Keith Deininger's Blog, page 7
November 12, 2014
November 7, 2014
GHOSTS OF EDEN Released
It's official - Ghosts of Eden is here! It's strange, thinking about this one. Parts of it were written before The New Flesh (my first published novel), and now, with some perspective (and deep in the edits of what will likely be my fourth published novel), I can see how far I've come. I'm proud of this one. I know there's a lot going on beneath the surface, and it's kind of a trip, but I believe it makes for a wild and enjoyable experience. Don't be afraid to let me know what you think. Send me an email or a message. I'm on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And reviews on Amazon and such are always appreciated!
Available in paperback and ebook
October 31, 2014
A Lone Chair
"He is in an empty field, stretching flat in every direction. At the furthest reaches of his vision, there is a darkness that seems to move, pulsing, wriggling, as if large things lurk just beyond the reach of his eyes. He can feel the grass beneath his bare feet, damp, and the air is thick with moisture against his skin and heavy in his lungs. He turns and there is a lone chair of simple wood standing not far from him. He begins to walk toward it... And then he is climbing a tree and looking up through the tangle of branches and he really wants to see what’s in the sky, needs to see it, something flying high above… And then he is standing alone in a blackened crater and there is a towering pile of dead things burning and the smell… And then his feet are padding through soft powder like snow, but it’s not snow; it’s warm and puffs up in little clouds with every step. All around him are windowless buildings smooth and gray and there is something coming toward him and it has no face…"
--From Work in Progress
--From Work in Progress
Halloween Haunts: Some Memories of Halloween + Free Stuff
I've written a little something for the Horror Writers Association Halloween Haunts blog and it's gone live today. They're giving away a signed paperback of GHOSTS OF EDEN and 2 electronic copies of SHADOW ANIMALS, so check it out.
Also, speaking of SHADOW ANIMALS, the Kindle price has dropped to $0.99 for the next few days.
And don't forget to enter my Giveaway on Goodreads. You might win a signed paperback copy of GHOSTS OF EDEN.
From Halloween Haunts 2014:
I grew up in a relatively safe neighborhood in Colorado Springs, which was why, when I went trick-or-treating in fourth grade, I was allowed to go with a small group of friends and no adult supervision, and how I ended up alone at the mouth of a dark tunnel, my friends no longer answering my pleas... read more...
Also, speaking of SHADOW ANIMALS, the Kindle price has dropped to $0.99 for the next few days.
And don't forget to enter my Giveaway on Goodreads. You might win a signed paperback copy of GHOSTS OF EDEN.
From Halloween Haunts 2014:
I grew up in a relatively safe neighborhood in Colorado Springs, which was why, when I went trick-or-treating in fourth grade, I was allowed to go with a small group of friends and no adult supervision, and how I ended up alone at the mouth of a dark tunnel, my friends no longer answering my pleas... read more...
October 22, 2014
Ghosts of Eden Giveaway!
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Ghosts of Eden by Keith Deininger
I'm giving away 2 paperback copies of Ghosts of Eden on Goodreads. So enter to win, spread the word, leave a review, and thank you for the support!
Reading is intellectual freedom!
Ghosts of Eden by Keith Deininger Giveaway ends November 11, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter to winI'm giving away 2 paperback copies of Ghosts of Eden on Goodreads. So enter to win, spread the word, leave a review, and thank you for the support!
Reading is intellectual freedom!
October 19, 2014
Some Stuff I Wrote for Halloween Last Year
I just rediscovered this post I wrote for the Horror Writers Associate blog last year for Halloween and it's creepier than I remember. Since October seems to be a good month to be a horror writer, I think I'll write something again this year. Looking back, this past year as an author has been a great one. I've come a long way and look forward to what's ahead. Here's last year's post:
My sophomore year in college, I rented, along with a couple of friends, a house within walking distance of the University in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a large house, at least for the price we were getting, a little rundown, but we didn’t care. And it had a basement. A strange basement, with an ancient cast-iron furnace with pipes that snaked up through the floor, and there were some weird things down there. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” the lady showing us the place told us, after I insisted we see the basement, “but the residents a couple of years ago used to make videos down here.” She looked around nervously, whispered, “S&M videos…”
A couple of weeks before, in a drunken fugue, I’d blurted out to my good friend my idea to move off campus, to have a house where we could be as loud as we wanted to be. We’d stayed up all night talking about it along with this girl we’d maybe a week ago from one of the other dorms that had been hanging out with us a lot. Young, and high, and spontaneous, I suggested the three of us find a place and we all agreed.
