Colin M. Drysdale's Blog, page 6

What Do Halloween, Movember, Christmas Parties And Selfies Have In Common?

This time of year seems packed full of events which cause me all sorts of problems, and all of them have the same thing in common: they mean I struggle to recognise anyone. You see, unlike most people, I don’t recognise people by their faces. Instead, I use all sorts of other cues, like hairstyles, facial hair, how they stand or walk, the way they usually dress and the place I usually see them in. This means that when people start dressing up in costumes, or growing moustaches for charity, or putting up their hair and donning their Sunday best for the annual Christmas party, many of those cues I rely on to recognise them suddenly disappear, and I’m left standing amongst strangers, even though I may have known the people concerned for years.

When I bump into someone I usually see in jeans and t-shirts in a suit or cocktail dress, I can be talking to them for a good five or ten minutes before it finally dawns on me who they must be. Even then, I still don’t recognise them, and I’m not infrequently completely wrong, and that can be very awkward, especially when I end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person because I’d mistaken them for someone else (I once asked after a colleague’s husband only to given a cold stare as I was told in no uncertain words, ‘He’s still shacked up with his graduate student!’ – I’d thought she was someone else completely, and if I’d recognised her I wouldn’t have raised what was such a touchy, and scandalous, issue).

Now at this point I should explain something. I’m not as crazy as this can make me sound. Rather, I have a condition called Prosopagnosia. This is something that, as far as I know, I was born with, and that I didn’t even know I had until I started writing my first novel. It’s strange to suddenly find out in your forties that your brain doesn’t actually work the same way as everyone else’s, and that something that you never knew was even possible, everyone else does in a split second without even thinking about it. You see, Prosopagnosia is also known as face blindness, and it means that in my brain, the part which others use to recognise the faces of people they’ve previously met in an instant, even if it’s years later, just doesn’t function the way it should. It’s not that I can’t see faces, or judge whether someone is good-looking or not (I get asked that one a lot), it’s just that the moment someone turns away, I’ll have little or no recollection of even the basics of what they look like. And it’s not just a matter of me not paying enough attention, I can stare at their face for minutes (now that can freak people out!), desperately trying to commit it to memory only for it to vanish the moment they’re gone.

This coming week, my abilities will be tested and found wanting yet again when I teach my annual class at my local university. I’ll have fourteen students in the small seminar room I use and I’ll have to do some pretty fancy manoeuvring to make sure that I don’t end up calling anyone by the wrong name. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to try to minimise the chance of this, like getting them all to introduce themselves to each other at the start as I quickly scribble down who is sitting where. The only trouble is that students have a tendency to change places, and I can hardly force them not to (they are grad students after all, and they probably wouldn’t appreciate being treated like first graders). This means I’m having to constantly update my diagram as they trade seats after every break. This is fine if I notice, but if they do it when I’m out of the room, I’ll have no chance. It doesn’t help that over the course of the several days I’ll be teaching them, they’ll change their clothes, or suddenly decide to wear their hair differently, making a difficult problem so much worse.

Of course, to some extent, I can get away with it by simply not referring to any of them by name, but that won’t stop the next problem I’ll have. This is the annual departmental Christmas party which will be held in a few weeks time. Those same students who I’ll be teaching next week will be there, mixed in amongst the faculty, research fellows and PhD students, some of whom I’ll have taught in previous years, and I won’t have a hope of recognising any of them, even though one of them is my own brother. I know this sounds extreme, but, then again, I struggle to recognise my own face in a mirror or a photograph, and when I close my eyes, I cannot summon up any sort of an image of what my face looks like beyond a vague blur.

This is where my dislike of selfies comes in. Selfies, almost by their definition, exclude all the elements I use to recognise people as they are usually little more than a face with nothing else in shot. Worse, most are shot from a high angle looking down, an angle I will almost certainly never have seen someone at before, and that means I’ll have little chance of working out who it is I’m looking at. To me, selfies, are pretty much meaningless shots of complete strangers, no matter how well I know the person involved and even if I’m told who it is that took it.

Of course, there are plus sides. When I write, I tend to be really good at describing how people are standing, or moving around, they way they play with their hair when they’re nervous or the little mannerisms that make them them. This is because, to me, it is this, rather than their faces, that makes people individuals. I do need an editor to remind me to put in at least some facial descriptions every now and then, but the other details really help to make the characters come alive within the readers head.

This is not to say that I don’t sometimes wish that I was better at being able to recognise people from their faces alone, just like everyone else, because there are times when I do, but as I’ve never known what it’s like to be able to do this, I can’t really miss it. It must be worse for people who develop face blindness because of an illness or accident (which can happen), because they’ll know they can no longer do something that they used to be able to. For me, it’s just normal (well, normal for me at any rate).

So, if you happen to bump into me at some special occasion over the next few weeks, and I seem to ignore you, ask yourself is it because I’ve forgotten you? Or that I’m blanking you? Or that I’m simply being rude? Or it is, and this is much more likely, because you’re wearing a fancy dress costume? Or you’re all dressed up for a good night out? Or that you’ve suddenly decided to sprout a moustache for the month?

