Cam Carson's Blog
September 26, 2017
The Sequel to Blame is Out!
This took far longer than I thought that it would, but the sequel to Blame is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
Here’s the teaser text:
"Tatya and Kris haven’t been together long when Kris loses her job. As Kris scrambles to find work and keep up her student loan payments, Tatya struggles to find a way to help her. How do you address the topic of money when a new partner loses their job?
This book continues from the popular prequel ‘Blame: Sometimes, Everybody is Wrong.’ Tatya, a young professional in Miami, shares the joys and challenges of her relationship with her girlfriend, Kris. This book includes extended appearances from some of the first book’s most beloved side characters, like Tatya’s boisterous volleyball teammate, Cristal, and Itchy the sassy house cat. A few new characters also make their way into the story, including Tatya’s prescriptive and not-necessarily-accepting mother and a gold-hearted improv enthusiast named Andre.
Even as Kris nails down a temporary gig, the couple must face broader reaching questions about this relationship. What will Kris do long-term? She feels that, from a professional perspective, she doesn’t know who she is, which Tatya struggles to understand. Eventually, Kris decides that the path to her calling might lead her far away from Miami. Tatya doesn’t want to do long distance, and she has made Miami her home.
Would Tatya end her relationship with her second great love?"
I hope this sequel gives you something lighthearted to curl up with in an armchair, or maybe on a beach. At the very least, it’ll add a piece of queer fiction to your life where the characters don’t die—which is a step in the right direction.
Here’s the teaser text:
"Tatya and Kris haven’t been together long when Kris loses her job. As Kris scrambles to find work and keep up her student loan payments, Tatya struggles to find a way to help her. How do you address the topic of money when a new partner loses their job?
This book continues from the popular prequel ‘Blame: Sometimes, Everybody is Wrong.’ Tatya, a young professional in Miami, shares the joys and challenges of her relationship with her girlfriend, Kris. This book includes extended appearances from some of the first book’s most beloved side characters, like Tatya’s boisterous volleyball teammate, Cristal, and Itchy the sassy house cat. A few new characters also make their way into the story, including Tatya’s prescriptive and not-necessarily-accepting mother and a gold-hearted improv enthusiast named Andre.
Even as Kris nails down a temporary gig, the couple must face broader reaching questions about this relationship. What will Kris do long-term? She feels that, from a professional perspective, she doesn’t know who she is, which Tatya struggles to understand. Eventually, Kris decides that the path to her calling might lead her far away from Miami. Tatya doesn’t want to do long distance, and she has made Miami her home.
Would Tatya end her relationship with her second great love?"
I hope this sequel gives you something lighthearted to curl up with in an armchair, or maybe on a beach. At the very least, it’ll add a piece of queer fiction to your life where the characters don’t die—which is a step in the right direction.
June 14, 2016
I will use Blame to donate to Orlando.
Hi all,
This weekend, we lost 50 lives in the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
We are angry, sad, hurt, horrified, helpless, scared. We mourn the lives we lost. We tremble for the safety of those we love. We worry about the safety of friends and family at pride events across the country this month. In the queer community, we worry for our own safety.
Those feelings are intense, and they're hard. But as we feel them, let's do something with them.
Please, this week, I urge you to reach out to your loved ones in the LGBT community—and particularly people of color in the LGBT community—to let them know that you love them, that they matter, that you will fight for them.
Please look for opportunities to help, to volunteer, to give. Support the organizations that support the LGBT community. If you want to see legislative change to prevent future tragedies like this, write your state representatives. Speak out when you hear people saying bigoted things against the queer community—their words create a latent culture that allows hatred to survive.
In Florida, as in many places, that latent culture of hatred can make being queer feel like a life sentence. Tatya and Kris deal with it in Blame—as does another character whose latino family refuses to accept her. Their stories are NOT the stories of the Orlando victims. But their stories share some of the experiences that make allyship so important to the LGBT community.
So, for the next thirty days, I will give all proceeds from Blame to the fund supporting victims of the Orlando shooting and their families: https://t.co/SHO149Kapm. Amazon takes 30%, so that's $7 per book.
I will also match these proceeds up to $2500. So I'll donate $14 per book sale, in total, until I've spent $2500 of my own money. If, by some miracle, book sales exceed this amount, then I no longer have the money in my pocket to match proceeds. But if we reach that point, I will continue to donate the proceeds—so the fund will get the $7 per book that would normally go to me.
This is where you can buy Blame: https://www.amazon.com/Blame-Sometime...
In times of loss, we have to stand together and help however we can. I hope that Blame can provide a smile to a few readers and make a positive contribution to the LGBT community.
