Zombies vs. Vampires vs. Aliens

This post started out as a comment on Gary Ghislain’s blog post: Oh, zombies… (which I cannot find to link and that makes me very sad).  Then it became too long to be a comment and grew some arms and legs and aliens.  Now, ”It’s alive!”.

Hurray for zombies and vampires (and aliens).  The latest TV shows and movies all seem to be about these creatures, and I approve.  I have two projects on the go and they too involve these and many other supernatural or mysterious creatures too.  My social science fiction/dystopian adventure novel has aliens and super-humans.  I am also working on the outline for a YA thriller  that has vampires against zombies (Second of the series. Ideas kept flowing, I couldn’t help myself). For my personal choices - just like you might suspect:  I prefer vampires for companions and zombies for prey (to hunt, not to eat-EWWW). 

The reasoning is simple. Vampires represent what most people fantasize about becoming.  They are smart, immortal, sexy and invincible.  Zombies are more of a metaphor for what we fear and abhor.  The deteriorating corpse situation aside, they tend to snack on intestines, smell bad and always pose a danger to turn you into a stinking zombie too.   Nobody wants to take home a boyfriend that might want to gnaw on mommy’s leg and then have daddy for dessert.

My love for vampires pre-dates the teenage vampire craze of the Twilight era by about twenty years.  When I was seven, I found a book called “The Little Vampire” in a grocery store dollar bin.  My sister bought a few of the series for me right there and before the day was over I had read all three books, dying to get my hands on some more.  I was unstoppable.  I read everything I could find that involved vampires.  There weren’t many.  Anne Rice came into my life in my teenage years, when my school’s headmaster (RIP Bill Bower) gave me the Vampire Lestat as a Christmas present.  Then I read all Anne Rice vampire books and even wrote an essay for school about vampire literature and how it was due for a comeback.  That was in 1998.

Then, not many cared about vampires and the popular view was that they were scary creatures.  I liked Anne Rice because unlike Buffy-style vampire stories, her protagonists were emotionally tormented vampires.  Obviously, I was ecstatic when vampires became popular a couple of years ago.  Vampires were easy to make-over and add charm to (I just wish they would stop sparkling).  Blood drinking is most definitely less repulsive than eyeball sucking, but Zombies hold a different place in my heart.

A few years ago, I started having zombie apocalypse dreams.  Weird, huh?  I had only seen two zombie flicks a few years apart, the Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later. Neither made me a zombie genre fan.  Regardless of my lack of experience in zombie hunting ; after an all night zombie killing spree, I woke up with hurting arms and a very exhilarated soul.  I figured other people must be having these dreams too, so I Googled it (that’s what you would do too, no?). I wanted to know if this was a cultural phenomena or a psychological one (I really just wanted reassurance that I wasn't a psycho).  They were, however in most dreams people were hiding or being defeated by the zombies, unlike me.  I faced them, fought them , killed them.

Yes, me. The crazy woman who liberates spiders, moths and (if I’m feeling absolutely angelic) ants.  In these cinematic dreams, I become this fearless heroine leading people, making plans and killing zombies with sawed off shotguns, machetes and whatever I can get my hands on in Dreamcity.  These dreams have made me enjoy zombie flicks and decide to write my own. Hey, maybe it’s HAARP.  Maybe now they broadcast ads into our dreams to drive the market.

And that brings me (admittedly weakly) to the aliens.  Aliens also have started becoming humans more often than scary green creatures with sharp teeth.  Aliens too have started their metamorphosis into super-human types capable of long life, regeneration and other abilities.  They are not out to eat us, but maybe they have other agenda.  Maybe they are protecting us, teaching us or helping our evolution.  They may turn out to be evil, but we will first find them attractive and friendly.


It really comes down to this: Although both aliens, zombies and vampires might be bad for our health in most cases, we still want to steal the aliens' secret to genetic superiority, make sweet love to a 500 year old lover and become immortal, but zombies are just good for sport.  We just want to kill them.

