So this past Saturday, I had the opportunity to be on a local radio show here in Savannah. It’s called Muses, Memoirs, and More, and it features authors and other creatives from the Georgia area. My buddy Adam Messer hosts it, you may remember me mentioning him from the Savannah Quill Convention.
I got to be the guest on the second episode, which was really cool. After the episode, Adam edits it and posts it to YouTube. I’ve shared it with y’all here. Give it a listen and if you like the format, give a like and subscribe to the YouTube page for more content.
Also, make sure you subscribe to hear next weeks episode! Adam and I are switching seats and I will be hosting and interviewing him! Adam has a background with writing a local column here in Savannah and you can learn about the origin of the Savannah Quill Book Convention.
So, should I even do that thing where I explain I’m not that good at consistent blogging?
No? We’re all on the same page? Cool.
So the last post I made was for North Pole Zombies last November. And then silence until, what month is it now? April? Dang.
Normally how this goes is I blame the crazy hours I work for my job. (I go in to work at 3 AM and midnight on Sundays.)
Well, this will be the last week of that.
This upcoming Friday will be my last day of said crazy hours.
I’m starting a new job the following Monday, so hopefully things will level out for me creatively. This is a much needed change of pace for me, because, not sure if you noticed, but I have sucked creatively lately, and by lately, i mean the last four years.
I mean, where the heck is A New Daybreak, the third book in the Savannah Zombie Series?!?
Oh, that’s right, I haven’t finished it yet.
Man, I hate that. I hate leaving my readers hanging and hate unfinished projects
So, I promise you, you will be reading book 3 in the Savannah Zombie Series this year. 2018. Mark my freaking words.
Also, I’ve been promising video content.
The Savannah Zombie series started off as a vision my buddy and I had in high school. We wanted to make a low budget zombie movie. I wrote up the outline and a few pages of script. But that was as far as we got. We had no money. No equipment. No experience. Oh, and we had no money. Did I mention that?
And this was before smart phones. Back then the most advanced phone was the Motorola Razr! Ha! Man, we thought we were the shiznet back then! Of course, I was still rocking the indestructible Nokia, with the killer app, Snake 2.
Man, look at that thing.
Tesla ain’t got nothing on that!
Ok, maybe they do. Whatever.
Anyways, what was I saying?
Oh right, the movie.
Well, the Savannah Zombie series has started to come back full circle and I’ve started to realize the dream I had in high school.
Yes, the first video has been made.
It’s just a teaser. Just a clip.
But it’s the start.
And oh man, has it got me excited.
So, on top of my promise of you reading A New Daybreak this year, I’m adding the promise of at LEAST two short films in the world of the Savannah Zombie Novel series.
Bold? Maybe. But it’s going to happen.
Here’s the teaser.
I’ll write another post going into the detail of how it was made. (You’ll be surprised.)
But there it is. The beginning. A genesis. A spark that will light the rebellion that will… Wait, that’s Star Wars.
Sorry, I REALLY like Star Wars. (And yes, The Last Jedi is amazing. So, there’s that.)
Ok, so this post has been everywhere, but here’s the takeaway’s:
A New Daybreak will be here this year. (Probably fall.)
There will be TWO short films in the Savannah Zombie universe.
There may be a soft reboot of the series in store for this year too.
Thanksgiving and the Christmas season are upon us already!
Man, this year has flown by! It’s hard to believe that December is just a few days away.
I have been wanting to write a seasonal series of stories for a couple years now, but have never seemed to find the time.
Well, I chose to buckle down and use the spirit of NaNoWriMo this year and finally get to work!
I’ve known for a while the series title, North Pole Zombies, and the basic plot line:
Santa’s elves turn into zombies and Santa’s got to put them all down.
But in this past year, I really pinned down the story and it came to life in these past few frantic NaNoWriMo weeks.
And I got to say:
It’s freaking awesome.
It has been so much fun to write and to craft this story’s world and characters.
Oh man, the characters.
One of my favorite things about writing is when you fall in love with a character that you thought was just a supportive role, but turns out to be such an intregal part of the story.
