I Zombie I update


It’s been a frustrating week for our dear friend Jack and his book I Zombie I. Why is that? Well, after much consideration and attempts to salvage the digital recorder Jacob used in the book, it was ultimately decided the device simply didn’t work. After three or four attempts at re-tooling the text, the recorder became more and more confusing.

And so…it was axed. Now I am going back, once again, and re-writing the text as if the entire piece was written in first person, past tense.

This has been one heck of a journey for Jacob and I Zombie I. It all started with an attempt to write a zombie book in first person present tense. I knew the task was going to be challenging, I just didn’t realize how challenging. During the process of writing that book, I wound up giving the reporter a recording device to get him through those moments when he simply couldn’t possibly be writing (like when fighting a moaner or screamer.)

At first it seemed that trick was going to work out perfectly, so I continued on. But when my editor got the book in hand, she quickly became concerned about how the formatting would appear in the book. I agreed. So we decided to turn the entire book into a recording.

That was fun…for about two days. Then, on the third day I wept. Not really…well, almost. I realized the main character certainly couldn’t be extemporizing certain things while around people those certain things might offend. After all, it is the apocalypse and people have to stick together — right? So, I tried as many tricks as I could:

Recorder OFF. Now let me describe what just happened.

blah blah blah blah.

Recorder ON.

That grew tiresome, trite, and ridiculous really fast. So finally, I tossed my hands up in the air and said “To hell with this recorder! Jacob Plummer is a journalist, let him write.”

And so I will be starting back from the beginning this weekend and re-tooling the entire text so that it was written, in the past tense, by none other than Mr. Jacob Plummer.

God speed to my fingers and brain.