Grey Redemption Book Signing Aug 6, 2 till 5pm

So I finally was able to nail down a start time for the Langley Chapters Canadian book signing. It is a little odd feeling as I have already been to London England and New York releases. Guess Canada will always be a little behind. I am ok with that as whole as it means silly trends tend miss us completely. Or like Software games for the Mac. Usually when we get them the bugs are worked out. Not that the bugs will be worked out of Grey, no second edition yet. But it is fun seeing who sees which errors and responds. I always take the time to answer, perhaps taking the time to point out one they missed. Almost like a tracking system, if the story was tight and moving fast it gets missed, hmmm perhaps something to this. So the day has been set and I posted an 'Event' on Facebook so I can stave off the dreaded author fear of fears. "What if nobody shows?" I have had brave authors tell the story on a few occasions. Sometimes it is bad timing, a missed social holiday. But, no matter the reason it is a devastating experience. The author that writes the SLADE books recounted this, quite bravely I thought at the time. Course I have come to expect this from him now. He goes off script often at the Surrey Writers Conference. Others do too but perhaps not as often. A shout out or plug for a well deserving conference. Best money a writer can spend. You'll learn more in four days than most are capable of absorbing.
Anyway the response has been good on the Event Page and a few more people have searched the Scott D Covey author page and clicked the like button and joined to catch all the updates. Answering emails still takes a couple hours a day. To be truthful I still enjoy most of the emails. some make me wonder. For example I had one person text me that 1000 9mm rounds weigh X while I said they weighed Y. So I went to the closet and pulled out one case and stuck it on the bathroom scale and confirmed I was right. Then I discovered it was a US fan from LA. So that was a quick email, two words, Hollow Points. He wrote back that those are against the Geneva Convention. I answered; "Correct, so is Rhys Munroe."
Drifting back to the book signing and adding the Surrey International Writers Conference I have a event scheduled for that too. Part of this event is a book signing on one evening. Free to the public and is probably one of the easiest ways to meet some of your favorite authors and get them to sign your coffee stained dog eared loves. I encourage you to check out the SIWC webpage and even if your not into attending, see who is presenting, and come out and get a copy signed. We like it and it provides us with the social energy required to keep writing. Remember for the most part we write removed from the social world. In quiet rooms, alone with the madness of the craft shifting and swapping between personalities as our own go neglected by the effort.
For example Rhys Munroe smoked a great deal more cigars than I did at the time of writing. But alone in the dark with him looking at the world through my eyes I started matching his desire. So it was a nice three weeks shaking that monkey off my back. His disposable income for cigars was different too... So many nice Cubans burned in the creation of Grey Redemption!
So that is all the news and goings on from my desk. Keep the opinions and comments coming.

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Location:Vines St,Chilliwack,Canada

Reviews and views

Ok, A sunny day here on the West Coast. Finally! Canada day started out cloudy but was ok too.  But today I find myself alone with my computer, a gorgeous aged 08 Bolivar Gold, and a wee lady’s dram of Dalwhinnie Distiller's edition 15 yr old. A perfect time to quietly muse on about things and make a blog entry for this week.

I really do have to stretch to come up with something to write about. It would be easier if stuff was posted here to the blog. A good flame war or two about things like RYJ Edmundos would be fun and make it easier to write about. I only found out last week that to respond people have to have a blog or a login to Goggle. So the fact that the blog had been viewed over 1400 times but rarely commented on made sense. I thought my spelling had got in the way!

