tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43900066456744371232011-11-27T16:51:56.883-08:00The Zombie Apocalypse. One Chapter at a Time.Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comBlogger891100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-63101068877100493042010-06-20T17:00:00.000-07:002010-06-24T18:47:45.707-07:00

Two years ago today, I posted the first chapter of this story on this blog, so this seemed like a fitting moment to finally make the end available. I considered charging for it, but I figured, the rest of it was free, why not?A lot has changed in the past two years, the title for one. Be Still My Formerly Beating Heart is now Night of the Loving Dead. Now that it's finished, I encourage everyone

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-51297173190845059272010-06-20T16:59:00.000-07:002010-06-24T16:14:04.692-07:00

Why not? Nothing else about the situation made sense. She stopped shaking and looked around again. The violent blood splatters against the walls and the blank rotting faces of the other zombies made her sick. She could definitely feel again, but she didn't want to feel this. Behind all that blood, the prescription medications were still there.She got to her feet and staggered to the wall. In a

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-71169169313563263182010-02-14T17:00:00.000-08:002010-02-14T17:05:22.167-08:00

This could be the end of our road...Kaveh stood over Lisa's corpse, not eating her brains.The dead wandered the street at random. They couldn't speak. They couldn't think. Kaveh could, but only as long as he had brains and they stayed somewhere in his digestive tract.Eating Neil's brain had brought him back from the edge of total mindlessness, but it was already fading, and Kaveh struggled again

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-24626390834951725732010-02-14T16:59:00.000-08:002010-02-14T17:01:40.894-08:00

Once upon a time, Kaveh and Lisa were just two people who needed to do whatever it took to survive the zombie apocalypse. Things went downhill from there.Kaveh sacrificed his last moments of consciousness before he became a zombie to save his best friend Speedy, as well as Lisa, to whom he was already attracted despite her homicidal anti-zombie prejudice, and a bank teller named Helen. He came

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-40385229864501783012009-11-06T17:00:00.000-08:002010-02-14T17:02:55.429-08:00

This chapter, and the entire rest of this story has already been made available on Zombie Lit.com, which is now also Zombie Literature.com, but for the sake of completeness, it's also going to live here.To catch up on the action so far, remember what doesn't kill you...The zombie bite sank into Lisa's left hand between the thumb and forefinger. She let go of the gun, but Speedy's teeth didn't let

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-46582505339952100282009-11-06T16:59:00.000-08:002009-11-06T17:39:53.654-08:00

The world was ending. Zombies were apparently all that was left of the once quiet mountain town, quiet once again except for the moaning voices of those who had once been alive there.Lisa faced down the almost certain doom of being surrounded by zombies down a dead end street, but she was armed with the knowledge she'd built up through years of irrationally fearing these exact creatures. She knew

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-27972984429682156952009-10-16T17:00:00.000-07:002009-10-19T22:32:01.064-07:00

The book is almost over, and so is this blog, but its content has a new home, the new website I built at www.zombielit.com, the internet's leading home for literary works involving zombies.Well, I guess it's not leading anything... yet. It could. Watch out, Jane Austen. You're next, Max Brooks. There's a new force in the world of zombie literature, and he's apparently the first person who thought

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-44140477375439415652009-10-01T22:40:00.000-07:002009-10-01T23:15:20.867-07:00

Chapter Eleven is almost done. I've been busy with something else... but I did find the time to join a zombie flash mob again yesterday in pursuit of my job as a reporter, and this one attended an advance screening of Zombieland.On one level, this is the movie I've been waiting for. Building off the precedent set by Shawn of the Dead, but with a little more of an American, Tarantino-esque tone,

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-75189089261035747922009-09-25T17:00:00.000-07:002009-09-25T17:00:00.993-07:00

Be Still My Formerly Beating Heart is the story of two houses, nothing alike in dignity. Human blood makes zombie hands unclean, in the small mountain town where we make our scene. From forth the fatal strife of these two foes, a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their share of other's lives.A man, a zombie bereft of feelings, has an overpowering hunger for a human woman, particularly her brains.

