Story Profile: Bonnie vs. The Zombies

Writers should not read about zombie survival during a major natural disaster, but in 1995 that's exactly what happened. Hurricane Rita tore through my state and knocked out power for weeks. The roads were blocked by downed trees and no one could come in, get out, or make phone calls. Naturally, I was seeing zombies shambling about behind every chunk of debris that littered the roads.

Sometime later, a dear friend of mine asked me to write a story with her as the main character. Thus my post-hurricane zombie story was born. My friend, tough, sassy, fearless, became Bonnie in more ways than one. After completion of the story, I tagged the fictional name on her and there it stuck. It was probably the worst Christmas present ever. Sorry Bonnie, but for better or worse, you've been immortalized.

"Bonnie, get the gun."

She hurried to the back of the room and removed a pistol from its holster. She thumbed back the hammer and looked at Troy. Never could Bonnie have imagined that she would be drawing down on another human being, but now the situation was thrust upon her, and she had to take action. She stared into his lifeless eyes, into his blank expression as he attempted to bite her friends.

No, she was not drawing down on a human being. Whatever it was that had invaded and attacked them only resembled a human, and the longer she watched him, the less human he seemed.

Bonnie shut her left eye, took aim and squeezed off a shot. The bullet passed through his left shoulder, exploding the joint as it exited. They expected a cry of pain, a scream, and for Troy to jerk away. But he failed to even flinch. The pain did not even register.

Bonnie fired a second shot that ruptured his torso and obviously damaged his spine, as his legs went limp. Still he tried to squirm free and bite.

"Shoot him in the face," Joe yelled an instant before Bonnie reacted. Troy's head came apart as the hollow point ripped through his skull, spraying blood and brains across the room. The lifeless, ruined corpse dropped limp and Joe and T.L. released their hold on the thing.

"Someone tell me that didn't just happen," Bonnie said, shaking her head.

"Bonnie," Joe said quietly as he rose to his feet. "You just killed a zombie."

Story Profile: Pyro

"What should I write about?" I had asked one of my younger brothers. For me, younger brothers are like locusts. There are too many to count and they're always eating my food.

"Write about a pyromaniac," he replied without hesitation.

I'd never written about a pyro, but figured it couldn't be that difficult. I imagined someone with a fascination that became an addiction. Then I started researching interesting ways to create fire. Well, I researched a little, and then I started to recall some of the ways that I had created fire when I was a kid. So maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to connect with the character in Pyro, which was probably why it's told as a first person narrative.

The story flowed rather easily, wrapping itself up in just two writing sessions. I polished it up and let some people read it. Though it was one of my earlier short stories, it's still one of my favorites, which probably says some things about me.

Anyway, when I was ten, the new digit birthday (the only time in life when your age gets another digit unless you live to be a hundred) my mom lit the candles on my cake just before she realized the camera was in the other room. She ran off to fetch her aged Canon to snap a shot of me blowing out my candles, and for thirty seconds I was there with my friends, unsupervised.

To this day I'm not sure why I did it, but as soon as she turned around, I slid the cake over, pushing it across the table, allowing it to settle beneath the white drapes. Before she had the camera in her hands, the cloth was flaming and my friends were laughing, most of them at least. The others gasped, then screamed.

Mom rushed in, some of my friends rushed out and I just sat there. She ran to the table, dropping her camera on the floor, then ran over to the sink to grab the fire extinguisher. As soon as her hand touched the red cylinder, she ran back to the table to evacuate us from the area. Jerking me up by the arm, she flung me back. She panicked for another few seconds, then returned to the sink to actually pick up the fire extinguisher this time.

After fumbling with the pin for God only knows how long, she managed to spray down the table, the cake, the wall, the floor and the window. Only the last little bit even hit the drapes that were almost burnt out by that time.