Of course, the chances are that if you smile at me and talk to me as if we’ve known each other for years, I’ll smile back and shake your hand, and say, ‘It’s nice to see you’. This I’ve learn is a perfectly neutral response that you can say to anyone even if you don’t know whether you know them or not. Say ‘It’s nice to meet you’ to someone you’ve already been introduced to or, worse, know quite well, and they’ll feel slighted that you’ve forgotten them. Greet a stranger that you’ve never met before like an old friend, and they’ll think you’re crazy. Or that you’re after something. But say ‘It’s nice to see you’ and the old friend will be quite happy thinking you mean it’s nice to see them again. The complete stranger will be happy to because they’ll think you’re just pleased to make a new friend. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least it means I can get through most social functions without accidentally insulting too many people.

It is, however, easier just to avoid such situations in the first place, and maybe that explains why I only teach one class a year (and a small one at that – I’d have no chance in a class of 30, or 60, or 100), and maybe that’s why I only go to social functions filled with lots of people if I really can’t avoid them. It certainly explains why I don’t grow a moustache for Movember and why, unlike what seems like everyone else on the planet, I’ve never taken a selfie in my entire life. After all, what would be the point of taking a selfie when there’s a good chance that I wouldn’t even be able to recognise myself in it?

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

A Zombie Apocalypse Approach To Minimalism

Last Monday, I went along to an event held by a couple of Americans who were in town promoting their book on Minimalism. Minimalism, for those of you who have not encountered it before (and I only did so recently thanks to my girlfriend, who is really into it), is an approach to life that suggests it can be greatly enhanced by concentrating on only having things in your life (possessions, relationships and so on), if they actually add value to it. This isn’t value in the monetary sense, but in terms of making your life better.

When you start thinking about things in this way, it’s amazing how much stuff you have in your life which not only do you not need, but that actually makes your life worse. Think of the last gadget which you bought on a whim, when was the last time you actually used it? Does owning it actually improve your life in any way? Does it make you more content? Couldn’t the money you spent on it have been put to a better use?

This, then, is the basis of Minimalism, and in a world where we are increasingly judged by what we have rather than who we are, it’s becoming ever more popular. However, the pursuit of stuff is so ingrained into our daily lives that it can often be difficult to work out where to start hacking away at all the things which make our lives worse so that you can concentrate on the things which make it better. This is where a zombie apocalypse approach to Minimalism can help.

So, what is the zombie apocalypse approach to Minimalism? Well, it’s quite straight forward, just ask yourself this: If there was a zombie apocalypse tomorrow, and I suddenly found myself fighting for my life, what would I actually miss about my current life? You really have to think about this, and be honest with yourself, I mean would you really miss the 42 inch plasma TV which you bought on your credit card and which the payments for are slowly bleeding you dry? What about your work colleagues who you spend most of your time socialising with out of mere convenience rather than because you actually have any sort of a meaningful relationships with any of them? What about your job? Your partner? Your poky little flat that cost a fortune (which it is, incidentally, no longer worth) and that you have to work yourself to death for just to pay the mortgage? What about your weekly trip round Ikea, buying things for your house that mean nothing to you, but which you have to spend several hours dusting each and every week ?

When you look at your life this way, it quickly becomes apparent that most of the stuff in your life not only isn’t essential to it, but you wouldn’t actually miss if it was all taken away from you tomorrow. If this is the case, then why do you insist on having it in your life in the first place?

Minimalism isn’t necessarily about not treating yourself or not buying something you really need or giving all your stuff away (although some choose to do this, but that it up to them). Instead, it’s about living a simpler, less complicated life which is filled with things that add to it, rather than things you think you should have.

Sub-consciously, I think I’ve always known this, and I think this is one of the reasons I both read and write post-apocalyptic fiction (my short story, When The Comet Came, is a prime example of this, with its rant against the ills of modern life). In this genre, all the trappings of the modern world are stripped away, and the reality of life is laid before you. Finally, you can see what is important, and it’s not having the latest i-phone. Instead, it is about surviving and making sure that those you love survive alongside you. It’s about coming together, creating a community, working with others to build a better life. It’s about the thrill you get out of doing something and not just owning something. Minimalism has simply put a name to something I think I have always felt.

One of the things which has brought this to my attention recently is the time I have been spending teaching a friend’s daughter how to drive. For the past few years, I have spent a lot of my time writing (both fiction and non-fiction) and building up a small business to pay the bills so that I can spend more time writing, but this has come the cost of not spending much time with friends and relatives. In fact, I’ve probably been very neglectful of them all, which I can only apologise for. Now, the accepted view by many in Western society, would be that this is not only right, but that you need to concentrate on earning money, so you can buy the stuff that lets everyone else know how successful your life is. After all, that’s what’s important in life, being successful, isn’t it?

However, taking time away from work to teach someone to drive has reminded me that success isn’t about how much you earn or how much stuff you have. Instead, it’s about doing good in the world and leaving your mark upon it. If I take the time to teach someone to drive, then that’s a skill they’ll have for life. Surely, that’s a far greater mark of success than having enough money to buy the latest ipad the instant a new one is released? It also let’s them know that I think they are important enough to me to make the effort to do this in a way that just paying for them to have driving lessons does not. Finally, seeing the look on someone’s face when you teach them a new skill, and then when they finally succeed in doing it for the first time on their own, is priceless. It’s the type of thing which you know you will look back on when you’re in your dotage and it will give you a warm fuzzy feeling deep inside. Will thinking back on any of the stuff you buy ever do that? No. And the chances are that you won’t even remember you ever owned it in the first place!