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-36324297964849099672009-09-17T15:00:00.000-07:002009-10-16T11:47:56.037-07:00

http://bestillmyformerlybeatingheart.blogspot.com/ never did have a very good ring to it. I even made some business cards early this year just so people didn't have to remember it all when I told them about this site.Well, the book is almost done, and I had a new idea, just call it Zombie Lit. A more robust website is coming, something easy on the eyes, and more ways to read the story. Maybe I'll

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-85687332590383742502009-09-11T17:00:00.000-07:002009-09-17T14:59:13.282-07:00

It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth. -Thomas FullerJust when Lisa gave up on life, her luck started to change, and escape looked possible. Then, just like that, it ran out again. Things don't look good. The zombies are monsters, and they're everywhere, but she's not dead yet.If Kaveh is anything anymore, he's a sign that life is unpredictable. There are always exceptions. As this

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-59810317114820535862009-09-04T18:53:00.000-07:002009-09-04T19:04:44.843-07:00

Having been a professional journalist on the zombie beat for over a week now, I've been reading all the old news about zombie outbreaks in my home town of San Francisco.Zombie flash mobs like the one I fell victim to earlier this year are supposed to be a surprise, and documentation of them is usually coincidental, when it happens at all. This is why the world needs my services. I compiled as

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-82039806881694531012009-08-28T17:00:00.000-07:002009-08-28T17:00:00.845-07:00

"If you're good at something, never do it for free." -The JokerThere's this idea out there that you can do what you enjoy, and somehow you'll eventually get payed for it. It almost never works.Last week, I noticed an add on Craig's List. Examiner.com needed someone in San Francisco to become a new correspondent for their website and write up all the local stories relating to zombies. I've never

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-82315228629599618172009-08-21T17:00:00.000-07:002009-08-21T17:00:00.062-07:00

There's something dangerous about the way I'm writing, I threw out my outline before I even started. Every chapter, I ask myself based on what's happened so far, what happens next? I've generally had things planned out maybe a chapter and a half ahead, so everyone who comes here gets to walk the tightrope with me, because I only find out what happens a little before you do.At first, I expect

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-81139930760056197902009-08-14T17:00:00.001-07:002009-08-14T17:00:02.801-07:00

I've been searching the internet for a video that captures the feeling I tried to write in that last chapter, mob mentality in its purest form, but none of that riot footage is close. No sane person would bring their fancy camera into such a genuinely chaotic moment. Zombie flash mobs tend to involve a lot of marching calmly down the street. Even Saving Private Ryan was a little too orderly.Every

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-53579236264690963772009-08-07T17:00:00.000-07:002009-08-15T18:02:50.303-07:00

Earlier that night of the living...Lisa leaned back in her seat. There was no solution to the problem of zombies, but she was determined to enjoy whatever moments of calm she could before the next disaster struck, and for the first time since this had all started, she relaxed. Farah slept in the back of the Humvee, her husband dozing next to her. Helen refused to sleep, even inside the armored

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-50389501313516116602009-08-07T16:59:00.000-07:002009-08-07T17:02:40.255-07:00

Lisa lived with her fear of zombies, but in a real attack, she thought her years of watching their movies would prepare her. Instead, she watched them surround the bank where she worked and kill most of her fellow employees. She tried to run, but nowhere was safe.Kaveh survived his lifelong love affair with food. In the end, it was a zombie who killed him and ate his stomach. When he came back as

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-64225378479361670332009-07-31T17:00:00.000-07:002009-07-31T17:00:01.191-07:00

The modern zombie burst its way into popular culture in 1968, care of Night of the Living Dead. They didn't eat brains yet, but elsewhere at the same time, brains were blurring the real boundaries between life and death.People whose hearts didn't pump blood and whose lungs didn't push any air around were considered dead, until 1968. With the emergence of new technologies, by hooking people up to

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-37685682589337968642009-07-24T17:00:00.000-07:002009-07-24T17:00:00.368-07:00

Coming soon to the only place on the web for all your Be Still My Formerly Beating Heart needs... another chapter of said story. This one's a doozy, folks, so you won't want to miss it. Yes, even now the story rockets towards it's most violent confrontation yet with all the leisurely pace of my writing habits. It's got everything. Guns! Romance! Dismemberment! It's the zombies versus the National

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-8550559225964955812009-07-17T17:00:00.000-07:002009-07-17T17:00:00.643-07:00

This is one of my favorite poems, and I can't believe it took this long for me to notice the parallels. In rereading these passages, how could it not be about zombies?The Hollow MenIWe are the hollow menWe are the stuffed menLeaning togetherHeadpiece filled with straw. Alas!Our dried voices, whenWe whisper togetherAre quiet and meaninglessAs wind in dry grassOr rats' feet over broken glassIn our

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-5069116583525445722009-07-10T17:00:00.000-07:002009-07-10T17:00:01.626-07:00

I just found out that Geocities, one of the oldest free web hosting services on the net, started way back in 1995, is shutting down.For those of us who've been on the net that long, it's one of those things that's just always been there, one of those places where anyone could create a website and therefore, a general eyesore and a big fat joke. I never really put much on mine, never made a real

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-82947044236421736342009-07-03T17:00:00.000-07:002009-07-03T17:00:17.200-07:00

News emerged recently that the World War Z movie has been indefinitely delayed, and I wonder if the whole genre might be reaching saturation.That book's predecessor, The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), along with Shawn of the Dead (2004), played huge roles in jump starting the current zombie rennaissance. It's meant that books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies can debut at number three on the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-26633199424015543852009-06-26T17:37:00.001-07:002009-06-26T17:40:51.769-07:00

The king of pop may have died, but a part of him will always live on. Don't eat me, zombie MJ.

