Kevin Craig – Page 6

ARC Arrival! Book of Dreams is One Step Closer to its Release!

I received the ARC of Book of Dreams yesterday! For those who are not familiar with the acronym, an ARC is an Advanced Reader Copy. They print these prior to the final (final) (final) edits and before the finished novel goes to print…to send out copies for advance reviews/praise. Those reading the ARCs for this purpose realize that what they are holding is only a near finished copy. Usually they are told not to quote passages, as there is a possibility the words in the passage could change prior to the printing of the final version of the book.

The ARC is one of the next to last steps in the evolution of the Idea-to-Manuscript-to-Novel journey. It’s very exciting for the author to get to hold one in their hand…a realization of the kernel of idea brought to fruition. The ARC comes after a long arduous journey. By the time I get the ARC in my hands, I’ve probably read my manuscript 50, 60, 70 times. That might be a slight exaggeration(?) but it does not feel like one.

At any rate, it is HERE!

The ARC! **Book of Dreams** is on its way!

This book has had a long and sometimes treacherous journey! It began as nothing more than a TITLE at the onset of the 2014 Muskoka Novel Marathon(click here to learn more about the marathon). This weekend novel writing marathon, where Book of Dreams was born, was a full 8 years ago! During the 72 hour marathon, I wrote about 30,000 words of Book of Dreams. One attempts to finish an entire first draft at this marathon (and I have done so on occasion), but as I was writing in a new-to-me genre I was taking it slow and easy.

My manuscript received an Honorable Mention in that year’s marathon. I was well on my way! Then I shelved the book for several years while I worked on more pressing ideas. But the kids in this novel kept coming back to me. I had left them in a perilous situation and after a while I thought maybe they deserved to be written out of that corner they were in. So I dove back in. Books have so many different paths. Sometimes they come all at once and your fingers struggle to keep up with the flow of the book that takes place in your mind. And sometimes they die a slow death or ask to be left alone a while as they percolate.

Last year, I knew it was time to pick up Book of Dreams again. Its characters called to me continuously. So I listened. I finished their story.

And here we are. 8 years have passed since I wrote the title at the top of a blank page one. In just over a month the book I started with the ambiguous first sentence, “I’m trapped in my bedroom again, waiting impatiently for the screaming to end.” will be in bookstores and available for all to read. It’s a scary concept! Putting a book into the world, is putting a piece of yourself into the world. And once it’s out there, it is also no longer yours and there’s nothing you can do about it.

On October 6th, 2020, my first book with Duet Books landed into the world. The Camino Club went on to become the Silver Winner of the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Award! It really has been a bit of the little engine that could. It had a nice momentum behind it and I loved seeing it pop up in the world. At the time of The Camino Club‘s release, Duet was the YA imprint of Interlude Press. Interlude has since sold to Chicago Review Press. Both Interlude and Duet are now LGBTQ imprints of CRP. Duet is YA and Interlude is ADULT. Book of Dreams is in extremely good hands! Almost two years apart, my second Duet Books will be out on September 13th, 2022! This date is ALSO my birthday, and I couldn’t think of a nicer birthday gift!

With my ARC in hand, and the final version of the novel already off to the printers, we are all set for the launch!

You can pre-order Book of Dreams wherever books are sold. I’ll leave a few links at the bottom of this post for easy clicking, but you can also order directly from your favourite independent bookstore.

BOOK OF DREAMS (Duet Books/Chicago Review Press, SEPTEMBER 13th, 2022) EBOOK NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER!

Gaige’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers a bookstore on an abandoned street where no bookstore should be. He steps inside and is immediately enthralled by its antiquarian sights and smells. But one book in particular calls to him. It isn’t long before he gets a bad feeling about it, but it’s already too late. The store’s aged bookseller gives him no alternative: once he touches the book, it’s his—whether he wants it or not. It’s bought and paid for and there are no returns. The book leads Gaige on a horrific descent into the unknown. As he falls into the depths of its pages, he loses blocks of time, and his friends become trapped inside ancient cellars with seemingly no means of escape. Gaige soon learns that the ancient bookseller is a notorious serial killer from a previous century, and fears that he has fallen into a predicament from which he may not escape. When all seems lost, he finds the one person he can turn to for help—Mael, a sweet teen also trapped inside the book who didn’t fall for the bookseller’s tricks. Together, they race against time to protect Gaige from joining a long string of boys who vanished without a trace inside the Book of Dreams.

