Word Count on Book Two

As of 06/30/12
Word Count: 69538

As of 06/11/12
Word Count: 66150

As of 06/10/12
Word Count: 62891
About 40,000 to go.

Power Failure

After a loss of power this morning, and the heavily weighed and most important question (should we spend money on ice at the gas station down the road to rescue the food in the freezer or give it one more hour and save the change?) it became apparent just how terribly dependent I am on the things that I've grown accustomed to.  

Namely: power (in the form of electricity, not physical or financial dominance), readily available food, ceiling fans(power again), running water, and, of course, the internet. 

It didn't occur to me until later that day that my poor fish (10 gallon freshwater) had gone without filtration, aeration and light for the better part of two hours.  Not the biggest deal when you look at the thousands of chickens in the Eastern States cooking in the previous heat wave, but still!  They're my fish!  How long would they survive in a bucket of stagnant water?  I guess it'd be a solution if I ran out of cat food.  

See just how many things we have to consider in the event of a massive power failure?  My wife would disagree with me, but I have it broken down this way: 

• The fish will feed the cats.
• The cats will feed the dogs.
• The pug(wife's dog) will feed me.  
• My dog and I will go off into the sunset with a rifle to scrounge for food.  Wife can tag along or make a salad from whatever is still alive in her garden.  

Most likely case scenario:

• The fish will feed the cats.
• The cats will beat the hell out of the dogs and do their own thing.
• The pug will get large portions from my plate at my wife's behest.
• My dog and I will scrounge for food and ration everything we have so my wife will not beat me, take the pug and the cats and head off into the sunset while I make a salad out of everything that has died in her garden.  

Good.  I think we have it all figured out.  Bring on the EMP!!!

In The Likely, Implausible, Pending, No-Chance-In-Hell, Definitely Happening Event of a Zombie Attack...

My break-neck, torn-throat analysis of horrible locations to hole up and wait for rescue.

PART II. The Remote Farmhouse....

At first glance, this peaceful paragon of agricultural nostalgia may seem like the perfect hideaway for a family of surviving renegades. There are often stores of food, possibly even cattle, fields that can be cultivated and tended in times of low zombie occurrence, but what about all those zombie farm cats? Farm cats breed like zombie farm rabbits and who's to say that cats will be immune to the aggressive viral outbreak...or the cattle for that matter? So while you're battening up the windows and doors and combing the endless intrinsically creepy cornfields with grandma Nan's greasy pair of American Gothic binoculars, don't let your backend get the bull's horn, or forget to disinfect a vicious cat scratch from Fluffy who is really only somewhat fluffy anymore. Even if the animals and livestock don't get you, there will inevitably be some reason--no matter how you fight it--some crisis, some unrealistic desire, which causes the irrational need to send one or more members of the party into the barn. Even in times of Zombie-free living, this is a bad idea. And since this generation has dispensed with real education and learns all there is to know from movies and wikipedia, you would think that everyone would understand that if there isn't a zombie waiting behind the barn door, or in the farm equipment, or in the hay loft...a deranged serial killer will be. Therefore, I say no to Farmhouses. Find somewhere else to hide, and leave the zombie farm cats to chase the zombie farm mice until the zombie farm cows come home and die….again.



Next time.......The Mall (Just in time to do a little Christmas chopping!)

In The Likely, Implausible, Pending, No-Chance-In-Hell, Definitely Happening Event of a Zombie Attack...

My break-neck, torn-throat analysis of horrible locations to hole up and wait for rescue.  Part 1. 

1. Rooftop 
     An exceptionally popular and expeditious way to die.  Rooftops offer a fabulous view of the ocean of undead so you can count them while they swarm about the base of your "perch," watching you!  Climb to the peak of a house, building, school, mall, whatever you want, and you have days of safety from the decaying hoards while you can work on your tan under the blistering sun.  With little rainfall and no shelter, enjoy a slow, listless existence, consisting of starvation, thirst, swollen bloated skin that comes off in sheets by day three, and a lovely continuous din from below as the zombies mill about waiting for you to become delirious and follow the imagined kitty cat off the edge of your chosen rooftop.  

