Last night I started working on the actual writing itself, and I managed to get the entire prologue and first chapter written--that's 3,756 words already, and that's really an unusually high amount for me to write in one sitting, especially at the start of a story. These are good signs that I've done my homework and my concept feels solid to me. Also, looks like this is going to be dark urban fantasy with a lot of suspense--as opposed to horror, or even sci-fi. I'm glad for that, because that's more in line with THE GUARDIAN.
I'll post the first bit of the book up here once I have more time to revise the start, but for now I'll just leave a brief description that I've cooked up. The description is adequate, I think, but not really wonderful. It's also too long to use in a query letter, and not specific enough about the ending (which I wouldn't post on my blog, anyway). So, with those caveats that this is still a work very much in progress:
In the year 2018, Elaine Levine Ward has hit the end of her rope. The Dead have ruled the earth for nearly a decade, the remaining populace of the rural town of Alden Ridge is dwindling along with its supplies, and all the happy futures Elaine ever imagined for herself are long gone. She lives in the ruins of an old electronics factory with her husband and a few other survivors, away from the main body of the town itself. Ever since That Day nine years ago, life has been little more than an endless string of tasks that have to be performed in order to just have food, warmth, and shelter from the unrelenting pursuit of The Dead. It seems that this is humanity's final hour; there have been six suicides in the town in the last year, and recently Elaine has started to entertain such dark thoughts herself. Her dreams of children, leisure, and meaning have only been pulling steadily away.
But everything starts to change when a doctor and his daughter arrive seeking solace that September. For the first time in a long time, Elaine has to start making important decisions on her own, and she is surprised to find that she can still take some kind of power in this world of horror. With this realization returns the hope that, even in a world so dominated by death and evil, she can still create that which she has been seeking all along: a good life.
Intriguing!
ReplyDeleteSounds good. :)
ReplyDeleteHave you read the Zombie Survival Guide?
I have read parts of the Zombie Survival Guide. I never had my own copy, but some friends did and I enjoyed reading excerpts from that. Some of my coworkers are into zombies in a major way, though, and got me to watch the first three George Romero movies--the originals, not the remakes.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the first two of those were quite good, and was intrigued with the general idea, but had my own ideas for a different take on it. Mine aren't flesh-eating, for one thing (yuck), and there are a lot of differences in the manner in which this story will be told. I'll have the first chapters up here sometime later this week!