Here is the story behind “Noapte buna, Mihai!” (Good Night, Mihai!), my
story included in “Zombii: Cartea mortilor vii” (Zombies: The Book of the
Living Dead), edited by Mircea Pricajean, and published by Millennium Books in March 2013.
After going through the steampunk anthology experience, I was quite
anxious to see what the next Millennium Books' project would be. And then, the
announcement was made I kind of deflated… Zombies? Really? But they’re dumb and
filthy. And I don’t write stupid characters and don’t do horror. It looked like
I would have to pass on this project. At about the same time, SRSFF was
announcing their own anthology, titled Venus—a bit too mushy for me, but it was
better than zombies. I could write about love. In the end, I managed to make it
not mushy at all, but this is another story that can be read
here.
Soon after the announcement, AtelierKult declared zombies to be the
theme of the next writing contest. That irked me a little because it meant another
door was closed. I couldn’t write about something I knew nothing about and had
zero interest in finding out more. I considered the subject closed and tried to
put it out of my mind, but a thought kept nagging me. What do you mean I can’t write it? That was a bit of an
insult to my intelligence.
So just as an exercise, I began to think about how I would write such a
thing. A story that wouldn’t focus on the gore, and it would also have to be
appealing to me or I wouldn’t waste
my time writing it. For a whole week, I spent the time before falling asleep plotting
such story. Yes, I know, not the best way to invoke pleasant dreams, but it
brought no nightmares either. In order to stay away from the gore and conceal
my lack of expertise in this field, I knew I had to find a different angle. So
I cheated. I used first person point of view and made the readers focus on the
character’s internal drama. To this, I added a bit of local flavor and made
sure my zombies didn’t stink, hehe.
After everything was plotted from the first line to the last, it was
time to do some research. I know people usually do it first, but I don’t bend
my stories around reality, I bend reality around them. Anyway, I needed to see
how zombies were portrayed in literature. My only encounter with them had taken
place during middle school while watching The Night of the Living Dead, which
caused me nightmares for a week. World War Z by Max Brooks was on top of all
zombie book lists so I gave it a try. I gave up on it after the first fifty
pages. It didn’t sound like a book I would read even without the zombies, there
was no attachment to the plot and storyline. I moved on to David Moody’s
Autumn. This one read much better, and I managed to get to the end without much
problem. It also confirmed my suspicions that I didn’t need any more information
to write my story.
I did and sent it to AtelierKult to have it critiqued and make sure I
had gotten the horror part right. I must have since it won the contest. To
those who don’t like open endings—I can’t stand them either—if you’re familiar
with my stories then you’ll have no trouble knowing how it ends once you read
the last line.
In conclusion, it’s not a challenge I would take every day, but it’s
good to step out of your comfort zone now and then and try something new,
especially when it ends with a satisfying “Yeah, I can do that too!”
P.S. I’m giving away an autographed copy to the first person who
figures out in which town the action takes place. Close friends and family are
excluded. :)
