Letters From the Labyrinth 297

When I was a kid, I spent one summer vacation reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy out in the woods. I was eleven years old and it was a magical three months. Every morning I’d get up, eat breakfast, and then grab my paperback (they were the old Ballantine editions from the 1970s) and head outside. Pennsylvania has always been heavily wooded (indeed, the name literally means ‘Penn’s Woods’) and some parts still are. But back then, the coverage was heavier here in Central PA. We hadn’t yet cut half of the forests down to make room for Panera Breads and Wal Marts and housing developments for people to sleep in when not commuting to Baltimore or Philadelphia. There were areas around my childhood home where you could walk through forests all day and never encounter a single living person.

I’d ride my bike far back into the woods, where I knew of a massive, moss-covered log overlying a cold stream. I’d walk out to the middle of the log and let my feet dangle over the water and I would read all day. If I got hungry, I’d go find myself some wild raspberries, blackberries, and mulberries, all of which grew in abundance. I’d smoke or dip whatever I had available (an older kid in the neighborhood used to get us cigarettes, and if I couldn’t find him, then Id steal one of my father’s cans of Copenhagen or Skoal). If I didn’t have tobacco, I’d chew wild teaberry leaves. (Yes, I was both a delinquent and a prepper even at the age of eleven). Eventually, I’d head home in time for dinner. My bike was Shadowfax and I was either Gandalf or Aragorn, depending on my imagination.

So much of Tolkien’s trilogy takes place in forests and remote wildlands, and I think reading it at that age and in that particular setting, is what made me such a fan for life. For all I knew, I was sitting atop an Ent while reading about Ents.

Sadly, like the Ents, a lot of those forests are gone now, or thinned. Whenever I visit my parents, it seems like another new housing development or another not-needed convenience store has popped up. But they’re still thick here on the other side of the county, where I live now. This is what it looks like about a mile behind my house, and I walk this trail every afternoon. It’s when I get most of my thinking done.

Good morning. My name is Brian Keene and this is Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for friends, family and fans of my work.

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I brought up the trail and the woods for a reason. Something I get asked about a lot -- mostly by other writers but sometimes readers, as well -- is my daily routine. Many, many years ago, I included my then-daily routine in one of the old HAIL SATEN books (all of which are available here). But given that almost two decades have passed since those books and now, I suppose a new one is needed, since things have somewhat hanged.

I get up at five in the morning, take my pills, feed the indoor cats, shower, and then head over to my ex-wife's house. There I pack my son's lunch, and talk with him until the bus comes. Once he's off to school, my ex-wife and I walk a mile or two together, and talk about our previous work days, or our upcoming work days, or our kid. 

I get home from that between 7:45 and 8:15, at which point I feed the outdoor cats and make myself a pot of coffee. Sometime around 8:30, I go live on Brian Keene Radio and talk about whatever is in the news that interests me that morning. Then I start writing, never any later than 8:45.

I write from 8:45 until 12:45 -- putting in a good, solid four hours. I get up at the start of each hour and move around. Mary usually wakes up around 10 in the morning, so for my 10 o'clock movement-break, I go downstairs and say good morning. The key is to move for at least five minutes every hour, because writers sit a lot, and sitting equals death.

So, like I said, I write from 8:45 to 12:45. Then I go back downstairs and eat a light lunch. Usually vegetables or nuts or fruit. Then I nap from 1pm to 2pm. 

At 2pm, I head back upstairs and write until 4pm. That gives me six hours of writing time. At 4, I log off and either exercise or take another two mile walk through the woods behind our house (see picture above). When I get back home I feed the outdoor cats again. (If my neighbor is traveling, then I also fill up his deer feeder). Then I make dinner for Mary and myself (and my son if he’s there). Usually healthy. Lots of fish. Also pork, but mostly fish. Red meat once a week. Pasta, pizza, or Chinese food once a week, too. While dinner is cooking, I read. 

