Guest Post: Rusty Fischer, author of My Brother, My Zombie

YA Paranormal

Emma has only one guard shack left before she releases her brother into the zombies-only zone, or the Z-Zone, as the locals call it.

Along the way she keeps Sam docile with a plastic container full of raw meat and the only six commands he knows to obey. He doesn’t understand what’s about to happen to him, but she does.

If only letting him go was as easy as saying goodbye.

Ideas Are My Alarm Clock: A Guest Post About Creativity by Rusty Fischer, author of My Brother, My Zombie. I can’t remember the last time I set my alarm clock, and yet I always manage to get up really early. Mostly, it’s because an idea has popped my eyes open and has me jumping out of bed, reaching for a scrap sheet of paper to scribble it down on.

Like this morning; I knew I had a guest post to do, and I’d been struggling with what to write about for days, when suddenly, 6 AM, boom; I woke up with this thought: “I don’t need no stinkin’ alarm clock because ideas are my alarm clock.” And that’s how this guest post came to be!

For the longest time, I would just let those ideas scatter with the mist and fall back to sleep, but now I know better.

My new Reanimated ReadZ story, My Brother, My Zombie, started out like that. I knew I had a new story due in the series, but had NO idea what I was going to write about. Then my little brother stopped by for a visit, and we were laughing about stuff and having a good time, and the next morning I woke up and had it: What if my little brother became… a zombie?!?

So hold onto your ideas; don’t let them go, even if they happen at 3 or 4 in the morning. I have these little cubes of paper all around the house; I call them “idea cubes” and you can get them anywhere, the dollar store, Wal-Mart, crafts stores, whatever. They’re basically a deep box with, like, 500 sheets of sticky note size paper, just without the sticky stuff. Every time I get an idea, I don’t have to race around anymore to find a pen and paper; I just reach for an idea cube -- by my bed, in my office, in the bathroom (!) -- and jot it down. I may not use it right away, but it’s there just in case.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into how one writer works, and I hope you enjoy my new story, My Brother, My Zombie even more!!!

Yours in YA,

Rusty

About the Author

Rusty Fischer is the author of Zombies Don’t Cry, as well as several other popular zombie books, including Panty Raid at Zombie High, Detention of the Living Dead and the Reanimated Readz series of 99-cent living dead shorts.

Rusty runs the popular website Zombies Don’t Blog @ www.zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com. At Zombies Don’t Blog you can read more about Rusty’s work, view his upcoming book covers and read – or download – completely FREE books & stories about… zombies!