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-60300907778489237152009-06-19T17:00:00.000-07:002009-08-18T14:06:02.028-07:00

A few days back, I realized this Saturday would be a year since I posted the first chapter on this site. Hard to believe I've been writing these characters for so long. And the story's still unfolding. I sure hope nothing else terrible happens to them...The web serial thing is a strange way to publish, unproven and (in my hands) undisciplined. I kind of like making the rules up as I go, and I've

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-56277648157299112092009-06-12T17:00:00.000-07:002009-06-12T17:00:00.612-07:00

A few days ago, I dropped in on a reading by Seth Grahame-Smith, co-author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the new bestselling tale about the genteel fight against the shambling undead. He was pretty cool. I told him about my blog, so if he's reading this now, hi.He didn't read much from his book though. He can't really, since there are huge sections of it he had almost nothing to do with,

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-54070915946113900152009-06-06T17:00:00.000-07:002009-08-07T17:02:28.751-07:00

Finally back in the kitchen...The banquet was carefully laid out, and Kaveh had his first draft of a brain eater's prix fixe menu, finger foods of language center, brain stem soup served fresh in the skull, a garden salad topped with crumbled picnic memories and Roquefort cheese dressing, potatoes au gratin layered with succulent cuts of right hemisphere, spicy peppers and kale topped with tender

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-74680766076512566182009-06-06T16:59:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:26:44.775-07:00

Kaveh was a chef who became a zombie. After eating human brains instead of whole humans, he discovered he could do things no other zombie could. He could think and speak and remember again. He wanted to share his insight, to be a champion for zombie equality, but failing to tempt the others to follow his diet, he decided he would convince them to change by being a great chef.In bringing his new

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-6910547965035603072009-05-22T17:00:00.000-07:002009-05-24T13:06:01.980-07:00

"Things could always get worse," the final words of chapter eight, could well have been the end of the story if things had landed a little differently. They didn't, so they won't, but for Lisa and Kaveh, they could still prove true. You'll just have to read the next chapter to find out.Lisa's secret is out. Can she fight through her shame long enough to protect her new friends from the monsters

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-47252049616511567232009-05-01T17:00:00.000-07:002009-05-01T17:00:00.264-07:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted a new chapter here, and I'm gonna go ahead and blame the concussion for that. I don't have the energy for much more than work and sleep lately. Hard to write about eating brains while I'm working to reassemble my own. Ironic? You betcha. But fear not, loyal readers, because the next chapter in the continuing tale of Kaveh and Lisa is formulating even now

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-15250907491056555822009-04-24T17:00:00.000-07:002009-04-24T17:00:01.253-07:00

A new website recently came to my attention, a place on the internet where singles (who happen to be undead) can find meaningful emotional connections with each other. Not thrilled at the prospect of decomposing slowly all on your own? Looking for someone out there to share your taste for braaaains? Slow moving corpse seeks same for gnawing and groaning? Look no further than zombie harmony. The

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-65469142106083548952009-04-17T17:00:00.000-07:002009-05-08T17:12:39.443-07:00

A huge component of narrative is pacing. One of the reasons I do what I do here is to give people a new example of how to pace stories, one chapter at a time.Serials have fallen by the wayside in a lot of ways, but there's still a few people out there trying to pace their stories the way I pace mine. One of the things I draw from are some of those shows on HBO, stories intended to be told not

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-39862638861466961822009-04-10T17:00:00.000-07:002009-04-10T17:00:00.821-07:00

If this were part of the Twilight Zone, I might file it under "careful what you wish for," but it's tough for me to have that much ironic detachment. Last Sunday, I slipped over a short railing that encloses my porch and fell about eight feet, head first, onto the cement below.The emergency room doctors told me there was bleeding in my brain, contusions that could potentially lead to serious

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-38322409468246981082009-04-03T17:00:00.000-07:002009-04-03T17:00:00.219-07:00

