I was lucky to get an interview with Cameron Hopkin, the author of A Gathering of Chaos, one of this year’s #SPFBO8 entries.
Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
My day job is teaching psychology at Utah Valley University; I received my PhD from Duke University in 2015. I live with my wife and four daughters in a little community not far from UVU, where we have a flock of chickens, three goats, and a truly stupid number of dogs. The lawn is rarely mowed and the sink is often full, but we have a happy home.
“It took me until nearly age 40 to realize that I loved making up stories, and now I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life.”
Why did you decide to take part in the SPFBO?
I found out about SPFBO last year just a couple of weeks after the submissions had closed and spent a full year following the contest and reading its books, kicking myself the whole time for missing it. I went to great lengths this year to make sure I didn’t miss the submission window. (Great lengths = setting an alarm for 6 AM. I am *not* an early riser.)
Why should we buy your SPFBO8 book?
If you like heroes that trip into the spotlight and end up doing good almost despite themselves, this is the book for you. The world of Asunder is truly unique: its gods fled millennia ago and took the world’s metal with them, shattering the single continent into islands around a mainland. Demons crawl up from the depths on the northern isle, Naga control large parts of the mainland, and massive beasts roam the islands to the south. Humans have learned to bond to plants, to animals, and to the sea to survive. As the world slowly chokes to death on its own greenery, a girl running away from her cult-infested village has a powerful vision of a demon lord that will destroy humanity. Together with an aging warlord, an outcast Beast Rider, and a scheming plant Weaver, she scrambles to find a bit of Chaos, the fading essence of long-forgotten gods. If the Chaos doesn’t destroy them all, they might just be able to protect their world against this new threat. It’s a shame they’re only going to end up making things worse.
What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I’ve always been fascinated by people and what drives them – I’m a storyteller at heart. I was writing Piers Anthony fanfic at age ten and horrifying primary school teachers with my short stories even before that. Somehow, despite dozens of little stories, screenplays, and a smattering of awards, I never thought of myself as I writer until I was drowning in my doctoral studies. I didn’t fit in with any of the brilliant researchers around me, I wasn’t sure if I could finish my degree, and I had an industrial-sized case of impostor’s syndrome. I channeled all that fear and angst into my first attempt at a novel. I didn’t finish it, but it did open a pressure valve in me that had been building up steam for far too long. Seeing myself as a writer allowed me to be creative and ironically freed up a lot of my emotional energy that allowed me to finish my degree as well. I’ve now been writing seriously for about six years, and I plan to self-publish my next novel this summer.
Why did you choose to write fantasy? And why pick this particular fantasy subgenre?
I was a fantasy junkie from day one. I cut my teeth on David Eddings and Piers Anthony, and when I found Robert Jordan in the middle-school library, well! That was it. I sometimes feel embarrassed that I’m not more widely read, but honestly, until about age 30, if a book didn’t have magic, dragons, or spaceships in it, I wouldn’t pick it up. A Gathering of Chaos sits right at the intersection of epic and dark fantasy, and though I flirt with other sub-genres, those two are where I feel most at home. Exploring the darker sides of human nature has always given me a thrill, and as for the epic part… the more story there is, the better, right?
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
There’s a feeling when you get into the flow of writing that’s like listening to great music. You feel transported, elevated, raptured. I first got that buzz when reading great novels, but I get it even more strongly as I write them. (Sometimes.) Picking the right scene, the right action, or the right phrase gives all the satisfaction of eating a chocolate éclair while putting the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place. It’s a god-like pleasure.
What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
Oof, that’d be consistency for me. I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone reading this that life is hard and mostly consists of putting the pieces back together after it all falls apart. Finding both the time and the motivation to pound out another scene when the kids are sick or the job’s a wreck or *gestures to the world around us* whatever is simply beyond me sometimes. I write in manic spurts and then go through fallow times. I try to accept that about myself, but there’s always this voice in my head that says, “You should be writing right now!” It sounds a lot like Brandon Sanderson, tbh.
Do you have a tip, app, tool, or resource you recommend to authors?
I wrote the larger chunk of A Gathering of Chaos on the Astrohaus Freewrite, which is essentially a typewriter with onboard memory that will upload your writing to the cloud. I loved it deeply and wish I could recommend it… but truth is that I sold the machine a while back. As much as I liked the idea of distraction-free writing, the device itself had a couple of huuuge drawbacks that rather negated its appeal: first, it was abominable for in-the-moment editing, which I do a lot of, and second, the e-ink screen forever lagged about a whole word behind my typing, and I just couldn’t get used to it. I keep checking back every year or so to see if they’ve got a new version that will fix those things.
This ended up being a less-than-useful recommendation, didn’t it? My apologies.
What new projects are you working on?
I’ve got the summer off, and I have two big projects I want to finish: 1) recording an audiobook of Gathering. I have a background in acting and voice work, and I’ve already recorded several chapters. It is, of course, far harder than I imagined, but I think I can get it to a spot where it’s good enough to put on Audible. 2) I plan to self-publish Wander the Lost, the first book of an epic fantasy trilogy. It has a talking otter.
I am also about 4/5 of the way done with a YA horror novel that is Lovecraft meets Stranger Things. Super excited about that one. Not sure if I’ll try to go the traditional publishing route on that one or just put it up myself, but either way, I should be done with it soon.
Anything else you would like to say before we close?
I appreciate the opportunity to chat together! I encourage everyone reading this to go out and find the thing that you love doing and just DO it, whether it’s writing or woodworking or skydiving. It took me until nearly age 40 to realize that I loved making up stories, and now I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life. There’s no timer. Do it for yourself, even if no one else ever sees it. (But, hey, maybe let us see it. You’re amazing.)
True words. And I’m still in awe of you using an actual typewriter! Best of luck with the competition, Cameron, and with sales.
Thanks for doing the interview.
