Image via @mcpheeceo
Any rational human being should be able to look at their life and say,
“You know what, that thing scares me a little, I think I’ll stay away from it.”
Apparently, I’m not rational. I’m also terrible at taking my own advice, choosing to run toward my fears instead of away from them.
I don’t know when or where zombies became such a problem for me. It’s like one day, poof, the mere thought of them keeps me up at night. I’ve never been one to watch them on TV, movies, or read about them in books, with one notable exception, that being World War Z. Oh wait, there’s the Resident Evil movies too. Anyway, like I was saying…
In this instance, I took it one step further. I didn’t just indulge; I wrote a damn book about them. On top of that, they’re not just zombies, they’re pathogen zombies, so it’s like a pandemic. My timing is either perfect, or it’s crap. I guess we’re about to find out. For one, I’m hoping people are looking for something to read in between searching the land for toilet paper.
I’m pretty sure this story has been told before, but let’s take it from the top. Near the end of 2014, as far as my shitty memory can recall, a storm hit the east coast of Canada and the US that threaten to ruin a lot of people’s day. Flights were cancelled and in New York, a curfew set in place. Because I’m the paranoid type, I immediately began to ponder what it might be covering up. The real storm was a bit of a dud. The storm that started to build in my mind, at least to me, was something much more interesting.
Unfortunately, it got a bit messy from there. I started the story, then set it aside. I picked it up for Nanowrimo the year after, then set it aside again. My intention was to publish it along with a collection of short stories before the end of 2017. It turned out that the storm story wasn’t nearly ready, and self-publishing was a little more involved than I thought, so I focused on the collection. That was published a year ago February, and you would think that would give me all sorts of time to get the novel done. Like I mentioned in the beginning, here is where life took some turns on me that I hadn’t anticipated.
A job that I wasn’t super fond of started making me miserable, but I got packaged off. Hooray, right? I decided to drag my best friend onto the creative freight train. Hooray again! So many good ideas! Then life gave me the middle finger and whole new challenges stood in my way. Somewhere in the mess, I decided to make the original Storm novel book two of a three-part series, and I wrote what is now known as Into the Storm.
Into came fairly quick. I tend to focus on how shitty human beings are and explore that in my work, but it’s dark in ways that I haven’t written about before. I was pretty impressed with the first draft but going back to it after a couple of weeks I saw that it needed a lot of work. I believe the words I used were, “this is garbage.” So, I did what is becoming my process, I moved things around by millimetres until I was happy enough with it to push it out into the world. That time is now. Here’s a fun little teaser that we put together for it.
But wait, there’s more. Book two, Surviving the Storm, will be released in three months. Book three, Chasing the Storm, will arrive two months after that. Seems a little crazy, right? Welcome to being me. I will readily admit that it’s a lot to deal with, but I’ve been given a chance to take a shot, and I’m going to take it.
Regardless of everything else going on, I’m proud of the final product. I’m proud that the vision Kaleigh and I have been working on is finally bearing fruit. All going well, this is just the beginning.
Not that I want to dwell on it, but the world is a scary and confusing place right now. If you’re isolating, or just need to get away from things for a bit, I know of a good ebook or two you should check out…
This and That but Mostly the Other
Until next time, stay safe and well.