(MAY 2ND PROMPT)

This is one of my (ER Arroyo) favorite winning entries we’ve had! Check out March’s story below and view the original photo and prompt here.

Prompt: She had only ever stepped outside once in her life, and that time she’d only made it halfway to the dilapidated gate before her parents caught her and brought her back inside to rescue her from the Dangers. Now that her parents had gone to the Next, she had no choice. She knew what she was walking out of, but had no idea what she was walking into.

The girl tread on light feet, mud beneath her toes. The Fog hung heavy on the ground, blanketing time-worn headstones—almost still, like common fog. She shivered in her thin shift.

As she passed the gate, her breathing turned fitful. The Fog around her stirred—undulated, billowed. She clenched her fingers, as clouds coalesced into form, taking the shape of a hunched crone—slate-hued and wavering. A face of seething smog, hair like wisps of mist. She moved, even while motionless.

“Who’s this?” the Ask crooned, in a voice made of wind. “Who, who?”

The crone sprung, swirled around the girl, a tornado of question, sending her dark hair skyward. The girl squeezed her eyes shut. “Who, who, who?” thundered in her ears.

Then, stillness—abrupt and strange. The girl opened her eyes, hesitant. The Ask hovered just before her, staring with a gunmetal gaze. Eyes that were not eyes. “Who?”

“Just a girl,” she answered, in a quiet voice.

“Girls have names, as all things do. Like hills and songs and sickness. Who?”

The girl could taste The Ask in her mouth—sweet, cloying, horrible. “I have no name,” she said. “I am nameless.”

Sometimes, on the cusp of sleep, the girl thought she could remember a name she once had. Her mother’s voice calling out to her—two syllables, sing-song. Nothing more.

“No name,” the Ask breezed, then cackled. “This nameless girl had clever kin. Cannot take a nameless thing to the Next. No name. Who, who?”

“I only wish to pass,” the girl said.

The Ask swirled, gusted. “The nameless may pass. A girl won’t be nameless long. All things have names, girls too. Who who?” And then was gone.

The girl stepped forward once again, the question still echoing in her mind.

Who?

Interview by Angie Taylor

Welcome, David McIntyre to BOD’s author spotlight interview!  Thank you so much for spending some time with us and helping all of us at Band of Dystopian Authors and Fans get to know you.

Thank you for the invitation.  This is the first time I have given an interview as a writer. I’ve done many different things over the course of my career, teacher, pastor, missionary, and wilderness survival instructor, but writing fiction is relatively new for me and you are the first person to formally ask about it.

For starters, can you tell us how you heard about BOD and what attracted you to the group?

A year ago I knew NOTHING about indie publishing until a friend told me about how he launched his PA fiction under the name JT Sawyer and was having a great experience with it.

I have never done much with Facebook other than keep track of friends. When I decided to publish The Fall series on Kindle, I searched Facebook for anything related to the PA genre and found BOD.  I was immediately struck by the activity level and participation on the page.  People seemed to know and like each other.  It was like finding intelligent life, community.  True confession here…I have not been an avid reader of PA fiction for several years and felt very out of touch with people who were. I was searching for a place where I could get to know readers and so many pages barely have a pulse. Showing up at BOD was like going to a party where I didn’t know anyone and ending up playing beer-pong in the first ten minutes.

Tell us a little bit about your writing history.  When did you know you loved to write and how did it all happen?

I have always had an overactive imagination.  As a kid I was a role-playing game addict but always as the game-master not just a player. I was never satisfied with any of the pre-packaged games and ended up developing my own post-nuke game scenario that we played for several years.  During those years I read every PA series I could, The Guardians and Deadlands are two I remember quite well.

I didn’t start writing fiction until college.  As an elective, I took a course in creative writing and discovered that I had developed all sorts of muscles for character development, scene, and plot from years of running RPG’s and reading PA fiction like my life depended on it. The creative process was in place but that was the first time I had ever written anything down. The response in class and from guys in the dorm was very positive.

During my senior year, I started writing my first novel, Lyon’s Pride. I discovered how difficult it is to get it right. At this point, I was newly married and moved to Brazil to teach in an international school. Life turned into a wild ride and I set writing aside. That was 1992.

I started writing again three years ago with The Fall series. Like the pre-packaged role-playing games, I’m never satisfied with fiction. I’m not critical because I know how difficult it is, but I find myself suspending judgment often.  It’s fiction, that’s part of it and it does not stop me from enjoying other people’s work. For some reason, zombie stories generate the most conflict for me. I found myself mulling over how it would have to be, resolving the issues I had with various scenarios. It came to the point of “put-up or shut-up” and I decided to work those solutions into a story.

Is there an author or genre that has influenced your writing?

For most of my adult life, I have been involved in public speaking and an early mentor told me to find my own voice.  He told me it is essential to learn from others, but any attempt to copy them will obliterate that which is unique to me as a speaker. I believe that is true for writers. My writing heroes are Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck and I think I have read everything that Louis L’Amour ever wrote. Their male lead characters are unapologetically masculine without turning into caricatures.  Especially with L’Amour, his characters follow a type but don’t degenerate into stereotypes. I can only hope they have influenced my writing.

