Calum P. Cameron's Blog, page 3
June 9, 2013
Almost there, now...
I just finished the final proof-read of the second book in the series, 'Black, White and Shades of Mediochre'. All that remains now is to send the final version to the publishers and agree on a release date. Should I still force you all to wait until August? It could certainly be amusing...
To celebrate, though, and to keep you going until then, here's a preview of the book in question.
Enjoy,
Calum P Cameron
(The P Stands for Proof-reader)
---
Once more, the drone of the engine faded away as the car slowed down and parked. Once more, the doors opened and four pairs of shoes hit the ground in rapid succession.
Another door. Another house. Another mystery.
Although, technically, this wasn’t actually a house. It was more like a tenement block. A functional, grey cuboid, rising up into the skyline like a really big brick dropped in the middle of an otherwise pleasant garden. Except that, if one looked behind it, there were other identical bricks arranged there. Charlotte didn’t know if there was a collective noun for bricks. She didn’t really care. But looking at these flats, she couldn’t help but think that there should be one, and it should be something along the lines of ‘obstruction’. An obstruction of really, really big bricks.
The first immediate problem in their way was the door. It was, of course, locked. The council appeared to have developed, from somewhere, the notion that there would be people in the world who might have reason to wish to be inside this particular depressing obelisk. To gain ingress to these hallowed halls, the intrepid sanctuary-seeker would have to convince one of its resident keepers of the sacred locking mechanism. Or, as Mediochre illustrated, drag said mechanism open through clever manoeuvring of an IMP which, it turned out, would double as an electromagnet if you weren’t too worried about draining the battery.
“It’s all about the angles,” he explained off-handedly as they strolled inside. “Many things are. Pool. Archery. Standard Grade trigonometry.”
The second quandary to blight their valiant intrusion attempt was, fittingly, also a door. Namely the one to the apartment. Mediochre knocked politely. When an answer failed to present itself, he knocked impolitely. Again, a response spectacularly fell short of manifesting. Shrugging, he turned the handle. The door opened.
Mediochre did not like the way the door opened. After the flat had appeared so empty, such an unresisting opening couldn’t help but seem like a devious ploy. It had to be said that in his many years, Mediochre had never encountered a devious ploy concocted by a door before, but, nevertheless, caution seemed like the most productive course of action.
Mediochre allowed Joseph to push firmly past him, AFIK drawn. He followed, and Charlotte followed him, trying to look unlike a loose end. Dhampinella brought up the rear, silently as always. The flat opened out before them like a surprisingly boring pop-up book. It was wholly unremarkable. In fact, it was even less wholly remarkable than one would expect from the flat of two twentysomethings. There was some basic furniture, which was clean and tastefully arranged. There was a television set, which was off. There was even a pot plant, which was almost disappointingly alive.
Unperturbed, Joseph prodded open a door with his foot. This next room was a bedroom. Pale green carpet, washed-out blue walls. White bed sheets. Wardrobe, possibly pine. Quite nice really, for a council flat. Better than you’d expect, seeing it from the outside.
Dhampinella stopped. Stiffened. A look of incomprehension flitted across her striking face. She blinked, several times. Hesitated. Spoke.
“Joseph.”
Joseph immediately wheeled around, concern bordering on panic splashed across his features.
“What? Dhampinella?” The Dhampir shuddered.
“Living things in this room,” she said. “There are three. That’s you, Mediochre and the kid.”
“Uh-huh,” agreed Joseph. Dhampinella continued.
“But there’s no background fuzz. That’s unusual. And then I look for Undead creatures...” She tailed off. Dhampir never tail off. Despite this, Joseph remained in some semblance of calm.
“How many?” he asked. Dhampinella shook her head.
“I lose count after seventeen trillion.”
May 24, 2013
Update (and it's about time)
Assuming that anybody really cares deeply enough about my work to have noticed (which, despite the possible naiveté inherent therein, I usually do), it has probably dimly bubbled to the attention of some of you that I haven't said anything in a while, either here or on the Book of the Face page.
For this, I apologise. Alas, while it may be among the most entertaining aspects of my life, my writing is not the most pressing or, perhaps sadly, the most important, and this has been reflected in the unscheduled media silence recently while I was concentrating on exam revision and the comforting of friends stressed out by exam revision and, on more than three occasions, the indiscriminate eating of ice cream while watching Marvel movies required to allow the parts of my brain burned out by exam revision to heal. And the occasional desperate prayer. Where 'occasional' is used ironically. You've all been there, you know the drill.
Aaaanyway, what with all of the above, approximately zero progress has been made in the last month either in the writing of Book IV or in the final editing of Book II. I also haven't actually spoken with my publisher in all that time, because the guy in charge of that is ALSO going through the above right now. BUT - and this is the actual important bit that my spiel was actually trying to get around to - I DO intend to keep to my vaguely-defined deadline.
Those of you eagle-eyed enough to notice and nerdy enough to care will already have picked up on my promise to release Book II "Summer 2013" - a season which, me being British, starts in about a week (although the fact that I am British ALSO means I will not notice the difference </obligatoryscottishweathergag>). At the moment, the book is over half-way through the final edit. I have two more exams next week, and a few obligations over the summer holidays (including two MORE exams, probably), and I need to leave myself time to confer with the publisher before the release date, so it looks like this thing is going to take a little while longer, but I refuse to let down Past Me by breaking his promise (seriously, it's so hard to see the little guy upset. Past Me is adorable. So young and optimistic and full of life).
Thusly: Probably August.
The official release date for Black, White and Shades of Mediochre is "Probably August".
