Year: 2009

Hi all,

I wanted to say that I finished the new book about a month ago, it went to my agent on the 29th of October, and it will start making the rounds of publishers after Thanksgiving. I have no idea where it’s going to wind up, so we’ll see.

The title is The Five, which is also the name of the band. The image is one I put together just for fun to send out with the manuscript. I enjoy playing with graphics and fonts, so I thought I’d do this “mock cover”. By no means am I a graphics professional, but I decided I’d do it anyway after I finished writing the book.

The manuscript came out to 523 pages, a little longer than I’d anticipated but they always seem to come out longer than I think they will.

The last two weeks of writing were really tough, as I had to finish before I went to the writers’ conference in Vancouver. I’d made plans back last March or so to go to Vancouver, and I realized in September that I was going to crash into the conference date and not be finished unless I picked up the pace. I could’ve gone without finishing, but (at least for me) when I’m so close to the end of a project my sleeping schedule goes crazy and I can’t do anything without having the book foremost in my mind, so I would’ve been bumping into walls in Vancouver and not been much good for anything.

Any writing project to me is like a slow-motion marathon. It’s going to be nine months, and you have to be careful not to “kick” too early or you’ll burn out before you finish. I kicked early on this one, and I was running full-out trying to finish and so the world went away from me for awhile and, likewise, I went away from the world.

But now, happily, The Five is done, I’m very excited and pleased with it and in a way it represents a new beginning (again!!) for me. A new agent, a new publisher, and (we hope) a new opportunity. As I mentioned in another post, The Five is a contemporary novel, which I’ve not done for awhile.

I’m going to give myself a few months to recuperate and then I’ll start on the next Matthew book. As I’ve also said, I’m planning on going back and forth in the next few years between doing the Corbett series and writing more contemporary books.

I’m very pleased about the quality of my writing in The Five. I think it’s way beyond what I’ve done before, and I have to credit Matthew Corbett for that. I believe that writing the historical series—and being somewhat constricted in language, yet having to be as painstaking and imaginative with language as you’re able to be—has helped my abilities. I have great fun with the language in the Corbett series, and I found in writing The Five that I didn’t have to “think” quite so hard to find the right way to say or describe something. It just seemed to flow much more smoothly, and I do credit Matthew for that.

So…Mister Slaughter comes out in January, The Five will be after that (who knows when, but I hope it won’t be too long) and I’m planning on finishing the new Matthew book, The Providence Rider, next autumn. Actually, probably around October. And also probably very near the time I told the good folks up in Vancouver I’d come to the conference again!

Well, the wheels of the bus do go round and round.

Thanks again for your interest in my work, and thank you for the time you spend in checking on the website and keeping up with my writing. I’ll let you know later on as things progress.

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

Hi everyone,I wanted to give you an update of what’s going on, and tell you a little bit about my recent trip to Jesuit High School in New Orleans.

First off, I’m about a hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty pages away from finishing the new book. Still looking to finish it up in (late) September, because as I near the end of a project I start writing faster. I’m doing my ten p.m. to six a.m. schedule right now.

I’ve gotten a few questions I’d like to answer. One was about why I don’t do a book about The Lady from Boy’s Life. I actually did start on a book about her before I wrote Boy’s Life, but for one reason or another I wasn’t satisfied with it. I got about two hundred pages in. It just wasn’t coming to life for me, though, so I put it aside. It did have some pretty interesting bits: a swamp snake that travelled with her as her companion and hated all other humans due to the murders of her “children,” a town of half-submerged antebellum mansions, a shadowy New Orleans maskmaker who created masks for criminals and murderers that actually became the person’s new face…but I couldn’t make it go. I think I was conflicted about whether to portray “voodoo” as fantasy or reality.

Another question is why I didn’t—or wouldn’t—do a sequel to The Wolf’s Hour. I actually had planned on doing a sequel, or more than one sequel, but Irwyn Appelbaum, who was the honcho at Pocket Books at the time, shot the idea down. I usually don’t listen to honchos, but he said he thought my primary audience was women, and he didn’t think women liked “war books.”

Hmmm. I wonder now if he ever read the book?

But anyway, I was off on the next book at the time, so I didn’t worry about it. As for doing a sequel now, it might be interesting, but my plate is pretty full. If I was to do that, it would be a long way down the road, and for the present, the Matthew series suits my need to do action/adventure.

Speaking of New Orleans, it was a great trip. I spoke to a gathering of parents on Monday night, and then on Tuesday spoke to the students in two sessions. Everybody there was fantastic, I think I was able to connect with the guys (you can make up your own mind on that if and when you see the videos) and it was just really fun.

One thing: if you see the video of the first session, you will see terror leap into my eyes at the beginning of the question-and-answer session when I realize I can’t hear the questions being asked. Yow. So I was able to take the microphone down to the floor and both hear the questions and answer them more “face-to-face.” You always think what hideous thing might happen when you’re in front of an audience like that, and 8th to 12th grade young men are a tough audience. I had the mental image of tumbling down the steps leading from the stage to the floor, either to land on my face or on my backside, which would’ve made a memorable trip and a great YouTube vid.