Ozzy Osbourne will now melt your face and bite the head off of your brain. I love this song.Actually, there's a two minute intro in the full track, but I posted this version because the visuals that youtuber added also effectively tell the story of the more traditional monster movie formula, what most people probably think about when you say "zombies."Humans in the middle of nowhere are attacked

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-36496387044539034092009-03-27T17:00:00.000-07:002009-03-27T17:00:00.649-07:00

There's no definitive zombie story. Vampires have Dracula, then later Anne Rice. Frankenstein's monster, other than his run in with Abbott and Costello, basically appears in only one work. Even werewolves seem to fall into a familiar pattern of Jekyll and Hyde-ing. But peoples' conception of zombies is much more vague.The closest thing to a defining example came in 1968, when George Romero and

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-3142679729174629242009-03-26T21:30:00.000-07:002009-03-26T21:30:00.285-07:00

A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I was on my way home from work, and I was attacked and killed by a swarm of zombies:But if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I then travelled with the zombie swarm through the streets of San Francisco, grunting and shouting for brains.I've been writing about the shambling dead for a while now. I take this shit seriously, and I was determined, from the moment I

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-26732650289651497562009-03-20T17:00:00.000-07:002009-03-20T17:00:01.564-07:00

Last week, amid all the excitement of appearing on stage as Rod Serling, I had the chance to rub elbows with the guy in the picture up there, a guy who's actually getting paid to do what I'm giving you guys for free. That's right, I mentioned him a couple weeks ago. It's S.G. Browne, author of Breathers: a Zombie's Lament.S.G., or Scott as I now know him, had a reading on Sunday at a bookstore

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-42977504759438272052009-03-13T17:00:00.000-07:002009-06-06T17:06:19.552-07:00

Having a very bad day...Lisa stumbled into the night, her eyes clouded with tears.The cold air hit her hard as the house disappeared somewhere behind her. It made her shiver, every muscle twitching as she wandered through the trees.She sank into the earth with every step. The ground underneath her was unstable. Her legs felt rubbery and caked with mud. She raised her feet as high as she could to

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-19469358867566349992009-03-13T16:59:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:28:23.437-07:00

For all the years Lisa had worked for the bank, her life had been simple, predictable and heavily medicated. That all changed with the zombie attack.The bank was attacked. Her boss was killed. She met Kaveh, a guy she might have been interested in, but then he was killed. Her epilepsy medication got crushed under her overturned desk. Every place she tried to run with the survivors was overrun or

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-21287840513492935622009-03-11T00:00:00.000-07:002009-03-11T00:00:00.810-07:00

"In just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind..." -Rod SerlingThese are the words that preceded my Twilight Zone episode, which completed its successful three show run a couple of days ago. Throughout the rehearsal process, I found myself forced to focus on the minutia, working through the emotional moments of the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-75784377313140008452009-03-06T17:00:00.000-08:002009-03-11T00:01:42.035-07:00

The show starts tonight, but you didn't really think I was too busy with the Twilight Zone to work on zombies. The next chapter's on its way.Chapter seven didn't end too well for everyone involved. Decisions were made, loyalties were challenged, and people died. I guess that's what happens when zombies take over your town, but things are getting worse. The battle against the zombie horde isn't

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-86566083155321956282009-03-04T17:00:00.000-08:002009-03-04T17:10:16.608-08:00

This weekend, the Twilight Zone episode I'm adapting, directing and acting in will be on stage in front of an audience, an audience of people, people who payed money. No pressure. Get your tickets now and be one of them.Also, for those of you reading this here, it's worth mentioning that the episode I picked was written originally by Richard Matheson, author of I Am Legend. That book was more

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-32419159592179726362009-02-27T18:00:00.000-08:002009-02-27T18:33:08.015-08:00

Well, it's happening. An idea hits the cultural consciousness, and it's suddenly everywhere. Breathers: A Zombie's Lament comes out on Tuesday. It tells the story of a freshly deceased undead American who finds genuine connections in his new community.You know, I do what I can to make my story unique, but that cuts a little close. I guess the main difference between the work of S. G. Browne and

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-90538952392999152472009-02-20T17:00:00.000-08:002009-02-20T17:19:24.185-08:00

I've been thinking more about the generation gap I wrote about a few weeks ago. Children learn about the world by interacting with things and testing responses. As the same children grow older, those lessons are hardwired into their brains, but those of us who grew up during the reign of television, before the internet, may be unique in the history of mankind. More than any other generation, we

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-38144848383625250072009-02-13T17:00:00.000-08:002009-02-13T17:26:16.215-08:00

I love writing stories. Everything else here follows from that or it's no fun, but one of the cool things about writing in this format is to have other people share in the story as it develops. I appreciate everyone who reads this blog, and if people ask, I want to be able to tell them about it, to spread the word, if you will.I'm new to the whole publicity thing, but when I came up with the idea

