhaps, moving out there through the grass. Nearing the quarry, he became a person. No doubt about that. A woman, perhaps, still in her bathrobe. But edging out from the rocks, through the weeds, toward the hill, he was clear to me. I knew who he was. I knew that just as I knew the sun was shining.

Reading "A Song for Nettie Johnson" and "Oh Wild Flock, Oh Crimson Sky" and "The Dolphins" and "The Day I Sat with Jesus on the Sundeck and a Wind Came Up and Blew My Kimono Open and He Saw My Breasts" simultaneously anchors a person to the earth as surely as stone while setting him free into the sky as surely as wind and angels.

--Malcolm

Quick Sex, Weekend Relationships and Short Books

2011-01-28T13:47:00.000-08:00

They came for Middlemarch (904 pp), but I didn't speak up for it because I wasn't a Victorian. Then they came for The Adventures of Augie March (608 pp), and I didn't speak up for it because I heard it was bad for the Jews. Then they came for Ulysses (556 pp), but I didn't speak up for it because I was still pissed off about having to read Finnegans Wake (672 pp) in school. Then they came for A Visit From the Goon Squad, which at 288 pages was suddenly too long, but by then nobody gave a what the what about books at all. -- Barbara Finkelstein: In Defense of Long Books

Barbara Finklestein tries to shame us into reading long books with her "Martin Niemöller guilt card," but it's too late.

Truth be told, the world is searching for one-minute orgasms, weekend relationships and short books. Anything longer requires commitment.

Word on the street is that if you can't get your foreplay done between text messages, your sex is out of hand. Sure,some (fewer every day) remember the good old days when still waters ran deep, but shallow is the new normal whether you're looking at a doctor's appointment, a marriage or psychoanalysis--much less a novel.

Actually, if you can remember the good old days, you're already behind the curve of the nine-second sound bite, 24-second news cycle and the nanosecond page load. Fast is good because it frees up more time for instant gratification.

Sure, some (fewer every minute) remember the good old days when we understood that "speed kills," but now anything else is too slow a way to die. These days, anything other than fast food is a waste of time, time that can be used for unlimited peak experiences and more input.

Needless to say, if you remember anything that happened prior to 30 minutes ago, you're spending too much time thinking and too little time keeping up with what's happening now. Here we're not speaking of the timeless "eternal now," but the temporal finite now. Even the word "now" has gotten too long.

In our rush, we've given up long books. Used to be, a long book was like a long marriage or sex that lasted all evening. Now, long books require too much commitment. We need to protect ourselves from commitment, that is to say, anything that requires more that a moment of our time. Otherwise, how foolish we are. Who wants to send a text message these days that admits to thirty minutes of anything?

Writers are already worrying about the day when a Tweet is the longest thing in the galaxy anyone will read.

One can't help but applaud an approach to life that offers a constant blank slate. Yesterday is not only irrelevant, it might not have happened. If you remember the uproar that hit the planet when the concept of "Situation Ethics" first came up, suffice it to say you're remembering an illusion. Yet, to forget is to have situation ethics and literature that fits on a cell phone screen and everything else that is the soul of wit.

Here's the important truth and there's no point in whining about it: Anything longer than a brief, shining moment is an eternity outside the boundaries of our attention span.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire," a satirical novel that you can be reading in less than a New York minute on your Kindle.

'Garden of Heaven' paperback price reduced 20%

2011-01-26T11:44:00.000-08:00

Paperback Edition

I'm happy to announce that the retail price for the paperback edition of my novel Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey has been reduced by 20%. You will find the book on Amazon for $18.75.

Vanilla Heart Publishing's PDF-format edition of the novel is available on OmniLit for $5.99.

Garden on Heaven: an Odyssey is a hero’s journey novel about a man those first love was almost his last. You can learn more about the novel on its website and read an excerpt from the novel on fReado.

Publisher's Description

Electronic Edition

When nineteen-year-old David Ward climbs the sacred mountain Ninaistuko seeking a vision, the golden eagle of earth flings him back onto the prairie and the black horse of dreams shows him the future. Though his eyes are opened, fate hides exactly what he needs to know.

David has grown up on a Montana sheep ranch where bluebunch wheatgrass and rough fescue have long served, where the sky detests fences, where the seasons are task masters, where predators and gods strip the impractical from the bone.

As life draws him away, he leaves with powerful lessons learned from his grandparents. Jayee, his utilitarian railroad man grandfather, has taught him the language of the plains. Katoya, his mystical Blackfeet grandmother, has taught him the language of the mountains. He soon loses his fluency in both.