Of course, Minimalism isn’t for everyone, but it seems to me that those who adopt it, in any of its myriad of forms, are much more content with their lives than those who don’t. I certainly know that making more time for friends and family, and doing things with them (or for them) rather than just buying them stuff they don’t really need every Christmas and birthday, not only makes me happier, it makes them happier too.

So, if you have a few minutes to spare today, why not sit back and have a think about your life: If a zombie apocalypse were to happen tomorrow, what bits of it would you actually miss? If you’re really honest with yourself, you might just be surprised by the conclusions you come to.

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

The Creature – A Short Horror Story About A Sailor Lost At Sea

The rubber floor of the life raft ripples beneath me. It wasn’t the usual ripple I’d got used to over the last few weeks, caused by the waves, the one that undulates gently up and down as the raft is lifted, in turn, by each wave before being dropped again. This ripple is different: it’s faster, more purposeful, as if something big has just swum beneath the raft. Almost as soon as I feel it, it’s gone and the life raft goes back to conforming to the slow, laborious roll of the ocean waves. Maybe it was just my imagination; maybe I’m starting to hallucinate: after all, I haven’t eaten in more than a week, and the single sip of water I now ration myself to each day is barely enough to keep me alive, let alone sane. Then I feel the ripple again. This time it’s slower, more deliberate and I feel whatever it is pass under my legs as I sit with my back against the inflated rubber ring which forms the side of the life raft. I try to estimate its size by the time it takes to pass under me, but all I can tell is that it’s big: eight feet, ten, maybe fifteen or even twenty, who knows, but something that big and this far from land could only be one of two things: a shark or a whale. I feel around and open the side of the orange tent which forms a roof over the life raft, protecting me from the intense tropical sun during the day, and the rain storms at night, but it’s too dark to see anything. There must be clouds overhead, because I can’t see the stars. In fact, and I know this because I try it, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I listen, hoping to hear the tell-tale whoosh and whup of a whale breathing out and then back in again, but the only sound is that of the waves lapping gently against the side of the life raft. I zip the flap closed again, trying to shut out whatever it is that’s outside, and stare down at the floor. It’s as dark in here as it is outside so I know I can’t see anything, but I stare nonetheless, my eyes searching the darkness in the vain hope of seeing something that will tell me what’s underneath me.

I feel the ripple once more, and then I feel the floor of the life raft lift as if something is pushing it up from below. Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be losing interest and if anything it’s growing bolder. A few seconds later, something bumps against the side of the life raft, hard enough to make it shudder and throw me sideways onto the floor. I can feel the panic start to rise inside me, but I don’t break out into a cold sweat. At first, I wonder why; then I realise I’m too dehydrated. My body is shutting down all non-essential reactions to save what little water it has left, and that includes sweating, no matter how scared I am.

For a moment there’s silence, then I hear something slap against the rubber. It’s forceful and sends a shiver across the life raft, almost as if the raft itself is shaking with fear. I try to swallow, but I can’t, again because of the dehydration and my body’s response to it. I feel the floor of the life raft lift a second time as whatever it is pushes up from below once more. If it’s doing that with its head, then the creature which is stalking me in the darkness is truly massive, because I can tell by the movement that its several feet across. I clutch to the side of the raft, not knowing if I should try to move out of the way, or remain as still as possible. Eventually, the floor flattens out again and the creature moves away. Only then do I realise I’ve been holding my breath and I let it out with an audible sigh. A second later, the creature hits the life raft again: this time it’s not a gentle, exploratory push, it’s a full on attack, as if the creature is trying to break through the rubber floor. Somehow it must be able to sense my presence within the life raft and it’s determined to get me, but the rubber holds, thwarting its intent.

The seconds slowly tick by, and nothing more happens. They turn into minutes and still the creature hasn’t returned. Maybe it’s given up, maybe it’s realised it’s too difficult to get me and has gone off to seek easier prey. Maybe … My thoughts are interrupted by something ramming the side of the life raft, pushing it through the water as if it were attached to a powerful engine. I cling on for dear life, worried I might be tipped into the water, but thankfully this doesn’t happen. Instead, after what seems like an age, the life raft starts to slow, and then stop. My heart is pounding, but above the noise this is making in my ears, I can hear something else. It takes me a moment to realise that it’s the sound of air leaking from the life raft. Desperately, I feel around in the dark, trying to find the hole, but I can’t. All around me, I can feel the life raft getting softer and softer as it slowly deflates and sinks lower and lower into the water. Again, the creature pushes up from below, causing the rubber floor to bend and deform beneath me. It seems to be searching for me, trying to work out exactly where I am, and how it can get to me.