So a good friend touched off a bit of an email deluge at least to my basket after a review he posted. Some people thought it was a slap and a slight and quickly rallied to my ego’s defense.  I guess they missed the part on facebook where I linked his review and thanked him.  I love you all but my ego is really not that fragile and I didn’t think Jay’s review was off in the slightest. If I had a caveat it would be that the review doesn’t need to be taken with a grain a salt as it hit the mark.  Those that know Jay, as I do, are sure to get that he is above reproach as a friend or any thing less. He is brilliant, detail orientated, and kind. Amazing qualities to be sure. He liked the story, found it hard to put down at times, and enjoyed it despite the errors he found. He and three other close friends have commented on the errors. Editing just isn’t up to par these days.  Others have merrily read along as I did missing them entirely caught up in the yarn. One I know tossed the book four times against the wall cursing my punctuation and me! But he finished it, and enjoyed everything but the ending. When I asked him why he said that I sped it up too much and kind of changed the tone if not the voice of the book. I had intended on being slightly less descriptive as I moved along having forced the reader into a psychopathic mercenary’s mind. The verbose descriptions challenges for many, until they reap the mind picture rewards and go with the flow. He wanted me to keep the same pacing while every professional writer told me to speed it up.  Each of you brings a special something to the reading of Grey Redemption. You bring you.  A unique viewpoint and skill set. If you enjoy it, and it was worth the money you spent I am happy. I thank all of you for giving it a chance and I thank everyone who makes the time to write a review.

“Class what do you think the author was trying to say when he wrote…” Remember that start to every literature class? God how I hated those classes! Taught by bored and disillusioned PE teachers, using Coles notes for a guide. Ok perhaps I am being slightly harsh but?  So lets flash ahead twenty years and I am running late for a lunch date with a friend and as I was rushed I missed my mornings second coffee. So I go into the Starbucks near my house and while I am standing in line listening to frustrating people order fluffy coffee drinks I hear. “ I think Rhys Munroe is really a metaphor for the greed and rampant consumerism encouraged by the product based world.” I am seriously looking across the line thinking Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. (to the texting non-military types, this is where WTF came from). There in the corner are five people sitting around two of the small tables, with three hardcopies, and one soft of Grey Redemption. It’s a book club and they are actually reviewing my book! Seriously! This is like getting to be present at your own funeral; or rather I imagine it is, as I haven’t died yet.  Anyway, I sat down and listened. While there were a couple of comments about the edit I was glad to see most of the content was about the story! They had never heard of Equatorial Guinea and were amazed at some of the stuff I was showing them. They also were reading more into it. Way more into it than I had ever imagined anyone ever would. It was rewarding and funny at the same time as I remembered those Monday mornings in English Lit.

I got up from my voyeuristic perch and walked over. The table looked up and I smiled and asked if they wanted me to sign their books. They looked at each other in confusion and then back at me and I handed out my cards.  It finally caught that I was indeed the guy with the cigar in his hand from the website. Really do I look that different?  Then each handed me their book so I could sign it. “Tell us what it is your book is trying to say about the state of affairs in Africa.” One of the guys asked. I thought about the question looked at the speaker and quoted Bertuzzi; “It is what it is.” Then I added, “All the characters outside the mains are named after my friends cats.”

A review of Robert McCammon's THE FIVE

Reading Robert McCammon’s book The Five reminded me of the book Silver On The Tree. I don’t why because for the life of me I can’t remember the plot of Silver On The Tree. I was going to look it up and answer this question first, but thought better of it. Suffering from severe attention deficit hyperactive disorder. I have learned to let stuff slide.  So even though I don’t remember the plot, I do remember it was written by Susan Cooper. Not bad considering I read this in the late seventies! But The Five brought it back, or more accurately a memory I associate with Silver On The Tree.

I was probably 14 or 15 when I read Silver On The Tree. With severe ADHD reading was an escape and one I desperately needed. I read a library of books! But the focus of this review is The Five. So why did enjoying The Five bring this back?  I get this is a review and so I can’t give away too much.  When I was a kid my Dad had installed a motion light out back of our house. In the late seventies these were pretty rare. It came on with the passing of every large cat, a cruel joke for a kid with ADHD. We had been hit with a huge ice storm and I remember the tree directly behind my window had turned silver. On this night the light had come on collecting my attention and I looked out trying to see what had moved. It was a common game, I would see the neighbour’s cat or a bird and lay back and go to sleep. But on this day I remember seeing nothing but movement not looked at directly. That is to say I could see shadows dance on the trunk of the tree but only if I did not look directly at them. It was weird, and so I went to investigate. I slipped out into the cold in just my socks and underwear to see what was there.  It never gets really cold in BC but that night was frigid past the frozen ice on the tree. It bit, and froze breath to your lips.  Looking up into this ancient tree, I saw nothing. The shadows that had called me down were gone. Replacing them was a feeling, a terror as the seconds slid forward. Something was just on the other side of the tree, it didn’t like me, and it wanted me. I didn’t want to look around that tree either. I had come down to look. Had never before been afraid to look at anything! I was a teenager and as such was indestructible. I knew, just knew, that a monster real and deadly was on the other side of that tree. The knowledge of this was crushing me in place, forcing me to stand and stretch the frozen moments with it.