He meets his first love amongst Indian paintbrush and larkspurs in the high-country of the Garden of Heaven and then becomes separated from her on the far side of Florida's Crooked River in Tate's Hell Swamp. His life shatters into a kaleidoscopic puzzle.

David begins finding the widely scattered pieces at the summit of Chogori, the world's most difficult mountain, and on an aircraft carrier deployed to the Western Pacific during the Vietnam War. Others lie upside down in Chicago, Hawai'i, the Philippines and the Netherlands.

After he lands a teaching job at a small college in central Illinois, he suspects he was conjured there by a woman standing in the moonlight on Moon Hill. Siobhan, the wise woman in his life tells he will never understand what has happened to him until he can answer the question: "who tried to kill me and why?"

As a "light-dancer," he remembers well the alchemists' guiding principle: "By fire is nature renewed whole." He suspects all paths lead to that point.

Malcolm R. Campbell is also the author of "The Sun Singer" and "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire," both of which are available on Kindle and in paperback.

The Soul of a Great Book

2011-01-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens." -- Carlos Ruiz Zafón in "The Shadow of the Wind"

The Shadow of the Wind had everything in it I look for in a book: magic, an intricate plot, multiple intrigues, and stakes that kept going up as I turned each page.

Of the novel, Booklist wrote, "Part detective story, part boy's adventure, part romance, fantasy, and Gothic horror, the intricate plot is urged on by extravagant foreshadowing and nail-nibbling tension. This is rich, lavish storytelling, very much in the tradition of Ross King's Ex Libris (2001)."

I will re-read the book again and again for that rich and lavish storytelling as well as its the detective story. But it stays with me primarily because of its themes, one being that every book has a soul that begins with the author and expands as readers pick up the novel and read it. We smile at this, I suppose, seeing a bit of quaint animism in the notion.

Perhaps soul isn't a word we're comfortable with here. Perhaps influence is better, an influence that grows over time so that we begin to see the characters and settings as actual, as having happened in another time or place, or perhaps yet to happen, but more real even than the people we meet on the street or those who live next door an invite us over for beer and barbecue and then leave the TV on so that we know their food and their tastes in entertainment and then go home seeing them as very finite compared to, say, Rhett Butler or Scarlett O'Hara or Harry Potter or Elmer Gantry.

As people read, books often become larger than life, so much larger than the characters and plot that first began taking shape inside an author's head, so much larger than "a book about a school of wizardry" or a book about "a carefree boy growing up along the Mississippi River." The story grows as others read it, think about it, fantasize about the events and characters in it, and then go talk to their friends about it and wonder whether there will be a sequel or a movie version coming soon. All of this transcends advertising and buzz and hype, for once all that is gone, each of us sits alone in our quiet moments with the book in our hands, and there we drink in the words and they change us at the very same moment our association with the book is changing the book.

Soul and spirit and influence don't quite cover what is happening here, but what a marvelous interchange of realities and dreams comes to us from "Once upon a time" and all that follows.
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--Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of Garden of Heaven, a hero's journey novel about heaven, hell, love, and war and the differences between them.

Novelist and Shaman

2011-01-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

When I compare sources describing the shaman's journey and the novelist's journey, I see similarities. Both begin their journeys by relaxing, setting aside distracting thoughts, calming themselves and using their imaginations as the catalyst for the trip that follows. In both cases, the imagination begins the journey, but isn't the journey itself.

Information--whether visual, heard, or sensed--comes to both the shaman and the novelist through motifs and symbols they know and are used to interpreting. During their training, both are urged to journey with intent but with a nonjudgemental attitude. Listen, pay attention, remember and record what happens.

Like the shaman, the novelist often goes through preparatory rituals. In both cases, these serve the same function: they facilitate, empower and honor the trip. The shaman may keep a feather close at hand and ride down to a theta brainwave frequency on the beat of a drum, and that journey may always begin with a nonphysical point of departure such as a meadow or an old log or a camp fire. The novelist may work in a room with meaningful photographs and artwork, and ride into the otherworld of the story s/he is telling on the ticking of a clock or the play of light through the window or music for the moment.

My point of departure in either mode is an "imaginary cabin" in a real valley in Glacier National Park. Those who meditate, whatever their intent, often visualize their departure points as relaxing beaches, meadows, lakes and mountain tops. Once there, the imagination backs away and the journeying, listening, or healing begins.

I placed my "imaginary cabin" in a location I'd physically traveled to many times. It's also a location that has been captured in many photographs, so I see the valley in nearby pictures here in my den before I see it in my mind's eye. I have been using this cabin for meditation for almost 40 years. Over time, it's taken on all the comforts of home. At the beginning, I relied on longer relaxation techniques to "get there." Now, I can "be there" in an instant.