Do you have some kind of writing routine that helps you create your stories?  Are you an outliner or a pantser?  What works for you?

I write the same way I navigate wilderness. I know where I want to wind up and I break the trip down into visible objectives or waypoints.  I have to arrive at those waypoints to stay on course, but it doesn’t matter how I get to the next one. An outline is the ultimate buzz-kill.  Along the way, my characters come up with things I never would have thought of. I have a solid concept of the setting and the characters, their motivations and limitations.  I create problems for them and turn them loose to figure it out. I never say no to them for the sake of creating artificial tension.  If they have access to a simple solution, they are free to take it.  That just makes me find the real tension and force them to deal with it.

Now tell us about the first book in The Fall series.   I have read a lot of books that deal with zombies of some kind.  But your book approaches the idea from an angle that I found really believable.  Without giving away too much can you tell us how you came up with the idea?

Nothing makes me happier than to hear my premise is believable.

I used to tell my wilderness survival students, “You are the Boogieman out here.  Nothing in this jungle has a 16 inch steel tooth like you.” (machete) The idea of humanity turning against itself is a rational fear we all know by instinct. We don’t need superhuman, mutated powers to be the apex predator on this planet and we achieved that back in the stone-age. Human beings at their

worst are horrific.  We are capable of incredible brutality and aggression once our restraint system fails. I find an enraged woman with a crowbar far more terrifying than a rotting corpse with bad teeth. Why don’t zombies fall apart? How would such a thing propagate?

I settled on a viral pandemic with one easy symptom that would ensure it spread through everyone’s normal routine. It had to kill most, but not all, and there had to be a way to survive with your mind intact.  I have the disease pathology mapped out, but the survivors wouldn’t know how or why it all happened.  Discovering all that is part of the arc of the story.

In so many stories, the zombies become part of the weather, hot, dry, with staggering corpses. Characters run along glibly popping off headshots like they’re swatting flies. What if that wasn’t the case and humanity lost every time the characters were forced to kill? Rather than making the solution the province of some elite team in a military-industrial bunker, I made it simple and open source. They can affect change and have the ability to act. That moral responsibility, and the danger of acting on it, sets the tone for the story.

Can you tell us what comes next for Nick? 

The first three volumes, Scare upon the Earth, An Outstanding Debt, and Rest in the Shadow form an arc that introduces the main characters and welds them together as a family unit/tribe. The next three will also form an arc that takes them into a wider context and conflict. The last scene of Rest in the Shadow is the starting point for Volume IV and everything changes.

A survival situation will either make you sink to your worst or rise to your best. Someone said that we are all half ape and half angel. Rather than write yet another story of men reduced to animals I want to show Nick step up and face the situation like a man. Brutality is easy; cultivating what enables us to rise out of it is work. In his heart, every man wants respect as a warrior, king, priest, and lover (quoting someone there but forgetting my source). Nick has to step up in those areas.

Do you have any other stories you’re working on?

I’m planning six books in The Fall series, and currently working on Volume IV. I am developing a sequel series set in the future after The Fall ends. I am planning to do a rewrite of Lyon’s Pride, which is a sci-fi, off-world, wilderness survival story.  I also want to write non-fiction about wilderness survival.

Besides writing can you tell us about some of your other hobbies?

As I mentioned, I am a wilderness survival instructor. That has been a life-long passion. In 2000 I started the Per Ardua Wilderness Ministry using wilderness survival training as a backdrop for leadership development among the people I worked with in Brazil. In 2008 I co-founded the Mestre do Mato (Bushmaster) Survival School which opened up that training to paying customers.

I am a certified gun nut. ‘Murica! If it goes bang, I’m there, and yes I should tone that down in my writing. I’m learning the balance between accuracy and excessive detail. The more you know about a thing, the more you know that certain things matter, but not everyone cares. There is always the temptation to slip into teaching mode when fictionalizing a subject you teach. I have the same struggle when my characters are in a wilderness survival scene.

As a fellow Brazilian Portuguese speaker, can you tell us about the work you do in Brazil and how you became involved?

My (ex) wife grew up in Brazil.  We went there for two years (90-92) to teach in an English language school.  We later returned in 1999 as church planting missionaries and remained in that role until 2013. It was 15 years and a lifetime of experience, most, but not all of it good. That which doesn’t kill you just makes you change your shorts.

I am still involved with the Bushmaster school, which my partner relocated to Paraty on the coast of Rio De Janeiro State.  I hope to spend part of each year teaching there during peak season. I have permanent residency status in Brazil and it will always be a part of my life.

Are there any last crazy, fun, or insane things you’d like your fellow BODers to know about you?