The gentleman who serves Jesuit High School as the Director of Alumni, Mat Grau, posed two questions to me a couple of weeks before I left Birmingham for New Orleans. They were “Who is Cory today?” and “What is he becoming aware of?”

So, as you’ll see and hear in the videos, I wrote Cory a letter and asked him, and he was kind enough to write me back.

He wrote:

 

Hello Rick, I hope everything’s good with you. The family’s doing well. My daughter is really getting up there now. Twenty years old! Can you believe it?

Well, I’m glad you haven’t forgotten your old bud. We do go back a ways, don’t we? I haven’t been to Zephyr for a long time. The interstate has a way of speeding you right past the turnoff, but that’s okay because I always know that when I’m ready to go back to Zephyr, Zephyr is always ready to welcome me.

I’ve given some thought to the questions you asked.

I am both the same as I was and different too. Aren’t we all? It seems to me that this is part of the challenge of life—to try very hard to keep some inner part of yourself flowing pure and clear and strong, while the world throws everything it can at you to muddy your river.

I have to admit—my river has known some turbulence. It has been tested over rough rocks and daunting falls. It has at some places in its journey been darkened by silt and sullied by garbage. But I have tried—and still try—my best to keep it flowing strong toward the sea of its ultimate destination.

Wherever that may be.

I have a road I walk. I call it “my road.” I particularly enjoy it in late August, in the fading blue light of summer, betwixt and between the sun and the moon. I think of many things on this road. I remember, I dream, I imagine. I give thanks for what I have, and what I have to look forward to.

Often on this road the cicadas of late summer sing in the trees. I never fail to hear them say, from either side of that long and twisting road—

Zephyr…Zephyr…Zephyr.

I know where I’ve been. I don’t know exactly where I’m going. But I do believe that when I get there, it will be a wonderful place.

Thank you for your letter. Take care.

Your friend,
Cory.

P.S. You’ll never believe what I found the other day on eBay. I bought it. It’s not in style anymore, but it sure is a pretty bike.

I wonder if it might be the very same one. And if it would remember me, and wake up like a lamp turning on in the dark.

Now that would really be magic, wouldn’t it?

As always, thank you for your readership, your comments, and your interest in my work. Like I said, I hope to be finished with the new book soon, and in this household that will be a very happy day.

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

Webmaster’s note: We hope to have audio and video of the Big J Read events posted here within the next week or so.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to check in and again say thank you for your comments and observations. I believe I mentioned to you guys last time about how much I value your presence, so I thought this time I would talk a little bit about the new book and some other things coming up.

First off, I’m on track to finish the new book in September, and I’m really looking forward to that because it’s so intense. I’m into my late night work now, staying up until five or so in the morning most days. If you don’t know, the book is about a rock band on their final tour across the Southwest who decide to end their “run” together by writing a communal last song. I can’t say the name of the book because it’s also the name of the band, and I don’t want that getting around just yet.

It has a strong supernatural element, but I can’t really say it’s “horror,” unless you consider the horrific things people can do to each other. I’ve been interested in music pretty much all my life, particularly in the retro keyboards and combo organs of the ’60s, but this book is set in 2008 and hopefully does a good job of illuminating the day-to-day (or gig-to-gig) trials and tribulations of working bands. One thing, the language is very rough, really a lot rougher than I’m used to writing, but I think it’s true to life.

I’m actually writing some “songs” for this, which is also something I’ve never done. Well…lyrics for songs, that is. Writing in the voices of people in their mid-twenties instead of my real age has been a challenge, too. But, hey, a writer has to be something of an actor, too, so I put that down to necessary stagecraft.

Another interesting thing is that I’ve needed to come up with a lot of fictitious names for bands, though I do reference many real ones. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought I had come up with a cool band name nobody else could’ve conjured, and then I go to Google to check it and…WHAM!…there’s a real band with that name.

Anyway, a September finish for that one. Here’s something I’ll throw at you from the book: Stone Church. (Not the title nor the name of any band in the book).

As I understand it, there’s a January pub date for Mister Slaughter from Subterranean Press. The artwork that’s going to be in there is awesome. Bill Schafer of SP gave me the opportunity to suggest one more piece of art than was initially slated to be in there, and I hope I picked out a good one. (At least it sure does look good to me!)

I’ll have to spill the hotspur peas and tell you that Matthew does survive Mister Slaughter, though I can tell you it’s a close-run item. In fact, he survives it to appear again in the following book (title can’t be revealed yet) that begins in New York and goes to one of the Bermuda islands. I’m currently researching the fascinating subject of underwater diving suits, diving bells and such in the early 1700s. Did you know that somebody had already built a working submarine by 1620? It was powered by twelve oarsmen, the oars sealed up against the inrush of water by tight leather sleeves.

I’ll be starting this book probably in February. After that, I’m planning on doing another more modern book (well, set in the 1930s) that takes place in New Orleans. Then back to Matthew again.

So, I just wanted you guys to know what’s coming up. I appreciate so much the comments and well-wishes, they are very much needed sometimes around four in the morning.

Thanks for checking in with the website!

Best,
Robert McCammon
July 27, 2009