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-78561902594201798222009-02-06T17:00:00.001-08:002009-02-06T17:00:00.813-08:00

Here's a poem by Kim Addonizio which tells a story similar to mine, exploring what it means to be a zombie:Night of the Living, Night of the DeadWhen the dead rise in movies they're hideous and slow. They stagger uphill toward the farmhouse like drunks headed home from the bar. Maybe they only want to lie down inside while some rooms spins around them, maybe that's why they bang on the windows

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-388127867781022362009-01-30T20:00:00.000-08:002009-06-28T21:19:38.565-07:00

I got into a conversation the other day about the experiences of growing up in different eras, the idealism in the social upheaval of the sixties and the disenfranchisement of a million seventies punk bands. Then those people turned to me to be a representative of the new youth. "I mean, You have a blog, right?"I tried to explain that while the internet may have become more a part of my life than

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-50207223623683572222009-01-30T17:00:00.000-08:002009-01-30T17:01:01.481-08:00

I received a curious sort of commission last week. From the people who brought you Star Wars Live! came the offer for me to adapt and direct an episode of the Twilight Zone to be performed on the same stage.My episode will run three nights, the first weekend in March. I've taken the past week to pick my episode and start rewriting it, but I have only five weeks from today to finalize the script,

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-34452551095217973172009-01-23T09:00:00.000-08:002009-01-23T09:00:01.935-08:00

I'm reading at a fundraising event tonight, a benefit for the space that hosts my writer's group. For those of you who're reading this now because you were at the event, welcome! There's refreshments in the back, and feel free to help yourselves to the Table of Contents on the right hand side of the page.If you're reading this before the event, as it is while I'm writing this, I don't mind saying

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-6640235169528823592009-01-16T17:00:00.000-08:002009-01-16T17:00:01.382-08:00

Here, the sixties band, The Zombies, sing a song about being unable to say "I love you." Can it be because their jaws have rotted off? Have the language centers of their brains decayed to the level that they're unable to form words? Maybe, like Kaveh, they have a language barrier.In other news, there's been an official announcement of George Romero's next zombie movie, confusingly entitled ...Of

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-56229322321611116572009-01-14T17:00:00.000-08:002009-01-14T17:18:29.025-08:00

Your Name Your Email Address Subject Message form maker Image VerificationPlease enter the text from the image [ Refresh Image ] [ What's This? ]

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-64288354310602658992009-01-09T17:01:00.000-08:002009-08-07T15:28:52.890-07:00

Kaveh was a zombie, the only zombie who could think. Lisa was a woman who'd been watching zombie movies for years, the only one mentally prepared when real zombies overran her town. With the security guard's gun from the bank where she worked, she fled to the palatial home of Kaveh's sister, Farah.When Kaveh led a horde of zombies to his sister's house to cook them a feast of brains, most of the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-33174222553379702722009-01-09T17:00:00.000-08:002009-03-13T17:07:19.876-07:00

In case you forgot...Click. Kaveh stared down the barrel of the empty gun.Mister Shankly's body lay on the floor, truly dead this time, killed by the final bullet from the security guard's gun. Kaveh had saved that bullet for himself in the bank but never had the chance to use it.Lisa pulled the trigger again, but the only result was another click of the empty chamber. Next to her, Speedy was

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-70284595081296441942009-01-02T17:00:00.000-08:002009-01-03T15:49:29.228-08:00

I've been busy lately, but now Star Wars Live has reached its satisfying conclusion, a brand new year brings new promise, and I have two days off from work -- in a row! The ideas in the next chapter may or may not work. Time will tell about that, but they're finally coming together.In retrospect, I could have broken this chapter into smaller parts like the last one, but I'm so impatient to get

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-44079252187854830692008-12-26T09:00:00.000-08:002008-12-26T09:00:01.086-08:00

Hey, all. Hope everyone had a great day off yesterday and got to spend time with the ones they love.I'm almost ready to post Chapter Seven - Love Will Chew Us Apart. It's been a while since Chapter Six, and I'm sorry to leave you guys with that cliffhanger for so long, but I was busy being in Star Wars, and I don't want to screw this chapter up. It contains some of the very first ideas I had for

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-76985273532999805002008-12-19T09:00:00.000-08:002008-12-19T09:00:11.735-08:00

Zombies aren't really that scary by themselves. There's the natural fear of death that they evoke, and it can be horrifying to see someone you know in that condition, but the actual slow moving, awkward corpse with no intelligence isn't much of a threat. That's why it takes entire swarms of them to become a menace. In fact, I'd say most zombie related deaths (in fiction) are humanity's fault.I'm

