Chelsea M. Campbell

The local indie, Village Books, had three copies of my book, face out!

From Drop Box

I worked up enough courage to ask to sign them. The lady there was really nice, so I’m glad I asked. Here they are back on the shelf with little “signed by author” tags sticking out of them.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

W00T! To the world, The Rise of Renegade X is now 0, but to me it’s more like 3. Weird, no? Now you can buy it IN THE STORE.

To celebrate, I’m revealing this lovely artwork made by the fabulous Laura Freeman. It makes a great tiled wallpaper:

From Drop Box

Those of you who have read the book will probably recognize this scene. I love their expressions, especially Kat’s! They look like they’re ready for anything. I also love the shark peeking out from behind them.

Since there are quite a few expletives that have to do with bodily functions, today I ask, why not barfing? It seems to me it’s been overlooked.

Like, you could say, “Who left this barfing skateboard on the stairs?! I could have broken my barfing neck!” Or “I have to go to the barfing grocery store AGAIN. It’s the fifth barfing time this week.”

And instead of WTF or WTH, we could have WTB–what the barf? “What the barf are these toadstools doing growing in my yard?!” (I barfing hate those things. *shudder*)

It could also be an insult, like, “You know that guy on American Idol last night? What a barfer!” And, for a full strength insult, there’s always “motherbarfer.” “Those barfing kids better get their motherbarfing toys off of my lawn!”

All in all, I think the English language is ripe for a fresh expletive, and it’s time for barfing to stand up and fill that role.

Yes, I know this is a pressing question on everyone’s mind. Or at least it was on my mind the other day when I started wondering what happened after the Odyssey ended and if Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, ever did anything cool. WELL. It turns on Odysseus had another son with Circe, due to his affair he had with her while trying to get home, and his name was Telegonus, and eventually he came to visit Odysseus or something, after his Circe told him who his father was, and it didn’t go well. He accidentally fights Odysseus to the death, not realizing he’s his father. AND THEN Telegonus, his half brother Telemachus, and Penelope, Telemachus’ mother/Odysseus’ wife, all go live with Circe. (???) And then Telegonus MARRIES Penelope, his half brother’s mother/his father’s wife (ew), and Telemachus marries Circe, his half brother’s mother/his father’s mistress (double ew), THE END. Oh, wait, and Circe makes them all immortal.

Needless to say, this was not the tale of adventure and coolness I was hoping for, and I was kind of grossed out and disappointed. Though this story came later, I think, and isn’t supposed to be Homeric, so we can all go, “Well, I’m choosing to believe it’s not cannon,” just like with the last to Pirates movies and move on.

More importantly, today I saw a sugary blue sheet cake with–wait for it–a picture from Avatar printed on the frosting. o__O They also had cupcakes, but the cupcakes weren’t big enough to print on, so they just had pictures printed on paper sticking out of them. At first I saw this display of all blue cakes and was like, “What holiday is it? What’s going on?” and then it wasn’t a holiday at all, just, you know, Avatar.

School Library Journal mentioned my book today in their Interesting Reader Society – Book Reviews by Young Adults. It was my first brush with a pro journal, and it went a little something like this (actually, it went word for word like this, because I’m copying it directly):

Campbell, Chelsea M. The Rise of Renegade X. Egmont. May 2010. ISBN 978-1-60684-060-3. Gr 7–12.

This story was fast, exciting, and fresh. I thought the cover was good, and it showed an important scene when Damien is being forced to jump off a building. The confusion of Damien throughout the book is so real.—Madison C., age 13

Not bad, eh?

While I was doing some research on the Anemoi, the four winds, which make an appearance in Shades of Rome, I came across this hat pattern. I decided to make it while the book is on sub and I’m waiting to hear back from editors, since it seemed appropriate. I started it a little over two weeks ago, just finished it tonight. And hey, it fits!

Obviously this should be my new author photo. You can also kind of see my glasses, which I promised to post pictures of but didn’t.

Here it is on its own:

And on a side note, I have another contest going on GoodReads, this time for a signed hardback copy of The Rise of Renegade X. The contest ends May 11th, the day the book comes out, so if you don’t win, you can go stare longingly at it in the store.