I sprinted past the tree, eyes shut, hands like claws outstretched before me. I remember being very surprised by this response. Thinking to myself I had just done the worst possible thing I could do, faced with a monster behind a tree.  I hit the back fence and turned around, opening my eyes for the first time. Nothing! I was relieved and disappointed at the same time. A very odd emotional conundrum and one I wouldn’t feel again until my first wife asked for a divorce.

The Five has been compared to Boys Life. A fair comparison in some ways yet not quite a right fit. I remembered reading Boys Life in hardcover before it was on the shelves in Canada. A relative brought it up from the States, knowing I loved McCammon’s books. I read it, jacket off, as usual and having never read the teaser had no idea where the story was going to take me. I kept waiting for the monster. I had no idea of the trials and tribulations the Author was having. I didn’t know he wanted to write outside of the ‘horror proper’. I was a kid that loved McCammon’s scary stories. It was probably one of the better-written books I had read and I moved on genre-wise with the author.

But truth be told, I wanted another scary story. I am 45 and I have wanted that scary story for 20 years. The Five was worth the wait! It isn’t ‘horror proper’, it’s better! Natural and supernatural forces woven so skillfully, that you can view this story from many different angles.  It is made scarier by what you bring to the reading. Just like that dark frozen night so many years ago in my backyard. The masterly written book takes you on a Rock Bands journey and so much more. The journey is so realistic that it makes the supernatural side much more believable. A brilliant Creepy and satisfying, work of fiction, written by a master. Dare I say “The”!

Grey Redemption paying some bills

Grey Redemption is paying some bills. That’s right I got my first royalty cheque in the mail. I wasn’t expecting one for a few more months, as they like to wait four to six for the first one to do the quasi-accounting math that is required.  It was more than I expected and less than I dreamt about but as many of you know I dream big.  Nice way to cover some of the bills doing the jet set thing around the globe.

Ever notice that the devil hangs on your shoulder much more strongly than the angel? Driving home the other day highlighted this for me.  A bear cub ran out onto the road in a tight corner while I was speeding home. I slammed on the brakes and sure enough the little angel on my shoulder did the bug splat on the window. Left with only the devil I took the tight inside line and the bitch started to protest. Her ass drifting out past the shoulder, tires ripping at the green belt along the edge of the road. I gave her a few more inches and the shriek turned into a guttural roar and she straightened out. Once again saved by the devil on my shoulder while the safer, more prudent one had to reconstitute herself.

How are these two divergent paragraphs connected? Other than being on the same page? Well in this way. If I had listened to the safer option I would never have taken the risk to write such a different book. Really? Raunchy sex in a military thriller? Are you kidding me? Yet people like it. They like that Rhys Munroe brings them along for the whole ride and not just parts of it. They like getting a peek into the alpha male world and are made more comfortable because Rhys has baggage. A plane full of baggage! Great reviews on Chapters and Amazon by people whom have bought the book and truth be told I DON’T KNOW! A few friends have said they will post a review yet only one has. Not a complaint I know everyone has very busy lives and posting a review takes some time.

I have a little more news too. The BIG official book signing for Canada will be at the Langley Chapters on 200^th street. It is scheduled for the 6^th of August. So mark your calendars and come out and say hello. You don’t have to buy the book from the store to have me sign it and I have some cool swag to give away as well. In addition to this signing I am also included in the Surrey International Writers Conference book signing as well. That is on October 22. The Book Fair is held in the Fraser Room from 5:30 to 7:00 pm on Saturday evening. The book should be available at the Chapters during the conference. You don’t have to be attending the conference to come to the book fair although I encourage you to do so if you want to be part of one of the best shows on the planet! Really! I have been to London and New York and this is by far the best!