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-18096754927726429602008-12-12T17:30:00.000-08:002008-12-12T17:36:50.395-08:00

This isn't specifically zombie related, but the reviews are in. The new The Day the Earth Stood Still comes out today, and it stinks. The original film was a landmark. It was one of the first serious science fiction films, like a Twilight Zone episode eight years before that show even existed. It examined our world from a new perspective and found us lacking. It debated whether humanity should

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-83580639768262576522008-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:002009-01-09T17:10:57.204-08:00

A little more for the nonfiction files today. I went to see an old co-worker in his stage debut last month. He was really good, and when we were out for drinks afterwards, he said he's already rehearsing this other play, and they need another actor, and oh, it's a staging of the original Star Wars film.Honestly, when's a chance like that gonna come around again? I showed up at rehearsal, and they

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-18936153770980327132008-11-28T09:00:00.000-08:002008-11-28T09:00:00.452-08:00

They stumble forward as a group, hands groping, feet trampling, running on instinct and the pack mentality, searching for something they have no need for, driven mindlessly to consume. The worst part of it is, they're not fictional.These aren't zombies, they're shoppers. It's the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year. They call it Black Friday, though the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-17932440105428704882008-11-21T09:00:00.001-08:002008-11-21T09:00:02.168-08:00

Epilepy is often a mystery to people when they first encounter it. Seizures surprise those of us who are unprepared, and little information exists in the popular consciousness about the right things to do for someone in that condition, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to give a little public service announcement.You can't stop a grand mal seizure once it starts. It has to run its course,

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-27316290172703386332008-11-14T09:00:00.000-08:002008-11-14T09:00:01.261-08:00

For those of you who've been following the story, especially those of you who know me personally, you should know this is a definite possibility for what'll happen next...

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-38579592762632443962008-11-07T09:01:00.000-08:002009-08-07T15:30:36.369-07:00

Having made their escape from the bank vault, the survivors Lisa, Helen and Speedy travel across town and up the side of the mountain to the home of their new friend, Farah. Meanwhile, Farah's brother Kaveh Hisami, obsessed with finding a way for his fellow zombies to eat brains and share his self-awareness, heads for the very same home... Return of the Zombi.

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-85511733089594103452008-11-07T09:00:00.000-08:002009-01-30T19:06:48.664-08:00

Not long from now in a town not so far away...Lisa didn't know what she'd expected, but walking into Kaveh's sister's mansion, she was blown away. A large flowing staircase came down into the entryway. The stucco white walls at odd angles made the place feel like it went on forever. Through the room's half dozen doorways, she saw Kooning in a gaudy gilded frame, antique furniture and a giant TV.

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-1730541251010074992008-10-31T14:53:00.000-07:002008-10-31T15:40:47.208-07:00

No new chapter today. Does that scare you? It's just not ready. You see, the events in chapters five and six were originally one chapter, but I decided to break them up. This gave each section the freedom to delve a little deeper, but these things take time to get right. Being a zombie isn't easy, and getting into their heads is no picnic either, just as they can have trouble getting into ours

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-27198874218385202932008-10-24T21:00:00.000-07:002008-10-24T21:00:00.190-07:00

It is a dark time for the rebellion. Kaveh Hisami climbs the mountain to his sister's house in an attempt to rescue his new friends, the zombies, from the clutches of mindlessness. Little does Kaveh know, the humans he sacrificed his life to protect are hiding there, unprepared against any attack. When they meet, the menacing horde will spell certain doom for the small band of rebels struggling

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-6039465272509360622008-10-24T18:40:00.000-07:002009-01-09T17:06:50.091-08:00

It was a big week for hearts in the news. First, scientists found a way to make new beating heart cells from fat, so that big tub of American cheese you see waddling down the street isn't working on a third myocardial infarction, he's cultivating a spare heart, just in case anything happens to the first one.Or he might benefit from Wednesday's news that robots can help perform surgery on, you

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-63932756951043924572008-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:002008-10-20T17:48:24.942-07:00

"A few weeks ago, Riverdale, Illinois was just another quiet small town. Then... a living nightmare began."The film is unabashedly B-grade, literally in fact, since it was intended to be shown at the drive-ins as the B side of a double bill with Earth vs. the Spider. Yes, the film about high school kids fighting a giant mutated spider was the main feature that propped up The Brain Eaters, a super

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-18440940459051666992008-10-10T09:01:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:31:00.987-07:00