The house was rented to us by the law firm that owned it next door, but the firm closed by 5PM and we were free to have people over and throw parties without risk of eviction, despite our reckless habits. I wanted to throw a Halloween party at our new house, but, it didn’t happen that way.
In the basement, there were old things in boxes, nothing extraordinary, just forgotten desktop items and trinkets. Looking up, one could see a crimson handprint on a support beam, clearly paint, but meant to look like blood, and there were others one could find, if one really looked. Deeper in, moving past the yawning furnace, the concrete walls crumbled into dirt and there was a small, dark area with strange graffiti scrawled over what was left of the walls: dull suns with grinning faces, laughing demons, zags of lightning. And, once inside this chilly area, turning to go back, one could see a wall built from wooden planks, leather straps and chains hanging across it, hundreds of tiny nicks in the wood, where someone had practiced throwing a knife.
Halloween night, by the time I got off work at my shitty job bussing tables at a 24-hour diner, all of my friends had already left for the party they were attending down the street. I hurried into a makeshift costume, which was really just my bathrobe and a noose hanging around my neck, and drove to the party. When I got there, everyone was already so drunk I didn’t even bother trying to catch up with them. I left, disgusted and disappointed, and returned to the house alone.
Sitting on the couch in the living room, drinking a beer and watching TV restlessly, I heard something crash in the basement. I jumped to my feet, crossed the kitchen, and opened the rickety door. I looked down those steps into the dark. I flicked the light on and it was only slightly less dark. I was stopped on the first step by a scratching sound—something scratching down there in the dark. I was suddenly scared, even though I knew I shouldn’t be; I was an adult now, and drunk; I had nothing to fear. I took the steps one at a time.
When I reached the bottom, I knew the sounds I’d heard had come from the back area with the crumbling graffiti and the knife-nicked wall. I brandished my beer bottle like a weapon. I could still hear that scratching sound, faintly, but still there. I walked around the unsettling face of the furnace and approached that dark area where the S&M videos had been shot. I thought there might be movement in there, flickering of some kind.
There was a crash, a startling thud. I lost my nerve, turned, and ran up the stairs, slipped, skinned my shin on the steps, and flung myself back up through the door and into the kitchen. I slammed the door behind me.
My friends had just come home with some people, yelling and screaming and drunk. I went to the freezer, swigged vodka straight from the bottle, and went to join them. Soon, I lost myself amongst my friends and the night drained to its inevitable conclusions.
We were evicted from that house after only a couple of months. The girl I’d barely known and so impulsively invited to live with us became my wife years later.
- – -
When I was in 6th grade, I went trick-or-treating with my friends for the last time. At each house, we were appraised by the adults on the other side of the door: “Aren’t you a little old to be trick-or-treating?” We all nodded shyly and held out our bags for candy, which was still given out, however reluctantly. Then, when we were safely on the street, we’d scoff, and kick someone’s jack-o-lantern, smash it with our sneakered feet.
One of my friends had dressed up as “Pumpkin Head,” hollowing out a real pumpkin, carving eye-holes in its side and a leering grin to put over his head as a mask. By the time we’d hit maybe a dozen houses, he was complaining of a headache, and feeling dizzy, and his mask quickly became another casualty of orange guts in the gutter.
We stayed out much later than we should have, ringing doorbells even when the lights were off, and then running away laughing. We came around the corner, sometime after midnight, and there was a group of older boys at the end of the street, standing in a circle around something. We were close to the park and there were fewer streetlights in this part of the neighborhood. The older boys were wearing masks and appeared to be taking turns kicking at whatever it was they were surrounding. One of the boys looked up and pointed—he was wearing a wolf’s mask—and we turned back and ran.
