This Post Isn't About that Mosque

It's about Puget Sound--and zombies!

Last week I left the triple digits of Arkansas for the coolness of the Pacific Northwest. It's an alien landscape up there, gray and foggy and teeming with supernatural sea life. Every day at low tide, we walked the beach and discovered an entirely new species (for us). Here are just two:


At first I thought this was a giant pile of stinking horse manure--but it's sea anemones and they were all over the beach. If you put your finger in the center of one, the creature grasps you gently, thinking you're food.


Gigantic oyster bed! Everyone ate oysters but me. I think they're gross. They taste like the bottom of the ocean, but I gather that's the appeal.


Another thing I did was read Mira Grant's Feed--almost! I'm not quite done yet. I learned a lot from that book. It's a novel set in the post-zombie apocalypse. Humans and zombies share the world. The book focuses on a group of bloggers (who drive the news) and their coverage of a presidential election as well as their continuing struggle against the Rising.

It's a very different book from Brains. And I like that. It came out around the same time, so I can't help but compare the two. Grant reaches a different audience than I do, however. Her book is entirely plot-driven--and it's a good exciting plot. Reading it has been liberating. I'm currently writing a book that is also plot-driven and that is aimed at a broad audience. I began my writing career as a poet and a poetic sensibility still influences my daily writing, but Feed has taught me to not worry so much about words words words and have fun! Not that Grant is a slouch of a writer--not at all. She's got it going on. But I see her devotion to story--and I see that it is good.