Keith Deininger's Blog, page 19

In Support of an Excellent Publisher: DarkFuse

DarkFuse seems, to me, to be an excellent publisher; they're doing everything right in the current permutation of the publishing industry. They are willing to change strategies and adapt to market trends. I couldn't be happier to have them releasing THE NEW FLESH in June.

One of the very cool things DarkFuse does, among others, is their exclusive book club. For $59.88 you get a one year subscription that includes 1 novel and 1 novella each month. That's 12 novels and 12 novellas. Think about it: 60 bucks is like 3 to 6 books on the general market. That's a very good deal. You'll also gain access to the forum where you can discuss books and other things with the authors (like me!).

The staff over at DarkFuse are friendly and accessible to their writers and customers alike. I am very pleased to be a part of the DarkFuse community. Come and check it out!

All the information is right here: DarkFuse Book Club

A Few Kind Words: FEVERED HILLS Reviews

There have been some very kind and flattering words posted on Amazon and Goodreads in praise of "Fevered Hills." I have to admit, I wasn't expecting much from this first one, only the vague hope that it might help me to begin to establish my presence in the writing world. I believe I have taken the first few steps into such a world...

"What impressed me most...was the writing style. It resembles Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oats. It brings to mind The Road and Slaughterhouse-Five. There's serious stuff happening in Fevered Hills that we need to pay attention to, because it speaks of what we're made of as humans. How none of us are innocent, that everyone has grey areas."
--The Black Abyss (by Jason White)

"If I had to compare Deininger’s style with another authors, Greg Gifune comes to mind.    They share a sense of atmospheric dread in their work that seats itself in the back of your mind, and then that dread grows, until eventually, it becomes a visceral fear that you feel in your gut.   I recommend Fevered Hills to all readers of horror who enjoy very well written and thought provoking fiction."
--Horror World (by TT Zuma)

"This has everything you could want in a work of dark fiction: cannibalism, torture, emotional trauma... And while you're given a lot of information from the main character's perspective, you are still able to analyze and come to your own conclusions about some situations in this war-ravaged setting. Mr. Deininger has created a completely engrossing, surreal world to loose yourself in"
--Kimberly Y. (Amazon)

"Great story and very well written! A truly captivating story, with just enough of the fantastic to really draw you in without being over the top. I enjoyed it greatly"
--T-Bone (Amazon)

"The Cormac McCarthy quote which precedes this fine novella is perfectly apt. Not only is the tale a McCarthyesque fevre-dream, it matches the poetic and brutal intensity of anything that author has written. An absolutely stunning read."
--C. M. Muller (Goodreads)

Signing THE NEW FLESH, but Making it Rain First...

Before sitting down at my wife's design desk to sign these sheets to be bound in the exclusive hardcover edition of THE NEW FLESH, as a way to celebrate, I made it rain, tossing them in the air while I howled gleefully. Then, almost immediately, I panicked. I scrambled about the room picking these valuable sheets up before they were stepped on, or attacked by the cat, or the dogs rolled in them.
Once collected, I  sat down to sign each page--carefully, of course.
Yeah, that's my signature. So what?
I used the same green pen to sign each sheet that I used to edit the original manuscript. Actually, all kidding aside, this was a special moment for me. For all those who are lucky enough to get this limited, signed version of THE NEW FLESH, know that it comes with my deepest appreciation.

FEVERED HILLS - A Quick Question for Those Who've Read It...

For those of you who've read "Fevered Hills" already, I have a couple of questions, some things to ponder...

How many bullets are left in Martin's gun at the very end? Why is this important? Do you know how and why each bullet was fired?

If there are any left, what do you think they will be used for?

Also, how accurate do you think are Martin's flashback scenes? Does he remember everything correctly?

Just some things I was thinking about as I wrote "Fevered Hills."

Post in the comments section. I promise to respond, even if it's with an evil grin. >:)

Can You Tell a Story in 100 Words? What Do You Think?