- – -
When I was in 4th grade, I was fascinated with the children’s books Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I used to herd my friends into the window wells around the side of my house, which were shadowy even in the daytime, and read to my friends, as dramatically as possible, trying to scare them.
That Halloween, obsessed with Legos, I wanted to be a pirate Lego man. My mom helped me construct the costume, sewing my clothing and taking me out to buy the necessary accessories. I spent the entire night telling people I was a Lego character, but none of the adults understood, insisting I was just a pirate.
Later that night, lying awake in bed angry, I drifted into nightmares. In one of them, a demon with blue-tinted skin sat on my dresser; nodded to me, grinning.
- – -
Just a few weeks ago, while walking around in the afternoon, I was looking up at a flock of birds when I saw one of those bird’s wings suddenly cease flapping, and the poor creature plummeted to the earth. I was sure it was dead before it struck the ground.
One moment: alive.
The next: dead.
And so I’ve known Halloween was coming…
My sophomore year in college, I rented, along with a couple of friends, a house within walking distance of the University in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a large house, at least for the price we were getting, a little rundown, but we didn’t care. And it had a basement. A strange basement, with an ancient cast-iron furnace with pipes that snaked up through the floor, and there were some weird things down there. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” the lady showing us the place told us, after I insisted we see the basement, “but the residents a couple of years ago used to make videos down here.” She looked around nervously, whispered, “S&M videos…”
A couple of weeks before, in a drunken fugue, I’d blurted out to my good friend my idea to move off campus, to have a house where we could be as loud as we wanted to be. We’d stayed up all night talking about it along with this girl we’d maybe a week ago from one of the other dorms that had been hanging out with us a lot. Young, and high, and spontaneous, I suggested the three of us find a place and we all agreed.
The house was rented to us by the law firm that owned it next door, but the firm closed by 5PM and we were free to have people over and throw parties without risk of eviction, despite our reckless habits. I wanted to throw a Halloween party at our new house, but, it didn’t happen that way.
In the basement, there were old things in boxes, nothing extraordinary, just forgotten desktop items and trinkets. Looking up, one could see a crimson handprint on a support beam, clearly paint, but meant to look like blood, and there were others one could find, if one really looked. Deeper in, moving past the yawning furnace, the concrete walls crumbled into dirt and there was a small, dark area with strange graffiti scrawled over what was left of the walls: dull suns with grinning faces, laughing demons, zags of lightning. And, once inside this chilly area, turning to go back, one could see a wall built from wooden planks, leather straps and chains hanging across it, hundreds of tiny nicks in the wood, where someone had practiced throwing a knife.
Halloween night, by the time I got off work at my shitty job bussing tables at a 24-hour diner, all of my friends had already left for the party they were attending down the street. I hurried into a makeshift costume, which was really just my bathrobe and a noose hanging around my neck, and drove to the party. When I got there, everyone was already so drunk I didn’t even bother trying to catch up with them. I left, disgusted and disappointed, and returned to the house alone.
Sitting on the couch in the living room, drinking a beer and watching TV restlessly, I heard something crash in the basement. I jumped to my feet, crossed the kitchen, and opened the rickety door. I looked down those steps into the dark. I flicked the light on and it was only slightly less dark. I was stopped on the first step by a scratching sound—something scratching down there in the dark. I was suddenly scared, even though I knew I shouldn’t be; I was an adult now, and drunk; I had nothing to fear. I took the steps one at a time.
When I reached the bottom, I knew the sounds I’d heard had come from the back area with the crumbling graffiti and the knife-nicked wall. I brandished my beer bottle like a weapon. I could still hear that scratching sound, faintly, but still there. I walked around the unsettling face of the furnace and approached that dark area where the S&M videos had been shot. I thought there might be movement in there, flickering of some kind.
There was a crash, a startling thud. I lost my nerve, turned, and ran up the stairs, slipped, skinned my shin on the steps, and flung myself back up through the door and into the kitchen. I slammed the door behind me.