This weekend, we lost 50 lives in the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
We are angry, sad, hurt, horrified, helpless, scared. We mourn the lives we lost. We tremble for the safety of those we love. We worry about the safety of friends and family at pride events across the country this month. In the queer community, we worry for our own safety.
Those feelings are intense, and they're hard. But as we feel them, let's do something with them.
Please, this week, I urge you to reach out to your loved ones in the LGBT community—and particularly people of color in the LGBT community—to let them know that you love them, that they matter, that you will fight for them.
Please look for opportunities to help, to volunteer, to give. Support the organizations that support the LGBT community. If you want to see legislative change to prevent future tragedies like this, write your state representatives. Speak out when you hear people saying bigoted things against the queer community—their words create a latent culture that allows hatred to survive.
In Florida, as in many places, that latent culture of hatred can make being queer feel like a life sentence. Tatya and Kris deal with it in Blame—as does another character whose latino family refuses to accept her. Their stories are NOT the stories of the Orlando victims. But their stories share some of the experiences that make allyship so important to the LGBT community.
So, for the next thirty days, I will give all proceeds from Blame to the fund supporting victims of the Orlando shooting and their families: https://t.co/SHO149Kapm. Amazon takes 30%, so that's $7 per book.
I will also match these proceeds up to $2500. So I'll donate $14 per book sale, in total, until I've spent $2500 of my own money. If, by some miracle, book sales exceed this amount, then I no longer have the money in my pocket to match proceeds. But if we reach that point, I will continue to donate the proceeds—so the fund will get the $7 per book that would normally go to me.
This is where you can buy Blame: https://www.amazon.com/Blame-Sometime...
In times of loss, we have to stand together and help however we can. I hope that Blame can provide a smile to a few readers and make a positive contribution to the LGBT community.
I'm Cam. Why I wrote Blame
Hi! I'm Cam Carson. I started writing Blame after I came out to my family as queer. I noticed that my life, and the relationships I had, were completely different from the representation of queer people and queer relationships that I saw in popular fiction. I saw queer characters treated as one-dimensional token characters, and I saw queer relationships represented as these perfect utopias.
I didn't just want to see token queer characters. I wanted to see developed characters who happened to be in queer relationships. I wanted to see whole people with personalities and flaws, who grew throughout the course of the story. That's what Blame attempts to do, and I think it accomplishes that more and more over the course of the story (which currently spans two books, of which this is the first.There is also a third one in progress).
The story is intended to feel fun, light, and sexy. But underneath that, the narrator of the story, Tatya, is one of the most introspective women I have ever written. She struggles with insecurities and events from her past, like we all do. Tatya's counterpart, Kris, has a bubbly personality, but she often feels anxiety about not being better, smarter, or more accomplished than she already is. She places lots of pressure on herself to achieve—sometimes far too much. Nevertheless, her skill at empathy continues to surprise Tatya throughout the book.
A lot of queer fiction covers the lead-in to a romance, and it ends pretty shortly after that romance materializes. Tatya and Kris's romance materializes about halfway through this first book. I wanted to explore whether a story could intensify, could become more interesting, rather than less interesting, after a romantic relationship forms. I think that the interplay of two (hopefully) realistic, human personalities keeps the story going even after the tension of wondering 'Will they get together?' is gone. I am interested to know if you feel the same way.
I am also open to feedback. So, for anyone who reviews this first book, I would love to provide you with a free copy of the second book as well.
I didn't just want to see token queer characters. I wanted to see developed characters who happened to be in queer relationships. I wanted to see whole people with personalities and flaws, who grew throughout the course of the story. That's what Blame attempts to do, and I think it accomplishes that more and more over the course of the story (which currently spans two books, of which this is the first.There is also a third one in progress).
The story is intended to feel fun, light, and sexy. But underneath that, the narrator of the story, Tatya, is one of the most introspective women I have ever written. She struggles with insecurities and events from her past, like we all do. Tatya's counterpart, Kris, has a bubbly personality, but she often feels anxiety about not being better, smarter, or more accomplished than she already is. She places lots of pressure on herself to achieve—sometimes far too much. Nevertheless, her skill at empathy continues to surprise Tatya throughout the book.
A lot of queer fiction covers the lead-in to a romance, and it ends pretty shortly after that romance materializes. Tatya and Kris's romance materializes about halfway through this first book. I wanted to explore whether a story could intensify, could become more interesting, rather than less interesting, after a romantic relationship forms. I think that the interplay of two (hopefully) realistic, human personalities keeps the story going even after the tension of wondering 'Will they get together?' is gone. I am interested to know if you feel the same way.
I am also open to feedback. So, for anyone who reviews this first book, I would love to provide you with a free copy of the second book as well.
