Monday, January 31, 2011

An Even Three


The other night I went bowling and drinking (the two go hand in hand, unless you're thirteen, and even then, who knows). Sometime between drink three and drink four I got the urge to jot down a story idea but found myself without paper or writing implement. So I used the Note function on my phone, which allowed me about three thousand characters to write this:

"I am being stalked by a zombie. He's unlike other zombies in that he's completely cognizant; he sits on my front porch and taunts me. I have a porch swing and he leans back in it, kicking his feet against the rail. He says, 'Come on out, little girl,' and flashes his rotted teeth at me."

This is based on a dream I had a few nights ago about facing off with a zombie named Rickshaw. He was a bit of a gentleman until it came time to eat my brain. I shot him in the head a few times but he was unfazed. Eventually, I figured if I couldn't kill him, I would have to at least neuter him. So I got a friend to pin him down while I used a pair of pliers to pull out all his teeth. I'm not sure how any of this will factor in to the story, but there will be a story. (Which, come to think of it, was also probably partially triggered, however subconsciously, by Richard Matheson's book I Am Legend.)

Man, it has been all about zombies since November. I promise you, next month I will only post about non-zombie related things. Such as crime fiction, dystopian futures, and prostitutes. What cheery topics I choose to write about!



Friday, January 14, 2011

Writing Cover Letters Can Be Fun

Hello there, [Editors of a Contest I Don't Expect to Win]:

Attached you will find my submission for your zombie novel/novella contest, entitled EAT YOUR HEART OUT. It is a novel of approximately 50,000 words in length. Allow me to tell you a little about it:

EAT YOUR HEART OUT finds Rain, a twenty-something college drop-out, struggling to breathe new life into her relationship with her emotionally unavailable former-stripper girlfriend Carmelle in the midst of a freak zombie outbreak. After Rain is bitten by a zombie, she begins not only to fear the loss of Carmelle, but also the possible loss of her own life to the dreaded Infection. All seems lost until Rain is able to team up with a most unexpected ally - the one, the only, the ineffable Michelle Fucking Rodriguez.

Told with fast-paced, whip-smart sincerity, EAT YOUR HEART OUT is not simply a zombie satire clinging to the coattails of whatever's left of the lesbian community's infatuation with Michelle Rodriguez. Okay, it is that, but it's also a deeply disturbing exposé of the American Government's abuse of power, a chilling examination of the inextricable bond between personal identity and sexual orientation, a penetrating probe into the minds and hearts of female twenty-somethings (and Michelle Rodriguez), and one hell of a zombie quest novel. With recipes!

I'm lying about the recipes.

My name is Dayna Ingram, and I'm a writer and student living in the San Francisco Bay Area. My short stories have appeared in the literary journals Collective Fallout and Livermore Street. But none of them were zombie-related, so, meh.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Quick Update

Just to link to my website, where you can currently find a .pdf copy of my EAT YOUR HEART OUT manuscript.

http://dingram.yolasite.com/written-things.php

Also note, I found a spelling error/typo on the third frickin' page just now. Frrraaaak. Oh wells.

Enjoy!