Blog – Kit Campbell Books

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Howdy, squiders. Here it is, October, best month of the year and Spooky Season.

September Books: 5/7 (Heir Apparent, Love Your Enemy, and Drinks and Sinkholes)

So I need 14 more books for the year and have three months in which to read those books, so I’m setting a 6 book goal for October, because I have yet to actually read as many books in a month as I’m supposed to. But that gets me to 4 books each for Nov and Dec, which is where we’re supposed to be anyway.

Today I’m going to tell you a story.

When I was a kid, I lived near a small amusement park. There’d been grand plans to rival Disneyland when it had began, but that had never materialized, so instead of a massive complex of various lands, we had a fully-built out Old West town-themed main central shopping and dining district, and then your normal garden variety carnival rides like a tilt-a-whirl and bumper boats, a fancy restaurant with nice views, a train that went around the whole thing, and an alpine slide.

And the Music Hall.

The Music Hall was a local theater that served dinner beforehand upstairs, and then performed downstairs. We went fairly regularly and were very fond of it (when it went out of business when the amusement park closed for good, myself and several of my theater friends from high school made the trek back to see the final show, which was, as we shall get to, Sweeney Todd).

It was always the same actors and they were great, very funny and talented and excellent when they would invariably break character or something would go awry.

And, yes, my favorite show that they would do was Sweeney Todd. I suspect it was everyone’s favorite show, and it was always hilarious and I loved it a lot, and that’s no doubt why it was the last show they performed.

But, Kit, I hear you say, Sweeney Todd is not funny. It is, in fact, mostly horrifying.

As I know now but did not know then, they did their own version of the show. (They did it as a musical as well, but I’m not sure they didn’t make up some of their own songs. Or maybe all of them.) And while it follows the same storyline as the normal version, it was definitely played as a comedy, and that’s what I grew up knowing.

So when the movie came out, I said to my now-spouse that we should absolutely go see it, it was my favorite play, it was so funny, he was going to love it.

And he did love it! But I was horrified. What was this? Where was the silliness and the laughs? Where was the inspector sticking a fake eyeball on the end of his pipe?

(Also, the singing in that movie is Not Good, and now-spouse bought the soundtrack and listened to it incessantly, which was Very Annoying.)

There’s a lesson in here, but I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s to not assume that your local favorite community theater group is doing shows the way the original playwright meant them to be done. Maybe it’s to watch the trailer of a movie before you go see it. Maybe it’s that nothing is ever as it exists in your memory.

It also feels like places like my little local amusement park no longer really exist. It was free to get in (but the rides cost money) so my friends and I were there all the time, talking to other friends who worked in various businesses, hitting the haunted house that arrived each autumn, window shopping, just chilling. Now everywhere is so expensive, there’s almost nowhere you can spend enough time at to really make your own.

Woop, this post got more nostalgic than I meant it to.

Anyway, I hope your week is going well, squider.

How Deep is This Hole Anyway?

September books: 2/7 (The Legacy)

Yo, squiders.

My emotions seemed to have stabilized, though we do seem to be anxious all the time this week, which is Not Fun and I need it to stop. Or maybe it’s time to find a therapist.

Old Job ended last Thursday, which was a bit sad but also needed to happen. I will miss my coworkers but I have already seen three of them since at various things so it’s not really goodbye. (Not socially, for Other Things.)

Also I’m still doing the Fat Bear Week bracket with them even though one of my bears has already lost. (Which reminds me, I’d better go vote.)

(I’ve picked 856 to win, so if you want to help me, you can vote here.)

(I know this is a hot take to go against both Chunk and Grazer but she’s a big bear and I think she could go all the way.)

My hope was that life would calm its ass down once we were down to a single job, but it has not. I can at least think about writing again, which is already a huge improvement, however.

(My youngest broke a tooth at school today, so I need to find coverage tomorrow so I can take her to the dentist. Yay.)

