Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Complete

I finally completed the first draft of my script for the short film «Confessions of a Midnight Cannibal» yesterday. It’s only thirteen pages, but I have been struggling a bit, quite a bit with it. I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps it’s a bit of new ground for me, even though the art of Transgression has been a favorite of mine for some time (since forever, really).

The title says it all, really. We experience in graphic details the cannibal’s preparations, implementation and digestion in his quest for the perfect meal.

Our hero is a civilized man, quite the dedicated connoisseur and witty conversationalist, a chef that takes his chores seriously, doing it all himself, the entire process from A to Z. The selection of the meat and various materials, the setting of the table, the works. It’s all his to struggle with and enjoy. I can certainly sympathize with this perfectionist, this maker of meals, even though I don’t share his zeal.

Filming will commence this upcoming summer or the next, depending on various factors. It can be made extremely cheap, which was the plan from the start, even though economics continue to be an issue. So is casting, inevitably. We need a large man, with a large cock, and we probably need a special effects man, even though that won’t necessarily be mandatory. And the man with the large cock needs to have a special voice and modulation. That’s crucial, as well. His voice and modulation, that is. The setting is a large advantage. The film can be made anywhere in the world. Flexibility is a must for a small, independent filmmaker, auteur.

There are only two roles to cast, the meat eater, and the meat. And the meat has no lines.

People having read the script describe it as «deeply disturbing». Very good.

Another guy asked what the message was, what message I wanted to convey to my breathless audience. Message? I replied ironically. I can sort of understand his question, since I tend to be a message man. That doesn’t mean I want to send one every second of the day, though. And there is actually a message here, one he strangely failed to see: I want to transgress any sense of normality in what I do, and I want mundane people to choke on their normality. Easy as pie.

This is a small piece of a larger story, really, one that will hopefully be made later, one of several movies I have written and intend to write in need of (larger) funding.

We’re going to make this enjoyable film, and put it on the Internet for all to watch. Since it will most certainly not be shown in any «decent» theater or festival. It’s an excellent beginning for our string of controversial, very controversial films.

The film division of Midnight Fire Media is finally about to take off.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Project update, early December

It's official. My project is late.

Since publication was supposed to begin in November, that's a dead giveaway. The main reason was technical problems, really, but they have been solved, now. So I'm not really that late yet. I do take my time, like I always do. Everything is pretty much ready to roll. I may wait a while or I may publish tomorrow.

The book after The Defenseless isn't due until February, so I have some time yet. The plan remains intact, and pretty much on schedule.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Two Rivers

I took a look at the cover for my upcoming novel The Defenseless recently. I just sat there staring at it, for the first time in over a year (or so). It just fit the story so well.

Oh, what the hell, there has been a long time since I felt any sort of false modesty. The cover is great, sucking you in before you have even opened the book, and I'm looking so much forward to see it on the book.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Summer of '06

It began early
Like a slow moving train
It ended somewhere
In the desert sand

Heat rises from
From the sizzling city streets
Boiling the poor souls
Walking and stumbling here
Sunlight reaches
Even the deepest shadow
People glance uneasily
At each other
Between the coughs
And the gasps
Never truly looking
At themselves
In the mirror

They glimpse
Their indistinct images
In the incomplete
shop window mirror
And dream in a haze
Of poison and mirages
Of desperate imagination

And thus they keep dreaming
Their insane dreams
While the world
Goes from bad to worse
Around them

Trinkets please these people
Mirages please them
While they dance
Their fake dance
Going out of their way
To avoid dancing
Avoid living
As happiness eludes them
As life itself
Keep slipping away

It was the summer of '06
Everything happened
Everything bad and good
Now and then

The summer of '06 began early
In the unease of people's mind
And in the never ending
Desert of the world
It's still there

Amos Keppler 2006-09-15

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

True Artistic Freedom


I published my novel «ShadowWalk» in March 2003 on my own label, my own publishing company after a desert walk lasting two decades between various established publishers. That was my second. The first was the Norwegian edition of «Dreams belong to the Night».