My friends had just come home with some people, yelling and screaming and drunk. I went to the freezer, swigged vodka straight from the bottle, and went to join them. Soon, I lost myself amongst my friends and the night drained to its inevitable conclusions.
We were evicted from that house after only a couple of months. The girl I’d barely known and so impulsively invited to live with us became my wife years later.
- – -
When I was in 6th grade, I went trick-or-treating with my friends for the last time. At each house, we were appraised by the adults on the other side of the door: “Aren’t you a little old to be trick-or-treating?” We all nodded shyly and held out our bags for candy, which was still given out, however reluctantly. Then, when we were safely on the street, we’d scoff, and kick someone’s jack-o-lantern, smash it with our sneakered feet.
One of my friends had dressed up as “Pumpkin Head,” hollowing out a real pumpkin, carving eye-holes in its side and a leering grin to put over his head as a mask. By the time we’d hit maybe a dozen houses, he was complaining of a headache, and feeling dizzy, and his mask quickly became another casualty of orange guts in the gutter.
We stayed out much later than we should have, ringing doorbells even when the lights were off, and then running away laughing. We came around the corner, sometime after midnight, and there was a group of older boys at the end of the street, standing in a circle around something. We were close to the park and there were fewer streetlights in this part of the neighborhood. The older boys were wearing masks and appeared to be taking turns kicking at whatever it was they were surrounding. One of the boys looked up and pointed—he was wearing a wolf’s mask—and we turned back and ran.
- – -
When I was in 4th grade, I was fascinated with the children’s books Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I used to herd my friends into the window wells around the side of my house, which were shadowy even in the daytime, and read to my friends, as dramatically as possible, trying to scare them.
That Halloween, obsessed with Legos, I wanted to be a pirate Lego man. My mom helped me construct the costume, sewing my clothing and taking me out to buy the necessary accessories. I spent the entire night telling people I was a Lego character, but none of the adults understood, insisting I was just a pirate.
Later that night, lying awake in bed angry, I drifted into nightmares. In one of them, a demon with blue-tinted skin sat on my dresser; nodded to me, grinning.
- – -
Just a few weeks ago, while walking around in the afternoon, I was looking up at a flock of birds when I saw one of those bird’s wings suddenly cease flapping, and the poor creature plummeted to the earth. I was sure it was dead before it struck the ground.
One moment: alive.
The next: dead.
And so I’ve known Halloween was coming…
October 6, 2014
"Do you think you've seen horrors?"
“Do you think you’ve seen horrors? Do you think your nightmares are enough? Where do you think they come from? The Good War endures, on and on… Horror… Ozy knows horror. Ozy is friends with horror. Your kind invisions things from the dark, ridiculous things, tries to make love with horror… But you can’t love horror. And you can’t fight it, not truly. Your kind believes horror has an identity, tangible, controllable… Your kind is blind...and sick. If horror is anything, it is a great roaring in the ears, an unending whine, a tempest of blood… Ozy has seen…”
--from work in progress
And a question, for anyone who has some thoughts... What do you think of this title?
OZY, FRIEND, AND THE NAMELESS
--from work in progress
And a question, for anyone who has some thoughts... What do you think of this title?
OZY, FRIEND, AND THE NAMELESS
September 29, 2014
Meet Kayla from GHOSTS OF EDEN
I'm an idiot, and in my recent obsession to finish my current work in progress (a very dark mythic horror novel tentatively titled OZY), I forgot all about my blogging responsibilities. Anyway, I've been invited by the very talented Shannon Giglio, author of SHORT BUS HERO among other titles, to share a bit about a character in one of my books. Shannon has written about her character Ally Forman from SHORT BUS HERO on her blog here, and her novel is due out Dec. 16th of this year from Nightscape Press. Definitely check it out.
Now, let me introduce you to...
What is the name of your character?
Kayla Greenwood, a twelve-year-old with a complicated family history and a tragic past.
Is he/she fictional or a historic person?
Well, that depends on your views toward the concept of Fictional Realism, but for our purposes we'll say fictional.
