S.G. Browne

(Author’s Note:  Since Andy tends to have a bit more “hands-on” experience with this subject, I’ll turn things over to him for this entry.)

The smell is the hardest thing to get used to.

You’d think it would be the bloating or the liquifecation of tissues or the fluid from the lungs oozing out of the mouth and nostrils.  The brain can go pretty fast, too.  Bacteria in the mouth chew right through the palate and before you can say “Night of the Living Dead,” your brain is pouring out your ears and bubbling out your mouth.

Fun stuff.

Of course, most of these problems apply to those who reanimated prior to being pumped full of formaldehyde.  (Future post alert.  Guess what F is for?)

In addition to the challenges mentioned above, if you’re unembalmed, you also have sloughage to look forward to.  That’s when the liquid leaking from the body’s ravaged cells gets between the layers of skin and loosens them, causing the skin of fingertips and toes to come off.  Sometimes, entire sheets of skin will peel away from an unembalmed zombie.  I’ve known a few melters who suffered this indignity.

But no matter what class of zombie – embalmed, freshie, or melter – the smell of undeath is almost impossible to mask.  Hydrogen sulphide leaking from various orifices, internal organs fermenting in a formaldehyde stew, the constant odor of gradually rotting meat…it’s a challenge to maintain your dignity when the stench of your rotting flesh wakes you up in the middle of the night.

You try to get it out of your hair or your clothes but no amount of Tide or Pine-Sol or bleach can get rid of the smell.  Someone should make a decent deodorant for zombies, or anything hygiene related, really.  They would make a killing.

(Next entry:  E is for Editor)

82.

That’s the number of agents who passed on Breathers in one way or another before Michelle Brower of Wendy Sherman Associates said “Yes.”  Which was a good thing, because had I hit the century mark in rejections, I was going to need some serious therapy.

This was back in November of 2007, 15 months after I’d sent out the first queries for Breathers.  12 years after I’d submitted my first novel.  18 years after I’d written my first short story when I was living down in Los Angeles and working 60 hours a week doing post-production work for Disney.

It’s a bit of a paradox, really.  When I wrote my first short story titled “The Club” back in 1990, I never thought it would take so long to reach this point.  And yet everything seems to have happened so quickly.

Two months after offering me representation, Michelle had an offer on the table from Broadway Books.  A little over a year later, my book is being published and the film rights are being sold.  Surreal.  Bizarre.  Wonderful.  Pick an adjective.  Any adjective.  Then insert HERE____________________.

Although I can’t say I had a clear cut idea of what I hoped for in an agent, Michelle is everything I could have wanted.  The simple fact that she believed in me when so many others didn’t was enough.  But I can’t imagine finding anyone better to guide me into the publishing world than Michelle.

Okay, put away the hankies and the tissues.  I’m just saying that my agent is a rockstar.

Next entry:  B is for Breathers.  (Big surprise.)

Okay, I realize I said I was going to start writing Breathers from A to Z two months ago, but number one, I realized the timing was off. And number two, I’m a lazy blogger.

Part of that has to do with the fact that I’m just not comfortable sharing personal information. Politics. Religious beliefs. How many bowel movements I have each day. Not really something I want to talk about.

I prefer to stick with the whole writing thing. The occasional flash fiction. Perspectives from Andy. Maybe some insight into what happens when I sit down at the keyboard.

So since I’ve had several interviews and a number of future fans already wondering how I came up with the idea of Breathers and what it was like writing as a zombie and how long it took me to find an agent, I thought I’d start a running blog, twenty-six entries, going over the process of Breathers from A to Z.

Now, similar to Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk, this isn’t going to be the type of blog that goes “And then. And then. And then…” It’s going to jump around a bit depending on the letter and how much caffeine I’ve consumed on any particular day. And on those days when I want to sleep in, I’ll have Andy fill in for me to add the zombie’s point of view on the whole process.

So starting on Tuesday, I’ll post the first entry, A is for AGENT. Because really, I wouldn’t be writing this without her.

So when I get home today, I find a thick, padded envelope from my editor sitting on top of the mailboxes in my apartment building.  I know what’s in the envelope because my editor e-mailed me two days ago to tell me it was on the way.  But I don’t rip it open right there.  I have three bags of groceries from Trader Joe’s with me.

So I put the padded envelope in one of the grocery bags and head up the two flights to my apartment, open my front door, put the groceries on the kitchen counter, then remove the envelope and tear it open.  And into my hand falls the first honest-to-Jerry, final published version of my novel.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the “honest-to-Jerry” bit, you’ll have to wait for my next novel.

Having the ARC of BREATHERS in my hands was one thing, but having this, the final product, with dedication and acknowledgments and back cover copy with a blurb from Kirkus, is a completely different sense of accomplishment altogether.  Of course, there’s the little matter about the lack of an author photo and bio on the inside back cover, which is obviously a disappointment, but I figure it’s just a lesson to still enjoy the experience even if everything doesn’t quite turn out the way I expected.

What’s really fun is seeing the spine of BREATHERS sitting among some of my favorite authors and novels sitting on my bookshelf next to my desk:

                                                                                                                                       Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bathe in a little self-indulgence.

After three months of staring at my computer and writing new pages and tossing them out (well, not literally…they just become electronic garbage in my file folder) and wondering if I was ever going to come up with re-writes for my new novel that I was happy with, I finally finished them and sent the manuscript off to my agent yesterday.

FATED.  The title of the new novel is FATED.  And that’s all I’m sharing for now.  Okay, no, it’s not about zombies.  But that’s it.  No more.

I don’t know about other writers, but when I’m near the end of a project and I have a deadline, even if it’s self-imposed, I tend to stop taking care of the List of Things To Do that aren’t writing related.  Like doing my taxes and buying a new area rug and getting my shoes re-soled.  I just can’t justify taking time to run errands and deal with the nagging problems of daily existence when I can’t figure out how to solve the problems of the characters in my book.

I’m sure there’s a cosmic parallel between the two, but I’m not going to go there.

But with FATED sent off and hopefully ready to be pitched to my publisher, I have sense of relief that I can finally deal with my own crap now that I’ve taken care of my characters’ issues.  And I a sense of freedom that allows me to finally start up my next novel or to write some short stories or to play some golf.

But first, I should probably think about taking care of my taxes.