I have a hard enough keeping myself on task normally, so stretches like that are annoying. On the upside the week without internet I spent reading and hashing out ideas for NaNoWriMo. I don’t have a real detailed outline, but maybe this story doesn’t need one. It is one I’ve been playing with for a long time.

On the last day of the workshop, after all the goodbyes were sad, me and mom went to see the newest movie from Studio Ghibli, Ponyo. (It was sweet and fun, and visually beautiful. Another Ghibli classic.) Coming out of the movie we discovered that it had been raining, and not just a little rain – cars were stalled in the water that covered the roads. It was rather surreal.

My birthday is coming up this week, and I’m planning to do another Anchorage trip. Then it’s time to get all the ducks in a row for November. What has happened to the last year?

My writing is still stalled. A few weeks ago I tired to start the idea of the summer, only to have it turn out a prefab steel building – functional, but ugly as hell. I realized I was trying to force my writing, and I’ve always believed that it’s one of those things that cannot be forced. The results simply aren’t worth it. This last weekend I wrote 500 words of story exploration, a bit of worldbuilding that will likely never see the light of day, and it flowed freely from my fingers. It felt good. I’m going to take it as a good sign.

I’m attending a writing workshop put together by the Alaska Writers Guild this weekend. I sort of stumbled into going, earning a partial scholarship with a story I hauled out of the depths of my hard drive and edited the day before the deadline on a whim with not much thought to actually getting to go. I’m not sure why I’m going, I’ve never been to any sort of conference or workshop before (cons definitely do not count) so I’m unsure what I’ll gain from it. I’m less nervous and more wary. At the very least it’ll be an experience?

Next week the preparations begin. Autumn is coming, and NaNoWriMo is coming. In addition to getting my cat herding equipment ready and outlining I’m going to try and set up a schedule for blog posts. With topics and everything! I just need to figure out what, being an unpublished writer, I’m qualified to write about. (Suggestions are quite welcome.)

I checked the sky and it was back to normal as well. For as far as we could see the story was the same – the walking dead had just disappeared, though no one had happened to see it happen. Some of the people are babbling about religion and such; I’m not sure – I heard talk about alternate worlds and government cover-ups and I wouldn’t bet on Them truly being gone.

But they aren’t here now, and that’s what truly matters. I’m going to secure my room tonight, just in case, and go looking for more survivors tomorrow. Not sure I can get to sleep after what I’ve seen though.

(So ends the Salt Lake City Zombie Apocalypse.)

There was just an explosion a few blocks over. The blast shook everything in the room here. I wonder what happened? Apparently noise attracts them, and that was pretty loud. Why am I willing to bet it had something to do with one of the groups I sent off to supplies? I hope they have sense enough not to lead them back here. The sky looks weird, okay it’s really weird. I wonder what it was that blew?

I’ve found out some interesting things so far, there’s even a report that could only have come from California. And at least the zombies are showing respect for the library.

Reality is settling in during the brief calms. I stay busy to stay sane, if I think about what is going on I’d shut down. Need to find a weapon.
11PM:

I managed to find a metal pipe laying around. It came in handy when the first of the infected reached the hotel, following another ragtag group of survivors. And I admit I froze. Seeing from a distance, reading about them, hearing about them… nothing compares.

We set up barricades in the hallways, though it does little more good then slow them down a bit, and reinforced the trickier doors with whatever we could get our hands on. We’re spread out above the fourth floor because there is limited access.

I know this isn’t a long term solution, we’re going to run out of supplies sooner rather then later. With any luck the shuffling dead will give up on reaching us, or something else will distract them, and we can make for the bus again. I’m researching for places we could go, places where other people might have gathered. My hands are shaking and I keep hitting the wrong keys.

If nothing else I’m going to head north. I’ll be damned if I die this far from home.

I hear they stop at midnight. All we can do is sit tight and hope – we’ll find out in an hour.

We made it back to the city to find it was all quiet. The zombies must have followed the people out of town, though there is some commotion around Temple Square. We staying away from that area of course. I split up the group to gather supplies and I headed back to the hotel to get my laptop and try and find out more about what is going on. Funny how as a writer me and my writer friends speculate on stuff like this all the time. I never thought I could use it outside of writing.

I could really use my dogs about now. They could tell me where the zombies are. I’m thinking about holing up in the hotel – even functioning humans have trouble with the doors. First things first, I need to go get supplies.

(bliteotw)

Me and a small group left the naysayers behind. We’re heading back to the city now. – about 2 hours ago from web

Bus is ready but i can’t convince anyone that we have to go. The lavender seems to be hiding us for now but they’re getting closer. – about 3 hours ago from web

Got the bus, it took longer then i expected. – about 5 hours ago from web

They found us. Too many people at the farm, not enough supplies – i’m going to hijack a bus and try to get back to the city. – about 8 hours ago from web

I’m worried about traveling in such a large group. It might attract them. – about 9 hours ago from web

Checked lj. Zombie uprising sure explains things. – about 10 hours ago from web

Except for the buses it’s quiet on the roads. There are a lot of people wandering at the side of the roads, like they’re all drunk. – about 11 hours ago from web

Made it to the buses but something is off. There is something they aren’t telling us. – about 11 hours ago from web

I visited Temple Square Wednesday; I took a tour and took lots of pictures. It was very pretty – I have a soft spot for interesting architecture. Last night an impressive storm rolled through sometime after midnight. I couldn’t sleep so I stayed up to watch the lightning flash just a few miles overhead. About twenty minutes after it started rain and hail poured down. It smelled wonderful and made me wish we had more storms like that back in Alaska.

Tonight I feel oddly antsy and I miss my dogs, I hope they are doing alright back home. I think I caught sight of that comet I heard about,  hard to say – we don’t have the best view from our room. The window looks into ‘the courtyard’, which means we’re facing a brick wall. I have to sit on the floor and tilt my head to get a decent view of the sky.

My writing group got together and made Hogwarts school robes, each of us with our on houses – I claimed Hufflepuff, not because it was the only one left but before it’s the house I always get sorted into. The robes took up the last week of June and first week of July and we managed to finish them just in time for the movie.

For the movie we went to the midnight premiere at the best theater available. They had several showings, we got into the 12:01 one and were actually close to the start of a huge line due to good planning. The movie itself was the best made out of all of them, in my opinion, but only comes in second favorite of the movies so far – Prisoner of Azkaban still holds that title.

For the book I went to the big Barnes and Noble store in Anchorage. I ended up arriving a bit late, so I missed much of the events, but there was still plenty of fun to be had, including performers, people in awesome costumes and eating Berty Bott’s Beans without looking at them. When it came down to midnight the line moved quickly and by 1:30am we had our books. On the way out I grabbed one of the boxes the books came in and now I wish I’d grabbed more then one because it is just that neat.

I read on the car ride home, usually a big no-no for me and my sensitive stomach, and, since I couldn’t sleep for the excite of it, I stayed up all night reading. I took a break Saturday afternoon to let my writing group catch up some and finished Sunday evening just as I planned – with a rain storm and a cup of tea. No spoilers, as I promised, but the book was beyond amazing and more then lived up to my expectations of it. I laughed, I cried and I couldn’t put it down.

It is just so sad to realize this is the end – there will probably never be an event like this again in my life time. So there are the movies, big deal – I know the stories already(though I am really looking forward to Half Blood Prince). It was a great ride, I can’t wait to go back and reread all the books just to relive it. ;)