(On the other hand, something that was super stressful and which I had been procrastinating for a month ended up being relatively easy, so yay?)

I am considering, since things have been going so poorly on the writing front, pushing everything to the side and writing a horror novella.

If you’ve been here for a while, you’ve been here through my spouse’s cancer and COVID and the school shooting at my oldest’s school. And you’ll know that I find that when life starts kicking your butt, sometimes the right response is to stop trying to force things that aren’t happening and work on something else.

With COVID, I couldn’t do fiction at all and wrote a series of nonfiction writing guides. And the rest of the time, I turn to horror.

Horror is, I think, at least partially, a trauma response. For me, and maybe for others as well. The world is a dark and scary place, but writing horror allows you some control over the dark and scary. I’ve essentially got the whole thing plotted out in my head–the story came immediately. If I ever get a moment to breath, I’ll get it outlined and hopefully be able to start soonish.

But, really, I just need everything to slow down for a few days so I can get my ducks back in a row.

See you next week, squider.

Well, I Jinxed It

September Books: 1/7 (How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe)

(Also I forgot it was September for a hot minute.)

Last week I was so on top of things! And then this past weekend I had a volunteer commitment that took the whole weekend and broke my streaks, and I haven’t really recovered.

And then, yesterday, I had two family members experience a school shooting.

This is not the first, not the second, not even the third, but the fourth school shooting that has affected me and my family. (Though this was the worst, where they made eye contact with the shooter and were shot directly at.) America has a problem, and anyone who says otherwise has their head in the sand. Or is a horrible person.

I have thought through so many different ways to word this entry. But I am tired. And I feel defeated. How many times does someone need to go through this? How many children need to die?

Back when I’m back.

An Old Game

Hey ho, squiders, when was the last time I posted on all the days I’m supposed to in a week? WHO KNOWS

(In case it wasn’t clear–and it’s probably not–I post on Tues/Thurs every week.)

(In theory.)

I’m being a little more abstract with my morning pages lately, partially because sometimes it’s a pain in the butt to look up a prompt before I get going, and partially because, yeah, starting fifty million stories and finishing none of them may not be the best practice in the long run. So I’m doing some stream of consciousness, some writing exercises, and some brainstorming in addition to the stories.

But doing so reminded me of a game I used to play in middle and high school.

I started writing around when I was 8, and enjoyed a period of popularity in middle/high school when I had a series of short stories about the Evil Teachers’ Association (the ETA), all of which were punny and silly, and sometimes included actual teachers (with their permission).

(For example, there were pi fighters, which you couldn’t get an exact lock on.)

(Oh, yeah, these took place in space.)

(The ETA got a bit distressingly popular. I stopped sharing them outside my friends’ group when I found someone else had posted them online without my knowledge or permission.)

So, flush with success and the admiration of my peers, I started this game. “Tell me anything, and I can write a story about it.” My friends would come up with increasingly strange things (though the only one coming to mind right now is rotten tacos), and I would go off and then present them with a couple pages of story a few hours later.

I got writing practice. My friends got a fun story. Win win for all. As far as I know, no one ever disliked one of these stories. Or, at least, they were too kind to say so.

(In retrospect, this game is probably how I was victorious at the Chopped Writing Contest I did at MileHiCon a few years ago, despite the fact that I was going up against much more highly decorated authors, including a Hugo Award winner. It was set up like the Chopped cooking show, where each round we got new story elements that had to be incorporated into the story we had written previous rounds. I don’t remember everything, but there were definitely nuns, a space elevator, and Willy Wonka.)

The changes in the morning page routine reminded me of this game. I’m not sure this is a useful skill in the long run (unless one is routinely doing Chopped-style writing contests. Maybe for money) but it is, indeed, one I have.

I may start asking the kids for random ideas, here and there, and add the game back into the routine.

We shall have to see.

Hope your week/month is going well, squider, and I’ll see you next week!

For Some Reason September Feels Like a Ray of Hope

September books: 0/7

Hey-ho, squiders! Hope you’re doing well.