Education, Blogucation and Life in General

I come up with my best ideas at night and like most folks who are just starting their adventure in writing professionally, I have a day job (pout).  I have to wake up at 7:00, therefore my most productive hours are spent sleeping.  Tonight is Friday (yay!)  and hubby is out, so I can write something.  I am pondering on a short story and reading Nancy Lamb's the Art and Craft of Storytelling.  It's an excellent read and I would recommend to anyone who writes.  Even if you know everything about style and technique, I think you'd find the book inspiring.

I have been thinking a lot.  It is what I do.  Recently, on and off, I have been thinking about education and how most people think of it as the academic process. I did too at some point.  I went to a boarding school for gifted children on a different continent.  It was my Hogwarts.  Then I came to North America and went to university for two years.  Crazy circumstances led to my scholarship being pulled (I was a good student, I swear!) and I found myself having to work crappy jobs for minimum wage.  I had always loved to read so I kept on reading everything that I could find at the library sales.

I read about psychology, sociology, language, astrophysics (as much as I could wrap my head around it), anthropology, archeology, history, politics, genetics.  You name it, I read a book, article or blog about it online.  I am a self-taught graphic designer and I have been educating myself every day by reading, writing and practicing that, but not the rest of the stuff I read about.  The more I learn, the more I forget. Knowledge is slippery:  If you don't think about it or apply it, you will forget it or just file it away somewhere out of reach in your brain.  That's why they make us write essays and take exams in school; to make sure we've learned.  I don't want to get into the exam subject as I disagree with the way this is done in general.

Blogs are the essays and exams of the virtual education platform that some of us spend hours in.  We are no longer only educated in schools, but online (via blogs, tutorials, etc.), and by our own efforts.  School is a formality that employers want to see on a resume, but if you want to write an award-winning book, make a living at blogging or even become a great graphic designer, you now compete with a ton of peeps who have gone far and above what the academic system can offer them. Their minds have been opened by exploring many different points of view.  They have been blogucated.

Why is being an all around well-educated person important?

For me it's because I want to understand as much as I can of the world, its people and its cultures and of the universe and its secrets.  For you, it might be something else, but it's clear that knowing more won't hurt your writing.  Life experience also helps (essential if you don't want your characters all to start sounding like you and your best friend/spouse/boss), so don't spend all your time on the computer.  Go meet up some old friends.  Tell them you've been writing a book and going to school; that's why you haven't seen them in a year.

An Unexpected Muse (Hint: It Tweets)

I've been on Twitter for a few months; never really tweeting or following anyone. About two weeks ago, I had a bit of an awakening; thanks to Jeanne Bowerman's brilliant article in November's Writer's Digest.  With a renewed understanding of what Twitter was all about, I started on a quest to make new friends who think and feel like me (because-let's face it-I didn't fall in love with my husband because of his passion for books).  Since I have started writing actively, I have found myself to spend my time alone (as Jeanne expressed too), locked away sitting in an office, trying to write, edit or at least, get inspired.

In the last year, I have been swimming in the muddy waters of revision; sometimes not knowing where to turn to get a boost, sometimes just to start liking my own writing again.  How could I possibly look at it with the eyes of a reader? I couldn't not at that time.  I started sending chapters to my sister a few months ago and I am still at it, but although she is great at pinpointing the problems as well as giving sound advice, she's not here by my side to give me personal boost every other minute.  It took me months to get through half the manuscript.  Now with the help of the links that the awesome people I am following, I have found renewed inspiration and courage and stopped hating my style!

That was the first part of the battle.  My personal life had never suffered such a great loss, as it did since this novel started gobbling up all my personal time.  I have absolutely zero girl friends that I see on a regular basis.  I have guy friends, because my husband is out there more, to make and maintain friendships. All while I'm typing away and cringing at the shoulder pain that is now moving down my spine like my head and waist can't decide which one should use the muscle.

Am I whining about the loneliness too much?  I know.  It is what it is.  To write, you have to enjoy alone time and I do.  I am certainly not lonely. These damn characters sneak around in my head 24/7. Then again, who am I kidding? I need someone to tell me what to do ever so often.  I need a real person.  I'm miserable when I can't write.  If I stopped, I would feel jittery and incomplete for the rest of my life.  So, I need cheerleaders, fellow sufferers and other writers to tell me it's all going to be OK. Seriously, I need to give you a bit of background here.

