Daniel Sherrier's Blog, page 50

Get to Know…Samie Sands

It’s author interview time! Meet Samie Sands, author of the new zombie novel, Lockdown.

Welcome, Samie!

Tell us about your book.

Lockdown is based around a young news researcher, Leah, whose zombie video practical joke spirals out of her control. Suddenly everyone seems convinced that a deadly virus is spreading like wildfire and the only way to stop it is to quarantine everyone inside their own homes.

Her protests are largely ignored, which is a good thing because it turns out to be more real than anyone could have imagined. The plot then follows Leah as she learns to deal with this new horror filled environment.

What’s the book’s opening line? Why did you start there?

“Ok, it’s official. I’m dead. I’m actually going to be killed.”

I wanted the opening line to be full of dread, but the reader is completely unaware what’s going on at this point. Obviously there is an expectation considering it’s a zombie book, but it leads to something quite different.

What do you most enjoy about writing?

Creating strange and weird circumstances and then forcing my characters to live through them is very fun. Horror is particularly challenging because I’m pushing characters to the very limits of their personalities and capabilities – but of course, that’s where they learn the truth about themselves.

Please share a writing tip you’ve found helpful.

Write about something you’d want to read. If you don’t like it, others won’t either.

What interests you about zombies?

‘Zombies’ is a large, saturated genre, but that’s because it’s so fun to read and write about. There is a huge variety in zombies – everyone writes them slightly differently and the effects of the apocalypse on humanity is also full of endless possibilities.

What distinguishes your book from the other zombie stories out there?

Lockdown is set very early on in the apocalypse, which allows readers to get to know the characters on a much deeper level. You can see Leah before the horrific events begin to change her. The journey is with a simple girl-next-door type, who has no skills to help her with this new environment, which is how most people would be.

A lot of zombie stories focus on military men who have access to weapons and have a strong possibility of survival. Lockdown doesn’t possess any of that, which is where it stands out.

Tell us about your piece in Zombie Guide Magazine.

My piece in Zombie Guide Magazine was actually about Lockdown! Originally the book was going to include photographs and video clips, but the technology isn’t quite up to scratch yet. That idea is one I will be keeping in the back burner.

What’s your day job? Does it influence your writing in any way?

I’m a graphic designer, which means I still have to be very creative. This work can be very different every day and sometimes things will spark small ideas which have the prospect of turning into a story.

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?

The best book I’ve read loosely within the same genre as mine is ‘Outpost’ by Adam Baker. It turns the whole zombie genre on its head creating utterly terrifying monsters. There are some chapters within that book that’ll haunt me forever!

Who is your favorite fictional character? (Any medium)

Squidward Tentacles from Spongebob Squarepants has all the right opinions on life!

If you could have one super-power, what would it be and why?

It would be the ability to teleport – which may not have great ‘saving the world’ qualities, but I love to travel and get a lot of inspiration from different places. There are so many countries I’d still love to visit, and being able to do that at a moment’s notice is so appealing.

What’s next for you?

Lockdown is going to become a trilogy, so the second installment will be out in the next few months. I have also asked to submit stories to a whole range of anthologies, so you will be hearing my name a lot!

Where can people learn more about your work?

My author website: http://samiesands.com

The Lockdown website: http://thelockdown.co.uk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SamieSandsLockdown

Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamieSands

Links to my other social media sites can be found on my author website.

Tell us one fun fact about yourself.

I’m a huge anime and manga geek – totally love it and one of the best holidays I had was the Manga Tour with Japan Journeys to Tokyo.

Thank you, Samie!

A background actor’s life is not for me

I’m going to be on national television this weekend. If you don’t blink, you might even see me.

You may have heard about Turn, the television series that filmed in Virginia and recently started airing on AMC, the same station that has brought us Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead.

They needed a bunch of extras (I’m sorry—“background actors”), and I was in the mode of trying new things, so I tried it.

I won’t be trying it again.

Many people seem to enjoy working as extras in movies and TV shows. My older sister is among them. That’s great, and everyone involved was very professional, but it just wasn’t for me.

The first of two days of shooting brought me to a farm in Charles City County, Va. right before Christmas. It looked lovely when I arrived at 4 p.m. Then the sun went away and took all warmth with it.

Heated tents, it turns out, are inefficient at retaining heat. The makeup and costume crews were nice as could be, but their warm personalities failed to generate literal warmth.

They glued a thick mustache onto me, which was fine until dinner. The experience of navigating food around fake facial hair has guaranteed I will never grow more than a five o’clock shadow. I don’t know how some of you gentlemen do it.

The dinner, by the way, was excellent. Almost worth waiting around in a frigid tent for hours on end, wondering when I’d be asked to actually do something.

That night, I was a soldier. They gave my group era-appropriate rifles and taught us how to carry them. They neglected to teach us how to march in formation. Maybe they expected our mustaches to synchronize us, but no, it didn’t quite work out that way.

The director stopped everything else, gave us a crash-course in marching, assured us it wasn’t rocket science, and eventually thanked us for our efforts and told us we did great. We were then sent to holding, where we waited.

