Authorpreneur Dashboard – E E Isherwood
Since the Sirens
Science Fiction & Fantasy
If you think surviving the Zombie Apocalypse is hard, try it with your 104-year-old great grandmother in tow. 15-year-old Liam is faced with just that scenario when he gets banished for the summer to live with Grandma Marty in the city. They leave her house with high hopes of a quick drive to the suburbs—where Liam hopes to dump her off on his parents. However, nothing is ever that simple when civilization is in collapse and the infected dead are knocking on doors. A fan of zombie literature, and guided by the lessons of those books, Liam does his best to help her across the dying city. Grandma prays for a miracle the entire time, but when swarms of zombies chase a woman who can't walk more than ten feet unassisted, will one miracle be enough?
Book Bubbles from Since the Sirens
Maple Syrup
Writing about the zombie plague is great fun. The number of possible causes for the plague could fill a good-sized book. In my story, the main character is walking in a crowd of people and everyone has their own theory how it started. Despite having access to the most advanced communications network in history, I believe the number of rumors and Internet trolling will quickly swamp the truth. It would also be a useful tool for any group that was at the forefront of creating or accidentally releasing a plague. Hide the truth in plain sight, among all the crazy theories. In this passage, the craziest is that the Canadians did it...
New Book Cover
As an indie author I've tried to do my best on all the key elements of writing and promoting a book. Good editing, an attractive cover, a good story, and marketing. However, as the book sold well I realized if I wanted it to keep going upward I'd have to invest money. So I had an editor look it over and make a few changes and I threw a few bucks at a cover designer. I'm so pleased by the result! I want to walk around with my book in my hand showing it to complete strangers. :)
Naming things in books
Before I started writing I was always impressed by the use of names in books. But when I started to write my own books I realized that my method of naming things was much less impressive. Many names I just pulled out of the air--whatever name struck me first was often the one I chose. Most times, weirdly, the names fit perfectly. In this passage, I reference Raptor HQ as the call sign of the Army commander guarding Illinois from the infected in St. Louis. Raptor is the name of my PC! If you ever see "talon" show up in my later books, that's because it is the name of my laptop! Did I just give away the magic? :)
Using Chapter Titles
I love chapter titles. As a reader I like having discrete transitions in the story, but as an author what I really enjoy is taking the time to bookend my chapters with titles that add something to the overall story. At first I thought nothing of it--it was just a way to describe the action contained within. But later, as I got into my second and third books, I began to take chapters more seriously. For this chapter, "The Long Way" it ties into Liam's love of classic music (he mentions Supertramp's song The Long Way Home in an earlier chapter) and it ties in perfectly to the moment he does arrive in the sight of his home, but he is faced with many challenges before he can get inside. The first is seeing his great grandma as she escapes from her sick nurse.
Starting a trilogy
My first chapter was originally a short story I wrote after the passing of my 104-year-old great grandmother. The title of that story was simply "104" as a marker of her age. When I found I wanted to write more about her, I dropped elements of that short story into this first chapter. Then, since I was writing about the collapse of civilization during a great plague, I somehow noticed that 104 in roman numerals was CIV. What a coincidence! Much of my series explores the nature of coincidence, though that realization only came much later in the writing process when I started to see patterns. This excerpt shows Grandma Marty's day, and the phone call that would change her life.