No established publisher would or will ever want to touch my work, at least not without major rearranging, censorship, so I decided to do it myself. I took the advantage of current technology, and did everything, except the actual printing myself. In hindsight I feel almost grateful towards all those greedy and stuck-up publishers…

There are basically two major faults with them. They publish either only work they, personally deem to be of artistic merit, or they just want lots and lots of cash. Either approach equally despicable in my eyes.

I remember sitting there, with the book in my hands, with both of them, for hours, feeling something very close to awe. I sat there with a real book in my hands, a novel, 300000 words I had written.

Many people frown at self-publishing novels. Many bookstores won’t touch them and they even brag about it. They even call them «Vanity projects», «suggesting» that there are basically people with an overblown ego and a lot of money that’s doing it. To me that is clearly yet another tactic put out there by the establishment, including the established publishers.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to both self-publishing and doing so through established publishers. One major disadvantage of doing it yourself is that you lack the advantages of a big operation. You need to «waste» a lot of time doing everything the big bucks publishers pay others to do, for one thing. And then there is the obvious thing about distribution, which is or was crucial. If you didn’t get your book into the stores you wouldn’t sell much. But to me, what everything comes down to is this:

When you do it yourself, on your own, you do everything, and can do everything, exactly like you want. You don’t need to do things you don’t want to do. You accept aid, of course, and advise from people you trust, but ultimately you are making the decisions. I have (briefly) experienced the process the authors go through suffering the meat grinder the established publishers demand you go through. They wanted me, like they want everyone to change three fourths (or rather everything) of the book. And we’re not talking about grammar here, or even wording. We’re talking about the story. They wanted the book, want all books to become their story, their neutered child, not the authors free-spirited wild creature. They are part of the worldwide censorship process, and many self-publishers aren’t. I get very angry when I see the smirk on the big guns’ faces when they state how proud they are to give voice to previously censored work. They do, and they don’t, if you get my drift…

So I will dare this outrageous claim: Generally speaking (there are exceptions to any rule) self-published books and art in general beat those being published by a major operation by a vast majority.

So I published them on my own, using my own hard-won money, and I lost quite a bit of those money doing so, but I would have done it again in an instant. I sold several hundred books worldwide, mostly on the Internet and in the city of London, and as an added bonus of having low sales I was contacted and could respond personally to my readers, and I learned a lot in the bargain. Big time writers can never have such a personal rapport with their readers.

And now, now it’s finally the time to take the next step. The poor artist’s publishing method is finally here in earnest.

The Print-On-Demand is here, and I’m here, and I’m ready.

The time, the dominion (at least) of the major publishers, books, music, movies and art in general is done. Good riddance!

After a long time of picking and choosing I’ve now registered with lulu.com, and the first novel in my new venture, «The Defenseless» is due in November. This date and the others below are not set, but I foresee no major obstacles at this point. Not technically, nor economically. They, the current world, its masters and eager servants will keep attempting to stop me, censor and stop any truly free expression, of course.

It takes about ten years for me to complete a book, from start to the final finishing touch. But with The Defenseless it has taken me thirty years.

My plan (it’s great to have a plan) at this time:

Your Own Fate in February.
The Slaves in April
Night On Earth in June
Collected Poems in August
Birds Flying in the Dark in October/November
Dreams Belong to the Night in February (2008)


There you have it, folks, in all modesty (and pretentiousness) seven of the most controversial books ever written (and soon hopefully published).

Sunday, August 13, 2006

The Storyteller


I’m a Storyteller. It’s the one thing I have always been good at. There will always be storytellers around the campfire, and I will always be there, to tell my stories, and shake up and stir the gathering.

This was one of the earliest things I noticed about myself, my skill of weaving stories. The current world, society, school, civilization did its best to destroy that fire, like it does all things. But it failed. Even though my ability, my need to create sort of hibernated during early school years of forced learning, it never went away. And it never will.

I know that, now, and I rejoice, because this, among other things, above all else is what I do, what I want to do. I won’t call it a gift, because that implies that someone gave it to me, and no one did. It’s a potential I was born with, and made to grow on my own. After the first tentative steps it flourished. I’ve written millions of words since then, played a lot of music, spoken a lot of words, told many a story.

And I always will.