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD! Also, put Book of Dreams on your Goodreads shelf!

We’re BACK! And Exciting Book News Coming Soon!

We just returned from Cuba where we spent an amazing week at an LGBTQ resort! Such an incredible time. If you’re looking for LGBTQ friendly resorts, check out Gran Muthu Rainbow. Amazing staff, rooms, entertainment, food…the whole thing was just what we needed.

Some pics, just because…

While down in Cuba, I received a lot of info and news about my upcoming release, BOOK OF DREAMS. I’m both excited and overwhelmed!

The big news will come once I have all the details… so, NOT YET. But it was something on my bucketlist for a while now!

For now, a little reminder… You can PRE-ORDER Book of Dreams now almost literally wherever books are sold! Pre-orders can REALLY help authors a lot.

Here are some links to purchase Book of Dreams:

You can also order it directly from your own favorite independent bookstore!

I received my very first review from an Edelweiss reader this past week. You can read it HERE.

Once I have the full details, I’ll be announcing the exciting news I’m sort of sitting on! (-;

The Things Writers Do To Themselves – Or, That Day I Didn’t Actually Finish My Manuscript

A motley crew of rebel rousers also known as writers and their friends. Find us at a restaurant near you. But only if you want noisy atmosphere you cannot escape even if you try…

A 3-Day Diary of a Writer Once in Stasis

Day 1 – Saturday, October 22nd, 2016

106 days after coming up with a shadowy wisp of an idea for my 2016 Muskoka Novel Marathon novel, I typed the words THE END on the last page of the manuscript. Then I quietly celebrated the moment by being silent and allowing this icy cold feeling to course through me and send a chill or two up my spine. That feeling was the climbing-out-of-my-skin motion made by the make-believe souls of my characters leaving the body they had possessed while I wrote. And in their absence, as usual, I was left feeling glum. Not good enough. Lonely. Why did they leave me? I didn’t even think the story was finished yet. Even as Finn’s omniscient narrator wrapped up the telling of the story, I wanted to scream, “NO! NOT YET! THEY HAVEN’T DONE THIS! THEY HAVEN’T DONE THAT!” But once the wheels of the bus start to roll, there really is no controlling it. The trajectory is a surprise only the vast nothingness from which the story arrives knows. At least in my case, where I outline and plan exactly NOTHING. Sure, I will have discussions about what I think will happen next, or things that will take place in a vague as-yet-unwritten future of the story. But they don’t always take place. And then, when I type those solemn door-slamming words THE END at the bottom of the manuscript, I know the rest of the story that I envisioned will never take place. And that makes me even sadder than I was when I realized I had hit the end. After the words have been struck and they glow there like doombabies at the bottom of the screen, you know you can’t fight your way past them. But you also get to see the world of your characters stretch out beyond those words of death. THE END. It is never the end. The unwritten scenes that you toyed around with, spoke of, discussed…they’re still there. They are ghosts forever hanging off the precipice of those two little words. They are phantom limbs, unformed digits, un-lived dreams. It’s very painful to be finished your story and still have material leftover in the end that you thought you would use within the confines of the novel. That leftover material is one of the many things writers look at to cultivate their own self-doubt and self-loathing. That material is the vision not perfectly transformed from thought-scape to page. Those leftovers are the scream the writer lets out after the cold icy surge of release as they let their characters escape their bodies. Not good enough. Failed to reach the vision. THE END. I think of this every time I see the slit on the face of Mona Lisa. Her lips could have been raised in the corners ever so slightly to bring her face into a more beatific smile. But Leonardo da Vinci, in his infinite wisdom, had already announced to himself, ‘la fine‘. There was no going back. My THE END stands sentinel over the blank space below it that cannot be filled.