Now to finish the Blog, on to the writing. I have wanted to catch up on some reading and I can’t write and read at the same time. So my project has been on the shelf while I finished Brett Easton Ellis’s Imperial Bedrooms and all of Robert McCammon’s books. Brett went back to his original style and voice for Bedrooms and I loved it.  Gritty and unrepentant novel that screamed Ellis. McCammon has been a little more difficult as I love his horror. In fact when I first read Boys Life I kept waiting for the monster to show itself. This is not to say by any stretch that I am not enjoying these period books as I most certainly am. McCammon is just the best horror writer on the planet and his skills in dialogue are second to none. I loved the hemp-smoking doctor and magistrate scene immensely! But my copy of Five is yet to arrive! I hope I get a first printing version! In fact I looked for it in four stores in the US on my recent trip and could find none. I was willing to buy two just to make sure I got a first printing as I am sure this will put him back on the NYC bestsellers list! Where he most certainly belongs!  

Digital Publishing and this years Surrey International Writers Conference

            This month Amazon released some numbers and a few of them might be a little startling. Ebook sales surpassed print book sales grabbed my attention. This is combined with the ongoing closure and failure of traditional print bookstores. So I poured myself another drink and thought about what this might mean to Authors and the industry as a whole. I am hardly IN the industry long enough to have a real valid opinion but I do have an interesting parallel.

            Back in the day I used to be a pro photographer. Many years ago, the digital age hit the pro photography market. I was a bit of a techno geek, more so than I am today and was ahead of the curve on that evolution. Back in those days you created an image for a client and then brought it down to the store and got your work back in 24 hours. Then you made an appointment with the client to go over the work. Took the order and then went back to the store to get the final product created. Finished product in hand you went to your retouch specialist to fix the print and in a week or so picked that up and delivered it to the happy client.  I looked at this digital specter then and thought Wow! I shoot it in studio, edit and Photoshop the image and email it to the client. Then the client makes an order and I digitally send it to the lab, and they send it to the happy client! I embraced it. Film costs drop to zero, time cut in third, and no driving around! The margin in the photo world was pretty tight so this all made sense.

            I remember being at the Professional Photographers of Canada big convention. Here were my hero’s of the image world. Outstanding artists, many having achieved Master Photographer, and other awards for their images. None of them to my surprise were really behind this new technology. This was in the infancy of digital photography. My Pro D1 Nikon camera had an amazing 3.5mp resolution, and cost twelve thousand dollars and the compact flash micro drive was a thousand bucks.  Expensive to be certain but the loss of film and paper more than made up for it in three years. So why were these leaders in the field not giving it a second look? I was young and inquiring and so I asked the questions. I remember getting a multitude of answers some made sense while others did not. What I found most distributing about some of these answers was when they drifted into the realm of reciprocity failure. “Reciprocity Failure” is a real term to describe a condition where film is pushed to far and starts to fail across the colour spectrum. But it also was used by pros to describe something else. Bullshit.  Many of these answers made no sense at all. The naysayers were scared. The great Ansel Adams could afford to shoot three hundred feet of film over the Yosemite Valley and find one awesome sunset image and now so could I. It boiled down to fear of change and fear of their market. The big image houses were being bought up by the larger and the smaller ones had already been absorbed or failed. It was a very tumultuous time in the photography world.

            So now we have Ebooks. An aspiring writer can create and edit and produce a book directly and bypass the traditional game. I remember telling a few people that Grey Redemption was being published. Some responded. “Oh you wrote and Ebook?” New to the scene I had to answer no but as it turns out Grey Redemption got three ISBN. One of them for an Ebook. In fact Steve, a friend from work, bought it on his Iphone on the day it was launched. Steve had been one of my test readers and no doubt wanted to see if I took out all the “Inky Black” descriptive, and see if I brought back his favorite character.