I’m feeling pretty darn good. Like…September rolled in, and all my goals were suddenly achievable again.

Which is ridiculous, because literally nothing has changed except the label on the calendar. I’m still working two jobs and have all the other life things going on that have been causing me stress.

I believe we’ve talked before about how time is arbitrary, and about how there’s really no reason to put any sort of stock in starting new projects or new things in a new year, or a new month, or even a new week (hence why so many resolutions fail).

So there’s no reason to be suddenly optimistic. Yet, the hope remains, that we shall get on top of things and be productive once more.

Maybe we’re getting used to the chaos? So the overwhelm isn’t quite so bad and everything feels calmer, even if it’s not.

I’ve once again laid out my goals for the month. Mostly these are the same from month to month–some number of books to read, a couple of Steam games that I will probably not play in favor of some other game instead, some writing goals, some life goals.

The way these typically go is I fixate on a couple of them, then occasionally remember the rest exist and try to stuff those in for a few days (with varying success), and then forget and go back to whatever I was fixating on again.

Again, no reason to suspect that this month will go any differently than the last three.

And yet…maybe it will?

It can’t hurt to hope.

See you later, squiders!

The Morning Pages are Falling Apart (Like the Rest of My Life)

~~July~~August books: 4/6 (Your Perfect Year, which I got for free from Amazon at some point and started reading, like, two years ago. Translated from German.)

Ah, squiders. I opened this to write this post days ago. Alas.

The two jobs continue. And shall for another three weeks. Yesterday I had to do both in person, which was a lot, but it was nice to see my old coworkers and check in with them face to face.

(The commute for the old job was quite long, which was one of the reasons I switched. I can–and have been–walking to my new job. Walking takes less than a third of the time it took to drove to the old job.)

The first two weeks of doing both jobs, I went to my new job, and then came home and immediately jumped onto the old job. But it’s an awkward time period, because while, in theory, I have about an hour and half between the end of the new job and when I need to pick up my oldest from school, sometimes I have to stay later at the new job. Trying to stuff the old job in that time period wasn’t working great, so this week I’m trying something new, which is new job -> errands and chores and stuff -> child retrieval -> old job. That break between the two seems to be helping with my mental health a bit.

But I suspect a lot of the stress boils down to the complete upheaval of my routine, and things just need time to adjust.

Writing hasn’t really been happening, as we talked about, though I have been continuing to send out queries for Book 1. That is horribly depressing, but I did go into it knowing the genre was going to be a hard sell in the current market. I think I’m up to 30ish rejections?

It’s been about a decade since I last queried, and I’ve noticed different trends this time around. Seems like a lot of agents go through fairly quickly and reject whatever they can, and in general I’m surviving those cuts. And they’ll do rounds of rejections, and I’m staying afloat through a lot of them. So I suspect my submission package is fine, and my writing is fine, but they can’t see what to do with epic fantasy right now.

A rejection is still a rejection though.

Even the morning pages have taken a hit through the double job/school starting/everything else madness.

Here are the stats:

June: 28 of 29 days (Started the whole project on the 2nd)
July: 24 of 31 days (worse than I was remembering)
August: 17 of 28 days (also I found an entry I labeled as “April,” so doing well)

Obviously there are 3 more days in August and perhaps I shall do morning pages on all of them! But 20/31 is still less than 24/31.

Admittedly, like we talked about…last week? that email I read threw me a little bit off my groove re: morning pages, but the fact of the matter is that I am still enjoying them, and it’s good to be getting some writing done, no matter how small. I’m switching in some writing exercises as opposed to just prompts, so in theory we’re learning and not stagnating or whatever the scaremongering was on about.

Also pondering my next steps once I finish with the old job and have my afternoons back. Part of me wants to leave the World’s Edge revision on pause. If you remember, the reason we moved onto World’s Edge was because it’s same world, same genre, as Book 1, and hence we would look attractive to a potential agent who could say, ah, here is a consistent writer who we can count on to write more in the same genre. (A lie, but I can pretend.) But now I find myself wondering, if epic/high fantasy really is not selling right now, if I shouldn’t switch to an adjacent genre and see if that works better.

