Undead Anonymous

(This week’s blog is brought to you courtesy of Andy)

“I’m at the Soquel Community Center, sitting in a semicircle of chairs that’s open toward a petite, fifty-two-year-old woman who looks like my third grade teacher.  Except my third grade teacher never ended up on the wrong end of a twelve-gauge, pump-action Mossberg.”

Meet Helen.  The group moderator of Undead Anonymous who does her best to make me and the rest of her fellow zombies come to terms with our new existence.  Only Helen prefers to use the term “survivors” rather than zombies because she’s fond of euphemisms.

Helen used to counsel other “survivors” in her private practice before she became one herself.  Her prior experience with zombies is the main reason she was allowed to head up the local UA chapter.

At every meeting, Helen starts off by writing something inspirational on the chalkboard, something to remind us of the bond we share, of what we have to look forward to, of our humanity:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE
FIND YOUR PURPOSE
HOPE IS NOT A FOUR-LETTER WORD
I WILL NOT CONSUME THE LIVING

While I appreciate what Helen is trying to do, at times she reminds me of Mary Poppins – always cheerful and full of advice that works for characters who live in movies, fairy tales,or the Playboy Mansion.  Still, her heart is in the right place and I know she truly cares about us, which is more than I can say for my parents.

Next entry:  I is for Investigate (aka Research)

I had a number of fun responses to what G should be for: Gore, Gases, Guts, Gross, Ghoulish, Ghastly, Gangrene. But the one that resonated more than the others was Graveyard.

Who doesn’t like graveyards?

In Breathers, Andy and the other members of Undead Anonymous spend a lot of time in graveyards – visiting loved ones, paying respects to the recently buried, and digging on the vibe.  After all, they have more in common with the dead than with the living.  And graveyards are the only place where zombies can gather without having to worry about being carted off by Animal Control.

The graveyards, or cemeteries, in Breathers do exist and I hung out in several of them in order to add some realistic details to the scenes.  Particularly the Soquel Cemetery, where Andy’s wife is buried.  (She died in the car accident and didn’t reanimate).  Even the cypress tree that resembles Tom with his missing arm is there.

A number of the tombstones mentioned in the book also exist, including the one for Santa Claus.  However, the marker with the marble cat curled up beneath the solitary name Lilith is an homage to one of my cats – a black Alpha female named after the character on Cheers who was killed and eaten by another animal in July of 1995.

My cat, not Bebe Neuwirth.

(Next entry:  H is for Helen)

Tom, from somewhere in GMail land, asks:

Andy, do you floss regularly?  What does a zombie do about halitosis?

Good question, Tom.  Most Breathers tend to think that once you become a member of the walking undead, all of your personal grooming habits get tossed out with the bathwater.  Which is actually not something I’ve ever done, but it’s the first metaphor that popped into my rotting brain, so I went with it.

To be honest, I wasn’t much into dental care when I was a Breather.  Kind of took the whole flossing thing a bit lightly.  But once your become a zombie and you realize that if your teeth fall out there isn’t a dental hygienist in the county who’s willing to go anywhere near your mouth, you tend to develop better habits.  So yeah, I floss every day.  Morning and evening.  I prefer the Johnson and Johnson mint waxed floss, though dental tape can be more effective for cleaning between teeth that are not tightly spaced – a common problem for the undead.

As for halitosis, there’s not a lot zombies can do other than use a lot of mouth wash and eat a lot of breath mints.  Jerry pops Altoids regularly, which seems to help, but honestly, when your internal organs are gradually liquefying, you just have to get used to the fact that you’re not going to go out on a lot of second dates.

Thanks for asking!

So I’m on my way back from San Diego after 10 days of signings and readings and pimping Breathers out to about 50 different book stores and signing stock copies.  Ready for home but had an awesome time.  Here are some highlights:

March 15 – Caesar may have been told to beware the Ides of March, but my first official signing and reading at Borderlands Books in San Francisco was fortuitous.  Great crowd.  Lots of friends.  Several dozen books sold.  And Jude and Alan are the consummate hosts.

March 18 – Drove around Los Angeles signing stock copies of Breathers at local book stores.

March 19 – Met at the Coffee Bean on Sunset in L.A. with Mason Novick and Geoff LaTulippe, the co-producer and screenwriter for the film version of Breathers.  Great fun.  One of those “pinch me” moments.

March 20 – Met with my film agent, Sarah Self of the Gersh Agency, who wants me to write an original screenplay.  I now officially have homework.

March 21 – My second official signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank, CA, with Amber Benson (previously of Buffy the Vampire) who was also signing her first solo effort,  Death’s Daughter.

Admittedly, Amber’s line was just a little longer than mine, but I had a great time sharing the event and meeting her. Del and Sue were wonderful hosts and the store is fabulous.

March 22 – My third signing at Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego.  Shared the reading and signing with Michael Boatman (Spin City and Arli$$), who read from his new horror comedy novel The Revenant Road.

Mysterious Galaxy is a fabulous store and it was lots of fun to meet Michael.  Also received my first hug from a fan from L.A. who missed me in Burbank and drove down to San Diego to see me. Thanks Elizabeth!  You made my day.

March 24 – Hit up another dozen stores in the San Diego area to sign stock copies.  Met a lot of enthusiastic people and fans and had an all around great time.  I think I need to come back here…

flesh decomposing?
body cavities bursting?
eat formaldehyde

I think I speak for all embalmed zombies when I say that formaldehyde is the best thing since bacon.  Without it (formaldehyde not bacon), your body will go bad faster than cottage cheese.  And the consistency won’t be that much different.

If you consume enough formaldehyde, you can keep the decomposition of your body and internal organs at bay.  Even if you can’t get hold of the industrial strength stuff, formaldehyde can be found in lipstick, makeup, fingernail polish, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, antiperspirant, bubble bath, bath oil, shampoo, and soft drinks.

