Battlefield Z – Children’s Brigade

I want to tell you about what I was reading while I finished this up. Battlefield Z started as an idea a couple of years ago when I wrote a script called Wave of the Dead, about a man in Florida going to Arkansas to pick up his estranged kids. I dusted it off after binge watching the Walking Dead on Netflix (seriously, no spoilers, I haven’t caught up on last season yet!) last November. I cranked out about 10k words, then went to work on another project, and when I came back to Z, I thought the time had passed.

I still wanted to write it, but I was just going to finish it, publish it and add to the series later. Turns out, Zombies are huge!

After I pulled BZ to the forefront and finished it off while reading AMERICAN GODS by NEIL GAMIN, I shot through HARRY POTTER and the SORCERER’S STONE in one afternoon and picked up an original copy of THE GUNSLINGER by Stephen King from my Dad’s house in Texas.

My dad is dying of cancer, or maybe dying isn’t the right word. He’s got stomach cancer, but made it past the four month mark so he could live another ten years or ten days. It spread to his liver, and they’re managing it too. I remembered reading the Gunslinger so many years ago, this very copy lifted from my father’s shelf, in his house in Arkansas. The craggy etched face of the obsessed man chasing after the man in black was back in my mind after the announcement of the movie with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, the throwback to a different time refusing to die, refusing to surrender to something inevitable.

So I picked it up again, and read it.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about Zombies. Specifically what the Dad from Battlefield Z was going to do next. I knew he had to make it through Georgia, and I knew he had separated from the group. But what follows is a weeks worth of writing written in a fever fueled spell as I suffered from food poisoning, chills, aches, pains, and the endless trips to the bathroom. I kept the book in there, covering a chapter at a time and would return to the sofa, wrapped in blanket, cold fingers on the keyboards as I thought about this Dad, thought about what I would do, how I would do it, and even if I would ever be that selfless.
II hope you enjoy it.

I’ve been thinking about what happens next, you can probably tell from seeds scattered throughout, though in the movies they’re called Easter eggs. I’m going to let it marinate a little bit, finish up the story I set aside for this one, and get the first draft done before November ends.

You can grab your copy HERE

Let me know what you think. I answer all my email.

Gratitude Training 101

I woke up kind of a grump this morning. It happens. Maybe I slept on my neck wrong, or maybe my muscles were aching from too hard of a workout. I’ve been a little worried about money, and travel and the kids growing up too fast and missing too many of the little moments in their lives.

I’ve been wondering about my Dad’s fight with cancer and how my brother is doing in LA. I think maybe this damn election, so full of hate and vitriolic from both sides is creating a miasma of ick across the whole damn country, like a fog that clouds the mind of what should be normally rational people. Then I remember that people aren’t rational at all. They are almost all emotion, a tangle of id and ego and tiny tantrums that make four year old’s blush.

That’s all we really are, and we tend to justify the reasons why as we get older.

So maybe I’m just throwing a tantrum, and the gray skies on this gray day have me feeling kinda, well, gray.

Not every day can be full of sunshine once you allow outside forces to affect you on the inside.

This means I should be focused on gratitude and the simple things. It’s hard to be a grump when you are grateful. What’s that old expression? Count your blessings.

There’s wisdom in that wives tale, because once you start to realize just how great your life really is, then maybe the grumpiness goes away.

I woke up in America. Privilege number one. And even if it’s divided, and folks don’t really know which direction to look because of the misdirection being trotted out as if it were fact, it’s still the best damn country in the world.

I woke up in a bed. Too many are denied that simple pleasure.

I was in a house, there was food, and electricity and running water.

I didn’t have a job to rush off to because I am self employed. I had coffee, which in and of itself should make any day worth rising to greet. There was a beautiful woman next to me who says she loves me.

Just focusing on the first five minutes of the day and there’s no reason to be grumpy.

But there’s more.

I clicked on my Amazon account because I am a self employed author entrepreneur and like to check my sales overnight. I put out a new book last week, and so far it’s gotten 5 Star reviews and people are reading it. Not thousands, like I always hope for, but steady numbers of readers are grabbing the book and finishing it, which is itself a victory. I have written a work people like to read. They even ask for more.

So there’s another win.

I got in my car, that’s paid for, and it started. Win.

I went downtown to the library because sometimes I like to work out of the house. My laptop works, it connects to the internet and opens up the entire world to me.

My brain works, and my creativity is something I can tap into on demand. Even if I don’t “Feel” like writing in a zombie book, I have a book about Wizards that’s almost done, or twenty five others with 10k words or more just waiting in line to be finished. I have a notebook full of ideas, and I am an idea creation machine, so much so that I could use three assistants to work on all the different projects I’ve imagined and planned.  I still want to do some collaborations with other authors.

There should be so much gratitude there.

I have a website that people visit and like what I write, and I have a Twitter feed that generates comments and discussion.

I’m connected to my high school friends and my college friends and new friends who enjoy the hobbies I enjoy (hello Ultra Trail Runners) and when I go home, there is food to eat, and clean water to wash clothes in the washing machine and music on the radio.

I had a new project idea today and finished up the outline which is going to help other authors with their marketing next year.  It should be done in a week.

I moved 4,872 words I captured on my phone into the story I’m working on now for November. I wrote it on my smart phone, a computer stronger than my last two desktop’s and I carry it around in my pocket.

So many things to be grateful for, so many reasons to be thankful that it’s hard to stay grumpy.

Annie said it best. I’m grumpy because I miss the sun. But the sun will come out tomorrow. I’d bet a dollar on that.

If you felt like grabbing BATTLEFIELD Z, it’s less than a cheap cup of coffee.

If you like historical fantasy, HOLY WAR is about Templar Knights.

If you like your SCI FI futuristic and in a dystopia, EPOCH is here

or funny then pick up SUPER SECRET SPACE MISSON

You may not be a baseball fan but did you see Game 7 last night?  Normally I let the boys of summer play out their dreams on their own, but the Cubs in the World Series for the first time in 108 years was too much to pass up.  I switched over after the CMA 50 awards show and caught the last three innings.

What a game.  Drama.  Intensity.  And the curse was broken.  Way to go Cubs.  Peanuts and cracker jack’s all around.

In our lifetime, we’ve seen some amazing things.  Self driving cars.  A man skydiving from outer space.  A colony on Mars by 2025.  And now the Cubs won the World Series.

If you don’t think we live in an incredible world full of possibility just ignore the news and focus on what’s really happening.

Even though I am a glass all full kind of guy, I did write a post apocalyptic science fiction book that’s free today.  Battlefield Z about a father searching for his kids in a zombie apocalypse.  Mostly glib, mostly tongue in cheek, but at times touching you can grab your copy free today  here:

http://amzn.to/2fiDf8c

Take a few minutes and leave a review if you like, or click the tweet to share button.

I’m not an NBA fan, more like a highlights guy but the season kicked off well, and the NFL boys are banging heads through winter.  I ate too much Halloween candy and am mid-prep for my next 100 mile race in Florida in December.  I’m posting more about it on Facebook, so join me there at Facebook.com/Chrislowrybooks and tell me what you think of the pics.

I hope your first weekend in November is awesome.  Turn back your clocks one hour on Sunday and there’s a Super Moon on the 11th that you shouldn’t miss.