Argh. This isn’t my week.
It just isn’t. Not for writing anyway.
It seems everywhere I turn lately people are talking about zombies. That should be good, right? I mean, I’m writing a YA zombie horror speculative dystpoian whatever. So all this attention should be good when I want to start querying, right?
Except everyone keeps talking about this explosion with a hint of derision in their voices. I feel a little bit the way comic books have felt for so long, as if it’s not real writing, not a real form of literature, only for kids, nothing adult or smart at all about them. I feel like this thing that I’ve worked on for two years is somehow not serious, that I’m busy spanking the trends.
But I’m not! I want to scream. When I started writing this, no one was writing about YA zombies! I’m not spanking anything! This is my story and I love it.
Yet I feel suddenly, violently, sick. Zombies are the new vampires. I swear I want to scream every time I hear someone say this. Who the hell cares? Really, who cares? This idea that trendy = superfluous invites hair pulling and teeth gnashing and attack dogs.
Clearly people like vampires. Clearly people like zombies. And also werewolves, angels, demons, killer unicorns, mermaids, and faeries. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it awesome that there are lots of people excited about these things? With lots of excitement comes publishers who want to push the excitement. That’s how they make money. That’s how we get published.
As readers, if we’re buying what’s trending, does that define our taste or does that make us idiot sheepreaders? Why can’t we like what we like and that be ok?
I love my zombies. I also love my characters and my world and the terrible things I put them all through. I love them and I will protect them from the abrasive dramarama of trending monsters.
So with my writing troubles, and the look-down-our-noses-at-zombies articles making me stir crazy, this morning I get an email from Simon & Schuster that has caused me to lay my head against my desk and cry a little. Nervous breakdown acquired.
First, a little back story. I started writing my book not long before the XBox 360 game Left4Dead (a game about zombies) came out. My main character’s name originally was Zoe Ellis. When Left4Dead was released I discovered the main character of the game’s name was also Zoey. Despite being freaked out, I decided not to change the name though.
Then Left4Dead 2 came out. I was very excited, until I started playing. A main character’s name is Ellis.
ARGH. The excitement of the new game was tempered by me swearing and stomping around my living room, handwringing and begging my husband to make it all better.
In the end I changed her name to Zoe Gray. I didn’t want comparisons. I thought this was better and easier on my nerves.
Then Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan came out. It was good… until I got towards the end and a very important sentence during an exposition freaked me out entirely because I had written almost the exact same sentence in my own book at a very crucial spot towards the end.
I was derailed for days by that one. I am now a firm believer that we are all tapping the same creative cosmos. We can’t help but cross over sometimes.
Then this morning. There’s a new zombie book being released by Simon & Schuster which looks very good. The book is called Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth. I click to check it out and…
The main character’s name is Jonah.
You don’t know this, but over the course of most of July and part of August I was in the process of rewriting most of my book to edit a new character into the story that was integral to the plot. I planned carefully how to insert him. He was perfect. A twelve year old little ball of perfect plot.
His name is Jonah. Of course it is. And we are not talking about a side character, or an unnecessary secondary character either.
Yesterday I mentioned how I feel particularly fragile right now because my words aren’t coming so easily as they usually do. Now I feel down right vulnerable. My armor is laying in piles at my feet and I could be so easily damaged it’s not funny. I love my book. I love my characters. I hold them close to me, protecting them. Of all the names, of all the sentences, of all the plots in the whole world, why do I keep finding mine scattered across my genre? If we are really all plugged in to the same creative conscious, how do we ensure we are unique?
I don’t even know what to do. I could ignore it. I could go pull every zombie-centric book off the shelves at Borders and start flipping through to make sure I’ve not crossed ideas with anyone else. I could plug my ears and, like reviews, not listen and just keep writing. I could sit in the corner of my office and clutch at my manuscript and rock back and forth until my husband has me sedated. I don’t think any of these are very fair choices.
Has this kind of writer nervous breakdown happened to anyone else? Am I just looking for coincidences where there aren’t any to worry about? Am I allowing my vulnerability to amp my paranoia?
I’m starting to see why writers tend to be solitary creatures. The world is too darn scary for me.
Sommer
My name is Sommer and I'm a writer from the Midwest. I am currently working on a YA novel about superheroes, reading as much as I can, blogging, and saving the world.