My journeys overlap. That is to say, there are few boundaries for me between a shamanic journey and a writing journey, for in both cases, I am soaking up information and inspiration. My novels The Sun Singer and Garden of Heaven both mention this cabin. Sarabande, my novel in progress, also mentions it. While readers know what the cabin looks like from the descriptions in my books, I think an intuitive shaman or psychic could probably find the cabin in nonordinary reality and see that it is no less real there than the lake it sits beside.

If you write, you probably have your own rituals, techniques, and processes. Maybe you puzzle together your first drafts the way a carpenter builds a cabinet or may you type very rapidly and just let the story flow out across the page or the screen.

While I like the "power" of all the comfortable objects that resemble clutter to everyone else, you may prefer a clean desk and a room with a minimal number of photographs or art works. We each do what works for us. But, should you tell me that there are times when your characters talk to you when you're not even at work and/or that when you are writing, your characters do and say unexpected things, then I'm going to smile and see that there is some journeying in your approach.

Like a shaman, the novelist, composer or artist at work has an opportunity to learn much that s/he did not previously know just from going through the process of creation. In some ways, the book, song or painting that may occasionally result is a byproduct of what is really unfolding within the individual.

--Malcolm

Contemplating the News Value of Paris Hilton's Butt

2011-01-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

Skimming through back issues of the online NYDailyNews, one sees that editors considered Paris Hilton's ass newsworthy in Oops! Paris Hilton reveals full moon in sheer leggings disaster just two scant days before Thanksgiving last year.

Frankly, even my fictional reporter Jock Stewart won't stoop this low.

Considering standards, let's stipulate that the ass report was probably timely. That is, unlike this post, the story was filed right after the ass appeared.

News should also be real. Here, I have no way to judge any more than I can judge the nearby story, "Whoa! Kim Kardashian flaunts her famous assets." In this case, the assets weren't an ass. But reality is a relative thing: you decide.

Looking at news as a story of an idea, event or problem, I don't know whether the assets or the ass were a problem, much less an idea. But, like "Heidi Montag suffers major wardrobe malfunction in Costa Rica while swimming in tiny bikini" we presume the revealing moments were actual events.

It is said that news interests people. Putting these stories in the same "interests people" bucket as car wrecks on the road, they are a feast for unapologetic gapers. "Jaw dropping," is a term we often hear.

For news to be news, it must be either near or big. Little events far away seldom attract our attention, while big ones do. Objects in a gossip reporter's field of vision may, like things seen in rear view mirrors, may be closer than they appear. This concept must apply to butts and bosoms.

While the Hilton report probably didn't cause gossip columnist Walter Winchell to turn over in his grave, I can't help but think that Edward R. Murrow and Ernie Pyle would say that even though the ass in question involves the words "Paris" and "Hilton," it's not all its cracked up to be.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire and the Morning Satirical News web log.

Southern Snow Keeps Many People at Home

2011-01-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Here in the south--Jackson County Georgia, to be specific--six or seven inches of snow means schools are closed, many businesses are closed, and (apparently) even the post office shuts down neighborhood delivery. The kids have a field day while mom and dad try to run the house with extra people in it.

Since our cats don't go to school, my wife and I don't have extra work when it snows. Some things, like Monday morning grocery shopping get postponed. With the freezing drizzle on top of the snow, we might not even take the cars out tomorrow.

When I lived in Waukegan, Illinois, I had a one-hour commute to work under the best of conditions. When it snowed, we were still expected to be there regardless of how long it took. Woe be unto the person who claimed they were snowed in when people were already at the office from the more rural areas that saw fewer snow ploughs.

I look at our cars sitting here in the driveway, and get a bit of a guilty feeling about it. If I still lived in northern Illinois, I'd be brushing all that snow off, shoveling the driveway as needed, and driving some forty miles to work. Jackson County gets measurable snow so infrequently in spite of our Christmas snow last year, that none of us are expected to go anywhere or do anything other than talk about the weather.

--Malcolm

My eyes glaze over when I read about optimizing web sites

2011-01-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

If you ever write a post about optimizing web sites, I'm not going to read it. Why? Well, frankly, I see so many posts like this that after a while they become more platitudinous noise in the environment like posts reminding us to stay hydrated while jogging or to brush our teeth before we go to bed.

So, I will not describe here my time and effort this week to update my Garden of Heaven web site so that more people will find it, read a little here and a little there and then buy the novel. My intent was to splash more of my passions around the site and hope that others with those passions might enjoy reading about them in my fiction.