I cannot see it, but I sense intelligence in its actions. Not human intelligence, but something colder, more analytical and more predatory. This is a creature that’s used to getting its own way. I feel the first wave slop over the side of the life raft; it won’t be long before it sinks and I end up in the water. I unzip the flap in the roof again so that I won’t be trapped inside as the raft continues to collapse around me, but I’m unwilling to abandon it quite yet. It might not offer me much protection, but it’s better than nothing and outside in the inky blackness, it will be just me and the creature. Humans are used to being top dog, but out here, to it, I’m nothing more than prey. It bumps against the side of the life raft again, impatient to get at the tasty morsel it knows is inside. I try to think of something I can do, but my brain has frozen. I know I’m going to die, and my brain can’t cope with it. The creature rams the raft again, and I hear more air hissing out into the night. There’s now so little of it left in the raft that it’s not much more than a flaccid mass of rubber that’s barely keeping itself above the waves. I can hear the creature circling me, splashing the water with its tail as it turns. While I can’t see anything in the dark, it seems to have no trouble knowing exactly where I am. It’s toying with me, and we both know it. All I can do is hope that when the end comes it’s quick, but somehow I know that this isn’t the end the creature has planned for me. Somehow, I know it wants to make me suffer. The very thought of what’s going to happen makes me want to be sick, but I have nothing to bring up, so all I can do is dry heave. The longer the end is drawn out, the more I lose control of my body, the fear of what’s to come is tearing me apart, ripping at my very soul.

I hear myself yelling at the creature, alternating between begging with it to leave me alone and urging it to hurry up and get it over with. Unsurprisingly, the creature doesn’t respond, it just continues to circle. It’s in total control, and I know it’s the one who will decide when I die. All I can do is wait, cowering in the darkness, trembling with fear, until it decides that I am finished. I try to block out what’s going to happen to me, but I can’t. I can hear screaming, and even though I know it must be me, it seems like it’s coming from somewhere other than my own body. I feel the life raft finally start to sink beneath me and I claw my way out just as it disappears into the depths. Instinctively, I find myself treading water, but I don’t know why. The creature brushes against me, and I can feel the roughness of its skin tear at my flesh as it passes, but still I cannot see it. Death is coming for me and yet I’m blind to it. Somehow this makes it worse. If I could see it, I could prepare, but I can’t. I don’t know why, but suddenly a calmness settles over me and I lie back, floating on the surface, arms held out, almost as if I’m offering myself to the creature, giving myself to it as if I’m some sort of sacrifice to a god I don’t believe in. At least this way, death will be on my terms and not its, and I will meet my fate face on, with open arms. I know I won’t survive for long, but at least my death will be my own.

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This isn’t quite my usual type of short story, particularly as it lacks even the slightest hint of the undead, but it’s an idea that has been floating around in my head for sometime and I finally had time to get it down on paper. I don’t know quite where it came from, but I liked the idea of a lone sailor being stalked by something unseen that’s lurking in the darkness beneath him. It provides an interesting perspective from which to explore the concept of our own mortality. Unseen, it haunts us, just as the creature in the story haunts the lost sailor, lurking in the darkness that is our future. Yet, we shouldn’t necessarily fear it, for a life lived in fear is no life at all. Instead, we should embrace it and use the knowledge that we will, one day, die to ensure that we make the most of whatever time we have left available to us: enjoy life, do good, be nice to others, make sure you leave the world a better place than when you arrived in it, and don’t let the fear of what fate might have in store for you get it the way of living your life the way you wish to live it right now. Happy Friday!

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

Creating Good Bad Guys For Zombie Apocalypse Novels

When writing zombie apocalypse novels, the would-be writers often concentrate on their heroes, reluctant or otherwise. They spend hours building them up, crafting their back stories, working out their relationships with the other characters – who they love, but cannot tell, who they get along with, who rubs them up the wrong way and why. This brings the heroes to life in the readers minds and mean that they care about whether they live or die.

However, every good story needs not only heroes, they also need something for the heroes to strive against. In a zombie apocalypse story, you might think that this would be the zombies themselves, but that’s not enough. While the zombies threaten the heroes survival, and create jeopardy, the one thing they don’t do is create conflict – and every good novel needs conflict of some kind. This is where the bad guys come in.

The bad guys are the ones who make life more difficult for the heroes: they get in their way, they ruin their carefully laid plans, they steal their supplies and ruin their defences. At their worst, they try to feed the heroes to the zombies just so that they themselves can escape. They’re the ones which have the readers booing and hissing (if only figuratively rather than literally) whenever they appear.

Now, you might think writing the bad guys would be easy; you just take every worst human characteristic you can think of and bring them together into one single character. The trouble is, if you simply do this, you end up with a two-dimensional stereotype who stands there twiddling the end of their moustache while cackling megalomaniacally, and that just doesn’t work for anyone. This is because unless your bad guys are believable, they will come across as being implausible and that breaks the connection between the story and the reader. Your bad guys need to be human, and to some extent, their actions have to be understandable, or at least consistent with their world view, because even bad guys stick to the rules – they might be a rather twisted set of rules that only applies to them, but they stick to them none-the-less. This, of course, doesn’t mean that they have to be likeable, but it means that they have come across as being real. You need to reader to be thinking, ‘I’ve met people like that, I know just how much trouble they can cause’.

Just as with your heroes, you need to spend time building up your bad guys. You need to flesh them out so that the reader understands what makes them tick, and why they act the way that they do. They also need to have some redeeming qualities, whether that’s occasionally doing the right thing, pitching in to help out when it’s really needed, saving the hero, or even just being nice to children and animals. Yes, these might just be ploys to lull the good guys into a false sense of security, but they still need to be there. They help build up the bad guy and turn them into something real in the reader’s mind. After all, real people are complicated, even the bad ones, and you need to make sure this complexity comes across.

