Looking back at my 2010

As 2010 draws to a close, I am focused on writing the sequel to my 2004 magical adventure novel The Sun Singer. With luck and a cooperative muse, Sarabande will appear in 2011. After that, I have a partially written sequel to Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire that I really would like to finish during 2011. Called Jock Stewart and the Bambi Diaries, it is another outlandish satire.

My 2010 writing highlights can be summed up through the appearance of three books, including a new edition of a novel, an anthology containing my essay, and a new novel.

February

On February 25, Vanilla Heart Publishing brought out a new second edition of The Sun Singer. I am very happy with the new cover art and some minor tweaks to the text. Practically speaking, the new edition is very good for readers because of the paperback's reduced price and the fact that the e-book is available on Kindle as well as in multiple formats via Smashwords and OmniLit. As an author, I am happy to have such a wonderfully supportive publisher behind the book.

The book is a coming-of-age, hero's journey story about a teenager who heads into a war-torn alternate universe to finish the work his avatar grandfather left undone.

Now, if I could just get Amazon to stop displaying the out-of-print 2004 version as though it's still available new and, at times, linking in to the Kindle edition. Sigh.

March

Smoky Trudeau (Redeeming Grace, The Cabin) edited a beautiful anthology of essays, stories and poetry for Vanilla Heart Publishing called Nature's Gifts. Available in paperback and e-book editions, the anthology was released March 15th with a portion of the proceeds earmarked for The Nature Conservancy. Since this is Glacier National Park's centennial year and since two of my novels are set partly in the park, I contributed an essay about the park's Swiftcurrent Valley called "Bears, Where they Fought." I focus on changes to the valley over time, including a mining boom town that once sat less than a mile away from the current Many Glacier Hotel.

Here's how the essay begins: When Hudson’s Bay Company agent Hugh Monroe and a Piegan hunting party rode up the Íxikuoyi-yétahtai (Swiftcurrent Creek) into a U-shaped valley that would become part of Glacier National Park a half century later, they saw two male grizzly bears fighting next to two small lakes. They named the place Kyáiyoix ozitáizkahpi (Bears-Where-They-Fought-Lakes) because that’s what happened there and that’s how they would speak of it later when they told their stories.

June

The print edition of Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey was released via CreateSpace June 10th, with the electronic edition from Vanilla Heart Publishing following just five days later. I began work on this ambitious quest novel in the early 1990s and believe that its plot, non-linear approach, and magical realism style best define who I am as an author.

While my influences here include classical hero's journey myths, Homer's Odyssey and Joyce's Ulysses, the resulting story is accessible literary fiction about a man's spiritual journey through the mountains of Pakistan, the swamps of North Florida, the beaches of Hawaii, the waters of the South China Sea and the ivy-covered halls of an Illinois college as he attempts to sort out the shattered puzzle of his life.

Each of these books, along with my Malcolm's Round Table posts about Glacier National Park's centennial, focused on subjects and themes that are near and dear to me. There are multiple risks in taking that approach to writing, among them being the lack of a clear dividing line between an author's stories and an author's life and passions. The private and the public become intermixed. Short of becoming a celebrity author in the world of Oprah and the New York Times bestseller list, most authors' hopes and dreams remain unknown to their readers.

Sure, we talk about all manner of things on Facebook and in our weblogs, but somehow this social networking remains separate from the works themselves. In terms of notoriety, that's a blessing. In terms of the author as a living and breathing person, that's a curse, for it increases the likelihood that that authors may get more of a swell head than usual with each positive review and more feelings of depression than warranted with each negative review.

There are days when I envy those authors who can write stirring stories about worlds and characters and issues that they do not personally identify with. No less talent, skill and imagination are required for such writing, but the separation between the story and the author's psyche provides greater freedom for each. While I often wish I could churn out stories about, say, undercover agents in Iraq or fashion models in New York, that which is not part of me never captures my attention enough to become a writing subject. As it turns out, my way of following my bliss (as mythologist Joseph Campbell prescribed) is telling stories that are, via the plot and/or the theme, a hand-in-glove fit between author and subject.

So it is, that I am especially grateful for all of you who have commented via Amazon reviews, posts on your blogs, Facebook, and here on Sun Singer's Travels about my work. In more ways than I care to admit in public, my work is more than a story--it's me. Your support has been the greatest gift of 2010 and I thank you for it.

Malcolm

A little Georgia snow for Christmas

My wife and I spent Christmas with her dad on his farm near Calhoun, Georgia. While we were there, we got a measurable amount of snow in Georgia for the second time this year. (It snowed in March.) The people in Atlanta were talking about how this is the first measurable Christmas snowfall in the metro area in over a century. Atlanta probably got about an inch, with up to around six inches in the mountains.