WALKING TO THE STORE

How different the city seemed, Tony thought, when you had to walk to get around, and couldn’t drive because your car had broken down...

(I'll share the rest soon...very soon...)

IN THE BREATHING ROOM Appearing Now in Miscellanea: the Transdimensional Library

So here's a strange little literary production I'm happy to be a part of. It's called MISCELLANEA: THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL LIBRARY and it's a catalogue of excerpts and entries of weird and fantastic things. It's, well...let me just share the description from the site:

Miscellanea: the Transdimensional Library collects and provides access to books, periodicals, multi- and other-media materials from over a thousand different planes of existence. Members can access materials with their library card (subject to cellular compatibility with host planes and provided that there is no danger of paradox, violations of the space and time continuum, or library fines).

In some of my work I will be publishing over the next couple of years, some may notice certain hints to a fantastic other-world, one that lives and breathes not too far from our own. It is a place I find myself stumbling into from time to time--not a kind place--but with a certain beauty. Eventually, I will no doubt find myself becoming fully immersed in this world and I will be forced to write of its wonders. This excerpt contains hints of this beautiful and dangerous place.

Read it here: IN THE BREATHING ROOM

Write What You Want to Read and Lighten Up

Like many writers, I began with dreams of critical literary acclaim. I knew it would be instant for me, that I'd start with a few choice lines of prose and the rest would be easy, that I'd write myself into one of those Faulkner awards or some sort of Pushcart nonsense. That I'd be rich, and I'd hang out with rock stars, and women would scream when they saw me on the street... But, well, it turns out such notions may have been a tad unrealistic, and we writers really do "write what we know," to the extent, anyway, that a geek like me from Colorado who spent his childhood playing the Legend of Zelda, being a Dungeon Master, and collecting Magic: the Gathering cards, would wind up writing stories about dark and fantastic things. Who would have thought?

Which is, don't get me wrong, a very wonderful thing. The moment I gave up on that academic literary crap, and began to write the kinds of things I actually enjoy reading, was the moment I began to see success with my writing. In college I always felt the need to try and write "literary" fiction and that shit got me nowhere. I still read the stuff. I read all kinds of things. I love Hemingway, and Faulkner, and Thomas Pynchon, and Samuel Beckett, and a whole slew of others I can't think of at the moment. I've actually read "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace from cover to cover! I enjoyed it. A bit long, but it was good.

But, no matter what I read, no matter how much I enjoy the works of the celebrated literary greats, my favorite books always remain firmly rooted in the realm of the "horror" genre, oftentimes skating the edge between horror and fantasy. I greatly admire Clive Barker, and Peter Straub, and Stephen King, and Ramsey Campbell, and many, many others. For me, the works of such writers touch me in ways more meaningful than much of what I've been taught to call literary.

I guess I don't have a choice. I must write what I most like to read! Nothing to it. No problem. This'll be easy. Uh, well... I better get to work...

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

In FEVERED HILLS, I didn't hold back. My prose is dense, full of little details, just like I like it. But sometimes I worry. Was I too liberal with my ideas? Did I use them up too readily? What if I only get a certain number of good ones and then that's it?--All gone!--and I find myself parched in a wasteland of repetition, scribbling the same tired old lines over and over on the proverbial chalkboard like a schoolboy in hell for all eternity.

Upon sharing a particular idea I was proud of, my wife told me not to waste it, to not give it away to one of my little pet project. She wanted me to keep it and use it for something larger, for one of my novels.

That got me thinking: How should I use them? Do I need to be more careful? Which are the really good ones? How will I know? Sometimes I have an idea or image I think is brilliant and it ends up being folded into a piece of writing as little more than a passing observation or detail. I feel like once it's used, it's gone. Should I be worried?

Fevered Inspiration: An Attempt to Explain How "Fevered Hills" Slipped into the World

It began as a zombie story, actually.