Lisa had watched zombie films for years before the attack. Kaveh had been too busy cooking meals. So when the zombies came and seven people were trapped in a bank, Kaveh wasn't one of the three that made it out alive. Instead, he made it out undead. He wandered the streets feeding on the living, but when he realized what he was, he found he was the only zombie with any self-awareness.The

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-61297742243438896622008-10-10T09:00:00.000-07:002009-01-30T19:00:48.715-08:00

How they got into this mess...The crackling of the gravel driveway interrupted Lisa's train of thought as the truck turned off the winding dirt road and came to a stop. "We'll be safe here," said Speedy as he turned off the engine. Lisa wasn't so sure. The stacks of firewood in front of the house reminded her of the second little pig. Walls of sticks wouldn't stand up long against the big bad

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-42780351291950885592008-10-03T20:11:00.000-07:002008-10-07T05:20:47.665-07:00

Now that the bank's survivors have escaped, they face a town overrun by zombies, with no help from the police. Where can they turn? Where will they be safe? These poor Americans were at orange alert so long, they got numb to the idea of a true disaster, and now that it's come, they find themselves mentally unprepared, with the exception of Lisa, who doesn't want to start a scene.Meanwhile, Kaveh

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-64232303060239942282008-09-26T12:34:00.000-07:002008-09-26T12:34:00.473-07:00

I haven't posted in a couple weeks, but have no fear, Episode V is on the way. I've just been staring at this zombie simulation. It gives the bird's eye view of an infected city, like a zombie ant farm.The simulation is supposed to result in annihilation for one side or the other, but sometimes people get stuck. I've run it over and over, and humanity's chances don't look good, especially when

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-32021864176560921942008-09-05T17:23:00.000-07:002008-09-05T17:23:01.075-07:00

In the 1930s, Flash Gordon blazed across the screens of movie theaters all over the country. Every Saturday morning, he'd get into some new adventure in his struggle against the surprisingly non-racial-stereotyped Ming the Merciless. Each episode would end with certain death for our heroes and start with them escaping last week's inescapable doom. Finally, after a dozen episodes or so, Flash

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-53087551558955342102008-08-29T12:53:00.000-07:002008-08-29T18:22:59.220-07:00

It's only a mild coincidence that my two main characters share their last names with writers who have ties to communism, because that's not what this story's about. It's simpler than that.There was a whole genre of 1950's monster movies that were little more than veiled allegories of the red menace, but there were a few films, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that also pointed at the mindless

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-47945606768593260212008-08-22T19:07:00.000-07:002008-08-23T09:16:14.837-07:00

It's important to have a well balanced diet, but not all zombies eat as many brains as they should. In fact, It's only a small subset of zombies who can appreciate what a delicacy the brain really is.Though they both exist in the popular consciousness, the distinction between brain-eating zombies and flesh-eating zombies goes right back to the origin point of the modern zombie, Night of the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-61514719409780564092008-08-15T12:00:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:31:29.450-07:00

Kaveh Hisami was an Iranian-American chef when the zombies attacked. He was in a bank, hoping for a loan to buy his own restaurant, but it was the bigotry of the bank's manager, not the zombie horde, which made that impossible. When he discovered that he was infected and was turning into a zombie, he sacrificed himself so the others could escape, and his best friend had to leave him behind, a

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-63412677094427269922008-08-15T09:00:00.000-07:002009-02-06T13:41:28.550-08:00

Our story so far...Kaveh woke up cottonmouthed. His head was throbbing, his stomach hurt, and he was hungry. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten.He looked around. He was on the floor of a bank, but he didn't know how he'd gotten there or why he was so hungry. He got up, and something fell on the floor. It looked like sausages. He'd never been this hung over in his life.Everything seemed

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-65823839228141221932008-08-08T20:08:00.000-07:002008-08-08T20:08:01.040-07:00

Next week (hopefully), Kaveh comes back to life as a zombie and tries to make sense of the world again. Without knowing why or what he's doing, he kills and eats a human being, and it makes him realize something. After spending his entire life loving food, it's only after death that he discovers true gastronomic bliss in the form of human brains. What will he do with this new information, this

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-62764665160256029662008-08-08T09:00:00.001-07:002008-08-08T09:00:15.414-07:00

Remember, everyone. Zombies are people too. They put their pants on one leg at a time, and they like corn and smoooothies.