Low fantasy and magical realism seems to be on every agent’s wishlist. And one of the projects I’ve been poking very lightly for the past month, which is the sequel to my story “Drifting” in the Under Her Protection anthology, would fit those genres. It’s modern day, modern world, except the MC’s grandmother lives in an old family home that’s been there long enough that the land–and the magic–have gotten into it.

I’ve written part of the sequel before, but I think making the character younger (right now she’s 23ish, graduated from college and failing at adulting, but like, 16, 17, so I can move it into young adult) might work better. And I had a magic system epiphany while walking to the first job, and it’s always good when you know how magic works in your world.

And it’s been a while since I’ve drafted a new story. Hallowed Hill came out in 2022, and that’s the last full-length work I’ve done that wasn’t a revision of some sort.

Pondering, pondering. Making potential plans for when we’re out of survival mode.

Hope you’re doing all right in your neck of the woods. See you next week!

Shannara Readthrough: Angel Fire East

August books: Still 3/6 (also in the middle of 3, because I am a mess)

(Also as a note, I read the last book in this a year ago. May need to speed things up a bit.)

If you’re new ’round these parts, let me tell you about the Shannara series. This is a high fantasy-esque series of many books, and was my introduction to the fantasy genre through The Wishsong of Shannara. And here we are, 30 years later, still hanging out in fantastic waters. The original trilogy of Sword (1977), Elfstones (1982), and Wishsong (1985) is very much high fantasy, but the world is actually ours, after some unspecified apocalypse.

Terry Brooks, the author, has completed the story (in theory–I feel like every time I check there’s something else out) (oh good lord he put out a new book in MARCH)–okay, he’s NOT completed the story but we’re slowly working our way through it anyway.

(…he’s also apparently handed the series off to a younger author. I may need to rethink this whole thing. TERRY WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME)

ANYWAY.

Angel Fire East (published 1999) is the last of the Word and the Void trilogy (the other two books being Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word), which are interesting because while they are now included in the Shannara chronology, they were not intended to be when they were written. As such they don’t really match any of the later books, and the magic systems in place here do not make for an easy progression into the magic in the later Shannara books. I am hoping that as we get a little farther into the series, especially the next few books, Armageddon’s Children and the Genesis of Shannara series (both written after the Word and Void trilogy), that everything will be come clear, or at least make some sort of sense.

The whole trilogy is a much quieter fantasy trilogy than many, with explorations of trauma, grief, homelessness, addiction, and family, on top of the occasional demon battle and magic and that sort of thing. Like the other two books in the series, Angel Fire East follows Nest Freemark and John Ross, now ten years after the events of A Knight of the Word. Nest has returned to her hometown of Hopewell (fictional, but somewhere in Illinois) after quitting her Olympic and world-record setting running career, afraid that she is losing control of her magic. John Ross has managed to catch a gypsy morph, some sort of wild magic, that might be able to turn the tide in the never-ending war between the Word (good) and the Void (evil).

I will say that the story does not feel finished, at the end of Book 3 here. There’s throughlines that would make sense had the original plan been to write a second Word and Void trilogy. I wonder where exactly, between Angel Fire East (1999) and Armageddon’s Children (2006), the decision happened to move the books into the Shannara universe, and what the impetus was. (As of 2003, when Mr. Brooks wrote his Sometimes the Magic Works memoir, they were still separate.) I hope that those throughlines are addressed in Armageddon’s Children or I will be annoyed. But also interesting is the lingering cloud of the apocalypse. The book itself implies that, perhaps (though maybe unlikely) it can be warded off, as it has been since the beginning of humanity, but since I’ve read some of the later (chronological) books, I know it happens.

