Author Chris DiLeo

Where author Christopher DiLeo shares everything, almost.

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https://journalstone.com/bookstore/dead-end/

My new book, DEAD END, available now from JournalStone.

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A priest must venture into a nightmare world to save his daughter from a demon. Coming from Bloodshot Books, February 2019.

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Writer and Teacher, DiLeo discusses all things books, movies, and teaching.

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My last post for 2016—and perhaps my only post for all of 2017.

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Me, every Halloween

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Halloween, DiLeo-style

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So, a while ago after my novel DEAD END failed to find a publisher, and after I’d written a really long horror novel and several partial works that petered out, I concluded that maybe the horror genre did not love me as much as I loved it.

I wrote on this tumblr that my best work in the genre was only a pale imitation of King and Hill.

That may still be very true, but horror has once again seduced me—and I can thank author Paul Tremblay for bringing me back into the creepy fold. His book HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS is a brilliant and scary book that wowed me and also showed me something I needed to find: the way to write the story that had been squirming inside me for years.

This past August, I started THE MONSTER WITHIN, which is, essentially, a complete rewrite of DEAD END. I am now almost 80,000 words done with the first draft, and heading toward the finale—and I’m feeling pretty good.

Tremblay’s book taught me that old tropes can be revitalized and harnessed into newly scary scenarios. His book taught me that the best horror—the sort that burrows under the skin—is always ambiguous. It is the menace of possibility that unsettles. Maybe it was a ghost or a demon or a monster. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. His book handles this balance wonderfully, and it was that very element which opened the door to my current work in progress.

Tremblay helped me see my book in a different way, and that has made all the difference.

The future is always unknown. What will become of this book? I don’t know, but I am finally writing it the way it has always wanted to be, and that may be miraculous enough.

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So we’re doing #authorlife today. Okay. I’ll play.

I’ll try to write 1500 words on a new novella (the last in a book of four), working longhand in an oversize National Brand account book. If it goes badly, I’ll accept 1000 words and hope for better tomorrow.

When I’m done (1 PM? 2?) I’ll have a salad and read forty pages of A MAN LIES DREAMING, the current book (starring Adolf Hitler, PI, no, really).

The afternoon is for office chores and email. If I can I’ll write a snail mail letter to a friend. Because I like doing that. At some point I’ll also listen to a chapter of the current audio book (PRINCE CASPIAN).

Over the course of the day I’ll have four cups of tea. Three black, no cream, no sugar. The last is green and has honey and lemon. It all sounds very exciting, doesn’t it? Living life on the edge, that’s me.

I’d like to be more physical but haven’t been on any kind of regular exercise schedule since before THE FIREMAN book tour. Hummmm. I also started playing piano this year for the first time since I was 13, and come evening I like to practice for a half hour. But I won’t today cos one of my fingers is f’d up. Maybe I’ll have an episode of THE AMERICANS.

Then it’ll be 10PM and I’ll go to bed, like an old person. Shit. I think I’m an old person.

But that’s how the stories get written and this particularly quiet set of habits seems to suit me.

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Love it. How to live like a writer who actually gets something written.

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My short story “The Candy Store” is now available here.

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Michael Koryta: A Sophisticated Reader’s Thriller Writer

I first discovered Koryta's work when he published SO COLD THE RIVER (which has a phenomenal first chapter), and he became a constant on my reading list after THE PROPHET (brilliant story of brothers, football, and murder). With last summer's perfect LAST WORDS, Koryta introduced private investigator Mark Novak and kicked off a thrilling new series.

RISE THE DARK is the best thriller I've read this year. It starts off fast and Koryta keeps things moving (and those pages turning) but not at the expense of genuine character development and meaningful emotional resonance. Koryta wrote his first book (TONIGHT I SAID GOODBYE—startlingly well done and completely engaging) when he was 21 and he has gotten better with every book. I am envious.

While you do not need to have read LAST WORDS first, RISE THE DARK continues Novak's journey to find his wife's killer (no spoiler—this is introduced right at the beginning) and it tangles him with some very nasty, and believably motivated, people who are a threat to the stability of our very society.

Koryta is a wonderful writer. His prose is clean and evocative. It is never weighed down with excessive description, and yet the reader can visualize the mountainous setting in all its stunning glory. His stories move briskly with wonderful twists, but unlike a James Patterson thriller that moves but does not linger in the mind, Koryta creates characters and situations that will stay with you long after reading.

Much is made of Koryta's hands-on research. He is an outdoorsman who loves nature and animals and he brings that love and authenticity into each of his books. This book deals with electricity and power grids, and Koryta does an expert job keeping the reader informed without making it feel like a school lesson.

All things serve the story. Koryta knows this, and you will be very thankful he does.  

His forays into supernatural fiction (SO COLD THE RIVER, CYPRESS HOUSE, THE RIDGE) are wonderful novels as well, and I only mention them here because after RISE THE DARK it seems that Koryta has aspirations to bring together in future books various ideas/motifs from his other stories, including the spooky ones.

Finally, this book has some very surprising moments and an ending loaded with stunning (and horrifying) promise for the next book.

Read it.

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Klass County, WA “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”

“Surely your partner didn’t believe any of it?” / “Wh— uh. Well, Mulder’s had his share of peculiar notions. He’s not inclined to dismiss anything outright.”

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One of the best episodes, and a tie for my favorite with “Home.”

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The Birds (1963)

Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this?

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Love this movie.

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The Menace of Possibility: A Review of A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS

I’m not sure when or how Paul Tremblay appeared on my reading radar, but he is now a permanent fixture. I read his novel A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS in three days, and I am sitting here with the story haunting my own head.

Here’s the basic setup: a teenage girl may or may not be possessed and her distraught and financially strapped parents seek the help of a priest who will perform an exorcism while it is filmed for a reality TV show.

The book has so much going for it: character voice, horror pop-culture allusions, gruesome set pieces, and an ending that left me delightfully (and morbidly) satisfied.

I love a story where dread carefully mounts with every page. Peter Straub can do this like no other, and Tremblay succeeds masterfully.

The story never lags, and those gruesome set pieces are a marvel and a pleasure for the fan in me who adores horror books and movies that present real characters and then bring on the madness and the monsters. I reveled in those Grand Guignol moments (call me sick, it’s okay, I do have a coffin bookcase in my house—see above), but those sick parts work perfectly because Tremblay has fleshed out his characters so well that it’s impossible not to believe what is happening.

While anyone can (and should) read this book, it is the horror fan who will reap so much from its allusions to, and direct discussion of, genre classics such as THE EXORCIST, JAWS, and EVIL DEAD 2. (There are plenty of others, but those are three of my all-time favorites, so this book was definitely for me.)

Finally, and along those same lines, the book is cool. While the dread is substantial, this excursion into horror is a spine-tingling and rewarding treat. Joe Hill’s works provide a similar Damn, this is so cool feel. And at the same time, Tremblay kept me awake last night—I was hearing things and swore something slunk through the hallway.

The writer in me is envious. The reader is thrilled.

P.S. I yanked the title of this piece from a quote Tremblay wrote here.

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Letting the cat out of the box, er, drawer.

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What the cats do when I'm writing.

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American Gods Comic-Con Trailer

Following their panel at San Diego Comic-Con, STARZ and FremantleMedia North America have released the first trailer for their upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s American Gods.

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Awesome.

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I should be writing.