Of course she beat the hell out of me for that stunt, but despite the fact that I couldn't sit down for almost an hour, I didn't regret it. Not after realizing the power I had over order and chaos, creation and destruction. With no more effort than it takes to pass the peas, I managed to unravel two days of planning, an hour and a half of baking cake and cookies and six dollars worth of ice cream. I don't even know how much those curtains were worth, but we had a black spot on the ceiling that wouldn't come off for four years.

When the air conditioner went out and the whole trailer turned into an oven, if you stood beside the window, you could smell that birthday fire, even though it had been painted over.

After that I was hooked.

Author Interview: Jason Foux

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER?

One parent is creative and the other is a great story teller, so I didn't really have a choice in the matter. Stories started happening in my head and I started writing them down. The more I wrote, the more they happened. Now it's sort of an addiction. I can't go too long without getting my fix.

DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM A PARTICULAR SOURCE?

Music is a big source of inspiration. It helps me color a scene to give it the desired feel and portray the appropriate emotions. If I'm writing a fast paced scene, I use fast music to inspire me while I write.

As far as where I get my ideas, I'm not certain. Some of them just appear, popping up like a memory of something that never happened. For some, I'll see or hear about something and say 'What if' and that usually gets me into trouble because my imagination takes over and there's no stopping it after that. And sometimes I'll be in a certain mood or a situation and it just feels like a story is waiting to happen. The setting is right, like the opening scene of a movie and the story grows from that.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR POCKET NOVELS?

The first is Pyro. It's a first-person narrative. The narrator is recalling his long and storied relationship with his one true love; fire. he's not a bad guy, he just likes burning things and the power that the ensuing chaos gives him. A girl once told me that when she read the story she could see the character in some bar narrating his life over a beer. That's exactly how I tried to write it.

Bonnie Versus the Zombies is a bit of an odd story. Well, how it came about is. The story itself is probably exactly what you expect it to be. How it came about was like this. Hurricane Rita destroyed my part of the state, and in the post-apocalyptic setting that was once my hometown, my brothers and I ran around and explored the area, talking about how it would be the perfect time for a zombie outbreak. I wasn't that into zombies at the time, but the idea seemed fun. A dozen zombie movies and a few books later, I was ready to write a novel. The novel was introduce by the short story in question that doubled as a birthday present for a friend. Now the story itself is pretty simple and relatively close to actual events. After a major hurricane lays waste to Louisiana, three friends find that a portion of the population that hadn't evacuated had turned into zombies. If they're to survive, they must rely on each other and find a way to escape… if escape is possible. That's pretty much what happened after Hurricane Rita… sort of.

DESCRIBE YOUR NORMAL WRITING PROCESS.

There's not much normal about it. It starts when some stray idea latches onto my brain like a tick and won't let go. It's usually something like this: "Did that singer just say 'what if it was paradise' or 'what if it was parasites'?" And I get way too excited at the possibilities. Then I start brainstorming, letting my overactive imagination run wild with the idea. Basically, I cut the leash and turn it loose. When it's had its fun, it brings the idea back, but only after much gnawing and slobbering. It has then turned into something like this: "So this alien parasite gets inside a person and uses chemicals to alter the host's behavior to ensure its own survival." Then I remember something that I once saw about parasites and snails and birds and I incorporate things that actually happen into the story to make it more realistic. That way, if someone says that my story is too far fetched, I can say "there are actual parasites that take control of a snail's brain and force it up on a high branch so that a bird will eat it, allowing the parasite to infect the bird." Then there's this long process where I'm working on the characters, plot, timeline of events, conflict, resolution, etc. That part is pretty stressful. It's like trying to set up a tent from the inside. The more I try, the more things keep falling down on my head and nothing wants to take shape. Finally, I get it set up, step outside, and that's when I start seeing all the wrinkles. After some more time, I get those ironed out and I can write the blasted thing. by this point I'm so frustrated with the story that I pretty much hate it. So I write it for the sake of defeating it. There's usually some cursing, screaming, throwing of pens, and long walks to prevent me from losing my temper and going postal on a whole coffee shop full of people who don't deserve it because the characters don't do what I tell them to do, but in the end the story gets finished.

Told you it wasn't normal.