The publisher will probably provide a more helpful one at some point. I leave you with a quote from the book in question which, while completely irrelevant, nonetheless amuses me:
“Again with the skeletal hordes. I hate the skeletal hordes!”
Peace out,
Calum P Cameron (The P Stands for Put-upon)
Actually Kind Of A Fan Of Skeletal Hordes
April 23, 2013
Heartfelt Request (and not a very demanding one)
Friends! Romans! Countrymen!
Do I actually have any Roman fans? Seems unlikely...
NO, CALUM! FOCUS!
Right. William Fraser (Personal Lifesaver to Calum P Cameron) and I have an urgent request for any of you who have read the first book. I don't understand precisely how this stuff works (William tried to explain, bit I lost concentration half-way through. He mentioned an "advertising rung", which I think might be a bit of a ladder you hang flyers from), but apparently it would make things supermuch easier for us if you guys could all go on Amazon and write up a review of the book.
Doesn't have to be a big one, or an in-depth one, or even a serious one. But, as I understand it, if enough people go to the attached page and click the "write a customer review" button, then some kind of internet magic happens and after a while I become famous, or something.
Do it for friendship! And country! And ROME!
Yours Requestingly,
Calum P Cameron
Better at Writing than Paying Attention
April 22, 2013
Truly good characters make truly bad role models.
As those of you who have read my work may well have noticed, I don't really like unambiguously good characters much. There are plenty of unambiguously good characters in other works that I do love, but as a general rule if you were writing a character with the intention of having them appeal to me, I would always advise you to throw in some moral ambiguity.
And I think I finally understand why: Unambiguously good characters are difficult to make symapthetic and not annoying, because sympathy relies on an ability to relate to the character. Relating to a character usually means being able to understand what it would be like to be them, and that gets harder to do the more obviously better than you the character is. It's hard to root for someone when you're aware that they're making you look bad.
Which eventually leads me to my point: People keep trying to include morally-perfect characters in works of fiction to act as 'role models'. It's particularly bad in children's fiction, but basically any genre whose purpose is at least partially thought of as being to moralise or proselytise suffers from it (which may be why religious fiction has a reputation for being - C.S. Lewis excepted - not much good). This could hardly be more self-defeating. Good characters - by which I mean really, truly, inherently, morally righteous ones - make bad role models. A role model is, by definition, someone whom people can emulate. You can't emulate perfection.
Consider a situation wherein your aim is to get to the other side of a wall. Unable to work out how to do it on your own, you decide to call a friend to ask what they would do in your position. For some strange (but no doubt awesome) reason, the only friend in your contacts list is Superman, who replies, "Easy: I'd break it down with my superstrength. Or I'd leap it in a single bound. Hope this helps!"
And then he hangs up.
Superman, in this situation, is setting not a GOOD example, but a very, very BAD one - not because he's showing you a way that doesn't work, but because he's showing you a way that ONLY works if you happen to be as awesome as he is. "Thanks a lot, Superman," you mutter into the phone, not even caring that he's already hung up, "except I'M NOT as strong as you and I CAN'T leap tall buildings in a single bound!"
Creating a 'role model' character who is just an inherently good person results in the same situation. We CAN'T rely on our ability to act as they do, because WE aren't unambiguously good. To be honest with you, every single person I've ever met - including myself - is at least a little bit of a collosal ass. And Mr Role Model doesn't help much in my daily struggle to do what's right, because it's NOT a struggle for him, so at the end of the day we're in two completely different situations in terms of our respective disadvantages and, as such, the same methods will probably not work for both. He doesn't inspire me to resist temptation, or provide insight into how I could make amends after giving in to it, he just makes me envious of his own natural immunity to it.
I should probably point out at this point that you CAN write a character who is 'Unambiguously good' in the sense that they DO get tempted to be evil but never quite give in. And if you successfully pull that off, then the resultant character will probably be less annoying and more sympathetic. They'll also probably be far more tragic (look, for example, at what happened to ol' Jesus Christ after HE made a point of resisting temptation). But this goes back to one of the oldest principles of writing: You can be an exception to every rule, if only you're talented enough. Most of us, though, aren't. That's what makes talent special. Biting off more than we can chew just makes us look WORSE than we are.
In short, WWJD's a good principle to stick to as a sort of hypothetical moral touchpaper test, but if the character being asked that question is even remotely human and relatable (which is necessary to function as a role model), then the literal answer should always be "Not end up in this mess in the first place."
April 8, 2013
I need your help... badly.
Ladies, gentlemen and I-don't-know-the-polite-term-for-hermaphrodites-or-intersexed-people-work-with-me-here.
I'm gonna level with you. I need an artist. It was always my intention to release the second book of the series this year, but right now I don't have anyone to do the cover art for me.
As usual, I was aware of this problem, but utterly hopeless when it came to doing anything about it ("Dammit Jim, I'm a writer, not a problem-solver!"). However, also as usual, my friend and colleague William Fraser (whose official job title I am considering revising to "Personal Life-saver to Mr Cameron") has come up with and worked on a solution while I've been derping around like the NeoClassical Deity of Derpiness.
Please, friends, listen to Mr Fraser's message (link below), respond if you can, and spread the word.
I'm counting on you.
Yours Derpily,
Calum P Cameron
Decent Writer, Terrible Artist
March 8, 2013
I hate sexism because it makes my job harder
OK, OK, before we go anywhere, let us be absoultely clear: There are many, many better reasons to hate sexism, or any other kind of prejudice. And this rant is really about all prejudice anyway, rather than just sexism. Sexism just happens to be the one that's most of a sensitive issue for writers right now. Plus, it's apparently International Women's Day today, so I figured it would be appropriate to lead with a reference to sex.
Wait, that came out wrong.
