Maybe it's the Margaritas....

Mexican margarita
Originally uploaded by Mel B.

I am not a drinker. I used to drink every weekend when I worked in a bar and my coworkers and I would spend our Saturday nights laughing in the corner table while our regular customers tried to get us really drunk. But because I come from a long line of alcoholics, I don't like to drink often. Now and again, I'll have a beer or a glass of wine, or if we go out to dinner I'll get a margarita, but the stress of this week had me longing to unwind.

So, I put the lime in the coconut and mixed it all up, and I've been unwinding with my salt-rimmed glass. I definitely needed to relax, and something inside of me was holding me back from just letting it go. I didn't meditate last night because I had a headache, and my poor husband said I was a virtual nightmare all night long: kicking, yelling in my sleep and sawing logs like a lumberjack. Apparently, I even told him that I was going to pop him in the face if he didn't stop nudging me. Poor guy.

I've had a sleep disorder ever since I was a little kid. I used to sleepwalk, and have sleep-talked and snored since I was about 3 years old. In times of increasing stress, my body shuts down, but my brain just keeps going. I wonder how I get any rest at all, and realize during these spells just why I wake up feeling exhausted.

Meditation is the key, and maybe some muscle-relaxing margaritas. I feel nice right now, and ready to drop into a hot bath with my new zombie anthology. I'm sure some would say that reading about zombies before bedtime would inspire nightmares in them, but those are the kinds of dreams that stories come from for me. So here's hoping that the margaritas and the zombies tickle my inspiration. I have an unfinished zombie story that would LOVE it if I finished it this weekend.

But first, I'm off to check out Episode 19 of James Melzer's Zombie Chronicles podcast. If you are a zombie/horror fan, and haven't checked out this podcast, you don't know what you're missing. You can check out more about James Melzer and listen to the podcast for free at James Melzer. Good stuff! Check it out.

Sychronicity... Zombies March Across My Life (Again)

I love synchronicity. Whenever things in my life start to line up in an obvious way, I can't help but step back and feel the confirmation from the universe. The current synchronicity may not seem new, considering how frequently I blogged about it during October and November, but zombies are back on the writer's block.

An inspiration for a short story popped up last week that I've been toying with between getting a few last minute reviews done for eMuse, which is scheduled for a March 15th release (ooh, the Ides, Beware,). I spent most of my weekend taking care of last minute business so the contents can move on to the next round and into the hand of our amazing tech team. While I won't delve too deeply into the plot, let's just say I've got two kids facing off against a zombie infested world. I'm already really enjoying working with it.

How is that synchronicity, you ask? For the last week, since the idea popped up, zombies have been everywhere. Now if it were closer to zombie day or Halloween, I could see it, but there aren't even any zombie films out right now to increase the zombie population. So everywhere this last week, zombies keep popping up. They were in my email, in a podiobook I downloaded to my iPod, on television, in my mailbox...My friend Susan even sent me a link to weird college courses in the U.S. in which a zombies in culture course existed. They are literally everywhere. They may even be gnawing on brains in the room behind me, but I'm afraid to turn around and look.

The fact that I started this new story and zombies began to reappear everywhere felt like confirmation from the universe that I was on the "write" track. So YAY!

Along with working on eMuse last minute bits and pieces, I also wrote a memoir for Chicken Soup for the Soul and sent it out this morning. That's two pieces out this week. I'm really happy about that. Do you have goals you try to adhere to on how many pieces you send out each week, or how many words you write each week? Has synchronicity been at work in your life lately? If so, how, and did you feel reaffirmed, or just completely creeped out?

I leave you with Elvira and Leslie and the Lys...

The NaNoWriMo Blues

I have not worked on my NaNoWriMo story since last Thursday. Friday I had my three year old niece overnight and Saturday I opted to finish a short story I'd been working on. I don't regret Saturday's choice because I finished the story and I'm very happy with the first draft! Sunday night I wound up falling asleep at 7:30, and by the time I woke up again, it was time to go to bed.

So here I am on Monday night, ten days into NaNoWriMo, with my word count still idling at 8560. I'm having issues with my main character. He started out vibrantly. His personality was coming across nicely, and then the action started. It was like the first sign of insanity kicked in and he clammed up. Sure, he made it through the action really well, but his personality fell flat. We can't have that.

I will be returning to the early half of the chapter to the place where the action started to see if I can give Ryan mouth to mouth. Hopefully he doesn't deflate, because his lackadaisical response to zombies is really pushing me toward either starting a new project, or just going back to the edits on my nearly completed summer novel.

I hope that all of my NaNoWriMo friends are having better luck. I know now that it's not that I don't want to write. I just don't know if I can keep on trying to breathe life into characters that don't want to live. In all seriousness, he's not even a zombie, and the zombies have more life right now than my main character. That can't be good.

I do have another idea, one that I am almost positive I can whip out 20,000 words in a week over if I actually start it. Tempting, tempting.

The Spell Has Been Broken

For a few months I had been feeling like I had cursed myself. No matter how much effort I put into a story, finishing it seemed like an impossibility. Maybe I was psyching myself out too much. I had even taken on the challenge of not writing another story until I finished my last novel. Well, I finished it all right, but was so unhappy with how quickly it all ran together when it was done, that it has been placed on the backburner until further notice.