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-12152389633693505202008-08-01T12:00:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:32:06.672-07:00

Lisa Korolenko had been a loan officer almost five years when zombies suddenly attacked her bank. She hid in the vault, along with Kaveh, Speedy and Helen, and managed to lock the door before she discovered that Kaveh was turning into a zombie himself. They had a gun with one bullet in it, which Lisa said they should use to kill the potential zombie, but as she pointed the gun at him, Kaveh

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-28299908400019514852008-08-01T09:00:00.000-07:002009-07-24T15:55:59.979-07:00

Previously on BSMFBH...The noise of Lisa's breathing filled the tiny space. With the door closed, there was no light at all in the money drop drawer. She had rolled into a fetal position to fit inside, and her spine was killing her. She tried to remember to call her chiropractor if she survived all this, assuming her chiropractor wasn't killed by zombies.She tried to control herself, tried to

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-45185427562247592242008-07-25T09:00:00.001-07:002008-07-25T09:00:01.172-07:00

I was planning on putting chapter three up this morning, but it's not quite ready. I'd rather get it right and do some stalling then bore you all with sub par prose, so this is me tap dancing to keep you distracted from the lack of new content this week.I'm also working on chapter four, which should come soon after, and that's turning into something truly interesting...

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-75431240351387498912008-07-18T18:37:00.000-07:002008-07-21T19:12:38.574-07:00

According to my research, the first recorded use of the phrase "be still, my beating heart" came from William Mountfort in his play Zelmane, when he wrote:"Ha! hold my Brain; be still my beating Heart."The curious thing is this, according to the small amount of information I could find on the internet, the play came out in 1705, but Mountfort himself was killed by a romantic rival thirteen years

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-87718517301147268392008-07-18T11:06:00.000-07:002008-07-18T11:06:00.367-07:00

Disgorging the Survivors.Lisa watches the situation spiral out of control when a dangerous and risky plan is the bank survivors' only hope to escape the vault. What will they find on the other side of that door? What about the world outside the bank? And what about Kaveh? Find the answers to all these questions and more next week in the next exciting chapter of Be Still My Formerly Beating Heart!

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-3304064720764298752008-07-11T22:54:00.000-07:002008-07-19T21:07:56.838-07:00

Here's a little something that inspired me for this project. It's fun to hear the entire crowd going crazy for brains like that.

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-3757381511807013182008-07-04T12:00:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:32:31.845-07:00

Our story so far...A small bank is viciously surrounded by flesh eating zombies. The first to die is Vince the security guard, but a hero arrives to save the day, Logan Swanson! The zombies eat him.Asserting his authority over the situation, the bank's manager, Mister Dowripple, steps in. They eat him too, so in the absence of authority figures, a customer named Kaveh Hisami seizes the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-25881103913725849322008-07-04T09:00:00.000-07:002009-03-09T18:53:49.660-07:00

Chapter One Recap...The vault was small, barely large enough to fit the four of them comfortably. It wasn't filled with stacks of money, as Kaveh had imagined, but lined with hundreds of drawers of various sizes. The smallest would barely fit the severed arm that was left on the floor.Kaveh felt lightheaded. He was still pumping adrenaline from the fire fight. As he caught his breath, he realized

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-32806108598914100192008-06-27T17:14:00.000-07:002008-07-03T17:53:59.201-07:00

Not all of you may know the way zombies work, but the basic rules are simple.1. Zombies are reanimated corpses that don't think or feel. All they want is to eat the living.2. Destroy the brain, kill the zombie.3. If a zombie bites you, you die and turn into one of them.Everything else comes as an extension of these three principles. Old school voodoo zombies work differently, but these are the

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-6242708993122550552008-06-27T10:56:00.000-07:002008-07-15T10:05:49.179-07:00

Canned Zombie Food!Trapped in a vault with zombies outside the door, the bank's survivors realize one of them has been infected, that it's only a matter of time before they become a zombie and eat the rest of them. Can they find a way out before it's too late?

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-82742149403746378102008-06-20T18:52:00.000-07:002009-01-30T18:45:19.766-08:00

Hiding behind the heavy marble of the teller's stations wasn't going to protect Lisa Korolenko from the crowd of zombies massing outside.She peeked over the counter to see Logan Swanson standing confidently in the center of the bank, pointing with the security guard's gun. "Cover those doors!" he shouted at the bank's manager. Mister Shankly was used to giving orders, but he moved now without

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390006645674437123.post-28179040639594401532008-06-13T12:07:00.000-07:002008-07-03T17:57:36.076-07:00

Be Still My Formerly Beating Heart is a work of fiction, told in a series of short chapters over a period of time. The concept of serialized literature largely died out in the twentieth century, leaving its legacy in television, comic books and a few newspaper columns.Blog technology gives us the ability to bring it back in a new way. This is kind of an experiment, kind of web 2.0 (if that hasn't

Tim Kayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11114422306052805444noreply@blogger.com