Keith Deininger's Blog, page 2

The Fever Trilogy

As you might have heard, DarkFuse, the publisher of a good number of my books, has folded, declared bankruptcy, and is now gone from the horror scene. Many of my writer friends are either saddened by this news or downright angry. Some of them feel they are being screwed out of sales and royalties and they may be right. Me? I fall mostly into the sad category, as DarkFuse gave me an audience for my particular brand of horror, which is literary, surreal, and not easily digestible. In terms of food, my work is not a cheeseburger. Cheeseburgers are great. They taste good, they're easy to make, and they're everywhere. My work has more complex flavors, more elements to it. It's like those fancy meals in American Psycho. Okay, no, that's going too far, but it completes the metaphor.

The point is, I now have a lot of work previously published by DarkFuse without a home. I've sold my first three novels to Crossroad Press. They offer solid terms and they'll be able to get my work back out into the world fairly efficiently. A lot of DarkFuse authors are moving their work over to them, so they're good people. But as far as some of my more specialized work, like my novellas, I'm now free to play with them. Novellas are a tough sell to any publisher and I was fortunate to have so many published by DarkFuse, 

The good news is that I've learned a lot about publishing these past few years and have been honing my skills. I can now format my own work, hire editors, and even my graphic design skills are fairly solid. I have all the tools in place to go full indie. I would, of course, love to find full-time financial success as an indie author, but I've discovered my particular style and content may not be well suited to that world. Which is fine. I will continue to toil in my own personal misunderstood limbo. I will continue to publish with those publishers more willing to take risks on my work that continues to be dark, often highly-disturbing and unusual. And I will continue to self-publish. 

It will begin with "Fevered Hills", which has been called a "McCarthyesque fever-dream." This was my first published novella. Before "Fevered Hills" I had published only a few poems and a couple of short stories. It will have a few minor edits and include the original forward (published on the DarkFuse website at the time). 

Next will come "Buried Soldiers," another novella set in the same "devastated by insanity" world as "Fevered Hills," although with a different protagonist. This work was originally published as a serial in DarkFuse magazine a couple of years ago and then in the DarkFuse anthology series. 

Finally, "Apocalypse Artist" will enter the world like a wailing and deformed afterbirth. This never before published novella sees the return of Martin from "Fevered Hills" and picks up just about where that novella left off. It follows Martin as he meets and confronts the Bearded Man. I was working with DarkFuse on this third novella, but now that they've folded, I'm going to publish it myself. 

And so, over the course of five years, the Fever Trilogy has finally come together. 

Watch this space for descriptions of all three novellas - and the good news is, since I'm the publisher this time, you won't have to wait for long! 

A Short Excerpt from GHOSTS OF EDEN

In light of the recent solar eclipse, the following excerpt from my second novel, Ghost of Eden, seems an appropriate share...

“When I was young,” Uncle Xander began again, without lifting his head, “only eight years old, there was a solar eclipse. I was excited because even then I had an intense interest in stars and space, in things wondrous and greater than myself. My father did not understand why I was so eager and interested, but I begged him to let me go up on the roof of our house so I could be as close as possible to the phenomena. He reluctantly agreed to set up the ladder for me, but my mother said it was too dangerous, said that I needed a special scope to look at a solar eclipse without damaging my eyes. So I sulked quietly in my room until my parents were distracted and then snuck outside and climbed up the house. I tiptoed carefully across the roof so my parents wouldn’t hear me, and took up a position on top of the protruding chimney. When the eclipse began, I took short, furtive glances as the moon became a dark blot over the sun, then the sun became a crescent, then a sliver. When the moment of complete eclipse arrived, I turned fully to look upon the fiery ring of light and I remember laughing to myself. I remember laughing with complete joy at seeing something so rare and amazing.” Uncle Xander sighed. “Then the world went black.”

Kayla watched her uncle slide his pipe from his lab coat. In an instant it sparked to life and those lightly bearded lips drew deeply on the slender instrument.

“I was blind. All was blank. Then, slowly, a face began to coalesce in the dark, ghostly and half formed, but I could still distinguish her features. She was young—my age—but I already knew what she would look like when she was older. She smiled, looked at me. I felt strange, like I was seeing something I shouldn’t. I was warm suddenly, even though the air was brisk and chilly on the roof. I was in a forest and there were other faces watching me, but mostly all I could see were their eyes, reflective and glowing. Then the vision was gone. I blinked my eyes, but still my sight would not return. I groped from my perch upon the chimney and slid to the roof. I began to panic; I called out for my mom; I rubbed my eyes frantically; I lay on the roof and I cried. When my parents found me, I was in such a state they couldn’t be angry with me. My sight returned a couple of hours later, but I haven’t looked at anything the same way since.”

I Told You... How to Install Laminate Flooring!

