The Naturalist by Maureen McHugh

Maureen McHugh is a master at the short story form. Here is a link to a recent zombie story she wrote that's up at Subterranean Press. Enjoy.

http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/spring-2010/fiction-the-naturalist-by-maureen-mchugh/

Interesting/Crazy things from last few days

Video and a terrific letter from Annie Oakley, one of my childhood heroes.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/fifty-lady-sharpshooters-await.html

Article with suggestions sent to the Pentagon. Made me miss the days when I knew the diagnoses of the people writing in to me.

http://www.military.com/news/article/could-airborne-bears-catch-bin-laden.html

Wonderful post by Carrie Ryan about some of the thought process behind her amazing zombie books. I've had similar conversations with a friend of mine from Europe who marvels at how all of the knowledge the Romans had was lost and wonders if something similar could happen today.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/03/16/the-big-idea-carrie-ryan-2/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Divorce rate blamed on one boy...

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29919?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

And a couple of tweets about house hunting today.

http://twitter.com/georgianalee/status/10702321574

http://twitter.com/georgianalee/status/10702360197

Woody vs. the Zombie

Several years ago I was an extra in a movie with Morgan Freeman called Along Came a Spider. We spent three days, long hours each day, shooting a scene where he enters a commuter train, sees something suspicious, pulls his gun out, etc. etc. My job was to duck every time he reached into his denim jacket to get his gun.

I don't know how many times I ducked but it was a lot. (I had longer hair then, which would flair out when I turned my head and hid, and a friend who moved away once told me when he missed me he would play the scene from the film, see my hair and feel better. But I digress.)

A couple of years later I was on a Metro train in DC and a man who looked a fair amount like Morgan Freeman and was wearing a denim jacket boarded the train and reached into his jacket, in precisely the same way Mr. Freeman had. So I ducked.

I'm sure I looked both racist and crazy, but really it was sort of a Pavlovian response.

So when I read this article about Woody Harrelson getting into an altercation with someone he thought was a zombie, following several weeks of filming an intense zombie movie, I nodded my head and understood where he was coming from. I'm guessing a lot of actors understand exactly what happened.

More about zombies (Can you ever get too much?)

In honor of my project for script frenzy, which is about a teenager trained to be a zombie hunter, I present a post from Meg Cabot's blog called Teenage Zombies. I was particularly struck by this advice:

The other problem with the movie is that the music is kind of dopey and the special effects aren’t that scary and everyone is always like, “Wait, we have to go back.”

Why does everyone always say that? There’s no reason to go back. Really. Ever. Just drive forward.

That fantastic advice doesn't just work for films, or zombie hunting, or fleeing from zombies; it's also perfect writing advice. Don't ever hit the back space. Don't go back and delete anything you've written. Don't think you're just going to edit one thing and then go on. Instead write a note to yourself about what you think is wrong and go on from there. I've actually written as many as 11 thousand words and decided they weren't working for me, written a note like @@this books should really start here@@ and forged on with whatever direction seems better.

I am only talking about first drafts here. If you're doing a rewrite you're probably going to need to stop and go back from time to time. But I find that even when I'm doing my rewrite I need to forge ahead to a degree. I can bogged down just doing the first reading of my first draft and start trying to fix things. I really need to read the whole thing through while making notes then tackle it and whip it into shape.

Zombies

A zombies song since I'm writing a zombie script. Of course these are metaphorical zombies but still.

Script Frenzy 2009

I am taking part in Script Frenzy. I woke up with an idea a couple of days ago. It's about a girl raised to believe that the zombie apocalypse happened when she was very young, and that zombies killed her parents. But actually her grandfather, who is raising her, is delusional. We'll see how that goes. I'm on page eight.

Zombie philosophy

Zombie Letters from e-zombie.com

Zombies!

This is an exciting article from Variety. It's about a reality show that combines zombies and Big Brother.

"Dead Set" imagines Britain beset by a zombie apocalypse where the only place of sanctuary is the "Big Brother" house -- that is, until eviction night when all hell breaks loose as the contestants come under attack.

The best part is here:

"The idea for 'Dead Set' arose in 2004 while I was watching '24,'" says Brooker. "Jack Bauer was performing a tracheotomy on a terrorist with a splintered peg or something, and another terrorist came running through the door.

"'I'm enjoying this,' I thought, 'but these terrorists are just ridiculous. They're like waves of Space Invaders. They might as well be zombies.'

That's the best summing up of 24 I've heard. I hope we get this show here in the US.