In July, I started writing my first zombie horror story, but it was slow going at first. I worried that the idea that compelled it in the first place was just a whim, and once the novelty wore off the story would wind up in limbo.

Last night the self-inflicted curse was broken. We were driving our daughter to the skating rink and talking about Eckhart Tolle. I had spent most of the evening writing and mentioned that I really wanted to finish the story. I knew where it was going, how I wanted it to end, and had known that information since mid-September. Why wasn't I finishing it? My husband said it was excuses. No matter what I said, I was just continually making up excuses for why I hadn't finished it. We came home and I updated my status message on AIM and Facebook with what I was doing in the story.

Then it hit me.

I was putting off what needed to be done because I liked the characters too much. I jumped up like a light bulb had just gone on over my head and explained to my husband why I was making up excuses. I didn't want to hurt the characters. Even though I know you have to to make good story in many cases, their situations already seemed dire. What I was about to do seemed downright awful. I imagined myself in that world, in their position and cursed whatever gods put me through that hideous horror.

It occurred to me that the reason my last novel is still sitting on the backburner was based on similar inhibitions. The situation wasn't as "dire" as it is in the short story, but it still involved causing two of my characters a great amount of discomfort and pain. The difference is, they got to have a happy ending. So instead of pushing the pain on them, I muddled through it and gave them the ending, but I know now that it is my job as their creator to wreak havoc in their lives.

Philosophically, I can't help but wonder if that is how our creator feels as it wreaks havocs great and small in our lives. "Oh man... I just really did a number on the Sones's. Maybe I should hold off on killing their Grandpa right now."

Either way, it was an eye opener that allowed me to go through with what needed to be done, and the first draft of the story was completed. I felt great. And while I know I need to go back in and do some serious editing, add more to a couple of scenes that I felt were lacking, I don't feel like I skimped out on my duty as the great havoc stirrer in my characters lives. Sure, they're cursing me in their world, but that's life.

Limbs, Blood & Gray Matter Everywhere

Well, despite the fact that I spent most of my day procrastinating, I did manage to add 2537 words to my NaNoWriMo total today. That brings the overall total to 8560. I'm currently on chapter three. The body count is rising. There are six dead so far, one of them a suicide who had been bitten by a zombie.

Chapter two was pretty gory. It was where most of the violence and vomiting took place so far, and I am feeling a little disconnected from the characters right now. I feel like Ryan has fallen a little flat because all of it has been the interaction with really limited emotional response. I may need to go back in and connect emotionally or I don't know if I'll be able to go on. It's very rough.

In my procrastination today, I did manage to have great conversation with some friends I went for a nice walk and did a lot of thinking. All in all, I feel it was a good day. On to the next.

And then his secretary ate his face...

There was a part of me that worried it would take me too long to get into the action in my NaNoZombie novel, but tonight I got right to it. Of course, the zombie attack had to take place right in the middle of a boring executive meeting. What better way to get out of a meeting? Though after watching the zombie secretary quickly devour two suits, I'm thinking maybe I might have actually enjoyed the meeting better. My poor protagonist is currently vomiting into a hallway radiator and trying to figure out how to help the people still trapped in the conference room.

Four days in and I'm about 2000 words behind. My four day NaNoWriMo total is at 6023 words, but I will kick that totals butt tomorrow.

For now, it's late. It's been a long day filled with zombie secretaries and of course, new presidents. Apparently the results are in. Barack Obama will be the new president of the United States. I'm excited. This is the first time that I felt good about my vote, that it wasn't just choosing the lesser of two really icky evils. Our country is ready for change, and I look forward to where the future will take us!

The Every Day Zombie

If there's anything I've learned during my recent foray into zombie culture, it's that the best zombie stories in the world are not the typical zombie apocalypse tales they terrorize us with in the movies. While I won't deny George A. Romero is one of my heroes, and that his films are a definite inspiration, many of the better zombie stories I've read have been different. Zombies as advocates for painful death, zombies rising to support anti-gun laws, murder victims rising cursed from their graves to follow their killers like lovesick puppies... all relative in a world gone mad without the apocalyptic pressure. Those situations are all on the more extreme level, but there are worlds in which zombies and humans coincide, where teachers hang onto their drive and try to teach the zombie children even though there is no hope for the future.

One of the nice things about zombies is that there is an abundance of material for research, and writers like Max Brooks make their fictional contributions so incredibly real that you can almost imagine you're living in an upside down world infested with the walking dead.

I started to have a moment of anxiety over the fact that I hadn't drawn up a master plan for NaNoWriMo, even though I rarely plan before hand. Then I decided to adopt a zombie mentality about it. Zombies have no plans. They don't have elaborate or extensive plots driving them; they simply are. While I have the basic idea formulating always in the back of my mind, I know that anything can shift the plan at any time and I'm not afraid.

I do still have my zombie short story to finish--a piece I hope will be connected to the world I am creating in the novel. I had a point where I wanted the two female protagonists from the stories to at least cross paths, so that should be fun. Here's hoping I get it done before tomorrow night. At least the rough draft anyway. The Ghost Hunters Live seven hour episode hosted by Josh Gates has me hesitant to even start my NaNo novel at midnight, but I'm sure I'll find a way. I'm also still debating on whether or not I want to go to the local kickoff. Meeting new people is scary. Zombies don't meet new people, they eat them. :p