The Dog Master (56 page)
Authors: W. Bruce Cameron
But, as anyone who has ever read
A Dog's Purpose
knows, I am rather fond of our four-legged friends, and I'm pretty enamored with the idea that if it hadn't been for them, we might have entered the Ice Age and not come out the other side.
(I know that technically we are still in an Ice Age, but I went to Hawaii on my honeymoon and can state rather confidently that some areas of the planet have fully recovered.)
Finally, my attention is very much grabbed by the question posed by Professor Morby in the epilogue. The stage has been set, the players are in position, and the most dramatic and challenging time in the entire history of our species is about to commence.
What
did
happen next?
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None of the characters in this book are based on real people, I promise. I don't personally know anyone from the Upper Paleolithic, though I did have a coach in junior high that we were all convinced was a Neanderthal.
At the end of this section I'm going to list some of the books I used in my research, but I need to especially thank John F. Hoffecker, author of many publications on the archaeology of people in cold environments, including
Desolate Landscapes
:
Ice-Age Settlement in Eastern Europe
. Mr. Hoffecker very patiently answered my questions about what life was like for humans and other animals back 30,000 years ago, steering me away from some of my misconceptionsâan early draft of
The Dog Master
, as an example, had packs of hyenas running around everywhere, instead of being the nearly extinct creatures they would have been. I was also persuaded that people didn't have iPodsâthose would come later.
To learn about wolves I studied my dog Tucker, from whom I concluded that wolves prefer to sleep in the sun all day and bark at the UPS man. Thank you, Tucker, your fierce attacks on your squeaky toy gave me real insight as to the savagery of your lupine ancestors. I also spoke to some people who own wolves as pets to learn what it is like to live with them. The people requested their names not be included here, but I appreciated them sharing their experiences. My opinion: wolves are wild animals and should only be domesticated if injury or other circumstance makes such an arrangement unavoidable. It's better to just get a schnauzer. And it's amazing how much one can learn about wolf puppies just by watching videos on the internet, though usually after an hour I'm wasting time laughing at cat videos.
Some key people assisted me with writing this novel. Connection House, which administers my Web page, also provided research into such things as “what kind of birds were living in cliffs back then? Where did people go to get a latte?” My son Chase Cameron helped me track changes when I did a massive rewrite on the fifth draft. And Cathryn Michon, who I tricked into marrying me a few years ago, suspended work on the most recent movie she directed (
Muffin Top: A Love Story
, still out on VOD if you're interested) to read draft after draft, providing her notes and ideas and insights. She probably married me just for the experience of doing all the extra free work.
Thank you Kassandra Brenot for providing translation so my characters spoke French and not Google.
Tackling such a huge issue as one of the most pivotal events in human history not only requires a lot of stamina in the writing, but the editing process is Herculean as well. Kristin Sevick did a great job staying on top of the details through each rewrite.
Thanks to the people at Forge who are all lined up behind my novels. It's a huge team, but I want to specifically thank Tom, Karen, Kathleen, Patty, and Linda for everything they've done to support my work and my career.
Thanks, Scott Miller at Trident, for fighting the forces of evil and for being my literary agent.
Steve Younger, Steve Fisher, Steve Iwanyk. Thanks for making it so easy to remember your first names. Oh, and also for seeing to it that my works get sold to Hollywood, where they are very, very slowly being made into movies. Very slowly.
Gavin Palone, thank you for bringing sanity to an insane process.
Monica Perkins, thank you for all the coffee and for keeping so many things on track. I get that people have to grow, to move on, to try new things, I just never wanted that to happen with you.
Elliott Crowe does most of the work I am supposed to be doing as producer of independent movies like the aforementioned
Muffin Top
and the soon-to-be-released
Cook Off
. It gives me more time to write and also means things get done correctly, which I so appreciate. If you try to quit, I will hunt you down like an animal.
Thanks Fly HC and Hillary Carlip for wbrucecameron.com and adogspurpose.com, both beautiful sites.
The coolest part about being an author is that I get to meet other writers. No, seriously, to me, writers have always been like rock stars. Claire LaZebnik and Samantha Dunn and Jillian Lauren and Andrew Gross are not only cool people, but they like me, they really like me! Nelson DeMille told me many, many years ago that he would help me with my career, and he's still at itâhe blurbed my novel
The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man
. So did Lee Child, known in the literary world as one of the nicest writers alive. I'm really grateful.
My award-winning teacher sister Amy Cameron wrote the study guides for
Emory's Gift
,
A Dog's Purpose
, and
A Dog's Journey
. I'm going to see if I can talk to her about doing one for
The Dog Master
. They are excellent, took a ton of work, are written to Common Core standards, and are available free on my website.
Thanks to Tom Rooker. What, exactly, are we doing?
Thank you, Carolina and Annie. You can stop growing up now.
When I started writing
The Dog Master,
my father, William J. Cameron, MD, was still alive and gave me insight into the sorts of dumb questions writers ask doctors, such as, “what does it feel like to give birth?” (Even though he was a gynecologist, he told me to ask my mother.) Sadly, my father passed away before ever reading even a draft of
The Dog Master
, which I consider the most ambitious work of my career. I am grateful to him for many things, of course, but one of them is being my official advisor for medical topics. That duty has passed on to my sister Julie Cameron, MD, who puts up with my queries even though she's a bit busy saving lives. I am so grateful to have this resource in the family, as asking hypothetical questions about fictional situations usually isn't covered by my health insurance.
My whole family supports everything I do, even though Eloise and Gordon are too young to know or care much about it. Thanks to Chelsea, James, Georgia, and Chase, and especially thanks to my Mom, Monsie Cameron, who forces everyone she knows to buy two or three copies of each of my books and will boycott any store that doesn't sell my novels, even the gas station.
If you've slogged your way through all of this, you probably read the book as well, and I want to thank you for that. Without you I wouldn't have a career, and all of my stories would remain trapped in my head. I feel so lucky to have your support.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
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W. BRUCE CAMERON
is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of
A Dog's Purpose,
A Dog's Journey
, and
The Dogs of Christmas
. He lives in California. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
    
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Ellie's Story: A Dog's Purpose Novel