Lee Thompson's Blog, page 25

Shock Totem #4 free for Kindle Today

Go get Shock Totem #4 for free on your Kindle today. It's a great issue. I love those guys.

Thanks to any who spread the word!

In the last year and a couple months I've sold five books to Delirium/Darkfuse, and it still blows my mind. Dave Thomas just interviewed me on their website, which was a lot of fun, and I reveal some secrets. Have a gander.

Also neat to see that Goodreads has a feature that lets me list the Division mythos on my author page. It's going to be pretty amazing to watch that fill up with all 13 books in the next few years.

Glad I stumbled across that. I learn something new every day.

Jonathan Maberry just guest posted on Book Den, too. Check it out!

Darkfuse has the Delirium novella subscription available for Kindle now too.

And my newest novella DOWN HERE IN THE DARK wants to rock your socks off. Go snag it and leave me a review on Amazon or Goodreads. I'm also giving away a few copies but you have to hurry…

My latest novel (the sequel to Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children) is going to go all gang busters on you. It's dark and vivid and wants you to give it a chance.

Stay tuned for an interview with Greg Gifune and a guest post I'll be doing about the first Red Piccirilli book BEFORE LEONORA WAKES.

Thanks!

New interview with me on Darkfuse

Just received word the interview with me went live on Darkfuse. It was a lot of fun. Here's a snippet:

What was your inspiration for writing DOWN HERE IN THE DARK?

Well, it's a small part of a large story, and I knew that Frank Gunn was as close as you can get to shattered by the end of IRON BUTTERFLIES RUST, so I explored that and the trip, the adventure really, as scary as it can be at times, that brings him to the crazy little town of Division. I see things very clearly when it comes to my character and how his story ties into others, the big picture and the small beats, which made it easy to write about him in this book. I enjoy subtext too and there is a lot of that, and a lot of links to other Division books, and I like the forward propulsion of the narrative, the searching Frank does inside himself and trying to relate to all the odd things going on around him, which really is out of his reach like it is anybody's.

What themes do you enjoy exploring?

Oh, a lot of themes. Lol. Recurring ones are about betrayal and how we deal with it; the necessity of returning violence when somebody will be nothing but violent to you or those you love; growing up on the inside instead of faking it simply for the sake of others; how weak and strong and reliable and unreliable we can all be, how human that makes us; that if anything in the world is a monster, it's man; if anything in the world is a hero, it's man; connections that may not appear to be connections at first until we dig deeper and figure out people's motives; how frail love makes us, and how incredibly driven; how hate doesn't eat us alive, our allowing it to rule over us for an extended period of time does, because hate is as necessary as love; how there's magic in childhood and adults train it out of us; how desperate some people are to find an identity and others will sacrifice everything just to fit in, which I and most of my characters feel is very, very sad; I like to explore the results of tragedy, and show how different people cope or accept it; I deal in self-loathing because I've done it most of my life, and the work it takes to break those negative thought processes; bad habits and good habits, regrets and pride, extremes and everywhere between; the mystery of life and our fear of death; our egotism one moment and self-doubt the next; most of my characters feel like Holden Caulfield, that they're surrounded by phonies, that they themselves might be phonies, and it whittles at their souls because if nothing is true or fair or genuine then what's the fucking point when you don't want to play the game to begin with?

Read the rest of the interview here: Lee's Darkfuse interview…

Please spread the word for me too! Thanks!

Yeah, I'm wicked

2012 has taken off at a quick clip…

Tons of things going on here and all of them rocking. I've got the signature sheets for DOWN HERE IN THE DARK in front of me. The digital is out now, the signed/limited hardcover coming mid-April. It's a hell of a story and picks up right after the end of IRON BUTTERFLIES RUST. It's dark, twisted, cryptic and stunning. Alfred Hitchcock (my pet monkey) said it's a tour de force.

Like everything else, I think it stands alone, but it's a sliver of the Division mythos and I think it's going to be badass when every book and short story is complete so everybody (including me) can read them in order and experience the full effects of these character' trials and successes.

It also ties in directly to THE DAMPNESS OF MOURNING which is out early as a Kindle Exclusive. The signed/limited hardcovers are coming out on Valentine's Day!