If nothing else, the Shannara series is an interesting look at how a universe can evolve. From basic high fantasy in the original trilogy to a millennia-sweeping dystopian epic. He tends to write in 3s and 4s, jumping back and forth across the chronology. As a fantasy author myself, that sounds like a bit of nightmare, always having to retcon things to make them work, or invalidating bits of earlier stories. But I can also see the appeal. You’ve already put all the work into the world–why not play in it as much as you can?

I’m sure there’s a marketing element to it as well. Terry Brooks has written other series, but Shannara is what he is known for, and what people keep coming back for.

So! I wonder if I would have enjoyed these books better if I hadn’t been trying to tie them into the rest of the Shannara mythology. Or maybe I wouldn’t have read them at all. They’re not my normal types of fantasy, though I did enjoy each of them.

Next is Armaggedon’s Children, whenever I get to it. Hopefully sooner than a year.

Read the Shannara books, squiders? Any thoughts?

Pondering MileHiCon

Evening, squiders! I’m going mad but on we blindly stumble.

July books: 3/6 (Angel Fire East)

If you guys have been here for a while, you know that I attend MileHiCon every October and have for about a decade or so. It’s a lovely convention, specifically focused on science fiction and fantasy literature, and they let me do panels and feel like a real author for a weekend, and I’ve been on panels with Connie Willis and Carrie Vaughn and others, and once I defeated a Hugo-award-winning author in a writing contest.

I look forward to it every year.

But this year, I find myself… not motivated. They’ve moved the convention from about 20 minutes away to 40. Generally I stay at home and drive into the convention as convenient, but 40 minutes is a lot, which gives me less time at the convention itself merely from commuting. (It doesn’t behoove me to stay there. I have responsibilities at home that I need to take care of before/after convention stuff.)

Secondly, while it is always near Halloween, it is actually on top of Halloween this year. (Oct 31-Nov 2) Which means it’s almost not worth it to go that day at all. Generally the convention doesn’t start until about 3 in the afternoon, and I would need to come home to go trick or treating with the kids. And my daughter’s Cub Scout Pack is doing an overnight at a local zoo on Nov 1, which means that I will also have to leave early that day.

It’s getting to the point in the year where I need to coordinate an author table and sign up for which panels interest me. But I’m so tired. I know part of that is the job transition (and school starting up) and it’s possible that by the end of October I will be back to myself.

But I find myself wondering if, maybe, I should just take the year off.

MileHiCon is good for me, and I do enjoy it. I have friends I only see there, it helps keep the imposter syndrome quiet, I tend to get work done around everything else because I’m on my own, and I do sell books and generally do well for myself.

But none of that is going to fall apart if I take a year off. And perhaps the combination of farther drive + unfamiliar layout + bad weekend + stress is a good reason to do so.

And I can always perhaps go for a day if I’m feeling better and I have the time once the convention arrives.

But it feels weird–always does–to not take an opportunity that is available for me. And there is a part of me that says “suck it up, do as much as you can, and deal otherwise.”

What do you think, squider? Sit it out for one year? Suck it up? Lie on the floor and take a nap?

New Fear Unlocked

August books: 2/6 (The Tea Master and the Detective)

Well, squiders. The last few weeks have been rough, as we talked about on…Wednesday? But at least I’m mostly keeping up with my morning pages, so I’m getting some writing done. Right?

RIGHT??

Maybe not, apparently.

Like I suspect many writers, I am always looking to learn new things. I take occasional classes, watch webinars, read blogs, and subscribe to perhaps too many writing newsletters. I sign up for challenges and try new things and all of that madness.

ANYWAY one of the writing newsletters I subscribe to is run by Hope Clark, a mystery writer, and is called FundsForWriters. She talks about her own writing and what she’s up to, hosts guest posts from other writers, and lists contests, grants, and places you can submit your writing.

A few weeks ago she had a link to get a free copy of the Story Grid, which sounds familiar. Maybe I looked at it before? Maybe I got it confused with Story Engineering, which is the most useful writing book I’ve ever read.