Evenings vary on a daily basis. Some nights, Mary and I spend time together, watching TV or playing a game or something. Some nights, particularly if Mary has to work, then I'll work, too. or I might go fishing (which is not an activity that she enjoys). Or I'll read some more instead. Some evenings, I have to pick my son up from after school events or things like that. Often, I'll read even more while I'm waiting for him. For example, there's a football game tonight, as I write this. I'll bring along a book to read while the game is happening, then cheer for him and the band during halftime, and then go back to reading my book until the game is over and he meets me at the car. 

Regardless of whether I'm relaxing, reading or writing, I shower again and then go to bed no later than 10:30pm (unless his after school event is very late, which sometimes happens if it was an away game or something like that).

That's my work schedule Monday through Friday. A minimum of six hours work time per day, but often more than that.  

Weekends differ, depending on what's going on. Sometimes, if my kid is at his mother's and Mary is visiting family in New Jersey, I'll write all weekend-long (which is what I'm doing this weekend, in fact). That's when I'm at my most productive -- when I get those weekends to myself. But when I'm not home alone, I still get up at five in the morning, and write until around ten, both Saturday and Sunday. That gives me an additional ten hours writing time during the weekend, while Mary or my son are still sleeping. I rarely write after ten in the morning on Sunday. If everyone is home, we usually play cards, or go visit friends, or to the movies, or the flea market, or to used bookstores, or on an extended hike.

That's pretty much my schedule. A minimum of 40 hours of writing time, spread out over seven days. Of course, not all of that writing time involves actual writing. It may also involve answering emails, business phone calls, doing interviews and promotions, updating my website and social media, or working on Scares that Care stuff or J.F. Gonzalez's literary estate. (I try to do most of my Scares That Care duties on those evenings when I'm working extra, and I've found that I reserve Sunday's for Jesus's stuff). 

Also, once or twice a year, I take a week and go to my family cabin in West Virginia, where there is very little cell service, and I'll write non-stop, all day long, from five in the morning until nine or ten at night. 

And yes, I work on holidays. On Christmas morning, I get up before everyone else so I can get one or two hours in before the household wakes up. 

That's my writing schedule. There is no right or wrong writing schedule. You find what works for you — something that fits with your other obligations — and you stick to it. But this is the one that currently works for me.

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Reader Recession Relief continues! This week, Kindle and Nook editions of ALONE are on sale for just 99 cents!

Kindle Ebook

Nook Ebook

When Daniel Miller wakes up one morning, something has gone terribly wrong. The power is out. The phones are dead. The house is silent. The street is shrouded in fog. Both his partner and their adopted daughter are missing. So are their neighbors. And so is everyone else in the world. Daniel Miller is the last person left on Earth... or is he?

The sale runs until Tuesday, at which point the book will revert back to its normal price and a new book will take its place.

Here’s a little fun bit of trivia for you. That’s author John Urbancik on the photo cover.

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After all of the bookseller orders were placed, it turns out that Thunderstorm Books has a few copies of SUBMERGED; THE LABYRINTH Book 2 left, so if you want one, snag it here.

I’m really proud of this one. I think it’s one of the best novels I’ve written. Certainly one I had a lot of fun with.

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For twenty years, Borderlands Writers Boot Camp has been the premier workshop for aspiring horror writers. With a roster of past instructors including Thomas F. Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, David Morrell, Richard Chizmar, Ginjer Buchanan, Elizabeth Massie, and Douglas E. Winter, this intense weekend program has produced dozens of the genre’s most notable names over the past two decades.

We are proud to announce that Borderlands Writers Boot Camp is now part of the Scares That Care 501c3 charity’s family of events. 

The 2023 Borderlands Writers Boot Camp will take place March 29 through 31 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel 50 Kingsmill Road Williamsburg, VA 23185. The event will feature two and a half days of personal classroom time with a focus on writing, editing, submitting, and selling short stories. Students will be required to submit a short story to be workshopped prior to attendance. 