So this probably won’t surprise anyone else out there, but it surprised me. Today I learned that I write Superhero novels. (Yeah, I’ll pause for you to say, “Um, no duh.” Except people probably don’t say no duh anymore.) But the reason you might not be surprised is that you ONLY know of the superhero novel I wrote, and not all the others. You don’t know which ones I loved and which ones I hated and what they had in common or didn’t or whatnot.

I’ve been reading Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! screenwriting books. (LOVE them, btw. And I don’t love a lot of writing books.) He has ten movie genres he’s defined that cover pretty much any kind of story. (Note that I don’t like a lot of writing books, but the ones I do like are about story.) Well, anyway, I’ve been reading the second STC! book and trying to figure out which genre I write, because it doesn’t seem to be any of these, and while I think my books are good, if they don’t fit into a structure, then I’m missing something, whether it’s in the books or just in my inability to figure it out.

I get to the last chapter in the book, which is about the “Superhero” story. Basically this type of story has three things: a “power” or “mission” that makes the MC super/more than human, an equally powerful nemesis, and an Achilles heel or some kind of weakness. Well, even though some people have said Renegade X isn’t like other superhero stories they’ve read, it also IS because it has all these things. But that’s one’s easy, because, duh, it’s a story about actual superheroes (and villains).

But my latest novel, Shades of Rome, which isn’t literally about superheroes like that, is still a Superhero story. It has an MC that’s given both a power and a mission, an enemy made equally powerful by the same power and an opposite mission, and a key weakness the MC has that hinders said mission.

!!!!!

Yeah, I was pretty ecstatic when I realized I have a story type. Because, you see, recently I’ve been trying to figure out WHY I love writing some books, while writing other types of books bore me to tears (even if the end product might come out good for either one). I definitely love combining the real world with some kind of fantasy element. If the fantasy element is too weak, though, I get bored. I like to have everyday family and relationship drama, yet I need something BIGGER (and, well, just plain fun) to give the story focus and keep it interesting for me. (Note that I read all sorts of books that I love, yet would hate writing. I love reading purely contemporary books, yet writing them not so much.)

So, some of the books I didn’t enjoy writing so much were maybe not balanced right. They were too real world, or they were too fantasy world. But they definitely weren’t Superhero stories. And all the books I LOVED writing were. COINCIDENCE?!?! (A clue: No.) (Yes, I make Sheriff of Nottingham references. What are you going to do about it?)

That’s my big revelation of the day. I write Superhero stories. Good to know, right?

I’m rereading Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede in audiobook form. (I have all of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles sitting next to me right now in hardback, but the library had the audiobooks and I’d never heard them before, so there you go.) I first read these books when I was 12 and I LOVED them. I was crazy about them. For anyone who hasn’t read them, the first book, Dealing with Dragons, is about a princess named Cimorene who doesn’t want to be a proper princess, and instead of learning embroidery and other princess-like skills, she learns how to cook, how to fence, how to do magic, and how to read Latin. She doesn’t get to learn anything very long before her parents find out and put a stop to it, so she ends up kind of a dabbler in “useless” skills. Then when she’s 16 her parents decide to marry her off to a prince she can’t stand, and she ends up running away and becoming a dragon’s princess who doesn’t want to be rescued.

And best of all, as a dragon’s princess, all her “useless” skills become very important.

This book influenced me a lot as a kid. Listening to it now, I remember reading these sentences for the first time, and how much I learned from all of them (about life, about storytelling–it was just packed full of INFO I hadn’t learned yet at the age of 12). And I got to meet the author at the library! Which was awesome.

I’m reading this book now and thinking, “Huh, is this book why I wanted to learn Latin so much?” Because Cimorene knows Latin and ends up using it to organize the dragon’s library. Because even though knowing Latin is a very useless skill for a regular princess, it turns out it’s very useful as a dragon’s princess. And I don’t think it’s what made me interested in Latin, because I’m pretty sure I was already fascinated with it–or at least with the idea of it, because of course I didn’t know ANY Latin at 12–though I’m sure the book did increase my interest. But I think this book is the reason I’ve never given up learning things I liked that other people thought were useless.