(I’ve done some research because I definitely took pictures of the book in question I was thinking about, and yes, I’ve already read The Story Grid once. Ha. It was a LOT of work but it did seem like some of the process would be useful.

I read the book four years ago and have not implemented any of it.)

Anyway, I clicked the link for the free copy, so of course now I am on the newsletter list, because this is how these things go.

And the very first email he sent out was like, 5 Things That Will Make You a Worse Writer or something along those lines.

And do you know what #3 or so was?

WRITING MORE.

His point was that if you are writing just to write without getting feedback and trying to fix the things you’re doing wrong, you’re just going to ingrain the things you are doing wrong as habit.

Which, yes, fair. I can see that.

So now I’m super paranoid about the morning pages. “What terrible habits am I ingraining?” I ask myself every time I break my notebook open. “Am I training myself to be boring? Predictable?”

Which, like, I’ve been writing for a long time. In general I know what my weaknesses are, and also that those weaknesses are almost all fixable in the revision phase. (The pacing was a major issue, and I have taken steps to fix that at this point.) I am published and my stuff is generally well-received. I am a competent writer by an objective standpoint.

But, still, in some corner of my mind, there’s a voice whispering, “You currently are competent, but maybe you’re training yourself to be worse.”

Anything’s possible, I suppose.

But I do find myself in a weird place. I like doing the morning pages. And in this time of upheaval, it’s nice getting some writing done even if it’s nothing serious. (I’m over halfway through the notebook, which is a bit exciting in of itself. I’ve never filled up a notebook before. I may read through it, when it’s full, and see if there’s anything worth finishing and polishing.) But now there is that voice in the back of my head, wondering if I’m doing more damage than good.

And, of course, logically, the point of said email was to sell whatever class or book or what have you, and adding that seed of doubt is supposed to get you to buy whatever it is. I know that.

Maybe it’s just because things are so weird in general that it’s taken up permanent residence in my head.

Sigh.

Anyway, squiders, how are you?

Odds and Ends

Good grief, squiders, I don’t mean to be abandoning you for a WHOLE WEEK. This job transition has been a lot, and to top it off, school is starting right in the middle of it.

(I told my old job I’d work remotely 5-8 hours a week to help with transition and training and doing the stuff that only I do while they replace me–or don’t–and this was a Mistake. It’s rough going from one job immediately to the next, and it feels like the people at my old job aren’t quite sure what to do with me, for whatever reason. I mean, it’s been like three days.)

I’m super behind on all my not-work things. I need to get my den meetings scheduled for the year (it’s our Arrow of Light year so we only have six months to earn rank before the girls cross over into Scouts BSA) but I’m still working through the requirements, and writing/anything creative has essentially fallen into the depths of “maybe someday.”

I did finish going through all my idea files (last Thursday, and yet…) so I have no excuse to not go ahead and do the outlining portion of those stories aside from mental fatigue. Fingers crossed that I can get to that soon. Maybe tomorrow? I’m hoping at least Saturday if nothing else.

Also having some issues keeping up with the critique marathon (doing my critiques). There’s one more week after this, but I think I may quit after this week. I’ve gotten to The End this week though I feel a bit bad about peacing out once I’ve gotten my stuff done, but I think it will be best for my mental health.

I’ve managed to get a few queries out this month, but not my normal goal of 5, and it’s like pulling teeth.

While these last few weeks (last month?) have sucked from an anxiety and Getting Things Done point of view, I do think things will be better in the long run. I do like my new job, and it feels more comfortable in many ways than my old one. I can walk to work, which should help my health in general (though it was 95 degrees when I walked home today). It will take a few weeks for school to get into its routine (and the kids to start their after school activities) and for me to work through doing both jobs, but then I should have a structure to my day that allows things to get done.

Positive thoughts, squiders. Positive thoughts.

How are you doing? Things treating you well?

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Books by Kit Campbell