In Part Two:  Remote Farmhouse...

Occult for Fun and Profit!

I had a roommate once at an art school in California over the summer who called himself Cockroach.  No, it's not just a borrowed cliche, he actually had a giant white cockroach painted on the back of his full length black leather trenchcoat which he wore religiously in the middle of 114 degree Southern California weather.  He had long black hair, white, white skin, and pale purple glasses.  He even wore his fingernails long and manicured to fine points.  His art was dark and Cravenesque, a 3-dimensional fleshless face in a box, an oversized portrait of a sinister vampire, three skeletons relaxing around a campfire in a cavern of vascular flesh....well, you get the idea.  I asked him once wether he thought he was a vampire. 
His response: Of course not.  Vampires don't exist.  I'm a witch.

I have since met many people who purport to being involved in one way or another with Wicca, witchcraft, or the occult, not to group the three together too ignorantly.  My point, or the idea that I am trying to come to, is that there is a similar response among the practitioners when asked about the validity of their art to that of the many sects of Christianity.  That is, "the way I do it is right, everyone else is wrong." 

For myself, I like to believe that true Wicca is gentle.  Earth loving, pagan in origin, and more about healing and worship of the natural world and its wonders.  But I do know that there are groups who delve into what seems to the earth children as deeply misguided dark arts. 

These are the practices and rituals that, for my current purposes (research, writing, character study, etc...not to put a hex on the guy who yelled at my wife like a jackass over a damn babyruth candybar...although...) I want to know from you all, what are some practices you've heard of?  Perhaps witnessed or read about.  Any sources you have seen and trust, or even if you have participated.  The stranger the better, as long as its real or believed to be real. 

What do you know?

Transformations of Werewolves

Historically, the werewolf myth centers on a person transforming either into a full wolf that is only distinguishable from a normal wolf by its enormous size, or into a kind of hybrid between wolf and man.  Given that many people throughout the ages purport to being capable of either one of these transformations and have in most cases been diagnosed with clinical lycanthropy, which is akin to having a tattoo slapped on the forehead saying "I'm a total nutjob," we can reasonably add this as a third, non-physical type of transformation.  Then, of course, you have the intellectual werewolves who make psychological connections between our innate desires, rages, and nobility and the personifications that we project on the wolf.

Bear in mind, I in no way stand in judgment of any of these-at the very least I am guilty of at least two theories of my own-though I simply am laying out a kind of brainstorm for myself concerning what might influence the transformation and if those external factors might alter the transformation itself.

For example: Perhaps none of these transformations are untrue when it comes to werewolf mythos.  If one werewolf is born into lycanthropy, then maybe he changes at every full moon and the days before and after without fail.  Perhaps this doesn't begin to occur until he hits puberty (not to unduly remind everyone of Teen Wolf, which really was not that bad of a movie...) and thus the transformation itself becomes a rite of passage into manhood.

But what about the evil bastard who makes a deal with the Devil and receives a wolf skin belt that initiates the transformation.  For him, there is no rite of passage.  There is only destruction and damnation.  So to speak.

Then we have to consider the consciousness of the beast.  In some myths, a werewolf acts completely independent of the will of the man it previously was.  It acts on instinct and the drive to tear flesh and feed on blood and anything in its path.  In other myths (stories such as Bisclavaret) the wolf retains the consciousness of the the man.  It even acts in a friendly manner toward those who are his beloved. So can't we then choose to assign consciousness to the manner of transformation and perhaps the final form as well?

Just thinking out loud.

Submission Update!

Alright!  My lovely wife was called in to work tonight, which gave me four hours to sit at Barnes & Noble and send out more e-mail submissions to agencies.  That brings the grand total of Agencies queried to 20.  I am  20% of the way to my goal!!!  WOOOOHOOOOO!!! 

Now I better get back to doing some actual writing!