Tag Archives: zombies

Taking a Brief Break

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One of my fellow August Blog Challengers (ABC) wrote a post about the need for taking a break, no matter how hectic the writing schedule might be or how scary the deadlines looming over us. I wish I could remember offhand which of these talented writers wrote that post, but I can’t. And as is the way of things, skimming back through their blogs is NOT turning up the post in question. Trust me, it was a good post. And if the author of it reads this post, I trust they’ll give me a cyber whack upside the head and leave a comment so I can do an after the fact link. A POST post, as it where.

But on with the point here.

I took my usual morning walk on the beach (is there ever a point where one can collect too many shells and pieces of beach glass? Is there a socially acceptable limit, as there is with, say, cats? Can I be a crazy shell lady?) and have spent the rest of the day so far expanding the world of my short story, Champagne, with a brief diversion to write my weekly post for Fatal Foodies. Then back to Champagne (and wishing I had a glass of it). I hit a wall about 20 minutes ago and took a meal break (whatever you call lunch and dinner when they’re combined). I turned the TV on to see if some wonderfully crapituous (it’s my word and I like it!) Sci Fi original movie was on, but it was FINAL DESTINATION II, which is only bad enough to be annoying rather than gleefully horrendous. It’s gotta be at least an 8 on the Crap-o-meter to make it in our Bad Move Night lineup. Disappointed, I did a brief channel surf to see if anything else was on. ROAD HOUSE was on AMC, Patrick Swayze and his mullet were kicking the shit out of testosterone overdosed men with inferior mullets.

This is the second time I’ve walked in on ROAD HOUSE mid-movie and considering that both times it took only five minutes to fill me with an overwhelming desire to gather a group of friends and several bottles of tequila, I decided to save it for later and did another brief channel scan. This time I found the last 10 minutes of SUMMER STOCK, an MGM musical starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. I was just in time to see Judy sing ‘Get Happy’ (as in ‘Forget your troubles, come on, get happy…we’re gonna chase all your cares away…forget your troubles, come on, get happy…we’re heading for the judgment day’). Both song and movie were part of my upbringing; Mom raised us on musicals (I found the Hammer horror films all on my own), watched the movies and played the records. She used to waltz me around the pool when I was too young to swim, and sing the songs.

Not all musicals were created equal, of course – if they didn’t have Gene Kelly they weren’t quite as good. I grew up with a very definite opinion on what the ideal male legs looked like and they were Gene Kelly’s. If you’ve ever seen THE PIRATE and watched the Pirate Ballet number where he’s wearing what might be the sexiest pirate costume ever created, you will understand why my opinion remains unchanged to this day.

What does this have to do with taking a break? Easy. Because some of my best childhood memories are based around watching these movies with Mom and Lisa after our dad moved out, hearing a snippet of one of the songs or, better yet, seeing even a few minutes of movies like SUMMER STOCK, AMERICAN IN PARIS and THE BANDWAGON (the latter doesn’t have Gene Kelly, but it has the Manhunt Ballet, which was a huge influence on Murder for Hire) is an instant mood booster. Admittedly I sometimes watch a few minutes of DAWN OF THE DEAD (my first date movie) when I need a break, but I’ve yet to see a zombie with legs as good as Gene Kelly’s.

P.S.  Go here to check out my latest post on Fatal Foodies! 

Starting Late Today

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We went to a book signing last night for our friend Kat Richardson, author of the urban fantasy Greywalker series. The signing was at Borders in Union Square, always a bit of a zoo on a Friday night. Before even reaching Union Square, however, I started the evening off by inadvertently sitting in a puddle of water on the Muni; one of the panels in the ceiling was leaking steadily, something I only noticed after soaking my skirt, the bottom of my jacket and yes, even my underwear. Not much I could do beyond being grateful it was just water (one never knows on the Muni) and hoping everything would dry off quickly. They didn’t, but by the time we ran the gauntlet of tourists and panhandlers from Market Street to Powell, at least they’d stopped dripping.  My clothes, that is.  I can’t speak for either tourists or panhandlers.

Kat’s signing was on the fourth floor of the Borders. They’d set up a table on a little stage, displayed her new book (Underground, third in the series) prominently on and around the area, and there was a respectable sized audience there for the event. We were a little late (and a little wet), but hadn’t missed the reading portion of the evening. Kat did what is one of the better author readings I’ve seen: her characterizations were distinct and she took her time. Too many authors rush through their readings, anxious to get to the end of it. To misquote Dr. McCoy, the majority of writers seem to subscribe to the ‘I’m a writer, not an actor, dammit!’ school of thought and they do NOT enjoy reading their own work to an audience.

After the signing, we went out for wine and snacks with Kat and her San Francisco ‘handler,’, author Frank Lauria, who, according to his bio on Amazon, ‘has published seventeen novels, including five bestsellers and the novelizations of Dark City, End of Days, Mask of Zorro, Alaska, and Girlfight.’ He was a hoot, a self-described food snob and excellent company. It’s something when you get four writers in a room together and they’re all as interested in what the others are doing as talking about their own projects. It wasn’t all ‘me, me, me!’ It was more ‘you, me, what about you?’

I had no complaints about the evening, especially after my clothes dried off. It was a late night, however, and we didn’t get to bed until well after midnight, which meant a late start on the morning routine of beach walk et al. I’m also feeling uninspired and dull, but that doesn’t let me off the August blog challenge or working on Champagne (current book project).

I’ve read the first two books in Kat’s series, Greywalker and Poltergeist, loved them, and recommend them to anyone who enjoys urban fantasies and is tired of Laurel Hamilton’s increasingly unbalanced ratio of sex versus plot/action in her Anita Blake books. I’ll do a proper book review of all three after I’ve read Underground. I hear it has zombies in it, so you KNOW I’m anxious to get to it. I’ll be checking out Frank Lauria’s books as well. And if you don’t know about my zombie fixation, it’s detailed on my website here.

And now it’s time to turn off WEBS (a made for TV movie featuring Richard Greico trapped in an alternate universe where spiders rule Chicago), and get to work on Champagne. Mutated spider people and literary erotica do not mix well together. Although…no…never mind. I’m not gonna go there. At least not today.

Side-tracked

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My original intention was to write my first post on the Left Coast Crime convention in Denver. However, I veered off track (it happens) after reading the introduction for zombie novel. The intro describes the book as a ‘pulp zombie masterpiece,’ the author as ‘the Quentin Tarantino of zombie literature,’ and further states the author ‘goes balls-to-the wall’ to give the readers what they want in a zombie story.

Balls-to-the wall.

Now when did this expression become popular?  And why?  I know it’s supposed to convey a tesosterone filled all out attempt to accomplish something, but the image it conjurs is of some guy with his package super-glued to a wall.  Kind of like this, but with the woogies pressed up against the wall.

‘Balls to the wall’ has been used, among other things, to describe writer/director Eli Roth’s treatment of the horror genre, namely his first commercial film CABIN FEVER, which was said by one sycophantic review to have ‘revitalized horror movies’ or something thereabouts.   And all I can say to that is if you’ve seen CABIN FEVER and the word “Pancakes!” doesn’t make you a: laugh, b: cringe, c: shake your head in disbelief or d: all of the above, then please don’t come over to my house for Bad Movie Night because neither of us will have a good time.

Now please excuse me.  It’s time to utilize my tits to the wind style of writing, test the boundaries of reality, good taste, disregard the sanctity of my characters,  push the envelope of my readers’ comfort zone, and, if I’m really lucky, revitalize a genre or two.