BY MARK A. STEVENS
SPECIAL TO THE ELIZABETHTON STAR

Reincarnation.
It’s a theme that plays well in the life of W. Bruce Cameron, as well as in the pages of his best-selling novel, “A Dog’s Purpose,” which is about to find renewed life on the big screen.
The book has already found a renewal that pushed it, over the past few weeks, to No. 1 on the USA Today and The New York Times best-seller lists — quite the feat for a novel that was first released nearly seven years ago.
“I feel so humbled and so gratified over everything that has happened,” Cameron said in a telephone interview, “and I recognize that I played a small part in this whole, huge feat.”
Cameron is being overly modest, perhaps. He’s had a career that would be the envy of most — his newspaper humor column was read by millions in the late 1990s to mid-2000s; his book, “8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter,” was a best seller and adapted into a successful sitcom starring John Ritter; and “A Dog’s Purpose” was the first in a series of successful novels he’s written since it was released in 2010.
Originally “A Dog’s Purpose” spent 52 weeks on the best-seller lists, but it never quite made it to No. 1, but his wife, Cathryn Michon, a screenwriter and also a successful author, was an early believer.
“Cathryn gave me a keychain several years ago,” Cameron recalls. “It was a dog-tag shaped key chain, and it says on it, ‘A Dog’s Purpose, No. 1 New York Times Best Seller.’ The only person who ever had faith that would happen was Cathryn.”
Little wonder — “A Dog���s Purpose” was originally conceived 12 years ago as a love story for Michon, then Cameron’s girlfriend. Michon had momentarily rocked the couple’s budding relationship when she announced, after the death of her beloved Doberman pinscher, Ellie, that she didn’t think she could ever have a dog in her life again. The loss of Ellie, she said, was too painful.
To comfort Michon, Cameron said, “I made up this story for her about a dog who reincarnates and remembers each life and sets off on a special quest to find his purpose.”
When he was finished with the dog’s tale, Michon made a declaration: He had to make it into a novel.
And the story was reborn as “A Dog’s Purpose,” which has earned Cameron a loyal following of dog lovers ever since. And the couple also adopted a rescue pup named Tucker.
Success, it seems, has followed Cameron every step of his career.
“The honest truth is, it’s been slow to sink in,” he admitted. “Being No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list was a goal I cockily set for myself when I was, I believe, 19 years old and when I was writing my first novel, which was 135 pages of some of the worst prose ever wrought in western civilization. But I, nonetheless, felt this was my destiny, you might say.
“Well, that was a number of years ago, but it has been one of my lifelong ambitions that I believed would absolutely happen. Part of what I’m feeling is that I’m sorry that my father never got to see it. He passed away a few years ago. He would have been so thrilled for me.”
Despite the success, Cameron has never stopped writing. In fact, he has a new novel due out this spring. He and Michon also served as screenwriters for the movie adaptation of “A Dog’s Purpose.”
Turning his book into a movie was not even an ambition he held, Cameron said, but he said he’s been grateful for the experience.
“I had no knowledge how a book turned into a movie,” Cameron said. “If you had asked me how it happened, I would have been so wrong. It was not really an ambition, because I really didn’t understand the power of a major studio marketing of the book.
“We got home last night (from vacation), and as we turned down our street, there was a billboard for ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ – a huge picture for all the world to see. It was somewhat astounding. It left me a little speechless. … I would not have understood the strength, recognition and awareness that comes with having a movie. While it was not an ambition, I’m certainly glad that it’s happened.”
Translating “A Dog’s Purpose,” which occurs over several decades and the lives of a number of dogs, from the page to the screen gave Cameron a new appreciation for how audiences will experience his work.
“As an author, you are aware that people are consuming your art as individuals, one book at a time,” he said. “They sit down and read it by themselves. Unless they are reading it aloud in a classroom or maybe to a child, it’s pretty much a solitary act.
“But this movie means that people will see my story together, with families, with friends, grandmothers and grandchildren. Everybody will be experiencing it together. They’ll be seeing it at the same time. That will be a whole new experience for me, and I’m so looking forward to it.”
Cameron and his wife were able to spend time on the set of the movie in Canada in the fall of 2015.
“I suppose that my job as screenwriter was to talk to the producer and the director,” Cameron said, “but I spent all my time playing with the dogs. And they are all wonderful actors … and really communicated emotions, and it was wonderful to watch. I particularly loved a little Yorkie. … I’m surprised I didn’t bring the dog home with me. If someone had said, ‘You need to take the dog off our hands,’ I would have said, ‘No problem!’ ”
He has since seen the finished movie, which stars Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton, K.J. Apa and, as the voice of the dog, Josh Gad, who also voiced Olaf in the mega Disney hit “Frozen.”
“I saw it with Josh, and that made the experience twice as much fun,” Cameron said. “He’s such an emotive actor … and an emotive person. … His performance, of course, is just fantastic playing the dog. You will totally believe that this actor, Josh Gad, has the soul of a dog.
“To see it all finally come together … is wonderful. It’s a wonderful movie, and I’m so happy with how it turned out. I’m so delighted.”
And, the author admits, he and Gad shed a few tears, but he stressed that, like the book, the movie will be an uplifting experience for audiences.
“I suppose the phrase ‘good cry’ comes up all the time when people are describing the book,” Cameron said. “For me, what I tried to do with the book was what a dog does to our life, which is to bring joy and happiness and then a profound sense of meaning to us, as well.
“Dogs are with us for such a short period of time, and they live their lives so joyfully. And I believe the message of the dogs is: Humans are here for a short period of time and that we also should live our lives joyfully. And that, I hope, is the message of ‘A Dog’s Purpose’.”
(The writer of this story, Mark A. Stevens, is a Carter County native and a former publisher of the Elizabethton Star. He is now the executive editor of the South Strand News Group, publisher of three newspapers, The Georgetown Times, the South Strand News and The County Chronicle. He lives in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, with his wife, Amy, and their dog, Rue.)