For me, all of this answers the question: what drives you? What do you like, what do you write about, and might people with similar feelings and likes be drawn to your fiction? If you like this question, you can read my post about it here: Authors, What Drives You?

Glacier National Park

My passions include Montana, mountains and hero's journey stories. Since Garden of Heaven and The Sun Singer are both hero's journey novels set partly in Glacier National Park, I added more Glacier information on my web site. If you're passionate about Glacier National Park and/or are thinking about becoming passionate about it, you might enjoy another of my historical posts about it here: All Aboard for Glacier National Park.

Screwing Mark Twain

The misguided people in charge of NewSouth Books believe they are helping literature and/or today's school children by removing the word "nigger" from Huckleberry Finn and replacing it with the word "slave." They claim they are simply finding a new way to express the truth. The truth about the days when Twain's characters lived and breathed is what they lived and breathed. One of those things was the word "nigger."

Those who want to "update literature" are doing authors a great disservice. Worse yet, they are doing today's readers a great disservice. The New York Times article about the screwing of Mark Twain is here. Author Lee Libro has a wonderful post about it here. I take a more indirect approach by writing satire about it here where a fictional book publisher issues a "cleaned up" biography of Harriet Tubman without the pejorative word "slave" in it.

Another Snowy Weekend

We had snow in northeast Georgia for Christmas. Now, weather forecasters are telling us we're going to have even more snow this coming weekend.Maybe five inches.

Atlanta and the towns to the north of it tend to be overly anxious about snow, so this weather report may be making a blizzard out of a few random flakes.Better safe than sorry, we say, especially those of us who remember the "Snow Jam" of 1982 and the very real blizzard of 1993.

If so, it will be a good time to stay inside and read--after throwing a few snowballs, of course.

--Malcolm

Stories as a writer's fuel

2011-01-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

I have always found that when I am reading interesting books, my writing is better. Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot often told people he solved crimes by using his "little grey cells." As a writer, I think those little grey cells remain more creative, alive and imaginative when they're constantly discovering or re-discovering "story input" from new and exciting novels or old "comfort food" novels.

Several days ago, I put the following quote on my Facebook page from writer Myla Goldberg from her review of Jose Saramago's Blindness: "I am not a person who re-reads books. The world is too large, and life too short. A book re-read steals time away from a new book I have yet to discover, a book that on my death bed will have gone unread."

Most of the people who commented on that quote said they re-read books. Some did it because the books were fun and comfortable; others because they saw something knew every time they re-read a favorite. Goldberg's point of saying that in her review was that Blindness is so good that she's read it more than once.

I typically re-read books when (a) the current book I'm reading is failing to hold my attention and/or (b) the story or the writing style draws me back to the book much like spending an evening over coffee with a good friend. Sometimes there's a message there for me: i.e., I read a portion of the book and, somehow, it answers a question that's been on my mind. Other times, I think the little grey cells have gotten bored and lead me to pick a title off the shelf that gets them un-bored.

Right now, I'm reading (finally) Kate Mosse's Labyrinth. I'm often attracted to "secrets" books where people--often in multiple time periods--are seeking or protecting some ancient bit of knowledge. Katherine Neville is often credited with having invented this genre, starting with The Eight and then following that up with The Fire. I've read both of those books more than once partly because I liked them, partly because alchemy is an interesting subject, and partly because I thought there were flaws in the plots of both and went through them again to discover why.

Kate Mosse's Labyrinth is providing excellent fuel for the little grey cells as I work on Sarabande, my sequel to The Sun Singer. Oddly enough, I was re-reading Neville's books during National Novel Writing Month when I began work on Sarabande. For me, one pre-requisite for the "stories as fuel" is that what I'm reading needs to be different from what I'm writing. It's not so much because I think I'll unconsciously copy style and plot elements from the books I read; it's more that I'm looking for a contrapuntal theme or feeling.

Lately, Mosse and Neville have provided just enough spice for the little grey cells to keep them awake and working on my own writing. I don't have any particular theory about books as fuel other than to suggest that maybe "like is compatible with like" or that "word beget words" or "stories beget stories."

I can understand why some readers never go back and re-read anything. Yes, life is short, as Goldberg said. Some people feel the same way about vacation spots, restaurants, museums and just about anything else that interests them. No matter how good "it" was, they prefer to go on to something new rather than re-visiting where they have been.

I understand. Yet, I like going back to favorite vacation spots like Glacier Park and Asheville, North Carolina. I like re-reading Pat Conroy's books. I like going to Outback Steak House again and again. And, my temperament and my little grey cells like finding inspiration in the words of others under the heading of both "new" and "rerun."

--Malcolm