But you must understand, I’m an idea guy, and ideas change and evolve. I keep a myriad assortment of scavenged notebooks filled with what appear to be the scribblings of a madman—mostly images, character quirks, and brief snippets of dialogue. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Even when I wasn’t writing seriously, I wrote things down. Here, let me see, if I flip to a random page…

    Statues wrapped in plastic make it look like they’re making faces.
    --Rustling plastic, smiling & frowning—screaming

Flip to another page:

    Everything seemed fine until our mom started collecting clocks and they began to appear    all over the house, ticking maniacally, all a little out of sync

Flip:

    Random objects begin appearing in weird places

Flip:

    Dead tree in the city—draped with old sneakers

Some of these make sense to me now and some of them don’t. But, as you can see, they’re not really story ideas. I don’t really know what to call them. Since I’m feeling generous right now, I’ll call them “Notes for Inspiration,” but that’s a little grand for most of these.

My point is: I’m an idea guy and “Fevered Hills” began as a zombie story.

A couple of years ago, looking for ideas to write some short fiction, I found this note:

    Destroyed landscape, wrecked world. Character travels land seeing horrible things
    --Imply zombie stuff in the background, but we're never sure

So, I wrote a short story—inspired by some of the intense, “literary” writers I was reading at the time like Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon—about a marching line of prisoners going to an encampment in the jungle. The story was basically an exercise in description and contained very little actual plot movement. As I recall, I was rather proud of it and sent it out to several markets to be published. It was soundly rejected many, many times.

I wrote a lot of stories that year and the next. One of them opened with a man perched atop a cliff ledge, painting the valley before him, until he was interrupted by a plane flying by, dropping bombs over the hills he was trying to paint. Another story involved a horde of kids ripping a priest apart with their bare hands. All of these stories had a similar flaw; they were all based around visceral and visual moments, but were incomplete stories. They were all rejected for publication, and rightly so.

But I began to see patterns in some of my writing, similarities in setting, and a running theme. I compiled everything I’d written that seemed to be set in a war-torn world. I found a story (an actual story!) I wanted to tell, about a young and troubled man, who had always wanted to be an artist, learning to live with some strange characters and his nightmares. Then I began to write “Fevered Hills.”

So, where did the inspiration for “Fevered Hills” come from? Well, it came from a collection of notes I’ve been compiling for years. It came from my desire to write something really gruesome, something shocking and grotesque. It came from the strange and twisted dreams I have regularly. It came from the dark depths of my imagination, from that soft pink spot, from the feverish haze. I can only hope it finds readers interested in walking these hills with me for a while, in taking a little stroll. With a grin and a wave, I wish you luck on your journey...

FEVERED HILLS Cover: A Surreal and Grotesque Jaunt Through a Nightmare Landscape

Disturbing and grotesque, this one haunts me. Although only novella length, I've been a slave to much of the themes and imagery trapped within its prose for the better part of two years. A surreal jaunt through a nightmare landscape of human cruelty and detachment, I'm proud to see this one go out into the world. Fly birdy fly...

For someone who prides himself on his sense of imagery, I had a difficult time coming up with ideas to pass on to the good people at DarkFuse concerning the cover art. My mind pulled up blank on ideas, but swollen with  images swirling--broken fingers, bloated bodies, blood splattered like paint...
I think such things would have been a disservice to what this piece really is and Zach McCain did a beautiful job capturing the required tone.

As I said, this one may only be novella length, but it took me a very long time to write. It is something of an amalgamation of ideas and moments from pieces of writing and incomplete short works that I began to work on when I finally started to take my writing seriously two, almost three years ago now. But please don't misunderstand me, it is a complete story from beginning to end, it just carries a lot of "heavy" chunks dredged from the dark depths of my imagination, from that soft feverish spot, as much of it seems to have been written in a feverish haze. I can only hope it finds readers interested in walking these hills with me for a while, in taking a little stroll... I wish you the best of luck...