It can be hard to get bad guys just right, and it’s a very thin line between being too dastardly to be believable and coming across as being too nice to do the bad things you, the writer, are making them do. Yet, if you get this careful balancing act just right, you’ll come away with the perfect bad guy – and that’s one who the readers love to hate.

In this respect, it’s worth thinking about The Governor in The Walking Dead. Yes he’s evil, yes he’s manipulative, yes he’s clearly completely bonkers and bordering on the psychopathically insane, but he’s a great character. As a viewer, you really hate him for what he does to Rick and his friends, but there’s part of you that enjoys hating him so much. This is because his character is well enough developed that you can see how his mind is working. You can see why he does what he does and how that fits with the way he sees the world. There’s also the subplot about his daughter that makes him come across as at least partly human and leaves you wondering whether this was what tipped him over the edge, and whether he might have ended up as one of the good guys rather than one of the baddies, if only his daughter had survived and he’d had something to live for. Does this explain the hatred that clearly burns deep within him? Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s an intriguing possibility which is raised by this little hint towards a potentially interesting back story, and this makes him all the more real.

So, when you set out to populate your zombie apocalypse story with characters, remember to put as much effort into building the bad characters as you do into building the good ones. Make sure they come across as three-dimensional characters who retain at least some of their humanity, even when they’re at their worst. Their actions might not be what you would do, but they need to at least be consistent with the way their twisted little minds work. It may take time to get them just right, but all your efforts will be more that repaid by the depth they add to your finished novel.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

New Review for ‘The Outbreak’ – And It’s 4.75 Brains Out Of 5

Last week, Zombiegift.com posted their review of my latest book, The Outbreak. I’d been waiting with great anticipation, and some trepidation, for this review for a few weeks as I have great respect for those over at Zombiegift.com, and I know that they always give very good and honest reviews. So, when I found out the review had finally been posted, I paused, perspiring slightly, before clicking on the link to reveal what they’d thought of it.

Scanning through the first few sentences, it quickly became apparent that they’d loved the book, mostly because they ended the first paragraph with “… this second book is pretty damn good!” Scrolling to the end, I found that the book had scored an impressive 4.75 brains (their version of the ubiquitous star-rating system) out of a possible five. As you can imagine, this made my day.

If you want to read the full review, you can find it here, and if you haven’t already, I’d definitely recommend checking out Zombiegift.com, especially their blog and Facebook page, as they’re a great source of all things zombie, as well as running great zombie-based giveaways on a regular basis (including one at the moment which gives you the chance of winning a signed copy of The Outbreak).

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

New Moon – A Flash Fiction Zombie Story

I stare out into the night, but it’s pitch black. While the sky is clear, it’s a new moon, so there’s no light to be had apart from the distance star-shine, and that’s so faint it’s of no help what-so-ever. When the moon is full, or even just a narrow crescent, you can see them as they creep towards you under cover of darkness, the light glinting off their sallow, sagging flesh, making it seem like they’re glowing from within. I know it’s just a trick of the light, but it still sends a shiver down my spine every time I see it. Even though they’re dead, it seems they still have some intelligence. They know we can see them in the daylight and they lie low, hiding in dark, damp places waiting for nightfall before they emerge. When the sun drops below the western horizon, the main sense that keeps us safe, our eyesight, fails us, and we are rendered blind as they are. This levels the playing field and makes it easier for them to catch us by surprise. The darker the night, the more actively they roam, moving amongst the trees and across the open ground, hunting us no matter how hard we try to hide, and nights when the moon is new are the worst. Those are the nights when they swarm through the inky blackness in unimaginable numbers, wearing the night like an invisibility cloak; they attack our defences, trying to overwhelm us, pushing forward, searching for a weak spot where they can break through. They attack in small groups, swiftly and silently. If the defences hold, they disappear back into the darkness to regroup before we have a chance to kill them; if the defences don’t, they make it inside. When they do, they howl with delight as they surge through, drawing more from far and wide. We know we have mere seconds to neutralise them and restore the barricades before we’re overrun, and yet we have to do it without being able to see our hands in front of our faces, let alone each other or those who are attacking us. These are the nights we dread, and yet they come, regular as clockwork, once every twenty-eight and a bit days. We don’t need to mark them off on a calendar, we can just watch the moon expand and contract as the inevitable night of pure darkness approaches yet again, knowing what is coming, knowing that each month we’ll be lucky to make it through that moonless night unharmed. Every time the new moon comes, our numbers shrink. Sometimes we lose only one or two, at other times it’s too many to count. We’re being whittled down, new moon by new moon and it seems there’s nothing we can do to stop it. How many more we will survive, I don’t know, but one thing is certain. Eventually, a new moon will come which sees the last of us wiped out, and when the sun rises the following morning, it will shine on a world where were we are gone, and all that will be left of humanity is them.