            I am not as much of a pro in writing as I was in photography. Actually let me set the record straight. I CAN’T WRITE! My use of grammar is sub par for the industry and my spelling is well awful. But I do tell a good story. I have always been good at telling a good yarn. Some of them are even true. But with some good editing and a great deal of awfully painful revisions Grey Redemption was born. It followed more of a traditional publish than the current Ebook scene but what about the Prequel or Sequel? Hopefully I will find some answers at this years Surrey Writers Conference. I know to whom I am going to direct my questions. From previous Surrey Conferences I know many of these people to be fearless and honest so I am very much looking forward to it. Just a quick note about SIWC. It is by far the best. I have been to the London Book Fair and the Book Expo America and they both pale in comparison. Slade, McCammon, Dugoni, Gabaldon, Whyte all off script and in person is truly a humbling and educational time. See you all in 2011! 

CAT BLOGGING

Ok so this is not a booze recipe I will be tweeting to Robert McCammon. He and I have been trading poison concoctions. I like a vodka tonic with lime, but I like it really cold. Almost like a slushy drink.  So the other night I made one and tossed it in the freezer. It was in a heavy bottom tumbler that had been hand blown and had a small air bubble in the bottom. It accidentally ended up in the dishwasher so this little air pocket got filled with water, and was held by magic or physics, which are pretty much the same thing in my book. Anyway, and putting a point to my statement, the tonic in my glass froze and so did the water in the air pocket. Water expands when it turns to a solid. Pressure escapes along the path of least resistance.  Ok enough physics. Suffice to say that my slushy drink had a little more than ice in it. The bottom of the glass failed and broke upward from the very center infusing my nightcap with sharp little shards of expensive glass.

            Pop quiz everybody. It is two in the morning you’ve just ingested a quantity of broken glass the size of a quarter, well closer to a Looney. But if I say Looney, readers outside Canada might get lost. What do you do? I called poison control. When you call poison control the person answers the phone with; “Have you been poisoned?” Several glib remarks sprang immediately to mind. Recently? As a sport? This isn’t big girls in boots? But I held my tongue and with a pregnant pause said, “Well I am not entirely certain at this point.” I then laid out my folly. She didn’t laugh.

            Seems this kind of thing happens more than you’d think. Either that or she was telling me lies to make me feel better. In any case she told me not to induce vomiting. That was a good thing as I didn’t have any of the puke syrup and due to some design flaw I don’t seem to have a gag reflex. I say FLAW, as I will never need this particular feature. She mentioned that the human body is quite good at passing things like this as we did evolve from foraging for food. But!

 Here it comes, I thought, this will be the last twenty seconds of truth. Like the drug commercials that tell you your happy pills may make you take a frozen chicken to your spouse and beat them to death. Or worse anal seepage!

She went on to say if you start to feel weak or have pain go to the emergency ward. Now while she had been talking and reassuring me everything would be fine I had all the screens going on the Internet looking for just how my death would pan out.  There really isn’t a great deal out there on this. Which makes me feel like she had been blowing smoke earlier in the conversation.  So I offered a few of the possible fixes. One guy had given his dog cotton balls, at the vet’s direction, and sure enough the balls had picked up the little shards and came out; dog unscathed. Vets are doctors, the physics (I lied) sounded good!

She laughed at me. Then, attempting her best motherly calm down little boy voice, told me to search eating glass videos on google.  I did and if those retards didn’t die I knew I was going to be fine. So I poured myself six fingers of vodka and thought might as well swab the cuts with alcohol!

I know this is different than my usual blog but I  had to type it over a needy and exceedingly vicious cat, and figured you might enjoy the read. See stupid things happen even if you do have a “The” before your name! KIDDING!! If you want to follow Robert look him up on Twitter under Robert MacCammon not the real spelling of his last name. Great writer and his latest book just went into second printing after only a month or something. Amazing!  

Finishing touches

Just took some good advice and changed the blog up a bit. Hopefully this makes it easier to interact and experience. Did it via the iPhone four. No downtime or rest for the wretched!


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Location:Bernard Ave,Chilliwack,Canada