WHAT'S THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?

Those damned characters. I spend days, weeks, or even months carefully and meticulously constructing the perfect plot outline just to have a character go off and deliberately disobey me. People get killed, the plot gets derailed, and the entire outline has to be scrapped and rewritten. We writers have far less control over our characters that one might think. In fact, we have very little control. They do what they will and we writers just type what happens. I guess I'm more like a reporter. I'll put my spin on things, but really I'm just telling you what happened in my own words. And that sucks because I spend a lot of time on my outlines.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?

It's a tossup between two things. First is the actual act of writing. Creating a story from the careful arrangement of letters on a page is just magical. There's nothing like it. For me, the act of writing is very fulfilling despite the stresses and frustrations. I have to write. The stories inside me have to get out or I'll go crazy, and releasing them makes me happy.

Then there's the feedback. I'll get an email from a reader that says "Reading your novel has become part of my morning routine. I read a chapter before work every day." I write for myself, but hearing things like that is such an added and unexpected bonus that I'm not sure what to do with the compliment. So I just smile and do my best to not disappoint with the next story/chapter/novel.

DO YOU THINK THAT WRITING SHORT STORIES (POCKET NOVELS) IS HARDER OR EASIER THAN WRITING NOVELS?

I think they're about the same. A novel gives the writer more time to develop the characters and story, but the Pocket Novel allows for less complex works. Some stories can only be novels because there's so much that has to go into them. Some have to be shorts because it's not about the complexities but about a central idea and stretching it too far will dampen it.

WHAT AUTHORS DO YOU ADMIRE/READ MOST?

H.P. Lovecraft has been a favorite for over a decade for his use of psychological suspense and being the only author who can instill in me a sense of impending doom even though I know it to be fiction. (At least, I hope Lovecraft wrote fiction) Neil Gaiman is another. His stories are always so rich and unique.

WHAT DO YOU WANT READERS TO KNOW ABOUT YOU AND YOUR WRITING?

They need to know that my work is the greatest ever (don't tell them that it's not true). In all seriousness I want to push boundaries and write things that other people haven't written before. I know that everyone says that, and and serious writer should. I try to blur the lines between good and evil, pull stunts, break the rules. I want to try new things and take the reader along with me and I want it to be convincing. If my character wants to commit suicide, can I convince the reader to go along with it? Can I convince the reader that it's for the best? Can I convince the reader to hope that the character is successful in his attempt? And if he isn't successful, can I make the reader sad that the character wasn't able to accomplish the task? That's my goal. I want the reader to live the story with the characters and for the story to be as rich and unpredictable, yet believable, as real life.

ANY PARTICULAR GENRES YOU LIKE WRITING MORE THAN OTHERS?

Sparkly Vampire Teen Stalker Romance. Or maybe not. Mostly I write modern mostly-realistic stories with elements of humor, crime and dark drama, but I've also done zombies, vampires, fantasy, horror, mystery, sci-fi, pear trees, flaming hurricanes, train rides with the devil and a mutiny on a three-man fishing boat and I've had a blast writing all of them. Currently I'm on an apocalypse kick, but who knows what will be next? I sure don't.

DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING WRITING QUIRKS?

I sometimes type the words of a story while singing the words to whatever song I'm listening to. The weird part is that I don't recall what I typed until I go back and read it… and it always makes sense and doesn't contain Rod Stewart lyrics. Possibly the oddest thing is that one character in particular seems to be a powerful influence on me while I'm writing one of his stories. Whenever I work on a Jericho Mills story (a series about an alcoholic with a remote viewing problem) I tend to start talking like him. It wouldn't be so bad if Jericho Mills wasn't a dyed in the wool bastard. I've found myself saying things that I would have never said before I started writing his stories.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST PIECE YOU EVER WROTE?

The Hunted was about a guy being pursued by a killer who won't die. It was basically Friday 13th, or at least my impression of it based off what I'd seen from the previews. I was 9 when I wrote it… on a camping trip… with pencil colors. It was bad. Very bad. But it was also illustrated.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE TO DATE?

