Interview with a Zombie

Tape transcript of an abandoned interview. Interviewer Billy London. Interviewee Novak the Zombie.

BL: Just speak nice and clearly into the microphone.
NtZ: As oppose to shouting at your laptop screen?
BL: Look, machines are confusing. Why don't you introduce yourself.
NtZ: My name is Novak, I am a zombie deity, no rotting flesh or groaning. Unless you decide to do something silly, then I will groan. I'm around five hundred years old give or take and I'm six foot four inches and a quarter. The extra quarter's important.
BL: What's your favourite food?
NtZ: That's classified.
BL: (sigh) Alrighty, favourite drink?
NtZ: Whiskey.
BL: Likes?
NtZ: Chase and Status and a woman who can dance until the sunrises.
BL: Dislikes?
NtZ: Fire. People who use fire. People who think it's funny to set me up with hot women who can set me on fire. Authors with a twisted sense of humour.
BL: Now wait a minute. I am not twisted. That's a bit unfair.
NtZ: Is it? Woman, what's the one thing that will kill me?
BL: (quietly) Fire.
NtZ: Who'd you give me as an equal?
BL: Kamilah.
NtZ: Who can do what?
BL: Set you on fire, but she's getting it under control! You can totally help her!
NtZ: My sweet, deluded Billy. I am not in existence for fire practice.
BL: She's really pretty?
NtZ: Irrelevant. She has got a fantastic pair of pins on her. Which is besides the point.
BL: She's got trust issues, just like you. It'll be kismet.
NtZ: If I die at her hands? It's suicide.
BL: I know you like a challenge. Think of it as something to do.
NtZ: You know what I like to do and I like to take my time over it. I really don't want to turn into a ball of fire to allow my woman to enjoy herself. I'd reassess this if I were you.
BL: Er, it's all a bit too late really. Trust me!
NtZ: Let me just revise this for you. You gave a bad guy his best friend. A photographer ends up with a sweet fashion designer. There's a doctor who 'nursery school' plays his way to get a teacher. You let a techno geek have a nurse-
Tony Caristo: I am not a geek!
BL: Would. You. Go. Away?
NtZ: And you gave a musician an artist. All nicely balanced and fair. And what do I get? Me? I get a pyromaniac.
BL: It's a risk every man faces in a relationship. That he'll one day piss off his woman enough that she'll want to kill him..
NtZ: I just have to be in the same room as her!
BL:  Believe me, Caristo risks that every time he opens his mouth. So does Rhys Lloyd. Dude, honestly, you need to calm down and trust my vision. It'll be worth it.
NtZ: (sigh) It better be. Music's just starting to get good again. I don't want to miss it because I've been burnt to dust. You've got problems Billy.
TC: That's what I told her.
BL: I'm not talking to either of you.

Put-Out-the-Zombie-EBOOK.html

Love In My Tummy

I realised I haven't done a soundtrack for An Old Cake Tale, which is sacrilege because I write everything to music. Actually, I'm that irritating girl walking along who starts singing to herself. What? I get carried away! So voila, music to bake to. Love or otherwise.

1. Weddings Are Long: Sia - I'm In Here (Acoustic) YouTube
2. Rhys cruisin' for a brusin' - Dan Black - U + Me YouTube
3. Dance Off - Full Force - Ain't My Type Of Hype YouTube
4. Trust Me - Wendy Rene - After Laughter YouTube
5. Other Uses For Ties - Portishead - Glory Box YouTube
6. That Man Will Die - Jay-Z - Roc Boys (And The Winner Is) YouTube
7. Anniversaries Ahoy - Jamie T - Calm Down Dearest YouTube

Sky's The Limit

I had this idea in my head, please don’t ask me where it came from, that Elle D Hayes is an Apple Pie Mum. You know, happy, smiling, Snow White singing with birds at her windowsill chiming in. I adore her, so when I got my copy of Wynter’s Blossom, I was waiting for the Disney titles to roll. Oh how mistaken I was!

Speaking of Disney, remember when Bambi’s mum got shot? Yeah, that’s the sort of shock I got in reading this powerful piece of writing. Sarah Eriksson is a woman who has endured the loss of her father, a terrible violation and the birth of her baby Summer in one year. Steep hill for anyone to climb, let alone with the wolf shifter dimension to it.

Sarah’s sister Shiloh requests amnesty from the Unity Pack’s Alpha Wynter Grey. From the moment Wyn replies, accepting the three into his pack, you are there with them all. You want to hug Shiloh, in her need to protect her sister, tell her it will all work out. You want to hold baby Summer, let her accept you with a few sniffs, assure her that she is safe now. There are big bad ass wolves to look after her, her mum and her aunt. More than anyone you are with Sarah. Seeing her take her life back, regain her sense of self, and get her man. You want to put on a cheerleading outfit and roll out for her with each step she takes forward to becoming the Alphaya (I freaking love that word. Makes me tingle.)

It is a delicious tale, keeping you entirely enthralled as to what a woman can survive and be all the stronger for it. How a real man can handle not only dangerous situations, but his woman with respect, passion and love. Moreover how a real man can embrace a child as his own, regardless of biology.

The paranormal dimensions of this book are exceptional in an already very familiar genre. Elle gives it a credible military edge that doesn’t at all bend reality. Almost as if I expect to leave my house and run into a few wolves!

Every character sings with humour, depth, emotion, but the stage is firmly reserved for Sarah and Wyn and goddamn some fiery heat! I am so excited about the future of the Unity Pack and all of you should be too!

Always the quiet ones. Telling you.

Wynter's Blossom

Lights Go Down

Sometimes I think I forget that I haven't been doing this very long. Windows was published in February this year. And it was this time last year that Angelicsounds and I were debating what to put up on Literotica. It's now become so intrinsic to my nature to come home and write, to have full conversations with my characters, sometimes out loud and I have to pretend I'm talking into my phone. Seriously, I've been sprung like a mental patient.

There are days when I'll be cooking like Gina's right next to me and I'll get a hug from Nick for doing his favourite. Tony will generally always poke me in the side and demanding I listen to his insane theories. I've had Ryan tickling my feet and for me to go to the Portrait Gallery. Efia and Rhys are the bad influences when it comes to cupcakes. Oreo is their deal and therefore it should also be mine. Sofia will nod at a dress on ASOS that Courtney thought would suit me because I should look like a bit of a ho once in a while or no one will feel the ladies. Kamilah will hold my hand when I walk home under the scattering of orange and red leaves of the park and yammers away about Novak's mural and the tips it gives. Eva will always remind me to make sure that shadow is just that. A shadow and nothing more. Then when I'm done checking, I should have Gabriel play me a song. Massimo tells me that he's lonely. Rocky wants to introduce someone to his nonna. Luca desperately some peace. Beppe is crazy. Oh god, that dude is so crazy, I'll have to tell you about that one day. Auden doesn't want to be what he's been made to be and Helena wishes she could spend her life dancing in a forest with a bewitching man under the moonlight. Because of these wonderful and certifiable people, I rarely spent a minute alone. When I'm feeling like there are little hammers on the inside of my skull, I do wish they'd be bloody quiet.

This moaning is supposed to be a general apology for being all round lame. On the other hand, I am going out getting inspiration for what comes next, so you say I'm being rubbish, I say I'm researching. With prosecco. And pretty men. All in the name of my art. Honest guvnor!