And boy do I learn a lot of useless things! In fact, all the things I’m good at are “useless.” Latin is useless–ask anyone who’s never studied it. Try telling a business major you chose Latin and, no, you don’t have any concrete plans for what you’re going to do with it, and they get this look. They get this look, kind of a smile that slips over their faces, that says they’re SO glad they made the right choice. Because I might have picked something that made me happy, but they picked something that’s going to make them money instead, and in that moment they feel validated and are certain they have their priorities straight. (To be fair, not all business majors are like that, and there are plenty of other majors who give you that look, too–business was just my example.)

But I have always firmly believed in my heart that there will be the equivalent of a dragon’s library to sort out someday, and then having learned the things I loved will make all the difference.

And speaking of useless things I’ve learned, we can’t forget writing. Because until the day I was published, if I told someone I was a writer, they also gave me the look. Or they gave me a confused look, like they just couldn’t even fathom what I was saying, glanced away for a moment, and then came back changing the subject, as if I’d never said anything about being a writer at all. O__o Or they would tell me they had thought about being a writer for a while, but ultimately decided there was no money in it and quit. They have a point, but there’s also a lot of happiness and fulfillment in it. (And, okay, a lot of heartbreak and angst and unhappiness, but that’s what makes the successes so ridiculously satisfying.) And, for the record, writing is the only job I’ve ever had that pays the bills, unsteady as it may be. That’s not true for everyone, and some people have, you know, real careers instead of only working the minimum wage gigs where working full time barely keeps them surviving, and the money they make at writing doesn’t compare to their jobs anyway.

But my point is, I’ve always chosen to learn things that make me happy, instead of what other people think I should be learning or doing or whatever. And I think that’s a very good thing, and I think this book, Dealing with Dragons, has had a lot to do with that.

I may have opened the door to find three boxes of books and shouted YES! for all the neighbors to hear. Except I don’t think they were listening. But here they are, my shiny new hardback copies of The Rise of Renegade X!

Here they are in their boxes. I was not impressed with FedEx’s handling of said boxes, since they were kind of falling apart, but oh well.

Here’s one on my favorite photo location, the cat tree:

And spread out so you can see the wrap around cover:

A couple of them in a stack, a book’s natural positon:

Ta da! And, as a bonus, here’s the summary listed on the copyright page. I think they did a good job:

Expecting to become a supervillain on his sixteenth birthday, Damien Locke, son of one of Golden City’s most notorious supervillains, is horrified to discover that he may instead be destined to become a superhero.

I just watched the new Doctor Who. If you’re out of the loop, this was the first episode with the new Doctor, played by Matt Smith, since beloved David Tennant decided to leave the show. David Tennant was, like, the PERFECT Doctor. Of course, I’d been upset when 9 was leaving and we moved onto 10, and THAT worked out, but now I look at 9 and think Psh, why did I care about him again? Every time I expect the writers of Doctor Who to disappoint, they don’t. They not only don’t disappoint, but they wow me. They go so far beyond not disappointing, I don’t know why I ever doubt them.

Well, getting a new Doctor is a big deal, and I may have said some rude things about Matt Smith’s giant forehead. I may have doubted him… a lot. Not only could I not believe I’d ever love another Doctor, but, well, I certainly couldn’t like him. And that stupid brown suit and bow tie they put him in? BARF. AND AND AND the lead writer left the show!

Well, another awesome writer took over (Steven Moffat, the one who wrote Blink and The Girl in the Fireplace, some of my fave episodes), so that was a relief. The writing on the new episode was amazing. It was creepy, hilarious, and full of adventure… and I just sat there in awe the whole time. (I can’t think of the right words to describe the feeling you get when watching Doctor Who, but hopefully you know what I mean.) And Matt Smith did an excellent job. I expected to hate him, and at the least still dislike him. But I not only didn’t hate him, he was so endearing and funny and “just right,” that I’m glad they picked him. I can’t wait to see more of his adventures as the Doctor!

So all the changes they made to the show? Not awful at all. I might possibly even call them improvements. I was so sure I’d be horribly disappointed and that my heart would be broken and never heal. And instead… I think it’s awesome and everything’s going to be okay.