Glancing at my website just now, I was shocked to see the ‘zombies’ tag was so tiny. It seemed to sad and lonely at the bottom of the group of tags that I felt like it needed a little more attention than that. For no other reason, I came up with this:
5 Ways Zombies and Writers are alike.
**Time for Daryl to turn in his crossbow for a thesaurus. Sorry TWD fans!
5. We drink coffee like they eat brains. Seriously. Just like a zombie can’t see anything but their next meal, we writers often can’t even begin to think straight without our mug of coffee clasped tightly in palm. True, there may be some writers out there who don’t drink this dark, delectable beverage. I wasn’t able to locate all five of them for this post, but I can say, I’ve run across at least 1 writer who fits in the ‘tea drinking’ category. Let’s face it: coffee drinkers = brains eaters. Enough said.
4. The haggard, undead look we both carry around. Writers are weird. We carry little books around, talk out loud to ourselves and are prone to write at any time of day. Sometimes at night. Often at night. But unlike our zombified-friends, the world won’t stop turning for us when we wake up the next day and realize we only got three hours sleep because we just had to write chapters four, ten and eighteen in our book before the world imploded. Hence, we may look dead sometimes. I assure you, we are not.
3. The relentless pursuit of an idea (or brains). We writers are also a stubborn bunch. We get an idea and we just won’t let it go. Got a character who needs to know taekwon do and we know nothing about it? No problem! We’ll sign up for a class to learn more! At risk of bodily injury, yes, but it’s for the good of the book. Who cares about a few bruised ribs? Students in school search the internet or read a textbook to learn something. But for us writers, that’s just not good enough. We go there. We risk injury, embarrassment, possible jail time and sometimes death, just to get that experience for our book. We’re hard core, dude.
2. The dreaded horde that gathers for social purposes. Zombies horde together to find food. We horde together for conferences, meetings, gatherings and anything else that touts to make us better at our craft. Whether the meeting is a few hours or a few days long, held online or at a local diner, writers make time when it comes to meeting together. Especially if there’s a chance for work critique. The next time you overhear a group debating the word count between a short story vs a novella, or whether they’re plotting or pantsing their current WIP, steer clear and run. Fast.
1. We live in a world of fiction. Zombies aren’t real. While writers are real, the stories we create are usually not. When else can you sky dive without actually getting on a plane? Or go skinny dipping in your PJ’s at 6:30am? (See one of my previous posts.) Writers are adrenaline junkies. We love fantasy, action, romance, mystery… we just can’t get enough. So we write. And read. Then write some more. We choose to live in a world that doesn’t exist because, frankly, it’s just more interesting than the one we’ve got. What shall I do today? Fold piles of laundry or become a princess who fights a dragon and saves the prince? (Yeah, you read that right 😉 ) Living inside our heads is way more fun. It’s getting us to come back to reality that can be the challenge…
What other ways are writers like zombies? Got any ideas? I’d love to hear your comments below!
Happy reading, friends!
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