The instructors for 2023 are Brian Keene, Mary SanGiovanni, Maurice Broaddus, Jeff Strand, Norman Prentiss, and John Urbancik. 

Tuition is $750 per student, and includes an intense three-day workshop and classroom experience, both one-on-one and in a group setting. Price also includes admission into the second annual Scares that Care AuthorCon, taking place in the same hotel immediately following the completion of Boot Camp, giving students a real-time opportunity to immediately utilize some of the skills they’ve just learned. Attendees are responsible for their own travel and lodging. Because the instructors will be putting in advance time with each submitted story prior to the actual workshop, a non-refundable fee of $100 will be charged should a student need to cancel. 

The deadline to sign up and submit your story is January 31, 2023. After that, no further registrations will be accepted. 

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

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Work this week was a whirlwind of hopping back and forth between GWENDY’S BUTTON BOX, ISLAND OF THE DEAD, another round of revisions on the pitch for PROJECT BROADSWORD, lots of thinking and note-jotting for PROJECT MILEAGE and CLICKERS 666, editing new editions of CLICKERS FOREVER and SUNDANCING, and a veritable ton of behind the scenes stuff for Manhattan on Mars Press (which was announced here in the newsletter last week). Check out the official logo that Elderlemon Design created!

I was talking with Jeff Strand and Robert Ford this past week. Jeff was under a deadline for a novel, and Bob had just finished the first draft of a novella, and I found myself feeling a sort of friendly jealous admiration for them both. I’d love to get to a place where I only had to work on one thing at a time, but I doubt I ever will. The fault in that is mine and mine alone. I hear my internal clock ticking, and it’s louder these days, and there’s just too many things I want to make sure get finished. It’s a manic sort of hypochondria, I guess, manifesting itself in how I approach writing. But for good or ill, it’s how I do things. I wish I did them differently, but I don’t seem to be able to.

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Author Wesley Southard has a brand new online store that you all should check out. It’s pretty impressive, what he’s assembled here, and warrants a look.

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Author Ronald Kelly had a big book launch for his memoir, Southern Fried and Horrified this past weekend. Check out the badass billboard! (I’m not sure which highway this was on, but how cool is this?)

The book itself is great! A worthy successor to Richard Laymon’s A Writer’s Tale (very much written and styled in the same vein). I highly recommend it.

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Currently Watching: Nothing

Currently Listening: Brian Keene Radio

Currently Reading: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

I finished Mason Winfield’s The Prince of the Air. So far, it’s my favorite book of 2022 (and I’ve read a lot of great books this year). If you like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, or John Urbancik, or William Hope Hodgson’s Carnaki and Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence, then you’ll dig this very much. Available in paperback only

I also started and finished The Fellowship of the Ring this past week. I would guess this is probably my tenth time rereading The Lord of the Rings trilogy? The Fellowship of the Ring is always the fastest of the three for me to read because I skip past Tom Bombadil, whom I loathed at age 11 and loathe still. I also skim the Galadriel segments, which makes Mary apoplectic. I’m sorry. I just… the characters are facing down a Barrow Wight, and it’s tense and scary and then here comes this ridiculous guy with his stupid hat and he’s singing jaunty songs. It ruins the tension for me every time. And Galadriel? I always found her to be cold as a character. Nothing there I can connect to as a reader. I’m with the Riders of Rohan’s assessment of her and her forest. .

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Obligatory Kitten Pic of the Week

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If you are in or near Baltimore, remember to join me, Mary SanGiovanni, Robert Swartwood, Hailey Piper, Wesley Southard, Mike Lombardo, Somer Canon, Stephen Kozeniewski, Sonora Taylor, Chris Enterline, Matt Wildasin and possibly Ronald Malfi for a massive signing next Saturday September 10 from noon until 5pm at Protean Books & Records, 836 Leadenhall Street Baltimore, MD, 21230!

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And that does it for this week. I appreciate you reading this, and everything else I write. See you back here next Sunday!

— Brian Keene