I don’t think that footage is making the final cut.

The second day involved no marching or mustaches, at least not for me.

Instead, I got to lug around an 80-pound sack over my shoulder as I walked back and forth along a defined route. It was excellent exercise, though a bit lopsided.

There was other stuff that day—the basic walking down the street, mingling with other “background characters,” cheering on soldiers, etc.

However, I have no idea what plot was going on while I was doing all that. All I know is it was the third episode, which premieres this Sunday evening.

I’m afraid to watch.

But if you do, feel free point and laugh at the skinny guy carrying the big sack and think, “Yep, that’s the author of Earths in Space and RIP.”

Defending the “How I Met Your Mother” finale

Seems the How I Met Your Mother finale has upset a lot of fans. While it wasn’t a perfect episode, I thought the ending made perfect sense, and I appreciate the motivation and subtext it brings to the whole premise.

Yes, we’re entering SPOILERS territory here. One more spoiler-free paragraph as a buffer, and then it’s spoiling time.

I started watching HIMYM at the end of the second season, loved it through the fourth, went back and got the DVDs of the episodes I had missed, and I eventually lost patience with it sometime in the sixth or seventh season but returned for this last season. The show went on far too long; this was a four-season premise, maybe five. Not nine. And that’s the real problem with the finale.

In hindsight, the running question of “Who’s the mother?” didn’t really work as a mystery. She would have had to be someone the audience had met early on — maybe a coworker of Robin’s or Marshall’s or part of another group of friends Lily had that seldom crossed paths with Ted.

The “clues” — the yellow umbrella, the roommate, etc. — didn’t really feel like clues because we didn’t have suspects for them to point to. They did, however, enhance the moment of the meeting and helped sell the idea that these two characters felt fated to be together.

After all these years, the mother had a lot of expectations to live up to, and the character came across as almost saintly, which makes sense. If a man is talking to his children about their dead mother, he better speak only wonderful things about her.

Two essential tools for writers are motivation and subtext. If the ending was, “And that’s how I met your mother, and we lived happily ever after,” then why did Future Ted decide now was the time to give his kids such a long, meandering talk about the nine years leading up to meeting their mother? And would there have been any significant subtext to the voice-over narration we’d been listening to for all this time?

There could have been other motivations and subtext, but given where Ted started his story — “And that’s how I met your Aunt Robin.” – the idea of him working up the courage to ask his children for their blessing to date an old friend works — and it almost sort of justifies how long it took him to get to the point (well, nothing could justify the length, but it comes as close as probably anything). This ending adds some depth to what’s gone on before.

I understand the frustration with spending a full season on Robin and Barney’s wedding, only to undo it in the finale, and that’s probably a symptom of the show having gone on too long. Had this finale occurred at the end of season four or so, we would’ve seen less character regression here (really, it’s statistically shocking it took Barney that long to get a woman pregnant).

So, yes, it’s not a perfect finale, but it would have been a rather on-the-nose one if the story had turned out to be nothing more than “I’m telling you how I met your mother because I think it’s important.”

A word from my niece

My niece Rose says, “You need to read Earths in Space and RIP so Uncle Danny can buy me more toys and spoil me rotten.”

She’s so excited, her face has become a blur of motion.

It’s almost not really cold outside

Temperatures are warming up, aside from the occasional relapse, so it’s time for my “It’s really darn cold outside” sale to come to a close.

This weekend is your last chance to download the Earths in Space e-book for a mere 99 cents. Monday, it’ll be back up to its usual $1.99.

Just think of all the amazing parts of things you could buy with that dollar. You could get Earths in Space and still treat yourself to one-third of a latte!

Smashword’s “Read an Ebook Week”

Lots of ebooks are on sale at Smashwords this week.

The e-book distributor is celebrating “Read an Ebook Week,” and many authors have enabled coupons for 25%, 50%, 75%, and even 100% off. The full list of participating titles is available here.

All my ebooks are in the catalogue. Enter coupon code REW50 to get RIP: Choices After Death at 50 percent off. RIP: Touch is already permanently free. Earths in Space: Where Are the Little Green Men? is temporarily free with coupon code RW100.

Yes, a free Earths in Space. The book is not enrolled in Kindle Select, so this is your chance to download it at no cost.

And don’t forget, the new digital magazine Beyond Imagination is also available for free at Smashwords and other sites.

Beyond Imagination — a FREE digital literary magazine

Beyond Imagination, a new digital literary magazine, has launched. You can download the first issue for FREE at Smashwords and other fine online retailers.

The first issue includes one of my short stories, “Blaming Bloman,” a satire about a pretentious play.

Unlike most of my work, this story does have some profanity, but not nearly as much as a Kevin Smith movie.

At least eighteen other authors have contributed to this magazine, so please take a look and enjoy!

Rules

I just started re-watching Veronica Mars, and I noticed something about the pilot.

It’s loaded with exposition, voice-over narration, and flashbacks — three things screenwriting experts say don’t do. And yet it works. It’s not the show’s greatest episode, but it succeeds in getting us interested in this world and situation (well, enough of us to make a movie possible several years later).

