Musings About Zombies

Alright...so I'm waist deep in Zombacolypse! The young adult zombie novel I'm writing.

So far the story goes as thus...

You have a group of high school kids from a Catholic School in Portland, OR. It's summer and their Latin teacher Father Rockford (yes...I know...cool huh?) is taking them on a trip to Rome.

While at the airport they find body bags on the tarmac. The bags are moving - so they go down to stop the beginnings of the zombie invasion.

"How so?" You ask.

Well these kids are not really Latin students...they have been hand picked to be members of a secret society based out of The Vatican called "The Order of Lux Lucis" or "The Order of Daylight". They have been trained to use magic to fight the forces of evil.

So, our little band of students nuke the zombies, but one gets loose. Homeland Security arrests our heroes and while in custody all hell breaks loose.

So you got about thirty pages of them getting out the airport.

Another twenty pages where they call the local Catholic Vampire Hunter (trained trough a different branch at the Vatican) who promptly comes to save them.

Another twenty pages where the zombies attack and they all get separated.

Anyway, these two kids (Randy and Lunchbox) end up with another priest, and they go to this church where Father John thinks they'll be safe.

Problem is, the zombies got there first. Total carnage. The zombies have desecrated the church. The kids ask the priest why the zombies would do such a thing. And Father John says...well, here. Let me just show you...

Randy shrugged, "But can you tell me something Father?"
"I can try."
"Why would they do this," he waved his hand across the room,
encompassing everything with one motion. "I mean, what
exactly did they hope to accomplish?"
"Whether or not you call them zombies or vampires," the priest
said. "They are still just the living dead. And the living dead work
much the same way as demons. They wait for the soul to leave the
body and then they swoop in and take over. In essence you end up
with a corpse that for all practical purposes is alive, but without a
soul."
"That doesn't explain what happened here," Lunchbox interrupted.
"Without a soul you aren't connected to God," Father John turned to
Lunchbox. "Let me ask you. If you were disconnected from God, how
would that make you feel?"
"I think I'd be sad," Lunchbox admitted.
"Naw," Randy looked around the desecrated church. "You'd be

very, very pissed."

Now I don't know why I put this scene in. As a matter of fact I considered cutting the whole thing all together, because it didn't really fit with anything. But I thought it was cool so I kept it.

And then something strange happened.

As the story has progressed, the zombies have been evolving. To make things harder for the main characters I've been making them progressively smarter.

In the last scene I wrote Father Rockford is about to cut a swath through a massive mob of zombies, and then one of them speaks! The evolved zombie asks his help, so they can find out what or who has created them.

You know, when I started writing this book, it was just supposed to be about a bunch of kids with super powers fighting the undead in an abandoned city.

Which by itself would have been pretty cool.

But now it's taken on these huge life, theological, philosophical questions. The scene above now fits in with what the zombies are up to. They are angry at God because they feel abandoned by him.

Now, I've got the military killing them and the kids are beginning to ask if the evolved zombies deserve to live or die. They are beginning to question who the monsters are...the zombies or the military.

And that's what's so cool about writing! This story has begun to take on a much larger life on it's own...it's almost out of my control, and I'm just transcribing at this point.

You know, something just occurred to me! This novel has become MY evolved zombie!

Whoa...

That's pretty deep...

Wombats

I love Wombats!



I love mother and baby wombats...


I love just baby wombats...

I even love the band The Wombats...

He He He...Wombats...koooool

This Guy Rocks!

Let's build a funky looking bike that isn't street legal (or probably very safe for that matter) then dress up like a Victorian Undertaker and ride it around the park!

I want to hang with this dude.

No.

Seriously...I really want to hang with this dude!

Musings About Writers

So due to my current Facebook obsession, I was contacted by a girl I vaguely remember from high school. I accepted her request because she's into vampire/zombie stuff (which makes her cool) and because she got a BFA in poetry from Iowa (which makes her cool and a much better writer than myself...academic-wise and all). So I asked her about Iowa and she tells me how brutal it was. There were only so many graduate slots to fill, so the undergraduates had to do this Thunderdome type thing where they all enter a workshop and only one leaves alive. She talked about the backstabbing, the cut-throat critiques. She talked about how if anyone wrote anything good, it was ripped apart in an attempt to kill the writer's spirit...