The good news for us was that the roads were clear by the time we came home late Sunday afternoon, though the snow took a bit longer to clear out of our county (Jackson) than it did those in the northwest.

The farm has no WiFi or DSL, so it's like quitting cigarettes to go for a few days with no Internet, but I'm sure it's good for us. We had more than enough to eat and a roaring fire in the fireplace. Wherever you spent your holidays, I hope they were great.

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Malcolm

The Writer's Passions - Chance or Destiny?

I haven't believed in fate or chance for years, so when I try to explain to people in the southeast just how Montana came to be my favorite state, I blame my parents even though I think destiny is part of the equation.

When I was in grade school, my parents took the family to see The Big Sky (1952), a western directed by Howard Hawks, staring Kirk Douglas, based on A. B. Guthrie's novel. Years later, my parents had no memory of seeing the movie. Perhaps we went because westerns were in vogue or because Guthrie's novel, published in 1947, was on its way to becoming an epic masterpiece of western fiction. Nobody kept a diary, so nobody knows why we went.

The movie stuck inside my head like few others. Even now, I don't know why. The plot was similar to many movie and TV western plots: trappers, traders and Indians in the untamed west. In grade school, I doubt that I would have marveled over the Academy Award winning cinematography. Had I been older, I might have gotten a schoolboy crush on Elizabeth Threatt who played the Blackfeet woman Teal Eye in the movie. (It was her only movie.) Years later, I was more likely to read Montana-oriented books by Stegner and Doig than by Guthrie.

Since then, Montana came a passion, engraved in stone, perhaps, after I worked in Glacier Park two summers while in college. Due to the constraints of distance, I followed up on my love for the state more in my writing than "real life" experiences. I use the state as a setting in two novels, and it's now part of another (in progress) that takes place in part between Glacier National Park and the Sandhills far to the east.

So, did The Big Sky cause my attraction to the state's mountains and plains? Or, when I saw the film, did I remember it later because it represented a bit of foreshadowing of my future? I think the second explanation is a better one, but I can't say for sure.

What about you? When you look at the subjects you write about, your hobbies and avocations, or the places where you spend your vacations, how did it start? Was it a rational decision, as in, books about XYZ are going to sell well or my dad taught me how to fish so naturally I ended up living on a lake.

Or, was whatever it was already in the cards from, perhaps, the day you were born? If so, then it was just a matter of time before you and I "stumbled across" what we were here to do.

--Malcolm

The Kindle edition is on sale now for only $3.99!

Kindle e-book sale - $3.99

Just in time for Christmas, the Kindle e-book editions of The Sun Singer and Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire are on sale at Amazon for only $3.99. If you like your Kindle, you'll love these prices. Look for sale prices on other fine novels from Vanilla Heart Publishing.

The Sun Singer

When Robert Adams sees the statue of the Sun Singer in a lonely meadow he hears the song of the sun and receives the gift of prophecy. He excels as the Soothsayer of West Wood Street until a psychic dream graphically foretells the death of his best friend’s sister, Julianne.

Robert blames himself for the tragedy he cannot prevent and shoves his bright talent into the dark shadows of the future where, he suspects, it will one day save him… or kill him.

After blindly vowing to finish a task for his ailing grandfather, Robert steps through a hidden doorway into a world at war where magic runs deeper than the mountain rivers. Now he must resurrect his dangerous gift to fulfill his promise, uncover the true secret of Julianne’s death, undo the deeds of his grandfather’s foul betrayer, subdue brutal enemy soldiers in battle, and survive the trip home.

The journey is a physical one: mountain trails, a resistance group fighting a tyrannical king, a vision quest on a mountain peak. The inner journey is the one that matters, bringing back sanity-threatening talents and the kind of magic that will subdue enemy soldiers, heal the sick, and bend time itself. The Robert who returns, transformed into the Sun Singer, is not the Robert who walked into the mountains.  

Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire

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.

Happy Holidays!

--Malcolm

Vanilla Heart Publishing - sale on selected titles

Vanilla Heart Publishing is selling instant download PDF copies of selected titles for only $3.99 as part of this coming Friday's Dine-a-Around. Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire and other VHP novels are part of a flurry of recipe sharing just in time for the holidays.

We are featuring meals and entrees out of our novels this Friday, December 17th on our author's blogs. Since my protagonist Jock Stewart is a meatloaf kind of guy, you'll find my recipe for meatloaf on Malcolm's Round Table this Friday along with an excerpt from the mystery/thriller satire.