I’m super excited about a character for Part 2 of the series, but I won’t dive too deep into him, because, you know, spoilers…
So, North Pole Zombies is being released this Black Friday. (You can pre-order it now, though.)
If I could describe it simply, it’s like a mix between DOOM, The Evil Dead, and those claymation Christmas specials that come on ABC Family, or whatever that channel is called nowadays. You know the one.
It was refreshing to just be kind of silly and write this outlandish short story. To take a break from the bleakness of the world and just have fun with it.
The story follows Nicholas Klaus, the Bringer of Gifts, as he prepares for the Christmas season. After visiting “down South” he returns to the North Pole to find out a mysterious sickness has overcome the elf population. What follows throws Klaus back into a life he had long put behind him…
If you need something to read while you’re standing in line this Black Friday, or just want to read something fun to start getting into the Christmas spirit, check out North Pole Zombies!
Click the cover above and it will take you directly to the Amazon page.
Here’s the first part of A New Death: CJ’s Story, the audiobook version. You can read along with the free ebook available here.
This short story set in the Savannah Zombie Novel universe takes place at the same time as the first entry, A New Death. It focuses in on thirteen year old CJ and his family, who appear in A New Darkness. This story bridges books 1 and 2.
Okay, enough joshing around, (See what I did there?) here it is:
Prologue
I am walking down a dark road.
It is nighttime and there is blood on my hands.
Not figuratively.
I look down and my hands are slick with blood. whose blood
I… I cannot remember.
It is fresh, warm. It smells of rot and there is a metallic taste in my mouth.
Like the taste of a copper penny.
Something dribbles from the corner of my mouth, but I do not care.
I am dead.
But I am not at the same time.
I look down again and I see that my legs are moving. My feet shuffle awkwardly, as if asleep. wake up feet wake up
I giggle at this, but the air escapes my mouth in an arid gasp.
A moan follows it. A groaning I feel escape from deep within my gut.
I am hungry. so fucking hungry
I remember eating recently. Something tough shifts between my dry gums. I work my jaw in an effort to free whatever is in my mouth. It touches my cracked tongue. meat
The feeling of the HUNGER surges throughout my body. It fills every ounce of me, my very essence one of desire and bloodlust. I must feed.
Soon.
I beg my feet to pick up their pace. They are resistant at first, but the HUNGER reaches them as well and they soon stumble into a light jog.
I feel every snapping tendon. Every dry grinding joint. For some reason, I think I should be feeling something, but again, I cannot remember. Some kind of bodily warning that I am harming myself, some indicator of distress. what is the word what is the word what is the word
I hear a snap.
My hip wobbles and I tumble forward, the ground rushing up to stop my face. My left arm flies up to slow my fall, but I hear another crack.
My wrist breaks and my face slams into the concrete. The fall would have broken my nose.
If I had one.
It is missing. It was taken from me by… I cannot remember.
The HUNGER ripples throughout my veins. It rides on the coagulated sludge that once was my blood.
I slowly push my way up using the stump of arm where my hand dangles freely. A strand of rubbery flesh tethers it to my wrist, swinging back and forth, back and forth.
I giggle again and again it comes forth as a moan. must feed must feed must feed
The HUNGER does not take long to remind me of the emptiness in my stomach. As if I forgot. I look down and notice a gaping hole in my abdomen. Something long and slippery sways from the opening. It reminds me of meat meat meat
Minutes pass, but the HUNGER makes them feel like hours. Every creaking of bone a ticking of the second hand. tick tick tick eat eat eat
I black out.
I come to. I am still walking. My hand has fallen off somewhere. I do not care.
While I was out, my body had been busy marching towards the smell of food. A breeze carried the scent of burnt wood and warm flesh.
I am getting close.
I pass through trees and come into a small clearing. The pale orb in the sky lights the grove.
A triangular shape sits in the middle of the grove and smoke rises from a smoldering pile of ash.
The HUNGER aches within me as I make my way towards the tent.