I told you I'd be writing about whatever I damn well pleased on my blog from now on, and here's the proof. This way, at least, with all of the various whatevers going on in my life, you'll know why I don't get more writing done than the little whiny voice in the back of my head tells me I should be. 

Alright, here we go... STEP ONE

​Rip it all up. Get a circular saw, set its depth to just a tad deeper than the floor thickness. Then lift the blade guard and dip the blade into the floor. Cut out the border of the section you're removing, careful not to slip and cut into any of the good boards, because then you'll have to take them out too.

STEP TWO

Now get out a couple of good chisels and a hammer and get ready to get bruised and banged up. Clean it really well, scrapping up all of the excess glue and cutting out all the edges.

​Then you can put the insulation down, which absorbs sound. If you want the floor to be solid, glue it down using a floor adhesive.
​ STEP THREE

Carefully cut your floor planks to fit using a miter saw and slide the planks into place one at a time. Go slowly and make sure they're as tightly packed as possible. On the edges you'll probably have to cut the seams, but keep them where you can. Use wood glue along the edges of the planks and floor adhesive when you really need a plank to stick.

​ So, in conclusion, installing laminate flooring is like writing. It, uh... It's hard work and... It, uh, takes a lot of time and trial and error... But seriously, writing actually is a lot like putting in new flooring: it involves tearing shit up that's not working, learning from mistakes, and then making new and better shit.

​Write on, my friends! Write on!

Blogging is Dead/Blogging is Not Dead

Life has been challenging this past year and a half. Major changes have affected my life in a big way. I'll be honest: I haven't had much time for writing. I've still been tinkering, of course, and my brain is always turning over ideas, but I haven't been able to write as much as I need to to maintain the momentum I had going for awhile there. For a couple years I was able to publish 2 novels a year plus numerous short stories and novellas. I was active on Facebook and Goodreads and I was blogging regularly. Then, my wife got pregnant when we didn't think it was possible, and we had Violet, who is amazing and to whom I am dedicated to providing everything she needs--food, shelter, safety, education--everything. So my writing became less of a priority. And then I took a teaching position last year, middle school science, and it consumed my life. No longer was I able to use my headspace for story and character, but for lesson planning and classroom management. So my writing became even less of a priority. And now Violet is going to have a little brother and here we go again.                               

Which leads us to our title about blogging. Well, if writing has become less of a priority, you can bet blogging has become even less of one. To be  honest, it never seemed all that important to me and I got sick of social media, filled with opinionated bullshit and aimless arguments and comments meant to tear others down and had to step away. I hate it. But I watched this year in which I was pretty much nonexistent online as my royalties fell each month, smaller and smaller. I know this is partially because I haven't had a novel release in a while, but its also because I haven't been sharing myself and interacting with readers. I like doing that part. I wish I could do it more directly at cons and readings and such more often, but my life and where I live make that difficult. That being said, I've also come to realize how safe I was being online, trying to never speak about religion and politics to the point where I was afraid to share any sort of opinion at all. There have been many times when I've thought about sharing something online and then stopped myself because I didn't want to be judged by family members or whoever else.

Well, fuck that. This is who I am:
I'm a short (5' 4"), white guy who lived as a child in Colorado Springs, CO and as an adolescent in Los Alamos, NM. My parents are engineers and my mom was devoutly Methodist when I was growing up (my dad followed along), but in high school at a bible study group my mom made me attend I once asked how we could be sure Christian beliefs were the true beliefs when so many others around the world had contradictory beliefs that they felt were true. I don't think I went to another bible study meeting after that. I have an overactive imagination and love to consider possibilities, but I've never found much use for religion. If I learned anything this past year as an educator, it's to never make conclusions about anything without sufficient data to back it up. And so I prefer to take a scientific approach to life, driven by skepticism and data collection. Blindly believing in what others tell you to is a dangerous road to take. 

Anyway, I'm going to stop there for now. All I really mean to say is that I realize now that this is my blog, that hardly anyone is going to read it, and so I'm going to use it to air my thoughts. I'm going to be myself. Sometimes I'll talk about writing and sometimes, if I feel like it, I'll talk about other things. I'll probably share excerpts of work in progress on here too, because I like doing that. I'll probably also, from time to time, share random verse. I have lots of projects cooking and you should see some new work from me very, very soon. 

All the best!

​~Keith

P. S. Here's my new 'bible' if anyone is interested:

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Excerpt from Keith Deininger’s THE GODGAME – The Grand Avis Carillon

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Thinking About 2015: My Year in Review

I’m the kind of guy who likes to let his work speak for itself. This is one of the things I’ve come to realize this year. I’ve also come to realize that this trait, in the current world of social media marketing and promotion, is a flaw. I should be talking about my work more, bragging. […]