That's a tough one. Maybe Flare, my vision of the world after a technology-frying solar flare sends us all back to the dark ages. I had a lot of fun with that one, but it was difficult to write. Not from the effort or length or detail, but because of what happens in the story. A lot of bad things had to happen to turn the main character from the everyman at the beginning of the story to the person he is at the end and to be convincing, I had to be… thorough. I have been told that some parts of that story were difficult to read. Well, they were difficult to write. But the characters and the story and the setting and the details all fell into place and I enjoyed writing that novel something fierce. I think it's my favorite… but I could name a dozen other pieces that could be favorites for equally good but completely different reasons.

Story Profile: Infestation

Infestation came from a real experience I had. I woke up one morning to the realization there was a rat chewing the baseboard a few inches from my head. After nearly two weeks of freaking out about the rat that was clearly in the roof crawl space, I was thoroughly exhausted from lack of sleep. One sleepless midnight, I sat down and wrote the story. During a two hour writing session, every dark fear I didn't realize I had inside of me over a little rat came pouring out. When I had written the last word, I was actually more afraid of the rat than before!

     Right next to her head, but on the opposite side of the wall, Gia could hear the rat gnawing. She gave a quiet bang. The noise stopped, then started again with more urgency.
     Gia banged on the wall several more times, waking Wes up.
     "What's going on?" he asked, clearly on edge about the noise.
     "The rat," Gia said without apology. "It's right on the other side of the wall!"
     Wes listened, but to Gia's dismay the rat didn't make a sound.
     "Go to sleep." Wes rolled over, turning away from Gia. "You're probably imagining it. I swear you're so paranoid by this rat that you're probably just hearing things."
     "I am hearing things," Gia agreed. "I'm hearing a rat in the wall gnawing to get at my head."

Author Interview: Tasha Gray

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER?
     My father used to come home from work each night and let me pick a book. I kept bringing him the same book so he decided to make up stories to alleviate his boredom. He figured it would make me creative or confuse me. I think it did both but it instilled in me a love of reading that I still have. One day I realized OMG REAL PEOPLE WROTE THOSE STORIES. From then on I decided I was going to be one of those people. After all, I had stories in my head no one had gotten around to writing yet.
     At this point, I'm not sure I could stop being a writer. I've tried a few times but after a month or so I decide I really need to sleep so I write to shut the voices up. (I'm only writer-crazy, so I'm fairly safe.)

DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM A PARTICULAR SOURCE?
Not really. I'm blessed/cursed with the 'what if' gene and I never know when or where it's going to strike. Sometimes I write what I dream, fictionalized versions of real life events, things I overhear or mishear, things from television/news articles or random thoughts that buzz in my head. I once had an idea for a piece when I was in the middle of a sci-fi convention. I think I screamed out before I went frantically digging for one the many notebooks and pens I keep on my person for such emergencies.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR FIRST POCKET NOVEL.

That is one that came from a real life scenario. Unfortunately I have a great imagination and tend to over-dramatize things. A rat gets into the house and I freak out and write a story.

EVER ARGUE WITH YOUR CHARACTERS?
Of course! They rarely do what I want them to. I've argued out loud while typing to try to convince the characters NOT to do what they were doing. I was staying with relatives at the time and I think that made them worry more about me.

WHAT'S THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?
Going from the starting idea to the end of the piece. I don't always get 'the beginning' first. I also don't always know how it's going to end until I get there. I mostly hate when the voices in my head don't want to talk to me.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?
Getting to 'the end'. Well, that and I do love the rush I get whenever I get an idea I'm excited about. When I'm in the middle of those writing times when it doesn't feel like I'm even involved. The words flow through me with such ease that I have to go back just to see what the story was about. I wish those writing times happened more often than they do.