After you copy down the recipe, click on one of the links to the other Dine-a-Around authors. While you're at it, enjoy some really cool excerpts.

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Here in north Georgia, temps are down and winds are up. They promised snow flurries, but we only saw a few microscopic flakes. It's a good day for a bowl of chili and something fun to watch on TV--or better yet, a great novel.

--Malcolm

You mean that's not my uncle?

Every once in a while, I find a copy of Pay Dirt! San Francisco: The Romance of a Great City for sale on line. Most of the sellers don't bother to include a picture of the cover. Too bad. Once you see this prospector's face drawn by Vaughn Bass, you won't forget it.

I don't remember when I first saw a copy of this book. Probably when I was in grade school. My parents referred to it as Uncle Maury's book. My family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for years before I was born, so as a child, it was only natural that my uncle would edit a book about the city he loved and put his own picture on the cover.

Used to seeing my father's photograph in print as an author and journalism educator, believing that Maury B. Campbell of Los Gatos had put his own picture on his book was easy for me to do. For years, I thought my uncle was a wild man with a hankering for gold. In fact, I thought his hankering went to the point of lunacy because, frankly, this prospector looks a few nuggets shy of normal.

Years later, when I realized the cover art was an illustration by a Chicago artist--creator of the "Wonder Bread Girl"--who tended to do Elvgren-style pin ups, I was disappointed, relieved and delightfully scandalized.

• Oh no, you mean that's not my uncle? How cool to have an uncle out of the wild west.
• Thank goodness my real uncle isn't as scary as this guy. I used to turn the cover of the book toward the wall because the eyes glowed in the dark. The cover, actually, turned into a thing.
• Does Maury know Vaughn well enough to get copies of his girls? I'd have to hide them from Dad.

Here's a blurb for the book from Antiquarian Booksellers who have a copy for sale:

San Francisco, Vigilante Publications, 1949, first edition, spiral-bound wrappers. Softcover. Front cover illustration by Vaughn Bass, this big, sprawling book promotes San Francisco in many ways, includes contributes by Kathleen Norris, Herb Caen, Oscar Lewis, and others, includes both color and b&w illustrations and photos of The City, rear covers with photos of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roosevelt, and others along with their blurbs about San Francisco, with a flier about the book and its availability at Paul Elder's Books laid in loosely. Very good.

It really is a marvelous book for San Francisco aficionados. But that cover! It still brings back a deja vu of chaotic memories. Maybe, in some ways, it was my uncle. He was a bit of an old fashioned journalist who liked a stiff drink after leaving the city room. I saw him when I was 24 years old and in California for a tour of duty in the Navy. I got a laugh out of him when I ordered a bowl of Jim Beam in a restaurant.

But darned if I didn't forget to ask him about that Pay Dirt! cover or whether he had any extra pin ups for my ship.

What are your seven wonders of the world

Popular game show and crossword puzzle questions often ask for the names of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World:
 
Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

There have been various iterations of this list. Well-traveled people have interesting conversations about today's wonders. Some pick natural wonders like the Grand Canyon. Others pick tall buildings or majestic bridges.

Wonder is a word of both great and small intent. When wonder looms large, it refers to awe; when it's small, it refers to puzzlement. Large wonders include mountain vistas, sunsets, grand buildings, stunning historic districts and magic. Small wonders include why your neighbor mows his lawn at dawn on Sunday mornings or where (years ago) the yellow went when one brushed his teeth with Pepsodent.


How do you see it? When you think of wonder, do you think of the monumental creations of man or do you think about the creations of nature? Or, does your thinking tend toward synchronicity and magic and Kodak moments? Looking at your life as of this moment, what are your seven wonders in any sense of the word?

Here are mine:

1. The first time I stood on the summit of a mountain after a long climb.
2. My first love.
3. The moment when I understood the magic of words.
4. Accidentally channeling the thoughts of an abused young girl.
5. Meeting the soul mate who is now my wife.
6. Riding on horseback across a wide river on a moonlit night encircled by the silhouettes of mountains.
7. Seeing the smiles of children the first time I volunteered with Toys for Tots as Christmas

Socrates said "Wisdom begins in wonder" and Plato said "Philosophy begins in wonder."  For me, a sense of wonder begins in trusting the flow of life and experiencing the magic of being here in this world at this moment. In so many ways, I feel wonder in the fact that I can still experience wonder in a pragmatic and technological world, finding magic in smiles and conversations and the voices of the wind and the sea.

And you? Where have you experienced wonder?

--Malcolm