Day 2 – Monday, October 24, 2016

I know I didn’t finish the novel. I wrote THE END, but I didn’t finish it. But you can’t go back. Done bun can’t be undone, as Stephen King once said. C’est la vie. So it is written. I spend day hating self for putting those two words at the end of the manuscript. I print out my manuscript and I am in awe over how big it is as a chunk of printed papers. Like, wow. I did that. I overhear Aves streaming from the heavens…or at least from the mouths of crackpot waste-oids singing heavenly verses in dark alleys somewhere in my general vicinity. There is music…and it is celebrating the awesomeness of my thick pile of pages, written in a frenzy of desperation while hopelessly clinging to one unwritten sentence after the other and attempting to harness them down and get them onto paper before forgetting my train of thought. Bam. The rest of the day, after printing out the manuscript, is spent listening to the knitpicking voice in the back of my head whispering, “YOU’RE NOT DONE. YOU’RE NOT DONE!” I sigh. I hold up my impressively thick pile of paper. I say, “Oh yeah? What do you call this?!” I listen as the voice whispers, “A START.”

Day 3 – Tuesday, October 25, 2016

I woke up with a desperate need to delete those two words at the bottom of my manuscript. I had already sent it out to 3 very generous fellow Muskoka Novel Marathon writers. They are acting as beta readers for me…they will tell me what needs fixing under the hood of my novel prior to me releasing it to the critical eyes of editors/agents. I gave myself leeway for once. I purposefully set my cursor to the end of those two nasty words THE END and then I hit BACKSPACE seven times. That’s ALL IT TOOK. The two words vanished into the ether. It was like a Christmas miracle. And then I proceeded to rearrange a bit of my last chapter, to unclose it. To unend it. To youdidntquitegetthereyouhavetogobackinandfixthis. Then, I proceeded to write the last chapter. So my last chapter became my second last chapter and my chapter that wasn’t on the page but was in my brain became my last chapter. Cue the emergency email to my 3 generous beta readers. Plead forgiveness, explain my folly, send the new second last chapter that used to be my last chapter and the new last chapter. Then go out with said 3 beta readers and the rest of the writing posse I hang with from time to time and attempt to forget about the fact that my ugly baby is inthehandsofothers. Then I BEGIN working on the manuscript I put on hold while racing to finish the Muskoka Novel Marathon novel.

Selfie at Mongolian Grill Restaurant in Whitby, Ontario. Future Canadian literati, and friends…

Lessons Learned?

The end doesn’t have to be the end. You can delete those two words and start over at the ending.
Clearly, Leonardo knew this. He wanted the smile we see to be the smile she was left with. Whatever, Leo.
Friends who will stop everything and beta read for you are amazing friends to have! Remember to return the favour once the opportunity arises.
Don’t settle.
The Backspace key is your friend. It’s a modern day eraser that allows you to unend things.
300 pages of 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper, stacked one on top of each other, is a goddamned impressive pile of paper when it is filled with words.
Stasis does not need to happen. Get your bum in chair and shut the hell up.
Mongolian Grill is yummy.
Pepsi is better than Coke because it is sweeter. This is also the reason Coke preferrers prefer Coke, because Pepsi is too sweet.
Selfie-sticks are handy for capturing a moment, but only if you’re nimble enough not to piss everyone off by taking too much time to capture it spontaneously.
Writing makes me happy. And the person I write alongside of also makes me happy.
Don’t forget a hat when you’re walking in the October chill, because when you do you’re ears hurt like hell!
It’s only the end when you say it’s the end the last time that you say it. Not before.
Summer always ends! And it’s not up to us where THE END goes on that season. There are some ends we have no control over. Take advantage of the ones you do have control over. (I’m looking at you, LEO!)

blog6 — The weekend away was most productive. I wrote several chapters of my Best Novel Award winning novel I WILL TELL THE NIGHT. And this guy helped me at every step of the way. Even if he didn’t wait for me whenever I stopped to take a picture of the beautiful FALL colours.