Unfortunately, if you weren’t embalmed prior to reanimation, no amount of Suave Kiwi shampoo is going to keep your internal organs from turning into chicken noodle soup.  Unless you can somehow manage to get hold of the industrial strength stuff, your won’t have the shelf life of 2% pasteurized milk.

Of course, no one wants to reanimate while you have a cannula inserted in your carotid artery, but it beats watching your tissues slide off your bone like non-fat yogurt.

(Next entry: G is for…I haven’t made up my mind.  What do you think it should be for?)

I didn’t have any expectations as to what it would be like to work with an editor.  Not to mention a real life New York publishing house editor.  As a writer, you hear horror stories about books being hijacked and turned into something other than what the author intended.  Or even how tedious and tiresome it is to go over copy edits and line edits and re-read your novel half a dozen times during the editing process.

My experience was nothing like that.

My editor at Broadway, Laura Swerdloff, helped to make Breathers a better book.  Period.

She offered up suggestions and recommendations, told me where she thought the story could be improved or fleshed out, and listened to me when I fought for something I believed was inherent or relevant to the story.  I even enjoyed having to read Breathers over and over and over.  Counting the reads I gave the manuscript before I sent it off to my agent and after making edits based on her feedback, I read my novel ten times before the final version went to press.

And no, I never got sick of reading it.  It still made me laugh.  But the thing about a novel is that as the author, you can always find something that needs to be fixed and there comes a point where you just have to stop and let it go.

I can’t imagine having a better experience with an editor as a first-time novelist.  Thanks Laura.

Next entry:  F is for Formaldehyde.

Not long ago, I was friended by a woman on MySpace who, along with her male counterpart, review books and interview authors on Blogspot under the title In Bed With Books.

Great name.  Who doesn’t like to be in bed with a book?  Okay, so I can think of a reasonable argument to that, but I won’t go into it here.

By the way, is it just me, or does the term “friended” sound like a platonic verb?

In any case, the interview was posted today and includes some fun questions about the zombie apocalypse vs. the beespider apocalypse, the greatest snack food, and what I would do if my best friend was bitten by a zombie.

Oh, and they’re also having a contest for free copies of Breathers, so head on over and check out the In Bed With Books Interview.

Okay.  First of all, I have to apologize because I’m completely and irrefutably delinquent on posting this.  I meant to post this a week or so ago but it seems that I really do have stuff leaking out of my head.  I think it’s called gray matter.

Second of all, I have to say that Rhonda Parrish, the interviewer and CEO of Niteblade, is a fabulous gift of a person.  I met her at my first ever World Fantasy Convention in Calgary last Halloween and am absolutely positive that had she been the only person I met, the convention would have been worth the trip.

You can check out my interview with Rhonda at Niteblade News, which also includes wonderful interviews with other authors.

And while you’re at it, check out the on-line magazine at www.niteblade.com

Just a reminder that my first official reading and signing of Breathers will take place this weekend in San Francisco.  Details can be found on the Breathers page of this web site under Next Scheduled Resurrection, but if you need the quick skinny on the facts, here they are:

Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA – March 15th, 3:00PM to 5:00PM

If you don’t live in or around San Francisco (or Burbank or San Diego, where I’ll be doing signings the weekend of March 21-22), and you’d like to know where or how you can get a signed or personalized copy of Breathers, the folks at Borderlands are here to help.

Just call the store (888-893-4008) or e-mail (office@borderlands-books.com) and mention that you’d like an inscribed copy of Breathers.  The ridiculously nice and helpful staff at Borderlands will ask you a few relevant questions, such as if there’s anything specific you’d like the inscription to say, where you want the book shipped, if you’re paying with a credit card or a DNA sample, that kind of stuff.  Then they’ll give me a shout and let me know I’ve got a request for some personalized books and I’ll head down to the store and inscribe your copy and they’ll ship it out.

Yeah, it’s that easy.

If you can’t make it this Sunday, I hope I get the chance to meet you somewhere down the road.  Stay tuned for future appearances.  Or check for updates under Next Scheduled Resurrection.

Thanks!

(Author’s Note:  Since Andy tends to have a bit more “hands-on” experience with this subject, I’ll turn things over to him for this entry.)

The smell is the hardest thing to get used to.

You’d think it would be the bloating or the liquifecation of tissues or the fluid from the lungs oozing out of the mouth and nostrils.  The brain can go pretty fast, too.  Bacteria in the mouth chew right through the palate and before you can say “Night of the Living Dead,” your brain is pouring out your ears and bubbling out your mouth.

Fun stuff.

Of course, most of these problems apply to those who reanimated prior to being pumped full of formaldehyde.  (Future post alert.  Guess what F is for?)

In addition to the challenges mentioned above, if you’re unembalmed, you also have sloughage to look forward to.  That’s when the liquid leaking from the body’s ravaged cells gets between the layers of skin and loosens them, causing the skin of fingertips and toes to come off.  Sometimes, entire sheets of skin will peel away from an unembalmed zombie.  I’ve known a few melters who suffered this indignity.

But no matter what class of zombie – embalmed, freshie, or melter – the smell of undeath is almost impossible to mask.  Hydrogen sulphide leaking from various orifices, internal organs fermenting in a formaldehyde stew, the constant odor of gradually rotting meat…it’s a challenge to maintain your dignity when the stench of your rotting flesh wakes you up in the middle of the night.

You try to get it out of your hair or your clothes but no amount of Tide or Pine-Sol or bleach can get rid of the smell.  Someone should make a decent deodorant for zombies, or anything hygiene related, really.  They would make a killing.

(Next entry:  E is for Editor)