I did an interview on Literary Mayhem. Also just turned one in for Darkfuse that was a lot of fun and should be live soon. Working with Dave Thomas on some promotional stuff that should be a blast for everybody! I think I'll be playing guitar and reading some opening chapters.

NURSERY RHYMES 4 DEAD CHILDREN is in production as an audio book and so far I've heard the first 13 chapters (my lucky number!) and it is so cool to hear somebody else read my work.

I've also been interviewing some of my heroes lately. So far I've sat down and sipped absinthe with Robert Dunbar, Tom Piccirilli, and Lee Thomas. All amazingly talented bad boys. Up next I'll be interviewing Greg Gifune. Working on his questions now. It's been a lot of fun talking to those guys and picking their brains. They've been surprisingly candid and I love 'em for it.

I finished the rewrite on the second Red Piccirilli book WITHIN THIS GARDEN WEEPING. I'd submitted it to Chizine but since I've written one novel and three novellas while waiting to hear back from them I figured it a good idea to use what I'd learned while waiting to make the book stronger. It's the sequel to the first book BEFORE LEONORA WAKES, a simple but interesting YA story. I'm very proud of both of them since they set the foundation in what comes in the adult novels and novellas. You can read the opening of the second book on the lovely Book Den.

Another Division story, THE RIVER, is under consideration with Apex's Dark Faith 2 antho. It's the only short story I have unpublished right now and I love it.

Two short stories (Daddy Screamed With Us and Crooked Stick Figures) will be in the anthology American Horror Stories, vol. 1 from Delirium Books later this year, too.

I'm working out the threads of the third Red Piccirill novel COLLECTED SONGS OF SONNELION. So not ready to write this one yet. It's going to be incredibly dark for Red. It's going to break my heart to write. But I know I have to get to it at some point because this is the book that mostly shapes who Red is in the Division novels Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children, The Dampness of Mourning, and The Patron Saint of Infinite Sorrow.

Also working on the threads of a very touching, yet very disturbing, YA novel called A Monster of Many Faces. It's going to tackle issues that have bothered me my whole life and people are going to die (one of them is already dead.)

I'm anxious (somewhat) for when reviews start coming in for all four books coming out this year. I enjoy feedback, and especially enjoy it when people tackle the challenge each story presents. I know not everybody will get them, and not everybody is going to like my work, but I'm grateful some do (some who I have a ton of respect for.)

I've heard news that my Thunderstorm novella is on the fast track and look forward to seeing the finished product. It's going to be a beauty.

I'm very excited that some people are loving the Division story line and characters. I see it all so clearly and its such a massive story it takes my breath away knowing that it came out of my wee little imagination. Crazy.

Feeling very relaxed. No pressure here. But expect some great things.

Go read this…

Sometimes life kisses us softly and sometimes with a hammer. Some people are incredibly strong and don't share their hardest trials very often because it only creates more questions for which they don't have answers. Here's a tough woman, a sweetheart, bearing her soul.

Interview: Lee Thomas

Lee Thomas is the Lambda Literary Award and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of the novels Stained, Damage, and The Dust of Wonderland, and the critically-acclaimed short story collection In the Closet, Under the Bed. In addition to numerous magazines, his short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Darkness of the Edge, Supernatural Noir, Horror Library, Vol. 4, and Inferno, among others. Current and forthcoming titles include the novellas The Black Sun Set, Crisis, and Focus (co-written with Nate Southard). Lee lives in Austin, Texas, where he is working on a number of projects. Lee's website.

The first thing I read by Lee was his story in A WALK ON THE DARKSIDE, "Anthem of the Estranged." I loved it. Then before I'd ever sold anything I had the pleasure of reading slush for the Horror Library and was the first to read and recommend Lee's fantastic story "Flicker" for HORROR LIBRARY, VOL. 4, and the editors, in their good taste, purchased it.

I loved The Black Sun Set and sent it to my buddy Shaun who enjoyed the hell out of it as well. Then recently I got to share some pages with Lee in A HACKED-UP HOLIDAY MASSACRE. What fun! Again his story, "Ghunt," was one of my favorites alongside work by Jack Ketchum, Joe Lansdale, and Marie Green.