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

Stairwell – A Flash Fiction Zombie Story

There’s a noise above me, or is there? I know they’re coming up behind me, chasing me, but fear strikes deep inside me as I realise they might be ahead of me too. I look up, craning my neck, but I can’t see anything. The stairs twist and turn, and just as I can’t see those coming up from below, I can’t see if there are any in front of me. Am I running towards more danger, even as I try to escape from the danger which is following me already? I’d pause and listen, but if I do that I’m dead because those who are pursuing me will catch me and rip me limb from limb. I know this because I’ve seen then do it to others. That was when I started running, somehow ending up in the stairwell where I’d started to climb. I began on five and now I’m twenty floors up with maybe another fifteen to go. I’ve given up trying to get out. The doors which provide access at every floor only open from the other side, designed to let people out in an emergency and not let them in. This means I’m trapped on the stairs with only two options: up or down. I can hear the howls and roars of my pursuers echoing up from below, bouncing off the bare concrete walls, disorienting me, robbing me of the ability to tell which direction they’re coming from. Why on earth did I choose up? Was it some sort of innate instinct that told me up was best? Maybe it was a lingering primal urge from when we used to live in the trees that made me want to climb in order to escape. Whatever the reason, I know now that it was the wrong decision. I should have gone down. Why the hell didn’t I go down? I could have been out on the street by now. But then again, would the street be any safer? Surely they’d be out there, too? I reach yet another landing. The number on the wall says twenty-one. My lungs are screaming from the exertion, my legs aching, but I know I need to keep going. Now I’m here, I have no choice. I glance upwards. Was that a movement I saw? A flickering shadow indicating that they’re up there, too, waiting for me? Or was it just my imagination? I’m running on fear and little else. My mind’s racing, but I can’t think straight. I look backwards. From the sound coming up from below, I can tell they’re closing in on me, but I can’t tell how close they are. They don’t seem to tire, they don’t pause, even for a moment. As I slow with every step, they seem to speed up. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there; I can hear their feet pounding on the stairs. I start climbing again, no longer even knowing where I’m going or what I’m going to do once I get there. All I can concentrate on is trying to escape, on keeping them out of sight, hoping against hope they’ll finally give up, even though I know in my heart that they won’t. I hear the noise again. I can tell that it’s closer, but I still can’t tell where it’s coming from. What can I do, but keep climbing, hoping that somehow I’ll manage to escape, even if I know that I won’t? It’s either that or I give up, and there’s something embedded in my very soul that just won’t let me do that. So onwards I go, knowing I’ll keep running, keep climbing until I can go no further. With no way out of the stairwell, what else can I do?

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

Learning To Write

At the moment, I’m helping to teach the daughter of a friend of mine how to drive (a prospect that, at first, terrified us both), and I’ve been thinking about when I learned to drive myself. Back when I first got behind the wheel it all seemed so impossible to get the hang of, especially given that here in the UK pretty much every one learns to drive in manual car and not an automatic. Now, after more than twenty years of driving, it all seems so straight forward and natural that I can do it without even thinking, but back then, it all seemed so complicated and alien, and at times I thought I’d never be able to do it. Yet, despite this, I did.

While musing on all of this, it occurred to me that learning to write is a lot like learning to drive. When you first start out, you look round at all these other people with their brilliant books, and then you look at your own raw scribbles and you think there’s no way you’ll even end up being able to produce anything even vaguely competent.

This puts a lot of budding writers off. This is because they have this amazing idea for a story in their head and when the sit down to actually write it, it turns out that it’s all a bit crap. Mostly, this is because they haven’t tried to write anything since their high school English class and even then, it was an essay titled What I Did On My Summer Holiday.

However, just like driving, it takes practice to learn how to write, and particularly to learn how to write well. Everyone knows you can’t expect to just get behind the wheel of a car and be able to drive perfectly right away, but a lot of people seem to think that the ability to write is a skill you’re either born with or you’re not. This just isn’t true. It takes a lot of hard work to learn how to write a good story, and just like learning to drive, you need to have an instructor who will give you encouraging, but honest feedback. You need someone who will read over your work and point out where it doesn’t work, and then explain why, but they need to give you praise when you get it right, too.

This means that when you’re learning to write, you need to seek out someone who’s opinion you value, but who you trust to give you honest, yet positive, feedback. This last part is important. Negative feedback, even if honest, can put you off writing forever, while over-positive feedback which isn’t honest gives you a false sense of confidence and will rob you of the chance to learn how to improve your writing skills.

So, how do you go about finding someone to give you the feedback you need as you learn how to write? This is always tricky. Your first instinct will be to go to a family member or your best friend, yet they are often the worst person to go to. This is because if they are too brutally honest, it may damage your relationship with them, and they know this. This means they will tend to avoid criticising you, even when you need criticism, because they want to preserve their relationship with you. This is not good and will do nothing to help you learn how to write. Instead, you need to find someone you trust, but you who you are distant enough from to avoid this conflict. In addition, this needs to be someone who is widely read and who knows what they are talking about.

When I first started writing, I turned to a colleague I knew from work who was also a budding author, and showed him an early draft of my first book. It took some persuasion to convince him that no matter what he said, it wouldn’t damage our friendship, but What I eventually got in return was a five-page critique and some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received. It helped me turn the book from a basic and two-dimensional story into something much more complete and compelling. Even today, I look back on that advice and remember the key issues and short-comings that it raised. Without it, I probably wouldn’t be the writer I am today.

So, just like driving, when you start out writing, it might seem at first like you’ll never get the hang of it, but with plenty of practice and some good advice you’ll get there in the end. All you need to do is stick with it and eventually you’ll get to the stage where you’ll look back and find yourself thinking ‘why did I ever think this was so difficult?’