On the other hand, when the Green Lantern movie opened with voice-over exposition, I knew we were in trouble.

The lesson: Break rules skillfully, but do not break rules awkwardly. (And people say adverbs never amount to anything.)

Boys — It’s not a woman’s job to look pretty for you

When actress/writer/producer/singer/gamer Felicia Day cuts her hair, that’s all some guys can focus on.

So here’s my anti-sexism two cents.

I see it frequently in the comments sections of various websites, most often YouTube. A video features a pretty woman displaying her talents — whether it’s singing, acting, magic, whatever the case may be — and the comments become a forum on her looks. Boys discuss to what degree they would or would not “do” her, and they find no other aspect of the video sufficiently noteworthy to comment. It’s the digital equivalent of catcalling.

They act like they’re somehow owed beautiful women to ogle. They lament that a particular woman isn’t hotter, and meanwhile they haven’t exercised all week.

Remember this, boys: It’s not a woman’s job to look pretty for you.

I understand most males are genetically hardwired to appreciate a woman’s beauty. “Appreciating” is fine when done with respect. “Objectifying” is not. And in every woman, there’s a lot more than beauty to appreciate.

Now please direct your attention to the Bangles. Yes, the Bangles from the 80s. Hopefully, the sheer randomness of the example will stun some sense into you.

Watch this video of the band rocking out to “Hazy Shade of Winter.” Look beyond their appearance. Observe their eyes and how much fun they’re having. Pay attention to their talent. Notice the charisma they exude as they do what they love and excel at it. And then love them for it, regardless of whether you find them attractive.

That’s the key here. You have to love people.

Love doesn’t have to be romantic or mushy, and it shouldn’t be reserved solely for people you want to sleep with. Love is simply appreciating people for who they are — an unconditional acceptance of another person’s humanity.

Next time to you see an attractive woman, whether in person or in the media, pay attention to who she is (without any creepy staring, of course).

You may appreciate her physical beauty, too, but only as you would a work of art — and you don’t want to fondle or catcall art, right? But remember this about art: there’s always more going on than you can see. More layers of complexity exist than you’ll ever know. So much goes into the making of art — lots of good days, lots of bad days, lots of sacrifices, lots of compromises — lots of hopes and dreams — just like a lot went into making you who you are.

You’re a work of art. She’s a work of art. You’re a person, so she’s a (surely you can fill in the blank by now).

Appreciate the whole woman. She’s not there to give you pleasure. She’s there to strive toward her own dreams.

And think: If someone brightens your day — if a woman’s charm lifts your spirits — how do you return the favor? Become a man capable of brightening a person’s day. If you’re not in a position to do it for her, then help out someone else.

Going back to the whole Felicia Day haircut incident…You know what’s great about Felicia Day?

She’s found a way to earn a living doing what she loves, and she’s accomplished it with a do-it-yourself attitude. She made The Guild happen. She made Geek and Sundry happen. She’s an entrepreneur who has created things that bring joy to people. Her stuff might not be for everyone, but there’s a segment of the population out there whose lives have been somehow enriched by her efforts. Could be she’s given them a laugh or she’s let them know, “Hey, it’s okay to openly enjoy these geeky things.” And it looks like she’s enjoyed doing it.

That and more make her an amazing person. Not her haircut.

This writer played Nintendo last night. What happened is worthy of an overblown Internet headline the article can’t possibly live up to.

I indulged in some old-school Nintendo last night. The classic Ninja Turtles arcade game.

There I was, clobbering foot soldier after foot soldier, as I noticed my fingers becoming sore and stiff, and this persisted as I tore through the Technodrome and began battling Krang. I sought to employ my old strike-withdraw-strike strategy, but my fingers were not properly responding to my brain, resulting in a sluggish Leonardo.

So I hit Krang, Krang blasted me, and back and forth we went for a while. I was nearing the end of my life and decided to go for broke and launch an all-out assault — just jump in there and hack and slash away in a Wolverine-esque berserker fury until one of us fell.

I only play Nintendo a few times or so per year these days, which is probably the only reason I still have a functioning 1980s Nintendo console. But back in the day, I was quite the player. Video-game player, I mean. Whether I was Mario, MegaMan, or Michelangelo, I rose to every challenge…until my interest began to fade sometime during adolescence. Coming out of retirement last night, with my fingers refusing to cooperate as fluidly as they once did,  it was all very Dark Knight Returns.

I was down to my last hit, and Krang was glowing something fierce. The end was near for one of us, but whom? Me, the weary old Nintendo warrior who should’ve quit while he was ahead, or the evil cartoon brain with questionable taste in robotic bodies?

Finally, Krang exploded.

I had all of a second to bask in my victory from the jaws of defeat. Then Shredder arrived, split into two Shredders, and zapped me with lightning.

And, presumably, dined on turtle soup. Game over.

I learned two lessons that evening:

1) These fingers can no longer play with the skill of a 7-year-old, at least not on days I’ve kickboxed.

2) Whenever you think things are finally starting to go your way, beware of overdressed ninjas with gratuitous cloning and lightning powers they did not have in the cartoon.