I tremble with joy as I look inside and see a man asleep.
He has not heard me.
He is dressed in orange. Black markings across his back.
I cannot read them. I do not remember how.
I fall forward onto him. He wakes, but his struggle is futile as my jagged teeth tear into his cheek.
I feel pure glee as his hot blood fills my mouth.
He is screaming, but I do not care. My teeth open for another bite, but then stop. not right not right not right
Something is wrong.
He tastes different.
Not like the others. oh no oh no oh no
In my hesitation, the man shoves me back and I fall through the opening. I hit the ground hard, laying there for a minute looking up at the twinkling lights above me.
“What have you done?!” The man bellows.
He is now standing over me, his massive frame towering over me.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”
I roll to my side in an attempt to escape, but something hits me hard in the back and I begin to tumble across the ground. As I circle around, I see the bottom of the man’s foot where my back was.
I have attacked other men before this one. Normally they came at me with sharp metal objects, or in some cases, their hands held a tool that made the sound of thunder.
That’s it.
That was why I have the hole in my stomach.
This man held nothing.
His hands were bare just like mine. just like you just like you
“I’m not like the others you’ve eaten…”
He holds his hand up to the bite wound I left on his face.
He smiles.
“They did something to us. Something… wrong.”
I try to get up and leave again, but quickly he is on top of me. His fists begin to pummel my face. I hear the skull fragmenting inside my head. Bone splinters, my already piss-poor vision becoming blurrier.
He stops and backs off, clutching at his side. He yells in pain and his muscles begin to bulge through his orange jumpsuit. The fabric begins to tear as his flesh contorts. His eyes blaze red.
Something is inside me. I look down to see the man’s hands deep into my belly, pulling the opening wider and allowing for more of my guts to spill onto the ground. oh well
The man yanks out the remains of my insides and steps back again, this time admiring his handiwork. The muscles in his neck continue to grow, his skin splitting and cracking at the pressure.
“You see deadhead,” the man continues, his voice now deeper and coarser. “I was already dead before you entered the tent.”
And with that, he slammed his fist into my head and my skull finally gave way.
I welcomed the darkness.
So, what did you think? Let me know in the comments! Now to go finish the rest of the book!
A few years ago, I talked my nephew and niece into making a zombie movie.
They were like, “Heck yeah!”
So, we set out to make one.
Oh, but I forgot to mention: They had never seen a zombie movie.
This is what we got:
Riveting, I know.
Obviously, they have no acting training and I gave them little direction, just to see what they would do. My niece, Hailey, came up with the stiff-leg walk. Why? I don’t know, but it freaking works. I think it really represents the way we somber through life and the choices we make that lead up to the catalysts of life-change and…
Um…
Ok, I just thought it was funny.
Anyways, this movie isn’t Savannah Zombie Novel related, just something fun I thought I’d share with y’all. Let me know what you think and share with your friends!
That’s me in our local paper’s DoSavannah section, which features local music and happenings each week.
No big deal.
Haha, jk. It’s weird though, because this is the first time I’ve really put my work out there locally. My books have been in several local bookstores, but unless someone just walked in there, they would have no idea my books exist.
Sad, I know.
But now, “real” people know about my books, not just “internet” people. (No offense.)
Anyways, this was a really cool start to the new year and as I get back on track with A New Daybreak, this really gives me motivation to press forward. I just shared the Prologue with my email list (which you should join by the way and get a free ebook) and will continue to share sneak peeks with them until release day.
You can read the article here and you should probably share it on social media, because it’s 2016 people and that means it’s the future.
Last year, I attended the Savannah Zombie Walk, but the event was moved to April, so I will be doing a book signing on Halloween instead. It will be at E. Shaver, Bookseller, which is a cool local bookstore in downtown Savannah. (I say cool, because there are other local bookstores, who are, um… not so cool.)
Anyways, from 3-5 PM on October 31st, I will be hanging out at the bookstore which is located at 326 Bull St. Come stop by, pick up an autographed copy of A New Death, and just hang out with some cool book people!