IS WRITING POCKET NOVEL LENGTH STORIES EASIER THAN WRITING SHORTER OR LONGER FICTION?
Umm...for me that's two questions. I find short stories easier than novels for the simple fact that novels tend to give me more time to go into a writerly meltdown and get stuck. When I was first approached to write a story long enough for Pocket Novels, I had to completely rework the way I wrote short stories. My short stories tend to fall under the Pocket Novel length requirements, so to write one, I have to look at the piece and see what I can elaborate on without just adding words.

ANY PARTICULAR GENRES YOU LIKE WRITING MORE THAN OTHERS?

Mostly horror and detective/murder fiction since that's what I read. Give me ANY idea and I'll probably kill someone in it. That sounds morbid, doesn't it? It's still true. I was told to write a dragon story...guess what? People die in the story and it can't even be considered a fantasy. Yep, that's right. I got a dragon into a story and somehow it's not a fantasy at all.

DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING WRITING QUIRKS?
     Ooooh, there are so many of those. Of course, I am a strange person to begin with.
     First off, I'm a horizontal writer. Most writers sit in desks or at coffee shop tables. I need to be cozy on a couch or at least be able to lean back to get the words out. You can say I do it so I can take a nap when I get stuck and you'd be half right. The second half of that is so when I stay up until three am writing a story, I can put the notebook or computer down and fall asleep where I am.
     Speaking of three am, I tend to be a night writer. Despite numerous admonitions that I should get my brain used to writing early in the morning, I find the words flow better later in the evening.
     I do have a computer and that's where I do the majority of my writing, but I have notebooks, folders, and notes jotted on scraps on paper EVERYWHERE. I can't think on a computer so when I brainstorm I need a pencil and paper to do my odd flowcharts.

     Last I'll mention is that I'm also a temperamental artist, much to the horror of my loved ones. I get into moods where I feel I'll never write again and never had talent to begin with. I wail to the heavens and whimper under blankets until I eventually get over myself for a while and write again.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PIECE THAT YOU'VE WRITTEN?

That's hard for me. I tend to be my own worst critic, but I've gotten good feedback on an unpublished novel Daré.

HOW DID IT COME ABOUT?

Honesty, I have no clue. I know I like vampire novels and probably just had a 'what if' moment. To be honest, I can't pinpoint the mental birth of the majority of my finished pieces.

ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ADD? ADVICE? WARNINGS? ANYTHING?
Be careful what you wish for. When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer. No one warned me it comes with all sorts of strange quirks, internal and external dialogue with voices in your head and being woken up at odd hours b/c something just popped into your head and you MUST get it down. Even though I try to produce new pieces as often as I can, I keep getting new ideas. Being a writer may never lead to publication for most people, but it is a lifelong...Habit? Struggle? Disorder?

Writers read. It's that simple. I don't believe you can be a real writer without a love of reading. You also need to read to see what the competition is up to. I find reading relights my writing fire and, since I bring a writer's view into my reading, I can see what works or doesn't work for me in someone's story and that sometimes helps me in my own writing. I read just about anything I can get my hands on these days and am even delving into genres I had previously shied away from.

Story Profile "The Visitor"

All novels, plays, film scripts and short stories usually start with something popping into the author’s mind on the lines of, “What if?” And after the first what-if, can come other what-ifs, as the story spins off, limited only by one’s imagination. By that process was “The Visitor” born. 

I sat one hot, muggy afternoon working laboriously on a film script. I felt old, tired, run down, a kind of shabby, sweaty failure with a love life on hold. I tried to lift myself out of the gloom by imagining: What if the door bell rang and some fabulously beautiful woman stood there who would somehow be mysteriously attracted to me? Her adoration would transform me into the person I’d always wanted to be - dashing, glamorous, witty and dazzlingly successful. 

But my first what-if thoughts quickly turned darker – writers rarely exist in Disney-Bambi fairy-tale land – and I started to plunge off the beaten track into a different and altogether darker scenario. Perhaps the visitor had a more sinister and significant mission. The story began to form in my brain, and I immediately saved the script I’d been working on in Final Draft, opened Word and began - ‘The Visitor’.