Sad...

So that go me thinking. Why is it that Iowa restricted their slots? Since when in our society has being chosen to be among 'the elite' a good thing? See...this is what I think...stay with me here.

1. There is a misconception that there is not enough in our world. Not enough money, not enough energy, not enough love or success. But I think that's all crap. There is more than enough for everyone out there...of everything.

Consider this.

A friend of mine came into the area I supervise the other day and he starts joking with the kids who work under me. Then later he apologizes for stealing my mojo.

My reply, "Buddy, there's enough mojo to go around."

It's like, there was no competition between us in my mind. There really is more than enough love to go around.

You know?

Haven't you ever been in love with someone and then found you 'loved' someone else? Maybe not in a romantic way, and it's not like you loved the first person any less...it's just there is an infinite amount of love out there, so you can love multiple people and still not take anything away from anyone else.

2. OK - so how does this apply to Iowa? Well, I'm assuming they want only the best of the best right? But why make it so selective? Accept everyone! More money rolls in (I have not seen a university yet that doesn't like that) - more people mean more opportunities to get published (which is a pretty good feather in your cap if you're a school who bases your success on published writers).

So you say - "OK Crimson Pig - that's all well and good, but what about all the bad people you let into the school?"

Good point! But I say, if your standards are high enough two things are going to happen. Those who can not cut it will leave. Those who don't start out good writers will rise to the occasion and become good writers. Which leads to success for you and your school!

3. Which brings me to my point!

How many truly great writers have we lost due to the fact that they were 'weeded out' of a college workshop? For that matter, why do they even need to be weeded out?

And you want to know the answer!

Because they'll get the book contract I could have gotten. They'll take my spot or my money or my mojo!

Well, if someone writes a better book than I do, they should get the freakin' contract!

And that's what pisses me off so much. We don't try to become better writers, we take 'our competition' and try to ruin them so our mediocre crap can get published.

You know, people are always bitching that kids don't read today. Kids read. Kids want to read! "Harry Potter" proves that. It's just that we're not turning out anything they want to read, so can you really blame them?

4. Finally, consider this. I write horror stuff. It's what I dig. I subscribe to magazines and read other budding horror writer's work. I support them and they support me. Because there is enough out there...for everyone! Let's encourage those writers. The more of them who pop up, the more magazines they will read. Which will cause more magazines to pop up. Which means more publishing opportunities, which means more opportunities for young writers. Which means more writers pop up. You see how it goes?

Seems simple...huh?

Top Five Reasons Why I Love Being An Episcopalian

#1. We're Church of England which, by default makes us classy.

As my priest once said, "The Catholics will tell you that you'll go to hell for eating meat on Friday. The Baptists will tell you that you'll go to hell for dancing. The Episcopals will tell you that you'll go to hell for using your salad fork to eat your main course."

#2. Being Church of England, that means when you die you get to go to BRITISH HEAVEN!



#3. We are a progressive church which means we're gay friendly.



It also allows us to have...female priests

#4. Our bishop...The Most Reverend Barry R. Howe... looks alot like Sir Laurence Oliver playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice

#5. All the cool kids are doing it.

Watch Yourself

This is an actual sign at the London Zoo. It's up near the bear or tiger cages or something like that. You'll be seeing a lot of these things up when the zombies attack.

By the way...my favorite part of the whole thing is the pinky finger off by itself.

I'm Soooooo Bad

All right. Due to overwhelming peer pressure from my friends at church I joined Facebook. Now it takes up way - way - way - way too much time. I can now see why teenagers get nothing done.

This is not a good thing. I have fallen behind on stuff that needs to be done. You know, important stuff. Like...

Watching the Rockford Files.

Writing my Zombie Novel.

Trying to get published.

As my friend Marisa said, This Facebook thing is going to end poorly (I'm paraphrasing here).

Oh yeah...