And I remember reading something Lee said last year and since my first novel came out about that time it made a lot of sense. He said something like we all dream of selling that first book and we like to believe that's the goal but it's just "The Starting Line." Yep.

Thanks to Lee for spending some time with us and thanks to everybody who reads and shares! Go check out some of this guy's work!

Me: Over the last ten years you've built a respectable body of work. How has your view of yourself as a writer changed in that time?

Lee: Well I used to see myself as a hobbyist. I wrote because I loved writing and I'd write novels the way other folks played fantasy football or knitted scarves. With no intention of doing anything with the books, I wasn't particularly concerned with quality, originality, commercial appeal or anything beyond getting the story on the page. I didn't have to know what I was doing because if it made me happy, I'd satisfied my audience. As a working author, quality and originality and broader (if not exactly commercial) appeal become considerations. Of course, my work still has to satisfy me, first and foremost, but these days that's a whole lot harder to do. The more I read and the more I write, the more critical I become. Part of that is the need to challenge myself, but another significant part of it is realizing that at some point the story is going to leave my happy bubble and make its way into the world. People, strangers, innocent bystanders, are going to go out of their way to read it, so it had better be tight. Of course, writing is still enjoyable, but it's not the fun and games it once was, and it shouldn't be. As a working author, you have to develop a critical eye. You should have an abusive relationship with your muse. There should be screaming and throttling and throwing shit, because every story idea is not necessarily a good story idea and every story direction isn't going to lead you to El Dorado.

Me: You have a new novella TORN coming out from Cemetery Dance. Can you tell us about the process of writing it?

Lee: Several years ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to do novellas about all of the iconic horror creatures and possibly put them together one day into a single volume. Generally speaking, I'm not compelled to write about the classic monsters–vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc., – but they were certainly an important part of my formation as a writer, and they're a hell of a lot of fun, so I thought a series of novellas would cover that ground. I started with PARISH DAMNED, which was my look at vampires, and then I did a ghost piece that blew up to novel length. Next was CRISIS, which was a riff on zombies. The publisher that bought it went through some hard times and the book was orphaned, so I put it up on Kindle as an ebook. TORN is my take on werewolves. I wanted to bring something new to the lycanthropy game, and TORN does that. It's definitely an action piece with a good amount of nasty violence, but the human factor is equally compelling. I was really pleased with the way it turned out. I believe Cemetery Dance is already shipping copies to subscribers of the novella series, though the official release is March, 2012.

Me: Where do you see yourself going next? Do you have a plan or just take it one thing at a time?

Lee: Yeah, the second thing. Ha! The novel I'm finishing up, which should be done in the next few days, is a noir/dark fantasy piece set during Prohibition that's very different from my earlier books. But then, THE GERMAN was different from the books that came before it. It can be hard to plan when you don't know what you're next book is going to look like, content-wise. I know the next book will have a contemporary setting, because I've done a couple of historicals back-to-back and I'd like to do something in the now. Beyond that… shrug.

Me: What advice can you offer new writers?

Lee: I am nobody's role model. Seriously. I think writers are a diverse and complicated group and most of the "one size fits all" advice sounds good and might help the masses, but it can also be incredibly discouraging to a singular mind who has their own drummer to beat. Quite frankly we need more of those folks in the business, so I'm not going to chase them off by insisting they eat their Wheaties and write every day. My advice: Do what works and keep doing it.

Me: Is writing a want, a need, or a compulsion for you?

Lee: Yes.

Me: Lol. Who are some of your biggest influences? Was their impact on you so influential that you'd be a completely different writer if you hadn't read them?

Lee: My biggest influences in genre are Peter Straub, Clive Barker, and Stephen King. I was fortunate to have these three writers emerge during my youth (or relative youth in regard to Barker). Those three define contemporary dark fiction as far as I'm concerned, and I can't imagine what I'd be writing if I hadn't escaped into their stories all of those years ago. Later in life, around the time I started publishing, I began reading Jack Ketchum, and he too has had an impact on my current work. I could list influences all day, because there is such a rich history to draw from, but my early influences were those three guys. From them, I worked my way back to Matheson, Bradbury, Lovecraft, M.R. James, Machen, and a pantheon of other brilliant minds. And that's just in genre. Around the time I was reading Straub and King, I was also reading Truman Capote, the plays of Tennessee Williams and others of the Southern Gothic school, so they are equally responsible for the shit that comes out of my head.