When and where is the story set?
Most of the story takes place in the town of present day Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the Atomic Bomb.
What should we know about him/her?
Kayla longs for acceptance and connection with others, but everyone seems, including her family, to treat her as if there is something wrong with her. She can sense that something is wrong, but she doesn't know what. Sometimes she has strange dreams, including one where she walks through a strange door at the top of the stairs in her house to find a very old woman in a tiny library who tells her to prepare for the trials. Her favorite books are the Chronicles of Narnia.
What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
After a major family tragedy, Kayla is sent to live with her uncle Xander. She meets Garty, a depressed college dropout, to whom she discovers she may be related in some way. Uncle Xander begins to teach her some very strange things and it soon becomes clear he wants something from her, and she is in horrible danger.
What is the personal goal of the character?
Kayla seeks to discover who she is and where she belongs in the world. By the end, she may wish she'd left well enough alone.
Where can we read more about your novel?
There's more information here on my site and on the GHOSTS OF EDEN Amazon page.
When can we expect the book to be published?
GHOSTS OF EDEN will be out November 4th of this year in paperback, limited edition hardcover, and for the Kindle. The Kindle version is currently available to pre-order at a reduced price.
~ If you are an author who happened to stumble upon this post, please feel free to follow this format for a character in your own work for your blog and email me a link and I'll happily share your post and link it up with mine. All the best! ~
Now, let me introduce you to...
What is the name of your character?
Kayla Greenwood, a twelve-year-old with a complicated family history and a tragic past.
Is he/she fictional or a historic person?
Well, that depends on your views toward the concept of Fictional Realism, but for our purposes we'll say fictional.
When and where is the story set?
Most of the story takes place in the town of present day Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the Atomic Bomb.
What should we know about him/her?
Kayla longs for acceptance and connection with others, but everyone seems, including her family, to treat her as if there is something wrong with her. She can sense that something is wrong, but she doesn't know what. Sometimes she has strange dreams, including one where she walks through a strange door at the top of the stairs in her house to find a very old woman in a tiny library who tells her to prepare for the trials. Her favorite books are the Chronicles of Narnia.
What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
After a major family tragedy, Kayla is sent to live with her uncle Xander. She meets Garty, a depressed college dropout, to whom she discovers she may be related in some way. Uncle Xander begins to teach her some very strange things and it soon becomes clear he wants something from her, and she is in horrible danger.
What is the personal goal of the character?
Kayla seeks to discover who she is and where she belongs in the world. By the end, she may wish she'd left well enough alone.
Where can we read more about your novel?
There's more information here on my site and on the GHOSTS OF EDEN Amazon page.
When can we expect the book to be published?
GHOSTS OF EDEN will be out November 4th of this year in paperback, limited edition hardcover, and for the Kindle. The Kindle version is currently available to pre-order at a reduced price.
~ If you are an author who happened to stumble upon this post, please feel free to follow this format for a character in your own work for your blog and email me a link and I'll happily share your post and link it up with mine. All the best! ~
September 27, 2014
From Work in Progress
Three hundred yards into their trek, just as the dunes closed off sight of the car, a small flat patch of rock loomed from the sand like the tip of a buried monolith. As they walked around this area, careful to keep their feet on the sand, Owen noticed a faint smudge of words carved in the stone, in a language he didn’t understand, and the bleached bones that lay about it, some of them quite possibly human. He knew Chloe could identify the bones, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he grabbed her hand with his and hurried them along.
A few minutes later, they beheld Vista Point.
A few minutes later, they beheld Vista Point.
September 22, 2014
From Work in Progress...
"The city loomed about him, dim and silent. Nothing stirred within its houses and shops, standing dull and lifeless as stone, the same nothing color as the rocks he’d once stacked as a child, building monoliths to gods that did not exist. Everything was familiar—it was just as he remembered his old neighborhood—but empty, the sky grim and flat, its borders hazy, obscured by a fog that grew thicker the farther from his childhood home he stalked, until it was a blackness that churned, a darkness with a name, but one he did not know."