Once that has happened, the chances are that, at some point, you’ll meet someone else who’s just starting out and that’s when you get the chance to pay something back by becoming the person who provides the advice to help them become the writer they want to become. Yet, when you do, you have to remember back to what it was like for you when you were just starting out. This is when you finally learn for yourself how to give honest, but positive, feedback to others, and through doing this, you’ll learn that helping others will make you a better writer, too.

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside … Even In A Zombie Apocalypse

In a zombie apocalypse, there are two main struggles for survival. One against the zombies and the other to get enough food to survive. Believe it or not, one of the best places to be to ease both these struggles is where the sea meets the shore. Humans have always prized such locations because of the protection they can provide and the abundance of food they offer. We know this because throughout the world, we find evidence of ancient middens made up of the shells of millions of discarded oysters, mussels and other seafood. These middens were created by humans over hundreds and thousands of years as our ancestors foraged for food. Their sheer size and the length of time over which they were laid down show just how important these habitats have always been for human survival.

Why is this? Well, twice a day, driven by the power of the moon, the sea recedes, revealing a bounty of potential food items ranging from crabs to oysters, limpets, cockles and even small fish. With even the slightest amount of effort, you can easily gather enough food to survive in just a few quick minutes, and that beats having to fight other survivors for the last remaining can of spam in some suburban supermarket.

Of course, not all shorelines are equally productive, and you need to select just the right kind of beach if, after the end of the world, you’re going to set up camp and live off the sea like so many of our ancestors once did. At first glance, you might think that a broad, sandy beach would be best, but while they are attractive to look at, they’re like marine deserts. There’s food there, but you’ll have to work hard to find it and you’ll struggle to scrape enough together just to keep you alive. Instead, you’d want to head for a rocky shore because it’s here that the real bounty lies. This is because, clinging to the rocks is seaweed, and where there is seaweed, there’s life in great abundance. When it’s covered with water, this seaweed sways majestically in the currents, and forms the marine equivalent of a tropical forest. Once the tide goes out, this forest collapses, but it pull back and you’ll see the abundant life that lies below, just waiting for you to harvest it. In as little as five minutes, you can have enough to feed you all day, leaving you plenty of time for that other crucial element, surviving the zombies themselves.

As it happens, rocky shorelines are also great places for building a safe and easy to defend camp, especially if they’re littered with small islands. It’s no accident that such islands have been used as places of safety by humans since before recorded history began. The water acts as a defensive barrier that is harder to breach than anything you could build yourself, and even marauding zombies will struggle to cross it. Why? Because, as everyone know, zombies can’t swim.

Of course, the occasional zombie may still reach an island, and that means you’ll need to have some sort of defensive structure to which you can retreat whenever danger threatens. In my native Scotland, ancient buildings, known as brochs, bare testament to how others have solved this problem in the past, but in the event of a zombie apocalypse, it is unlikely you’d have time to build such structures yourself. Instead, you’d be better off seeking out a structure that’s already there.

Luckily, rocky shorelines and islands are just the place to find a type of building that would be just perfect. What buildings are these? They’re lighthouses. Built to withhold the worst that the sea can throw at them, lighthouses are build to last. They also have a single point of entry, and small windows, often set high above the ground. Add to that a viewing platform at the top from which you can pick off any zombies which make it to your island base, and you can see why they’d make a great place to seek refuge.

So there you have it. If you select just the right location, rocky shorelines can easily meet all your zombie apocalypse needs: Food, shelter and protection, and if one were every to happen, you can bet that’s where I’d be heading. And even if there isn’t a zombie apocalypse, they’re still worth checking out, especially if you have young children. They’ll enjoy the thrill of pulling back the sea weed to see what wonders lie beneath, and while they’re having fun, they’re also learning how to forage for their own food – should the need ever arise.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

Why the waters’ edge is the perfect place to survive in a zombie apocalypse. Plenty of food (especially on rocky shores highly tidal areas, more than capable to supporting populations – as indicated by ancient shell middens laid down over hundreds of years by hunter gatherers). Can escape out to sea if attacked by zombies (assuming zombies can’t swim!) or other people. Larder opens twice a day, and on top of that fishing as well as setting traps for crabs n lobsters, spear fishing, Can find lots of potentially useful things by beach combing – the detritus of modern society washed up there, offering many useful things – what was once trash is now valuable to survival. Also makes moving around much safer (no ambushes etc) just as in days of old before land was claered and made safe

Psychopomps – A Tale Of Stolen Souls And The Creatures That Consume Them

I can feel it closing in on me, hunting me down; no matter how hard I try to escape, I can’t out-run it, or evade it. I can’t even hide from it. I know that once one of them gets your scent, that’s it. Over. It’s just a matter of time. I don’t know how long it will take before it harvests my soul, but it will, and I’ll never see it coming. No one ever does. That’s what makes the psychs so terrifying. That and what they leave behind once they’ve taken what they are seeking.

