Brian Keene's Blog, page 141

Friday Links

1. The Outhousers interviewed me, and the whole thing went terribly awry.

2. Kevin Interdonato, star of the movie Brian Keene’s The Ties That Bind, has a new TV pilot called Dirty Dead Con Man. The production could use your help. Details here.

3. Pal (and occasional collaborator) Mike Oliveri’s award-winning novel, Deadliest of the Species, is now on Kindle for less than three bucks.

The Fate of Levi Stoltzfus

Astute readers have noticed that I seem to be wrapping everything up. What then, of fan-favorite character and ex-Amish occult detective Levi Stoltzfus? 

Levi first appeared in Ghost Walk, the sequel to Dark Hollow. His story was then continued in A Gathering of Crows and the novella The Witching Tree. (An alternate reality version of Levi appears in Clickers vs. Zombies). With each subsequent story, Levi seems to get himself into more and more trouble with the forces of both Heaven and Hell as he straddles the uncomfortable line between hero and anti-hero — determined to be a force for good even if he must resort to evil to accomplish those goals. But with the climax of The Witching Tree, and his apparent damnation almost a certainty, many readers have been asking me, “What happens next? How’s he going to get out of this one? And when are we going to find out the rest of his back story?”

Well, today I know those answers. I can tell you a few of them now. You’ll have to wait for the others.

Levi will next appear in a novella called The Last of the Albatwitches, to be published in hardcover as part of this year’s Maelstrom set (which will also include hardcovers of the uncut edition of The Rising and a new novel by F. Paul Wilson and Sarah Pinborough called A Necessary End).

That will lead into an as-yet-untitled novella for Bad Moon Books, the plot of which takes Levi to Cleveland (the only person whom I’ve told the plot to is pre-reader Mark ‘Dezm’ Sylva, and that’s only because he was in the hotel room with me in Cleveland when I got the idea).

That will lead into a third novella, also still untitled, to be published by Cemetery Dance.

Then, all of these will lead into one final novel called Bad Ground, in which Levi goes home, and all of his back story — and his final fate — will be revealed.

***

(And yes, for those of you who don’t buy limited edition hardcovers, I do plan on collecting the four Levi novellas into a book-length volume — but that won’t happen for several years, so if you just can’t wait, The Witching Tree appears in Is There A Demon In You, and copies are still available).

***

Many long-time readers assume that Levi is one of The Seven (a disparate group of characters who will make humanity’s last stand, rumored throughout all of my novels). He isn’t. But his precursor, Nelson LeHorn, is. As well as Frankie from The Rising and City of the Dead. And Teddy Garnett from Earthworm Gods. And The Exit from short stories “I Am An Exit” and “This Is Not An Exit”. So now you know three of the four.

Support the CASTAWAYS Movie

As previously announced, my novel Castaways is optioned by Drive-In Films (Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale) with Jon Wagner (Anniversary at Shallow Creek) and Damian Maffei (Closed For the Season) attached, Charles St. John Smith III producing, and Robert Angelo Masciantonio writing and directing.

Today we’re asking you to help get the film into production. And it won’t cost you a dime. We need to show Amazon Studios that there is a demand for this movie. This can be done in two easy clicks of your mouse.

STEP 1: Go to the project’s Amazon Studios page and download the free PDF of the screenplay.

STEP 2: Leave a 4-star or 5-star review.

It’s that easy. Oh, and you might also want to follow the official Twitter or Facebook pages.

And if you haven’t read the novel, it’s available in paperback, Kindle, and Nook.

And now for your Maurice Broaddus Moment of Zen

High Plains Clickers

The previously announced High Plains Clickers comic book series is now officially on the back-burner. The publisher decided that Western comics aren’t really selling right now. I would argue that this was a horror comic, but I’m just the writer. (I just wish this decision had been made before the comic was announced in the latest issue of The Last Zombie — but again, I’m just the writer). Anyway, J.F. Gonzalez and I will take the time we’d set aside for this project and instead work on our other project, code-named The Bible (forthcoming from for Infernal House). Later on, we’ll shop High Plains Clickers elsewhere.

GUEST BLOG: “The Great and Improbable Secret to a Great and Improbable Writing Career” by the Great and Improbable Weston Ochse

The state of publishing was explained to me early on, when I first started writing. You see, publishers prefer it if you write in a specific way, because they can categorize you much more easily. Likewise, booksellers know just where to put you so that your fan base can find you. After all, you’d never find Bag of Bones in the Romance Section or Duma Key in Men’s Self Help. In fact, if it was up to publishers, your first book would set the stage for everything that came after, thus locking you into a career of writing that very first thing which was published. So armed with this knowledge, I embarked on a writing career. 

