Mars needs betas

I’ve decided at the end of August I’m going to start sending out query letters for my novel. I figure if I can’t get it betaed in a month, it’s not getting betaed in two months or six months or a year. If I’m just going to be sitting on my ass, writing Swan Queen, I might as well be doing it while also getting rejection notices from lit agents.

But anyway, one last try at acquiring betas. My novel’s about 86,000 words, so not Game of Thrones—you could read it in an afternoon or, if it were about the male cast of Teen Wolf boning, all through the night when you have school or the morning. And the idea is to take this cliched zombie apocalypse and basically get as far away from The Walking Dead as possible.

The monsters are not zombies. The inspiration is closer to Rob Bottin’s work on The Thing. Each one is unique and instead of hordes of easy-to-kill ghouls, there’s maybe one monster for every thousand humans that’s just SO DAMN HARD TO KILL. The real damage is the lack of trust that follows from this outbreak. People turn randomly, without being bitten, without seeming to be infected or contaminated in any way. Countries blame each other for “bioweapon attacks". People stop sleeping together because, hey, someone might turn in the middle of the night. Humanity develops byzantine rituals to disinfect and stop themselves from turning. And of course, if someone even whispered about a vaccine…

The cast—I wanted to get away from the usual all-white middle-class suburbanites who Lose Everything. One of the characters is basically Jennifer Lawrence’s heroine from Winter’s Bone, used to not getting any help, having to hunt for food, live off the land, and suddenly in this post-apocalyptic landscape where that’s much more valuable than being able to play football or be Tom Cruise. And I took a page from old Westerns in how society hangs on after the end. This Winter’s Bone character ends up something of an urban legend, able to get supplies by participating in a road show that tells a fanciful version of his life story.

I was also interested in how, though the official tax code and trains running on time society has fallen, there are still these microcosms of society that hold together. A white picket fence neighborhood where no one actually knows their neighbors? It falls apart. A street gang or a religious order or a National Guard unit, they band together. You have literally an army coming back from overseas, wanting to restore order, and then gang leaders who don’t necessarily want to rebuild society because society treated them like shit.

I also like the idea of examining gender roles after the apocalypse—the scary notion that you can have an MBA in economics and yet have to perform sexual favors to get supplies, or starting out a pampered housewife and ending up a grizzled survivalist. Just the notion that there’s some hunter-gatherer sexual divide to “go back to," where men go on the hunt and women stay home and do laundry, and examining that without either unquestioningly accepting it or going the opposite, Resident Evil direction and saying “yeah, there’s a woman who can dual-wield samurai swords and blow off a zombie’s head from a mile away, STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER" when obviously there isn’t a strong male character alive who can turn into Zombie Batman at the drop of a hat. Or going the RAPE=REALISM route.

Anyway, hope that’s enough to interest someone. Just saying, this could be the next big fandom. You could get in with your Idris Elba dream-cast gif set on the ground floor.

New Marvel fic ARGH JUST READ IT

Jen picked up, silencing her frisky musing. She was in Hulk mode—a good sign, since she never went clubbing as nebbish Jennifer Walters—and as usual, the good cheer she spoke with more than balanced out how intimidating her baritone voice could be. “Sue? Holy moses, Sue, you haven’t called in forever. I thought Terrax would have to attack before we’d get back together.”

“No such luck,” Sue replied, already smiling. “I’m too bored for Scandal. Tell me you’ve got something cooking.”

“Just a quiet get-together with friends.” Jen had always been a poor liar. Sue imagined the ‘quiet get-together’ involving twenty reserve Avengers and Tony Stark’s wine cellar.

“Room for one more?”

“You, me, and Janet makes three.”

Sue silently punched the air. Janet van Dyne, the winsome Wasp. That sounded like just the thing for her doldrums.

“But, really,” Jen’s voice turned skittish, “I don’t know if it’s your scene. We’re going a little off the beaten track on this one.”

“Bring it!” Sue said readily. “I am just that bored.”

“Not kidding here, Sue. I do not want to land on the cover of the Daily Bugle doing any of this. So if you’re in, I will not be holding your hand.”

“Jen, I’ve had two kids and they’re both mutants. Trust me, I don’t shock easily.”

“Alright, we’ll pick you up.” Jen’s voice turned on a dime, back to wine coolers and boys. “And Sue? Dress like you’re not married.”


Corruption Is Just Another Change In Perspective. Click the link, okay?