***

We’d known about psychs for years, but we’d always thought they were just ancient scare stories which had become codified into mythologies and then faded away as the world developed. Psychs, or to give them their Sunday name, psychopomps, was the term that those who studied long-lost cultures gave to the spirit guides who were said to lead the souls of the dead to whatever hereafter a culture happened to believe in. For the Greeks it was Hermes who took the souls down to the banks of the river Styx and handed them over to the ferryman. For the Roman’s it was Mercury; for the Vikings it was the Valkyries who led men who died in battle to the eternal feasting hall of Valhalla. So many names, yet without fail each and every culture had one. That should have been our first clue that they might actually be real. All those names, they all referred to the same thing. Or maybe that should be things.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, all those different names from so many different peoples and traditions had been consigned to the history books; few beyond the rarefied air of academia had ever heard of most of them, but we shouldn’t have been so hasty. There was truth in those ancient stories, and it was so terrible that it was no wonder people had chosen to mythologize them rather than admit they were real. It seemed that the psychs needed death and destruction, they needed those souls they took, they feasted on them.

In the past, they’d wait until someone’s body died, and then they’d sweep in and capture the departing soul before it could get away. They didn’t guide the souls they collected to some eternal afterlife, though, they held them captive, living off their fear, their pain, their misery until the soul they’d imprisoned evaporated away to nothing. Simply gone from the collective consciousness of the world, never to re-surface, never to be re-incarnated, never to inhabit another human body and awaken an intelligence within it.

That was before; then they changed. At first, there were just rumours: odd disappearances; tales of empty, soulless bodies, still alive but not human. Then we found out that they were real. The first clue was the empty vessels they left behind. They acted on instinct, fighting, attacking, feeding on any humans they could catch. They were brutal, savage husks that had once been human, but with their souls gone, there was no humanity left within them.

When they made their first appearance, there was talk of a virus, of zombies, of an upcoming apocalypse, but that wasn’t what happened, or what was really going on. Instead, it was the psychs. Hell made real right here on earth. No one ever quite worked out what made them change, why they started taking souls from the living rather than from the dying, but there was one reason which sounded more plausible than the rest. This was the one that said that now, with so many people on the planet and so much suffering, the psychs were becoming confused. Everywhere, there was death and destruction, so many souls being released from their earthly vessels all at once. When a psych was trying to capture a soul, waiting for the exact moment of departure before they’d pounced, they’d be distracted by the possibility of another, then another. With all these souls swirling round in the æther, they found it hard to concentrate on their chosen calling.

So much human suffering, so many dying needlessly each and every day. The psychs couldn’t cope, so instead they switched their attention to the living, harvesting their souls instead. It was easier and there were few distractions. All they had to do was select a victim and then take what they most dearly wanted, what they craved. Why they chose the ones they did was unknown, and unknowable, yet there was something about living souls that was different from dying ones. Their energy was different, it allowed the psychs not just to survive, but to thrive, to multiply until it seemed like they were everywhere, stealing souls and leaving behind the still-living human body to hunt those who still retained their humanity.

In many ways, the reasons the psychs had been released from their past confines was irrelevant. What mattered was that they were here, moving amongst us, unseen and unfelt until they locked onto you. Then you would feel something change deep inside. You’d feel your soul start to tremble within your body, and the closer the psych got, the more terrified your soul became. How it knew the psych was closing in, or what would happen to it once it had been harvested, was beyond me, but when I felt the change within me, I knew what it meant. From that moment on, I knew the fate which awaited me. I just didn’t know when it would happen. And ever since that moment, I’ve been running, trying desperately to escape the inevitable.

***

Suddenly, I feel my soul jolt, as if it has been electrocuted. It somersaults and twists inside me; I can feel the fear which is gripping it expand and take over my body. I know the psych is close. I turn this way and that, but I can find no trace of it, no indication of which direction it’s coming from. My soul starts screaming, the fearful, ungodly sound echoing through my body. Looking around, I wonder why no one else is reacting to the horrifying sound, but then I realise that only I can hear it. I am the only one who can hear my soul screaming, terrified by what is about to happen to it. Then I feel it, like an ice-cold hand on my chest. No, not on my chest: in my chest; thrusting deep within me. My soul wails and then it’s gone. The icy feeling disappears from within me, and with it goes something else. I look round and no longer do I see people. Instead, I see prey, and there are so many of them. I lick my lips with anticipation of what is about to happen. With my soul no longer present to keep my body in check, it does what it has always wanted to do and it attacks.

I watch, unable to resist, unable to stop it. As the blood starts flying, I feel my consciousness, all the things that made me me, start to fade, replaced by new, alien thoughts and unnatural urges. As I bite into my first victim, I feel a sense of elation run through me. Inside, the last of the old me blinks out and all that is left is my body, still living, still recognisable from the outside, but so different on the inside. For everything that was me has gone. The psych that stole my soul has seen to that. My body without my soul is not me, and neither is my soul without my body. I have been torn apart by something that I’d always thought never existed, that I’d thought were just old wives tales, but nonetheless they are real and I am no more.

***

I haven’t written a short story in a while (I’ve been concentrating too much on novels recently), but this mark a bit of a return to that art form. I’ll be the first to admit it is a bit of a weird one. I don’t usually do spiritual stuff, but this one definitely ventures into that realm. It was inspired by an episode of the British comedy panel show, QI, where I first came across the term psychopomp, meaning a spirit guide that lead the souls of the dead to the afterlife. What, I wondered, if such things existed and instead of waiting for people to die, they started targeting the living. And what would they leave behind?

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.