My first book was coming of age dark fantasy. That made me an author of bildungsroman, right? I was a coming of age fantasist, much like my literary idol Ray Bradbury. Hot damn! I knew where I was going to be. I knew where my books were going to be sold. I knew my future. I was the second coming of Ray Bradbury.

But then my next two books were horror science fiction. Two books of a trilogy I never finished. Arggh, screamed my fans. Arggh, screamed me. I’d channeled Lin Carter and he’d taken me so far away from Mr. Bradbury, I couldn’t see my way back. But I liked writing this. I liked this sort of fiction. I might have even finished the trilogy had it not been for an a—well, that’s another story. So now I’m on track. I’m a horror science fiction author. Check. Got it.

Then my fourth book, to finally be published later this year, was an Iraqi War heist novel. WTF? Where’d that come from? There’s not even any horror or science fiction or fantasy or any of that good genre shit. Am I slipping into the mainstream? Please, Great Elder Gods of Genre Fiction, save me!

As improbable as it sounds, my fifth book was cyberpunk. What the hell was I thinking? In five books I’d written in seven genres. Didn’t I learn the lessons of those who’d come before me? Did I think that I was single-handedly going to revive an amazing genre which Neal Stephenson and William Gibson planted, grew, cultivated, then watched die before the millennium? Yeah. I suppose I did.

To right my literary ship, my sixth book was a zombie book. It was also my first worldwide-selling mass market book. Zombies! Can’t get more horror than that. Snapping teeth, supernatural hunger, undying monsters, running for your lives. Yep! That’s it. I’m a horror author. After all, I belong to the Horror Writer’s association so I have to be a horror author. Right?

But then my seventh book, also a worldwide-selling mass market book, was a post-apocalyptic science fiction book. Jesus Christ on a big wheel. I am a horror author right? Does this mean I have to join SFWA, because I’m writing pseudo-science fiction tales? I wonder if there’s a post-apocalyptic science fiction club somewhere? Rumor has it there’s one in Estonia. Note to self-Google it.

In an effort to bring myself back to my horror roots, I resurrected an old novella turned screenplay and turned it into a full-fledged novel, making my eighth book was a no shit horror book dedicated to the B Movie Monsters of our past. Now that’s horror.

I was so happy being a horror author, I decided that my ninth book would be a short story collection. Of course there was some science fiction stories in the book. Of course there was some fantasy. In fact, to be perfectly honest with you, in broad daylight I was calling myself a horror author, but behind closed doors when I dressed up like a real author in frilly women’s clothes and high heels, I called myself a fantasist. It sounded cool; made me feel like Ray Bradbury and all that shit.

My tenth book, by far my best-selling book from a by-God-NY-Publishing-House was SEAL Team 666, a mash-up of supernatural military thriller fiction; as is my eleventh, which is the sequel and currently in the editing stages. Oh, hell. I’m now a supernatural military thriller fiction author. Is there a club for that too? Do they serve drinks and meet once a year? Is there a fancy logo I can slap on my webpage? What about a secret hand shake? Oh fuck it all.

My twelfth book is a coming of age dark fantasy book, sort of like my first one. Wait? What the hell am I doing. I’m not a coming of age author anymore. I’m a horror author. Or a fantasist. Or an author of supernatural military thriller fiction.  Coming of age was twelve books ago. Please, Gods of All Things Literary, don’t make me run the wheel through all that mud again.

So here we are now. My thirteenth book is contracted with Solaris. You might know them as a dyed-in-the-wool science fiction publisher located in England. As I signed the contract, I realized something. All those adjectives that describe me as some kind of author all end with the word author.

I am an author.

What kind doesn’t matter.

I’m an author.

If you’ve been able to keep up with my great and improbable writing journey, you can clearly see that I didn’t pay attention. I wrote all over the map. I wrote what I wanted. I wrote what pleased me. And I wrote as well as I could. Although it seemed as if I had no rhyme or reason to my writing, that’s not exactly true. You see, I wanted to be like Ray Bradbury. I wanted to be like Dan Simmons. I wanted to be able to write in however many genres I wanted to, I wanted to be published in mass market by serious NY and London publishers, and I wanted to do it on my terms.

And what were these terms you asked?

To be edited as many times as possible.
To not self publish.
To always be paid.
To be true to my craft.

There were times along this journey I was forced to make decisions. Several of the books could have been published earlier if I’d self published them. Self publishing works for some people, but not for me. I need the edits. I need the confirmation of my work. I need someone else instead of me doing the marketing and cutting the checks.