Me: Do you prefer writing or reading short fiction over the longer forms?

Lee: No. Not really. I wrote novels before I wrote short stories, so I used to have a preference for the longer works, but these days, I'm just looking for a well-written and interesting story and form doesn't really play into it.

Me: Hot seat question… How do you feel about the .99 cent Kindle craze? For or against? Reasoning?

Lee: It's a double-edged sword. First though, we should define what we're talking about. Established authors are in a different position than emerging authors. So it might be best to discuss what this all means to the new folks. Plus, if an author is selling short stories for a buck a pop, cool and groovy. They get a thousand downloads and they've made about a pro rate for that story, depending on word count and such. Obviously, the same isn't true for novels or even novellas. I would think that if writers are making long works available at that price, they are going to have to put in hardcore promotion hours to get any kind of reasonable payout. Or they are merely using the low cost to generate buzz. In the abstract, it's a legitimate marketing strategy if it leads to a readership that will eventually pay a reasonable amount for the work. I mean Metallica built a reputation by encouraging fans to copy and distribute cassettes of their early demos, and they're doing okay. Ha! There can be no doubt how effective a bit of artistic tease can be. But you know those hundreds of other bands that did exactly the same things Metallica did? No… me neither.

I've done it, with the novella I mentioned, CRISIS, just to test the waters. It went fine, but it wasn't a bounty by any means, mostly because I didn't do jack to promote it. Still, whether it's .99 or free, the fact is when something is that cheap, it's perceived as disposable. So a reader can load up their Kindle with a few dozen titles and may only read a fraction of them. A writer CAN build a legitimate fan base that way, some have, but most won't see any genuine, long-term benefit to their careers because the product has been acquired but it hasn't necessarily been consumed. Their stories are part of a digital library; it doesn't mean they're being read, and if they aren't read and affecting the reader, driving him or her to pick up more of that author's work, then it's a bit of a pointless exercise. Further, if readers can get material free or dirt cheap, they may balk at paying what a story is really worth when the time comes. They'll keep reading the free stuff, regardless of quality, because their affinity is to the unit cost, not the author. And the issue of quality is a major one, because many of these titles haven't been edited by professionals, or even vetted through competent first readers. As a result, authors stand the real chance of losing readers who find themselves frustrated by poor grammar, typos, and/or storylines that are inconsistent or lack logic.

So on the up side, it is a practical marketing tool that offers a slim, though real, chance for burgeoning authors to build their readership. On the down side, a writer still has to shout through all the noise out there to get readers to notice them, and they're driving the perceived value of stories down in the process.

Me: You collaborated with Nate Southard on your Thunderstorm novella FOCUS. What did you find most rewarding and most challenging about that project? Have you collaborated with others before? Do you plan to do it again?

Lee: The most rewarding part was working with Nate. He's a great writer with a strong grasp of pacing and atmosphere. I had the basic idea of what I wanted to do, something like EVIL DEAD in an office building, and I wrote up the first chapter. Nate took the idea and ran with it, and we went back and forth until we had something much bigger and more fun than I'd initially imagined. My only other collaboration was with Stefan Petrucha for the WICKED DEAD series of books for HarperTeen. It was a completely different kind of collaboration because of the way the books were structured. In that instance we each focused on our specific parts and put them together at the end. Then we went back and forth with revisions until we were both happy.

I don't have any plans for a new collaboration, but I'm open to the idea. It simply depends on the project and the co-author. But it will be a while before I can take on anything new. I've got a few projects keeping me busy these days.

Me: I just finished THE GERMAN and loved it. Where did the idea originate? Did you have to do a lot of pre-writing? Did it all grow organically from who the characters are and the situation?

