Love and Zombies Saturday, Nov 28 2009

Greetings all.

It has arrived finally, the moment you have all been waiting for.

Okay, so the moment that some of you might have been vaguely interested in. It’s the ZOMBIE THEME! Oseike made a very good point that if I wait until after I finish up this semester of school to post my take on Oseike’s zombie idea, then we’re going to have a zombie theme for Christmas, and . . . that’s just vaguely wrong. *grin *

So here it is, the very very rough version of “Love and Zombies” which is distantly based on a dream of Oseike’s several months ago. I ended up writing it for my workshop class because at the time the only things I wanted to write were this and a paranormal romance, and I though that the zombies were a bit “deeper.”

Happy Thanksgiving by the way! This has been a very nice break for me, good to see parents, and not worry (too much) about school. I hope that all of you reading have been able to have a good time, and have had a moment to give thanks for the good things in life that are everywhere. Heck, I need to give thanks again for family, friends, and food. Amen.

 

WARNING: “Love and Zombies” contains bad language and hideous grammar errors that I haven’t bothered to correct yet because, well, I’m rewriting it in the next couple days and am too lazy to fix them now, when the entire paragraphs may very well vanish. Also, there are zombies. If you have difficulty suspending your disbelief willingly . . . well, I don’t actually know why you are reading this blog anyway. But there are zombies! Eventually. I promise.

I’m obviously tired, and not that coherent, so I’m going to get out of here. Hope you enjoy hanging out with Candie and Charlie. I did.

And here is an excerpt from somewhere in the middle. The rest is in the sidebar under “Love and Zombies” Have fun!!

I was just about to reevaluate my plan, screw up my courage, and go confront them (Charlie would cover me, I know) when the (second) most horrible thing possible happened, and I lost the chance to come out with any kind of honor.

Barbara, thwarted one too many times at getting Vic to feel her up, tossed up her trashy, cheap dyed job blond head, nostrils flaring, and ended up looking straight at me, three tables away.

Her eyes widened. Her nostrils flared. Even from a half a sound barrier away, I could see the words on her lips, the holy shit incredulity coming off her. Charlie winced, and Barbara somehow sensed the movement because she wheeled around and glared at him. Her fists clenched, her back straightened and her artificial breasts practically bounded in rage. EveDoyle separated, their heavily blackened eyes widening in surprise, and they looked in my direction, too. Evelyn’s face lit up, relief and happiness filling her face completely. She waved. Doyle raised his eyebrows, then looked at Barbara and his eyes narrowed while he did the calculations. He’s a lawyer, when he’s not pretending to be a Goth vampire-wannabe. Vic just looked confused at Barbara’s outburst, while Charlie sat quietly, but angrily, under her assault.

She was making motions with her hands and I could tell she was screaming at him, saying something probably devastating about hiding me, or some such. You could tell she had completely cracked. And I could understand the sentiment (getting Vic to respond in any way when he doesn’t want to can be maddening, I’d tried teasing him enough) but that was no reason she should be ripping into Charlie.

But then she turned to me, and I swear that bitch looked crazy enough to eat silverware and spit out werewolf-killing nails. She was practically incandescent with rage, and I felt for one horrible moment that I was going to die right there. I’d been just drinking, no meals, so I didn’t have so much as a soupspoon to defend myself. Instinctively my hand went to my purse, but it wasn’t there and I remembered that all my usual defensive measures, down to the damned pepper spray, had been on the float when she cut the line.

I was going to die.

Luckily for me, the first most horrible thing possible happened.

Barbara took two prissy, wrathful strides in my direction, and someone from the hallway screamed, “Oh God! Zombies!”

We both turned, temporarily distracted from our imminent battle to the death, not expecting much, and saw the first of the undead shambling through the doublewide doors.

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One Hundred Word Stories Sunday, Nov 22 2009

I just wrote a story. It’s 100 words long and about a vampire. This is actually my second, and the second I’ve posted, but, as Oseike has pointed out, I wasn’t very clear last time.

These stories are basically ideas that are so small that I can’t write a poem about them, but I still want to do something, so it becomes one of these little blurbs. And it helps to have a prompt that doesn’t come from myself.

The two stories I have written are posted under “One Hundred Years” on the sidebar. But, seeing as this new one is so short, they are all so short, I will post the whole thing right now. If you want to see the first one, though, you have to check.

PROMPT: dodging sunlight

Early rising vampires burn fast. But I’m still here. Each evening, I track the sun inching down the sky.

When the mob came, I was waiting, but not for them. I heard them, pitchforks shaking, but also heard the sun calling for my blood.

They broke the barn door, drenched the floor with light. I dodged, crawled silently to the ceiling. Then they took ropes and began dragging the barn wall down. Eyes closed, I waited for sunlight’s scouring, touch. It crept toward me like a burning tide.  

But then the sun set, and left me dead and always alone.

—–

There is backstory and stuff in the sidebar, but now I’m tired and going to bed. Sorry this is so short, hope you enjoy, happy weekend before Thanksgiving! (if I die before the holiday, don’t be surprised, probably from overworking).

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Update of General Happiness Wednesday, Nov 18 2009

So, I was beginning to feel stressed today, because this Thursday we’re going to cover my latest short story in Workshop class, and it’s about zombies.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited about the story, it’s a romp, it only mildly diluted craziness (it’s really sloppy, both in my grammar check and in the rush job I did with the plot because it was getting too fricken long, but we’ll talk about that another time), and that’s what I want to write (sometimes). But now I’m getting twitchy, because there’s a huge prejudice in the “literary” world against “genre” fiction, and I don’t want people to dis my story because it has zombies used as a ridiculous plot device, a crazy main character, and the Westminster Polka Band plays a cameo appearance and saves the day. I want them to talk about the plot holes, the rush job, the issues with characterization and that the fact that a “spine” and a “spin” are definitely different words, and one should read one’s piece enough to catch their misuse. But I know people won’t get it, and just thinking about them trying to blame me and the story for that makes me angry.

It shouldn’t, it hasn’t happened yet, maybe it won’t happen, this has been a really good writing experience for me all semester, but it does anyway.

So, I was getting stressed, but then I had a talking to myself, and I managed to calm down before going to Nerd Wars. Nerd Wars is the Honors Program philanthropy at my school, it’s basically teams of students in a trivia contest, who knows the most random crap. I’ve been a distant alternate for a team for weeks, but today I found out they needed me, so I participated, and my team got to the third round. It was really fun, and I learned random things (like, the first animal ever ejected out of a high speed airplane was a bear. It parachuted. Who would have ever guessed? Certainly not the teams that were up.)

I was worried because I have two small papers due tomorrow, for 17th century, and I was only about half way done with the writing process. But look at me, I’ve already emailed the finished versions to myself for future printing, and it’s not even 2 a.m. yet!

I also got linked to a little writing competition by my cousin, and while I doubt I’ll win anything it made me write a tiny story, just 100 words, that I really like. And things as small as that are really what I like because I can focus, control, and tweak everything. It’s a writing stress relief, because it will never be completely perfect, but it’s easy to get a scope on. So I have that in the side bar under “One Hundred Words.” I’m hoping that I will write more little things like that because it was just so fun. 

Also sent off my JET application off today, so I don’t have to worry about the freaking thing for several months. I actually enjoyed ( a LOT) the poems we read for 20th century tomorrow, and I made cream of mushroom curry/cumen chicken tonight for dinner, and got free chips and soda at Nerd Wars (and a cool new shirt). I feel pretty chill, and I’m actually going to get 8 hours. Good times.

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