I could have also been published by some mid-majors. But once I found that their payment was less than small press publishers, I found that suspect and knew that if I’d have signed with them I would have felt used. I would have felt disappointed. If there’s one thing I know about myself is to avoid disappointment at all costs.

And of course I am true to my craft. I read in all genres. I read outside the genres I write. I sought out and received a Master of Fine Arts degree because I wanted to better critically understand why people write certain ways. It’s something I felt I needed to do in order to continue to improve my own craft.

So what does all this have to do with me, you ask?

Instead of an answer, let me ask a few questions. If you’re a writer:

Are you true to your craft? Are you doing things to better yourself and understand the craft of writing?
Do you seek out as many edits as possible? Note that an editor has to have some sort of training. Merely calling oneself an editor isn’t good enough.
If you’ve self-published, did you do it because it was on your own terms, or was it because you were too impatient for the impossibly slow and laborious publication process?
Are you true to yourself? Are you writing what you want?

An ancient Chinese proverb says that there are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same. We each have our roads to publication and success. None of us have taken the same path. For some it came quick and easy. For some it came after many trials and tribulations. Some of us found shortcuts. Some of us took the long road. In the end it doesn’t really matter how we got there. What matters is that at the end of the day we can stand back and look at our work and be proud. What matters is that we’ve cultivated a population of readers who desire our work. What matters is that we’ve honored the craft, because at the end of the day, it is the craft we all strive to perfect, and in that striving, we all become a little bit better.

~   ~   ~

For those interested in the names of the books mentioned above, here they are: 1 Scarecrow Gods  2 Recalled to Life  3 Track of the Storm  4 Babylon Smiles  5 Velvet Dogma 6 Empire of Salt  7 Blood Ocean  8 Blaze of Glory  9 Multiplex Fandango  10 SEAL Team 666 11 SEAL Team 666: Age of Blood  12 Halfway House  13 Grunt Life

THE END IS HERE

Issue #1 of THE LAST ZOMBIE: THE END is on sale in comic shops today. If your local comic shop doesn’t carry it, you can buy it online here. This is the final story-arc for the series. This issue also sees Frankie from The Rising and City of the Dead joining the cast.

The explosive final chapter begins! In the aftermath of Before the After’s shocking cliffhanger, the team are imprisoned by a brutal despot, the last surviving member of pre-apocalypse Chicago’s notorious political machine. Warner faces torture, Planters is on the run, and time is running out for everyone –especially Ian, who is succumbing to the zombie virus raging through his veins. 26 pages of un-death defying thrills!

THE RISING: UNCUT

The original version of THE RISING was 89,000 words. The new uncut version (which I just completed editing) is 110,000. So there ya have it.

— BrianKeene (@BrianKeene) April 23, 2013

 

Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road

Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road is the tentative title for a collaborative novel written by myself, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Bryan Smith, J.F. Gonzalez, Wrath James White, Nate Southard, Ryan Harding, and Shane McKenzie. All profits from the book will benefit Tom Piccirilli, who is recovering from brain surgery. 

As of tonight (when Bryan emailed me his latest section) the novel is roughly halfway finished at 42,000 words. That’s good news, considering this was first proposed as a novella. So far, the line-up looks like this:

Prologue – Edward Lee

Chapter 1 – Edward Lee and J.F. Gonzalez

Chapter 2 – J.F. Gonzalez

Chapter 3 – J.F. Gonzalez and Brian Keene

Chapter 4 – Brian Keene

Chapter 5 – Brian Keene and Nate Southard

Chapter 6 – Nate Southard

Chapter 7 – Jack Ketchum

Chapter 8 – Jack Ketchum and Shane McKenzie

Chapter 9 – Shane McKenzie

Chapter 10 – Shane McKenzie and Wrath James White

Chapter 11 – Wrath James White

Chapter 12 – Wrath James White and Ryan Harding

Chapter 13 – Ryan Harding and Bryan Smith

Chapter 14 – Bryan Smith

Chapter 15 – Bryan Smith and Brian Keene

As you can see, it’s now each author’s turn again. The second half of the novel will feature different pairings (Keene and Ketchum, Lee and Smith, White and Southard, etc.)

We hope to have it finished by June. Deadite Press will be publishing the paperback and e-books. We may also do a signed, limited edition hardcover via Sinister Grin.

And yes, I admit I’m posting this just to tease the fuck out of you. But you’ve gotta admit, that’s one hell of a tease…

NEW ZEALAND

There are going to be some exciting, exclusive, film-related opportunities for Keene fans in New Zealand over the next twelve months. If you live in New Zealand and are a fan of my books, please get in touch by sending an email to briankeene@live.com. Put ‘NEW ZEALAND’ in the subject line so your email is given priority.