write like you need it to survive

BLACKOUT! BY MIRA GRANT! THE CONCLUSION OF THE NEWSFLESH TRILOGY! IT CAME OUT ON TUESDAY HAVE YOU READ IT YET HAVE YOU HAVE YOU HAVE YOU.

( COME MAKE SPOILERY EXPRESSIVE FACES AND CAPSLOCK UNDER THE CUT! )

1) I am so totally overwhelmed by Yuletide this year that I haven't read anything since Christmas Day. I mean, also there was hectic family-holiday-ing and driving long distances and so on but also OH GOD SO MANY STORIES, SO MANY RECS, SO MUCH EVERYTHING. O.O

That said: I got a present! Just for me! And it is lovely! Carrying the Banner is Newsflesh Trilogy gen, George and Shaun taking a rather important field trip at age twelve. ♥


2) YAGKYAS! I totally failed to even post about yagkyas because it fell right on the day I was driving to Michigan and then there was a lot of family and holiday and etc. as above. So now the reveal is revealed, and I can thank cubicality for my freaky and awesome (and totally Rudy/Pappy in my heart) werewolf apocalypse story, 60 Days!

And I can also say that I wrote One to Grow On, possibly the only Doc Bryan/Michael Brunmeier story on the internet. TBH I had no idea who Brunmeier was when I got my assignment, so there was a bit of frantic running about, and searching of transcripts and rewatching and yelling at the TV every time Brunmeier had a line. I thank templemarker for beta, and everyone else I know for putting up with me flailing a lot about how to write Brunmeier. *g* I am really rather pleased with the story I wound up writing, and more importantly my recipient (hilariously, cubicality and I wrote for each other) liked it! Happy Yagkyasmas, C!

Firstly, for people who have already read Feed: Shaun & George fanart by quidly. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FEED! But if you have read it, go look, it is lovely.


For people who maybe have never heard of the Newsflesh Trilogy (Feed, Deadline, and forthcoming in May 2012, Blackout) by Mira Grant (aka seanan_mcguire) or have heard of it and think that they are not really interested in more zombie horror whatever, here. I had it in my head a while ago that I wanted to write a pimping post, with lovingly selected bits of text, but when I went to look I found that the entire appeal of the books (especially for fangirls) can be found in a single excerpt, so this pimping post will actually be pretty short.

The protagonists of Feed and Deadline are Georgia Mason and her twin-ish brother, Shaun. (Ish, because they are actually about six weeks apart in age and not biologically related; their parents are essentially reality TV stars of the zombie apocalypse, and they adopted Shaun and Georgia as infants to serve as a neverending well of ratings boosts.) George and Shaun are twenty-something reporters just about to get the story that will make their joint career--George does straight news, Shaun is an "Irwin" who specializes in risking life and limb by going out and poking wildlife with sticks to get exciting footage. And, yes, in their world the wildlife in question is zombies. But this is not a story about zombies. It's a story of a world so filled with endless threats--from fame-whoring parents to the endless danger that the person standing next to you could turn into a zombie at virtually any moment--that it only contains one other person you can really trust.

So here, a bit of private musing from George that tells you all you really need to know about whether you want to read these books:

Sometimes we leave the connecting door between our rooms open all night. We'd still share a room if they'd let us, turn the other room into an office and have done with it. Because both of us hate to be alone, and both of us hate to have other people--people outside the country we've made together--around when we're defenseless. We're always defenseless when we're asleep.

We leave the connecting door open, and I wake up in the night to the sound of him snoring, and I wonder how the hell I'm going to stay alive after he finally slips up. He'll die first, we both know it, but I don't know . . . I really don't know how long I'll stay alive without him. That's the part Shaun doesn't know. I don't intend to be an only child for long.

I'm not actually finished with DEADLINE but I have, crucially, read past page 338 and I need to squee NOW oh my GOD.

(That is DEADLINE, by Mira Grant (aka Campbell-award winner seanan_mcguire), sequel to the Hugo-nominated FEED--if you haven't read them I will soon be doing a pimping post because oh my god this is so on my Yuletide list! There's a pretty nifty book trailer for the books, although a) I don't think Shaun's voice really sounds like that and b) pfft, like the zombies are actually the point.)

( HAVE YOU READ PAST PAGE 338 OF DEADLINE? WOULD YOU LIKE TO SQUEE WITH ME FOREVER AND POSSIBLY ALSO WRITE YULETIDE FIC? OR REQUEST SOME SO I CAN WRITE IT FOR YOU? GINORMOUS SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST 1.5 BOOKS OF THE NEWSFLESH TRILOGY BEHIND THE CUT. ALSO ALL THE SQUEE. )