Working Title "Alive"

[summer_sparrow]

Looks like I might be kind of accidentally Nano-ing. Sort of. And right after a post complaining about how I can't write anymore... I try to do NaNo even when I feel like I can't write.

(I had a fair large chunk of text LJ cut here as to why I wasn't doing NaNo, then I realized that it really had no bearing on the post. Anyone who wants to know can ask. The short version is I find the place far too cliquish and not particularly welcoming these days.)

And THEN I discovered post-apocalyptic novels are not as uncommon as I thought.

I can't being to express my love for apocalypse scenarios and post-apocalyptic stories. I thought WaterWorld was great. I read a Niven story recently (Fallen Angels was the title, I think) wherein fen basically saved the modern-ice-age world.

So I was poking around Amazon.com last night, reading reviews of various post-A fiction and non-fiction. The reviews for two books in particular struck me, because they mentioned realism (as regards post-apocalyptic scenarios).

Fast forward twenty minutes, I'm taking a shower, minding my own business, and suddenly my brain starts trying to figure out realistic zombies and how this affects the world.

Yeah, I'm sure you can all guess what happened from there.

(If this sounds snippy, please chalk it up to the fact that I'm at work and I hate it here. It's not meant to be but I think I read things differently than a lot of people do.) Edited to remove the book titles as they're not actually releveant to my point which was "I'm wanting to write again HURRAH!" and all three comments thus far referenced them. I'm just so completely disinterested in both books (they're not at all my style).

Comments

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Hand Made World, but I very much enjoyed World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

I thought it was well-written, engaging, and quite plausible within the limits of the genre.

[sparrowinsky.livejournal.com]

*shrug* the reviews I saw were less than good. I probably won’t ever know, as a) it’s not my kind of book and b) I try not to read in the genre I’m writing (or in this case, outlining) in anyway. I’ve already been told by my boyfriend three different things my outline is “kind of like.” :p

[phiremangston.livejournal.com]

Though there was a huge deal made about World War Z, I wasn't impressed with it at all. It dragged and dragged and dragged. Took me months to get through it.

[cynaguan.livejournal.com]

I really liked "World War Z".

[yinepu.livejournal.com]

I also really enjoyed World War Z, but I'm a zombie fanatic so...

[sparrowinsky.livejournal.com]

I actually don't like zombies much. I only ever made it through one movie (Dawn of the Dead remake) and it took a certain amount of willpower. However, I'm certainly not going to let inspiration pass by after a year of nothing to write. Why inspiration had to be world's end and zombies... oy.

I'm not entirely certain mine qualify as zombies, to tell you the truth. Does it still count if they're alive?

[cynaguan.livejournal.com]

Yes, it counts. People who say "28 Days Later" isn't a zombie movie are wrong. Even the director was wrong when he said this.

[yinepu.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that has more to do with your particular school of zombie. Is it a disease, is it magic, is it whatever?

I personally don't believe the creatures in 28 Days Later were zombies but since they technically don't exist it's hard to say what is or what isn't a zombie.

To me a zombie has no memory of life, no willpower beyond that of feeding, and they've rather slow and purposeful because they're dead and their bodies are decaying.

[sparrowinsky.livejournal.com]

Disease. I'm still working out the kinks, but essentially it's a virus that works in three stages. Stage one, abnormal behavior and some physical effects. Stage two, seizures followed by a coma. Stage three, zombieism. The bodies are still alive, however the infected are at this point mindless, driven by the need to consume (anything, really) and infect. They just go until they drop. You could call it decay, I suppose. The infected basically rot away until they die, theoretically having served their purpose of infecting further hosts.

I'm not entirely sure whether it's man-made, natural, or some combination. I'm leaning towards man-made via standard disease routes (pigs, I'm thinking, but not sure yet).

[cynaguan.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that they're not undead, and aren't really "zombies", but the *film* is a zombie movie. It's like "The Proposition" is a western, despite the fact that it's set in Australia.

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

I'm accidentally doing NaNo, too, I think. SIGH.