Zombies are so much fun work with in a story.  There's a tremendous amount of material to draw inspiration from, but because the monster is an embodiment of something so primal, the fear of death, it's pretty open as to what exactly the zombies can and can't do in a story.

In my latest story, I opted to have the vast majority be your stumbling walkers.  These guys will bumble about randomly unless they hear or smell you.  Once then, their drive to eat your flesh overrides any other function in their animated brains.  I also decided to have a little fun and include a couple of other types.  There's Crawlers, those who lost one or more of their legs during the apocalypse, and then there's the Runners.  The Runners were very fun to add because they ensure that my characters couldn't simply run across the university courtyard and be done with it.  Nope.  If they tried such a feat, the Runners would take off with a speed and drive that couldn't be matched even by their living counterparts.

Runners also serve as a reflection of my protagonist's fears.  He's the first character I've written about who has an external physical disability that has made certain tasks like stairs and sports difficult for him.  So, of course, he must do plenty of both in this story.  Zombies in my University is a story about pushing to the real edge of your abilities and not letting excuses and fears hold you back in life.

You can follow the story of Sam, a college kid trying to escape his dorm room after the Zombies have ravaged his university, on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  Here's my cover:

After seeing such awesome results in July, I've been throwing everything I've got into writing and publishing new works for August. Last month was my largest month yet as far as book sales go, netting me over $5000, but I'm pushing myself to outperform July even though I was on vacation for a week of it.

To start with, I was able to publish my very first children's picture book, My Funny Pet Monster.  It's done reasonably well so far and I plan on writing and illustrating more children's books in the future since this one was so fun to make.

My next focus has been releasing another set of scary stories for kids.  Today, I was able to publish the last of the four scary stories as well as the bundle containing all of them.  Writing scary stories reminds me of the times I would read Goosebumps as a kid and I've striven to capture the same creep factor in my stories.

Beyond that, I released my very first science fiction story for kids this week as well.  It follows the story of a child who grows up in a human zoo created by the robots after they secure world domination.  It's a fun read and I hope it spark some thought about the human condition.

That's it for this week so far.  It's been rewarding to see my library of books continue to grow and even more rewarding still to watch as more and more people read my work.  Next week I'll be posting my next story (one that I am very excited about).

Until then,

Trip

I just completed and published my first collection of scary stories.  My aim was to start a series that will be enjoyable to read for a wide range of ages in the spirit of Alvin Schwartz and his amazing collection titled Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  I loved reading his book when I should have been asleep and giving myself the creeps.

Since this is a collection of stories, I've compiled them together in a bundle you can view below. For those of you just wanting to check out one or two of them, I will be selling each of these scary stories separately for $0.99 (psss, but the bundle is a better deal).

Creepy cover?