Lee: Thank you. The story emerged as most of my ideas do, from a confluence of disparate elements, all of which occurred in a relatively short period of time and somehow fit together in my head. The first was a History Channel program about a Nazi leader named Ernst Röhm. Röhm was, for several years, one of the most powerful men in Germany, commanding the SA (or "Brownshirts"), during Hitler's rise to power. Considered a threat by Hitler, Röhm was assassinated, along with many of his officers and sympathizers, in 1934 on "The Night of the Long Knives." Further, Röhm was openly, and vocally, gay. Prior to this program, I'd never heard of the man, but I found his story fascinating. That evening I sat down and wrote a scene, which became the prologue of the novel. The second element was a daytrip I took to Fredericksburg, a small Texas town with a noticeable German heritage. Since I was relatively new to Texas, I didn't know how extensive German settlement had been in the state, so that gave me a pretty good idea about setting. The third, quite frankly, was a porn flick I saw playing on the television in a gay bar. It was a generic setup of somebody peeking through a window and watching the "action," and in that, I found the novel's pivotal event. Further, I'd been looking for a story that would let me explore the nastier human traits, stemming from the defense of personal or social identity and how this can play out from schoolyard bullying to culturally sanctioned genocide. Character, setting, conflict, and that overarching idea collided and meshed. And though there was a lot of research involved, the character voices and story came quickly. Ultimately, I did little in the way of pre-writing, and for that matter, this novel went through far fewer revisions than I'm used to doing.

Me: Do you have favorite works? Which three would you suggest new readers try?

Lee: My favorites change with the weather, but I think THE GERMAN is currently at the top of the list of readily available titles. So I'd say THE GERMAN, IN THE CLOSET, UNDER THE BED, and TORN, the novella I have forthcoming from Cemetery Dance. If folks are more inclined toward YA titles, then I'd recommend MASON, which I wrote under the name Thomas Pendleton.

Me: Anything you want to say before we say goodbye?

Lee: Thanks very much for taking the time to chat with me. Be sure to direct folks to the interviews you did with my buddies Tom Piccirilli and Robert Dunbar. And continued success with your own writing. See ya!

Me: Thanks, Lee! And there you have it. Love this guy's writing and you should give those three books he mentioned a try!

Thanks to all who read and spread the word!

Down Here in the Dark hardcovers and ebooks

Ready for a giveaway???

Happy to see DOWN HERE IN THE DARK up for pre-order in collectible hardcover and it's available right now for your ereader!!! If you follow that link you can read a sample of it too. Love that cover by Dani Serra too! It's the second Frank Gunn novella, and is pivotal in the Division mythos, and runs in tandem with my latest novel THE DAMPNESS OF MOURNING, both books leading the characters deeper into truth about themselves and the world within worlds.

Very proud of this book. Like everything I write, my advice is pay attention. There's a lot of sub-text. And a hell of a lot going on that connects to other pieces.

I'll be giving away three e-copies of Down Here in the Dark in the next two weeks since I have a couple of interviews lined up to do next. All you have to do for a chance to win one of the three copies is help me spread the word by sharing it and leaving a link to where you shared it in the comments of this post.

Feel free to spread the word so I can give a few of these badass little stories away! Thanks!

And if you're a professional reviewer you can get a copy here.

Book opening of WITHIN THIS GARDEN WEEPING

Very excited that Jennifer at Book Den let me guest blog on her website. I shared the first chapter of the second Red Piccirilli book, WITHIN THIS GARDEN WEEPING, which is one of the first books in my Division mythos.

A lot of great things going on here which I'll share in the coming months.

Go give the guest post a read and spread the word!

Thanks!

News on Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children

It's official. Contract done. The audio book is in production! Yay! It's always exciting to hear somebody else read your work aloud, and I must admit that I like it very much. Will share more once it's closer to the release date!

*Boogie woogie*

New review of IRON BUTTERFLIES RUST

Always happy to see new reviews of my work. This one for Iron Butterflies Rust was done by Gabino Iglesias at The Horror Review.

Feel free to spread the word. Thanks!

The Dampness of Mourning hardcovers

The signed/limited hardcovers of my second Division novel THE DAMPNESS OF MOURNING are nearly sold out. It's going to be a beauty and highly collectible so make sure you snag a copy even if you have to borrow the money from your mom.

The Dampness of Mourning update

Also interviewed two incredibly talented writers recently if you missed it:

Tom Piccirilli

Robert Dunbar

Up next I have another author I admire the hell out of.

Hope everybody is well.