DOBSON — After releasing his third book, “The Road to Devotion,” WXII-TV anchor Cameron Kent visited Surry Community College last week to speak to a crowd of more than 100 people.

Kent, who has penned two other books, spoke to the crowd about the process of writing books, specifically how his latest book took shape.

“I love creating characters. I can decide how they walk and how they talk and what they like to eat — their fears, weaknesses and motivations. What makes it really exciting is after you’ve done that and you have established that character and you’ve done it well then that character starts talking to you and telling you what to do next,” Kent said.

One of the problems with characters is that they don’t always make it to the end of the book, he said. His favorite character in his second book, “When the Ravens Die,” didn’t make it to the end of the book.

“I killed him off about two-thirds of the way through and I remember distinctly the night that happened. I was sitting up in my loft office at home at 3 o’clock in the morning, I killed this guy. I turned off the computer and laid down and I started thinking, I feel terrible. I just killed this guy and it’s my fault. I’m not sure I can live with myself. I had this urge to run back upstairs and turn the computer on and bring him back to life.”

He said he becomes truly involved with his characters. He also believes that the writer is the person who “gorges” themselves on life.

“I believe the writer is the person who looks at the world in a different way. In journalism, I call it turning my back on the fire. While everybody else is looking at the fire and the flames shooting out of the house, the writer is the person looking at the people watching that house burn. You see the people who used to live in that house,” Kent said.

He told the crowd his secret to writing.

“You sit down and you start writing. That’s how you do it. My journalism professor at Wake Forest University said the simplest thing, but it’s the truest thing I’ve ever heard, ‘The writer writes.’”

He let the crowd in on one of the other secrets that he has found in his writing.

“You don’t quit until you are done. I have found that the biggest obstacle is not time, it isn’t writer’s block. I think what stops most of us from writing is fear. Fear that nobody wants to read what you have to say.”

Kent said the theme of his latest novel is based on “how we should treat people.” He said he came up with idea of two women who lived in 1860 and 1861.

“Sarah Talton, who lives on a farm in Winston, North Carolina, and Jacquerie Bodin, who is a runaway slave from Louisiana, and the intersection of their two lives.”

He said the cover really explains what is going on inside the book. Benita VanWinkle, who teaches at Surry Community College, illustrated the cover for the book.

“She absolutely captured the essence of this book. It’s about two women who are basically alone in the world. It was during a turbulent time when civil war was about to break out. So as they sit in the barn on these bales of hay with the horse stall — it really represents the obstacles that they had to overcome,” Kent said. “The best thing about this cover is the gray, the black and the white. And that is one of the themes of this book. When you blend black and white, you get gray — different shades of gray.”

He said the title of the book actually means two things. He said for Sarah, it is a spiritual journey. For Jacquerie, he said, it is “truly the road to Devotion,” the community in Surry County, where she is headed on the underground railroad.

Kent joked that his wife said that only he would read 12 books in order to write one book. He said he wanted the book to be historically accurate for the time period.

Following the speaking engagement, Kent said he was impressed with the turnout and always loves visiting Surry Community College.

“The turnout was fantastic. I am always amazed when people come out to hear me talk about writing. It was a great crowd. You know I’ve been up here several times before and they are so welcoming. They roll out the red carpet. It’s genuinely a pleasure to come up here,” Kent said.

Dr. Deborah Friedman, president of Surry Community College, was in attendance at Kent’s speech.

“We truly appreciate his interest in sharing his time and his passion for education with our students,” Friedman said.

One of Kent’s fans, Dawn Osborne, said she loved the presentation.

“I’ve played around with writing since I was 16. That’s how I started talking to him. I wrote him a letter and he corresponded back to answer the questions that I had. I really enjoyed hearing about how he researched for the book,” Osborne said.

Kent also penned “When the Ravens Die” and “Make Me Disappear,” a children’s novel. His film credits include movies shown on NBC, HBO, Lifetime, and at the American Film Institute.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.