Before I could write, I insisted on leaving hand-drawn notes for people, they looked like comic strips. When I was six and had just learned to write (please give me a chance here, it's just one paragraph), I asked my mom to let me use her typewriter.  It was an old fashioned one that would almost take a finger off if you missed a key.  On this typewriter, I wrote a plea to all the people of the world (I still have the copy, I think). It was about how adults should stop consuming too much and think of the landfills and pollution they are never going to live to see, but will ruin the lives of their grandchildren.  There was even a paragraph addressed to children, who should think about what toys to ask for and consider the waste they are creating.  I wanted to post this on buildings around the city, but not knowing of a photocopier, I tried to type copies and soon lost interest in the task; like a normal, healthy child.

The main point is, I had a passion for writing to move people then and I do now.  I have written since the moment I could and I will continue to, that is why I can't stand not writing. My recent revision block was affecting my psyche severely.  Then like an angel (he definitely doesn't look like one) my mailman dropped off my copy of Writer's Digest.  The whole issue is about Writing and the Web.  Jeanne's article really spiked my interest in meeting these people that were talking to each other on Twitter. I realized I was missing out on the action.  Good, network-worthy, intelligent conversations were being tweeted away without me.  I had to stop the toe-dipping and become a smart tweeter.

How do you become a smart Tweeter?

There is no guide to success on Twitter.  I wouldn't be the one to write it either, my following is still quite modest.  I observed some expected tendencies and I am sure if you're reading this chances are, you have too.

Smart tweeters like to follow these types of people who:

- have shared interests
- retweet and link back
- tweet with valuable links to blogs and sites,  make sure to only #hashtag in the correct interest groups
- be kind, polite and always helpful
- tweet intelligent facts, quotes, your own words (but keep to the very interesting, funny or informational)
- do all of this, not because you want to be rich and famous, but because it feels awesome to be a part of a community of brilliant minds.

Smart tweeters DON'T follow those who:

- follow Justin Bieber
- tell us they brushed their teeth, they slept with their ex or they have athlete's foot (actually just go away,       don't follow us because we will NOT follow back)
- spam
- link to products they are trying to sell
- tweet to scam and con people into crap

In my two weeks, this is what I have learned.  The most important point of all that is to be willing to put aside personal greed and get out there to share your web surfing adventures and ideas.  You could be the one inspiring someone to write the next bestseller or Pulitzer winner.  You never know.  In the process, you just might end up making a ton of well-connected and truly amazing friends.  I have just started and I can't wait to see what will happen next.

I needed to find a solution and Twitter was my solution.  I am getting to know many people, just by following their blogs and their tweets, many of which have given me the kick to get back into groove.   That damn fickle groove.  Better get back to that novel before I need to tweet some more.

Today's word is...

Since yesterday's word was abate, I decided to use a related word (an antonym of abate): Exacerbate.
It is a word that I have been coming across more and more and I know what it means, but I have not yet been sure enough with myself to use it in speech,

Exacerbate:
–verb (used with object), -bat·ed, -bat·ing.

1.

to increase the severity, bitterness, or violence of (disease,ill feeling, etc.); aggravate.

2.

to embitter the feelings of (a person); irritate; exasperate.

For more information on the usage and meaning of exacerbate, please visit

Dictionary.com

Now, I will attempt to compose a Twister (a very short, often one sentence story that is posted on Twitter) using the word exacerbate.  


I hope you will surprise me with your own maximum 140 character Twister (inspired by fellow Twitter Arjun Basu).

The loss of her one true friend exacerbated the depression that had started the day she had discovered that her friend's disease was terminal.

Tweet

Let's Learn a New Word Every Day!

Recently I have had the desire to go back to growing my vocabulary artificially, like we did in school.  By this I mean that instead of just learning new words by the natural methods of reading, watching movies and talking to smarter people, I have been trying to use the dictionary, a thesaurus and dictionary.com to try and grow my vocabulary.  The only problem is that, since I am no longer in school, I don't have to take a vocabulary test and therefore I just forget these new words long before I have a reason to use them.

Vocabulary is the arsenal of the writer.  You don't want to have to resort to describing everything just because you don't know the one word that would describe what you want to say perfectly. I feel an urge to become more articulate.  This won't just improve my writing, but my speech too.  I thought for a bit and I think I figured out how to learn a new word every day, while helping others do the same.

