Dirty Laundry

It’s the Welcome to 2012 Blog

As I anxiously await the copy edits for Call the Shots I find myself with a bit of time on my hands. Not a ton, mind you. I am still trying to catch up on all the chores I’ve put off trying to finish the book: lightbulb changes, office straightening, packing up Christmas, wash, giving blood, organizing my 2012 schedule, among other things. And of course, there are books to read, movies to see, exercise to do, etc. etc.

But I thought I’d take a little time to tend to my blog here. I started out last year great guns. Writing every couple of weeks. But as my new novel took over my life toward the end of 2011 I had to make that my priority. Even my incessant tweeting suffered.

A quick bit of catch up and then I’ll post a few pictures.

The holidays were nice. Pretty peaceful over here. Which is always a blessing. I got a new phone and the latest Stephen King novel (which I am fully immersed in at the moment). The King book will take me a while to read as it’s over 800 pages long. Some people I know can rip through books in a couple of days but I am just a painfully slow reader and so this one will take me a few weeks if not a month. Which is fine, because that way I get to savour it more.

Over New Year’s my wife and I went to a snow shoeing boot camp (see pics below). We were both starting to pack on some weight and so I wanted to find a place where we could go to try to stop the bleeding. I just sort of threw out the idea that maybe we could go to a weight loss spa at some point or something and then my ever-efficient wife finds this place called Mountain Trek in Ainsworth, BC where they run a turkey burner boot camp and whip the crap out of you by making you snow shoe up mountains for four hours a day, then make you hit the gym for another hour after dinner. All the while they are cooking you tasty (but low calorie) foods. It was quite the experience but well worth it as I lost 11 pounds of fat and lowered my blood pressure by quite a bit. Mountain Trek also runs hiking boot camps during the spring, summer, and fall. I highly recommend them if you want to shed a bit of extra poundage. It is definitely not easy but well worth it.

What else can I tell you?

Going to be starting up a new blog tour for the release of BEAT THE BAND in the UK. I’ll link to my blogs here so you won’t have to miss a thing. That starts up in February.

CALL THE SHOTS is scheduled to be released this fall, which I’m extremely excited about.

I’ve got a really fun new idea that’s been percolating for a little while. I’ll probably start that some time soon.

And now, as promised, a few snow shoeing photos and a surprise appearance of BEAT THE BAND in the most unlikely of places.

That’s right, it’s the cover of the 2011 Annual Report for Frasier Meadows Retirement Community in Boulder, Colorado. Proving once and for all that my books are great fun for anyone from 12 to 112.

Posted by Don Calame on 1.10.12 at 10:16 am in Prattlings. (4) Comments

Happy Holidays: So Much To Tell, So Very Tired

Yes, it has been quite some time since I’ve blogged. Normally I have nothing to blame but pure laziness and perhaps my subscription to NHL Gamecenter Live where I can watch far too many hockey games (sometimes several at one time - gotta love that picture in picture function).

But this time I really do have a good excuse. I have spent the last several months pruning, polishing, and reworking my next book (Call the Shots) which is due out in the fall of 2012. Somehow I got behind schedule (perhaps it was the fact that the book was running nearly 500 pages long). Thankfully, I have the world’s greatest editor (Kaylan Adair at Candlewick Press) and she was instrumental in whipping this book into excellent shape.

I both love and hate the rewriting stage. I love that you have an opportunity to make things better but I hate having to try to keep the entire book in my head all at once. I am much better at working on individual scenes than the overall picture of things. But when I am rewriting, I have to keep the entire story in my head so that anything that gets changed can be tracked through the rest of the novel. I find it incredibly exhausting. But I suppose it’s good to stretch one’s brain functions every once in a awhile.

I have so many things to write about but I have no idea where to start. I suppose I’ll just hit the highlights for you. If you’re persistent there will be a nice video waiting for you at the end of this blog. (And if you’re not persistent and just impatient, you can scroll down and watch it now).

As I’ve already said, Call the Shots is pretty much finished. It’s taken me over a year to write and I am extremely excited by how it’s turned out. Just some copy editing to do in 2012 and it should be all set to go. I already have a great idea for my next book (not part of the Swim the Fly series) but I’m going to take a little time to refuel before I dive back into the writing. You wouldn’t think that sitting at your computer and dreaming up stories would be so tiring and yet it really is quite draining.

Some fantastic news on the Beat the Band front. I found out a few weeks ago that Beat the Band has been nominated for an   OLA Forest of Reading White Pine Award. This was the very award that Swim the Fly was nominated for (and was chosen as an Honour Book) last year. So, all of you out there in Ontario: get reading and get voting.

Over the past few months I’ve done some wonderful events. I read at Word on the Street Vancouver and was also a presenter at The Surrey International Writers Conference. If you’re a writer and have never been to SIWC I can’t recommend it enough. It’s where I met my editor and it is an amazing gathering of authors, agents, publishers, and editors. I had a blast giving my presentations on writing for YA and writing screenplays.

What else? What else?

I had a chance to see Moneyball (the only movie I’ve seen in the last four months) and really enjoyed it. I also read the Steve Jobs Biography which I thought was excellent. Right now I’m two-thirds of the way through The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach and it’s very good so far.

There’s so much more I want to write about. Sidney Crosby and his struggles with his concussion. Steve Jobs passing away. My time living in Toronto for three months.

But my brain is pretty much pudding right now. So I will leave you with the promo video I put together for the Candlewick Press sales conference. Once again, my dog Scooter deserves much of the credit here. Hope you enjoy it. And Happy Holidays to everyone.

