Ask the Author: Kenneth M. Cameron
Answered Questions (6)
Kenneth M. Cameron
Write every day, even if what you write is dreadful. And read, read, read. Don't let self-criticism, probably taught you by somebody else, stop you.GET IT DOWN IN PERMANENT FORM! And then, as Horace said, wait a while and come back to it and improve it. (Horace said seven years, but I'd make it more like a month.)
Kenneth M. Cameron
The immense pleasure of concentrating fiercely on something inside you; the joy of complete inner solitude.
Kenneth M. Cameron
I think it's a term for something else - inattention, so-called multi-tasking (You're also watching TV or dealing with a child), loss of faith in yourself. Writing demands intense concentration; if you let concentration waver, you're cooked.
Kenneth M. Cameron
The most recent published book would be Winter at Death's Hotel, which my editor asked for as a set of specs. Unpublished things I've written since then came from several directions, all different. In two cases, they were anecdotes told me by friends;one came from the outrage at a political situation; one came from a condition that I can't quite deal with - what is the life of a war-disfigured man?
Kenneth M. Cameron
I don't believe in inspiration, although in my younger days a need for money was wonderfully inspiring. An idea is not an inspiration, but I need an idea and a character, and I don't know which comes first. "Inspiration" is a Romantic notion, if anybody care.
Kenneth M. Cameron
Not working, exactly, but thinking about it all the time, a novel about Reconstruction that's also, I think, either magic realism or fantasy, which is not my usual line at all. We'll see.
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