I will be posting a new word right here, almost everyday and probably more on some days.  The thing is, I want those who read the words and learn them to post a comment with the word used in the comment, hence making them learn, not just memorize the word.

Let's go then, here is our first word:


Abate:  
(used when talking about an unwanted or negative object) 
to diminish progressively, decrease, weaken, subside.


For more history and information about the usage of the word click here (Dictionary.com).


...and my sentence:


The effects of this recession is surely to start abating soon, only to be replaced with the slap of another consumer era, leaving us exactly where we started.


Let's hear your sentences now.  Trust me once you think about a word long enough to construct a sentence around it, you learn what it means.
Tweet

I'm back and I'm on fire...

Yesterday, I had an epiphany (Thanks to Writer's Digest- If you are serious about writing subscribe now!) I realized that if I am going to finish this book, I am going to have to write, every day. That wasn't all.  I also needed a network.  I need people that will support me and encourage me.  I am back from my break.  Let's just leave it at that.  I have ideas now, I am ready to restart the revision of my novel, get it done an sell this book.  I am craving freedom, social contact and more life experience in general.  I absolutely had no idea until yesterday, that Twitter had a potential to help me sell my book.

A brilliant article by an Internet savvy Jeanne Veillette Bowerman in the November/December 2010 issue of Writer's Digest opened my eyes to the world of opportunities that is Twitter. Follow Jeanne on Twitter: @jeannevb.  I already had a Twitter account, but my only follower was a friend from high school and my only two tweets had been about a TV Show.  So, I rebooted.  I deleted the stupidity and decided to post the stuff I find on the internet every day,  the articles and the videos I enjoy and information that sometimes takes hours to find, but is just what I had been looking for.  In the 24 hours that have passed since my Twitter "revision" I now have 5 more followers than I did yesterday, one is an editor and another an author.  

Don't get me wrong please, this isn't going to be easy to master.  There is so much about Twitter and social networking in general that I have to learn still I find the task slightly daunting, but at the same time I am excited to make new friends and get updated by people in the field.  It is definitely a new planet to discover.  I even figured out how to post a feed on Blogger, from my Twitter account (I think).

Perhaps when people become interested in my ideas and writing, I will have the motivation and encouragement I really need time to time.

Re-Writing is HELL

Another year has gone by and finally I may have some time to blog!
I started my novel May 2009 and finished the first draft by November and since then I have been battling with what most writers seem to think is the hardest part of writing: the Rewrite.

I found some amazingly helpful books on the topic:

I recommend they're read in this order, only because the latter books make way more sense if read after the first few on the list and this order goes with how one should approach book editing to make it a less daunting task.

1) How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

2) The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

3) Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maas

4) Revision and self editing by James Scott Bell

5) The Weekend Novelist Re-writes the Novel by Robert J. Ray

6) The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

To be quite honest when I first started reading what I had written, I wanted to cry. Some parts were so bad that they were not worth saving, but then I realized quickly that there were more chapter that were written well than the horrid ones.

The style and grammar however were only the tip of the iceberg. the biggest problems were the runaway ideas that had infiltrated the story as I was writing without restriction. Sure, I'd planned ahead, plotted the entire story, written several outlines for all characters and subplots, but the mind does what it wants to do when you let it run free.

My biggest mistake was to turn the editing process up on its head by trying to tackle style and grammar issues first. When I realized this, I stopped, went back to basics and started with a different approach.


First, if you haven't yet, purchase a copy of Scrivener (the simplest and best novel writing software out there) if you use a Mac. you will be thanking me and the software creators in no time for making the entire writing process so much easier on the technical level.

Then:
1) From memory, write a two page outline of your novel
2) then write a full synopsis.
3) if there are things in the story that you wish to change, mark them down
4) Create a plot chart for your main protagonist
5) Then a scene list for her/him
6) Write about what happens to the protagonist until the book starts
7) Consider making your Subplot 1 Character (Second lead) the Antagonist.
8) Write the backstories, plot summaries and scene lists for your subplot characters
9) While you make these lists, structural problems will stick out, take notes of what needs to be fixed in the novel.

Now take a break, you deserved it.

Peace