I found your post via google alerts — hope you don’t mind me chiming in! When I started writing The Forest of Hands and Teeth I was *convinced* it would never sell — who in their right mind would want zombies, esp a zombie romance and esp one written as weirdly as mine was? I just kept writing it because it’s the book I wanted to write — I loved it — and it was the best thing I’d written at that point. I think sometimes you just have to close off all the external noises that get in the way of what you want to write — don’t worry about names, those can change with a quick find and replace (Maggie Stiefvater talks about how her werewolf Sam has the same name as a wolf in the Twilight Saga — she almost had to change it). And Dying to Live came out a few years ago I think — this must be a re-release?
I think at their most basic, so many zombie stories are similar (survival) but in the telling they vary widely. I’ve been where you are and I wrote the book I wanted to write. If you love it, just keep writing — that’s my motto! You can worry about the rest later
No, no, Carrie, why would I want the author of one of my favorite series, nevermind the zombies, chiming in?
Kidding! I’m sort of paralyzed with admiration that you stopped by to give me a pep talk. So thank you thank you. This is exactly why I love the YA community so much.
I didn’t know about that happening to Maggie Stiefvater. What’s funny is that when I read Shiver, the name Sam never made me connect to the Twilight Sam. Maybe because they are so very, very different. Which makes me think maybe Elena is right and that I see the coincidences because I am too close to my subject. No one else will probably make the same connection.
I double checked my email and you’re right, Dying to Live came out before, it was just one of their featured Sci-fi Fantasy books in the same email as their new releases.
Alright, deep breath. I DO love what I’m writing, and it is unique despite all the weird name issues I’m having. After my break down yesterday (maybe burn out is a better description?) I started doing some editing of a chapter I’m particularly proud of and it reminded me that I’m doing just fine. That it will all be ok, one way or the other.
I love it, so I’ll just keep writing. Best advice, really, that any writer can get. Thank you so much Carrie.
Honey, you’ve got to finish writing your book before the cosmonauts write it first.
That Jonah thing is a little too close for comfort, though… just when you’d settled on a good name for him, too.
ever heard of zeitgeist? here let me put up a linky for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist
there is no real reason for this phenomenon, but it’s kinda a good thing to tap into as far as marketability. this means you will be coming up with things as the trends fall, not following trends- if you get my drift.
i wouldn’t worry too much about those name coincidences, and stuff. really IF anyone notices, they’ll probably think the names are paying homage to the genre. but seriosly, zoey and jonah are both really common names in america right now (or at least four years ago when i was working postpartum- i swear most girls were zoey or choe!) so don’t sweat it! the one sentence thing though- since you noticed it, you might tweak… just to avoid trouble in the future. but really, it is not plagurism… the saying great minds think alike came from somewhere, you know. (although i personally prefer when the genie said “great minds think for themselves!”)
smile sommer! i’m rooting for you! (mostly because i really want to read the wilds, but also just for you!!)
get back to work!
happy writing!
As soon as I realized the sentence thing I rewrote the paragraph, and then ended up rewriting the ending anyway so it didn’t matter, but I had one of those rushes of terror-guilt like I’d done something wrong when I read it. I knew it was impossible but still. So weird.
Zeitgeist. That’s kind of awesome. Thanks for sharing! I’ve never heard the term before but now I want to use it everywhere I go. It’s a good word.
I think you’re definitely too close to it. Readers-at-large are not going to make any of those connections, and agents and publishers probably won’t either. I think as long as you’re not re-hashing the PLOT of another zombie novel, you’re good to go. All this means is that something is tugging you along a path that will lead to your success! If you’re choosing the same things as other story lines in popular culture, you must be on the right track!
You’re very right about being too close to it. I’m sure I’m the only one who notices these things.
Hah! I never thought of it that way, but maybe it’s a good omen that these things keep happening. Thank you for giving me silver lining! I really needed that today.
Oh, that all sounds frustrating! Perhaps frustrating doesn’t quite cover it even. It find that when things seem to be going wrong one-after-another eventually things go in the other direction (they have to, right?). Worst case scenario, you use this craziness as the plot for your next book! In the end of the story it could be discovered that zombies are real and not at all scary or harmful or interesting and the genre dies and your protagonist writer moves on to writing chick lit or something. It could be very funny…you’re tempted right? Anyway, hope things start to go your way soon! Sorry about the cosmos.
You made me crack up, thank you!!
I’m incredibly tempted to write a sassy contemporary zombie novel now. Yes. Very tempted indeed.
Irony, oh irony. I am writing the book that I am writing because my husband and I got into it two years ago over Twilight and at the end of the conversation he was like, “Well at least no one is writing a zombie romance.” and I huffed and was all, “*I* could write a zombie romance.” and then he double dog dared me and it was all down hill from there.
(Although it’s a lot more YA horror than YA romance. I’m not sure I met the dare properly or not.)