 

 

Posted by Don Calame on 12.22.11 at 04:56 pm in Prattlings. (0) Comments

It’s The Everything AND the Kitchen Sink Blog

Hi, all. This is going to be a hodgepodge of a blog, so to speak. It will cover everything from writing, to hockey, to Steve Jobs, to whatever else my sleepy brain decides to dole out.

Let me start off by saying I didn’t sleep last night. At all. Nothing. Not a single minute. This wasn’t on purpose, mind you. I wasn’t waiting in line at my local Apple Store for the new iPhone (I pre-ordered, you see). I really wanted to sleep. I tried. I stayed in bed. I meditated. I tried all the tricks I know. But my brain just didn’t want to shut off.

And so, I got up and did what all insomniac geeks do. I booted up my iPad and read a bunch of comics. Somehow I’ve gotten sucked into the New 52 that DC comics has been rolling out. You know, the recently rebooted Batman, Superman, Flash, etc. And so I read all the issues I hadn’t gotten to yet. And still sleep would not come.

This has never happened to me before. My wife will tell you that I am a professional sleeper. Meaning, I can fall asleep pretty much any time and anywhere. But not last night. And I still am not sure why. I am hoping this is just a one time deal and not the start of a Stephen King novel where I start hallucinating and seeing demons in every corner. Time will tell, of course.

The reason I’m telling you this is so that you’ll understand if this blog is a bit rambling and nonsensical. At least I have an excuse this time.

As you’ve all heard, I’m sure, Steve Jobs died last week. It was very sad. It affected me very deeply. I’m not sure why. I guess I am a bit of an Apple obsessive. Have been ever since I bought my first Mac five years ago. But it’s odd when a stranger’s passing shakes your core. I didn’t know the man. My only connection is the plethora of Apple products I use every day. More than anything, I suppose, it’s the idea that no matter how brilliant, rich, inventive you are, all of us are going to die some day. If someone as influential as Steve Jobs can die, well, then, of course, there’s really no hope for any of us.

Which is something Mr. Jobs always preached. We are all going to die and so don’t waste your life doing things you don’t want to do. Find what you love and spend your time doing that. It’s the only way to live.

All right, enough of that. Did I mention that I finished the latest draft of Call the Shots? Well, I did. And I’m really happy with it. I just hope my editor feels the same way. We’ll soon find out.

Hockey season is in full swing and the good news for all of us Sidney Crosby fans is that he’s been cleared by his doctors for contact. Which means we may see him in game action pretty soon. I passed him over in my fantasy hockey league because I wasn’t sure when he was going to return. Regardless, I’ll be really happy to see him return to action. The NHL is not the same without him.

I recently finished reading THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern. And while the New York Times wasn’t a big fan, I was. I absolutely loved the book. It was magical in the way only a select few books can be (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). I highly recommend it. I don’t know what book the reviewer for the NYT read but it couldn’t have been the same one I read.

Next week is the Surrey International Writer’s Conference (see, I’ve completely given up with trying to segue at all). I will be doing four presentations at the conference, so, if you are around and are interested in writing, you should attend. It’s one of the best writer’s conferences in North America. Now, I suppose I’m a bit biased as this is where I met my brilliant editor (Kaylan Adair, Candlewick Press). But even if I DIDN’T meet my editor there, I would still recommend it to you. There are so many great workshops to attend and influential people to meet.

Speaking of the conference, I need to get working on the presentations I’m going to give, so I will sign off here. I have no idea if what I’ve written makes sense, but honestly, I can’t be blamed. Hopefully I will get some shuteye tonight. Wish me luck.

Posted by Don Calame on 10.14.11 at 11:53 am in Prattlings. (0) Comments

The Home Stretch

These days I Tweet way more than I blog. But I am not even doing much of that right now either. I am in the home stretch of my latest draft of Call the Shots and I have to focus most of my waking attention on that. Some days it feels like things are going along brilliantly and other days, well, not so much. This is my process and I’ve come to accept it. One day of joy for every two days of tearing my hair out.

Speaking of hair, as most of you already know, I don’t have much of it left. Not because I’ve actually been tearing it out. That was a bit of hyperbole at the end of the last paragraph. Although, I have known and worked for people (well, one person really) who actually did tear out their own hair. And hurl telephones right along with their F-bombs.

Anyway, I went for a haircut the other day. And yes, us nearly-bald people do still have to get our hair cut once in a while lest we start looking vaguely Bozo-the-Clownish. For all of you too young to know who that is, here’s a visual: Well, so, I’m sitting in the barber chair and I tell the way-too-buff way-too-tan hair dresser that I’d just like a trim. He then asks me what number I’d like and I have no idea what this means because nobody has ever asked me that before. I tell him I’m not sure, that I just want it short but not buzzed too closely. The big buff barber just smiles at me and says that I’m wrong about this. That I really do want it buzzed short because the shorter a balding person cuts his hair, the more hair it looks like they have.

And so, I say, go ahead. Do what you do. I’ll trust you.

Now, normally, when you say something like this the result is disastrous. I mean, it’s CUT TO: thirty minutes later and I look like Mr. Clean.

But lo-and-behold I look in the mirror when he’s done and I do appear to have more hair than I had BEFORE I got most of it shaved off. It’s some sort of optical illusion but hey, I’ll take it.

I have no idea why I just told you that story. I was just following the thread of this blog from rewrites to tearing out my hair to bosses who actually do tear out their hair to a very smart barber who’s shown me the light. At least as far as haircuts go. 

Well, that was fun. Now it’s back to the rewriting trenches. I’ve set myself a goal so that I’d be certain to finish this draft on time. As of this moment, I am right on target to finish up at the end of September/beginning of October. It will be my longest book yet, I think, but hey, it’s the last one of the series and I’m having a hard time saying goodbye.

Posted by Don Calame on 9.6.11 at 06:57 pm in Prattlings. (0) Comments