“He padded downstairs and became acutely aware that his armpits were wet. Damn it! What the hell was under-arm deodorant for if not to prevent that? Scraggy old shirt, jogging pants, scuffed and dirty sneakers. Let’s hope it wasn’t someone important, he thought, and then instantly: what important? Who important? Important what? Who? Who was important that he knew, and who important did he know who would call on him? There was – he realized with a stab of bitter self-knowledge – nothing remotely important in his life. Except the novel. 

He opened the door without checking through the spy-hole. A woman stood there. Enormous understatement; he was a writer after all, let that be rephrased. A goddess stood there. A drop-dead gorgeous, stunning, more-than-beautiful-exquisite woman standing there on his doorstep……for a second he couldn’t catch his breath.”

Author Interview: Stuart White

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER?
Entranced as a child by reading books which conjured up other worlds and characters, I always wanted to create such characters and worlds myself in stories that would be very real to those who read them.

DO YOU GET INSPIRATION FROM ANY PARTICULAR SOURCE?
From life and the world around me and the people who inhabit it, and from what I’ve experienced of this beautiful, immensely varied and frequently bizarre planet we inhabit. Everyday events, snippets of news, historical incidents, overheard conversations and ideas that pop into one’s head, can all inspire a story.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR FIRST POCKET NOVEL.
To say too much about The Visitor would give away its eventual plot denouement, but the essential idea is that of our lives being suddenly and drastically changed by the arrival of a glamorous and expected stranger.

WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?
I believe it’s taking the idea, developing the plot, fleshing it out with real characters, then working out how to pace it.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?
The writing itself; taking the developed idea and plot and characters and turning them – hopefully – into a gripping, entertaining and hopefully satisfying and credible story.

DO YOU THINK WRITING SHORT STORIES (POCKET NOVELS) IS HARDER OR EASIER THAN NOVELS?
At one level it’s easier than the physical task of putting 85,000 words or sometimes more into a novel. But on another it’s actually more difficult. With a Pocket Novel of fewer than 8,000 words you’ve less time to establish story, plot and credible characters than you have in a novel. So you have to be both brief – but clever – in packing a great deal into a short space.

DO YOU THINK THERE ARE SPECIAL CHALLENGES FOR A UK AUTHOR TRYING TO CONNECT TO AN AMERICAN AUDIENCE?
Indeed. And that challenge is authenticity. Although in the UK we are exposed to American culture and history at an early age that’s not enough. I think you really have to have lived in America. I’m fortunate to have visited America extensively for the last forty years, and to have lived there for two periods totalling almost eleven years. Without that invaluable experience I don’t think I would dare try to write about Americans or America.

WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS AND GENRES?
I adore Graham Greene, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Andre Malraux, Camus, Sartre and Victor Hugo and frequently re-read their books. And you can’t beat Shakespeare for plot and language. I like the international event genre, something set in another place and another historical time.

ANY PARTICULAR GENRE YOU LIKE WRITING MORE THAN OTHERS?
I like the history genre, where one goes back in time to re-imagine the lives of individuals in great world events – World War Two or the Vietnam war(s) for example.

DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING WRITING QUIRKS?
Not really. I’m dull in that respect. All I need is a quiet room (or seat on a plane, or train), a computer or notebook. But I insist on reading my work out aloud (to myself), especially the dialogue, to make sure the whole is easy on the ear, and the latter can be read without awkwardness.

DO YOU HAVE ANY NON-WRITING PASSIONS?
Travel and history: I love far-flung places. I’ve lived in the US, in Hong Kong and the Persian gulf, and spent a great deal of time in France. In total I’ve visited about 68 countries either for work or pleasure. I read history voraciously, especially French military and political history, US history, and that of the 20th century including both world wars.

ANY WRITING ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU WISH TO SHARE?
I’m fortunate that my sixth novel The Valhalla Secret is to be published in the fall. I also have two non-fiction books and two ghosted novels to my credit. I’ve also had two screenplays optioned in Hollywood and – fingers crossed – one script, Crossmaglen, will go into production also in the fall.