I am currently in the running for a wilderness survival TV program, but since I signed a non-disclosure agreement with them, I can’t go into detail. This is my second run at such a thing. Several years ago, Discovery Brazil approached me for a similar show and I made it all the way to the final cut. I have no clue if this will happen or not.  They cast a wide net and narrow it down to a few individuals and it is a very fickle process. If I don’t make it, it will be due to a lack of talent, not a lack of trying.

If anyone is interested in my wilderness survival activities, I have a YouTube channel “Colhane” that shows what I do.

Thank you so much, David for sharing your time and talents with us!  It’s so fun for all of us at BOD to get to know you better.

Thank-you for the opportunity.  BOD is a great place to hang out.  It has been an educational experience and I hope to contribute where I can.

THE FALL VOLUME 1: SCARCE UPON THE EARTH

When a biological weapon wipes out 90% of the earths population and leaves the other 10% dangerously psychotic, Nick Harris slips through the cracks. He awakens alone in a world of savages intent to beat him to death for attempting to survive.

“Dead,” he said out loud. “It’s dead,” he lifted his eyes again. “All of it.” He caught his reflection in the rear-view mirror and gazed into tired eyes marked to bear witness. A quiet talk with Captain Bass returned to him. “When you are alone, when no one can see or hear you, when everything is stripped away and all the props are gone, that is when you discover who you are. Most men run from that their entire lives.”

Dave McIntyre grew up in eastern PA, near where this story begins. He has developed an interest in firearms, small unit tactics, and survival related topics since his early teens. During ten of his fifteen years living in Brazil he taught wilderness survival both on a not-for profit basis (Per Ardua Wilderness) and for paying clients at the Bushmaster Wilderness Survival School of which he is co-founder. Dave is also known as “Colhane” on YouTube. His channel showcases his wilderness survival activities in Brazil.

Per Ardua is Latin for “Through Difficulty”, it is also the McIntyre clan motto. The Fall series draws heavily upon Dave’s experience as a wilderness survival instructor. The most powerful lessons we learn in life are born in the midst of our deepest trials. When faced with crushing circumstances, those who allow the situation to drive them to their very best survive.

Interview by Angie Taylor

Thank you so much, TK for taking the time to spend with all of us at BOD!  BOD is already such a fun place, but it’s so lucky to have your funny, witty addition, so thank you!

Aw, thank you so much! I adore this group. I know when I peek at the posts, I’m about to be highly entertained. It’s a super fun place to hang out and just be myself.

Before we chat about your book(s), can you share a little bit about how you got into writing?  When did you know you wanted to be a writer, and how did it all come to be?

I wrote a short story for a school assignment in sixth grade, and that’s when the gears started turning. In high school, I wrote (terrible) poetry to deal with heartbreak and used it as an outlet for my anger. But, after I got married and had children, I left my journals unattended for over a decade. The first night after my husband and I separated, I paced the floor for hours because I didn’t know what to do. I was in my early thirties – I had no hobbies, no interests, and nothing of my own outside of my family. So when my “hats” were stripped off in 2009, I was vacant. I taught myself to play guitar and wrote a few songs, then I met a man who encouraged me to write. He bought me a journal, a pen, and a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing. I devoured the book and started making notes in a journal. On July 4, 2009, I started writing Independence (Contemporary Women’s Fiction). When the kids went to bed, I wrote. At the park? I wrote. Five months and 142K words later, I finished the first draft and moved on to my next project. I’ve been writing ever since. (And, I still have that short story that I take with me when I speak at schools or author talks to show that you’re never too young to have a passion and never too old to rediscover it.)

Now tell us a little about your dystopian books.  Collapse is the first in the series. And it has the perfect back drop for the kind of stories BODers crave.  I love that it explores the possibility of a future America dealing with totally realistic issues that are kind of being experienced now.  Can you tell us more about it?

Collapse stemmed from an uneasy feeling I had when I filled out the 2010 census. As I dropped it in the mail, I thought, “I just put all my demographic information on one piece of paper and mailed it to the government. What would happen if they don’t use that information for my good?” Tess’s story line blew wide open. In the book, Tess is a forty-year-old widowed woman living in a small town in Missouri raising two teenaged daughters and working as a nursing home administrator. She’s just received notice that she’s been selected to participate in a government test program called REEP (Redistribution for Economic Equivalency) and may have to swap houses with a larger family. The same day, she’s notified that the government has cut all Medicare/Medicaid funding for nursing home residents and is ordered to shut the home down even though some of the residents have no family and nowhere to go.

So I had Tess, but I wondered how America got in this position to begin with. Enter Doug. Doug is a fuel truck driver whose job is in high demand since the Middle East cut off all fuel supply to America. This caused the powers that be to create fuel vouchers and allocation programs in order to better manage what fuel remained. Doug allowed me to show the devastation and panic brought on by supply trucks failing to deliver food and supplies to grocery stores. He also let me explore the non-heroic side of a character. He’s a good guy – a normal man with a good heart and kind spirit. I’m tired of Hollywood putting normal people in devastating, catastrophic events and having them all thrive. So what happens if you put a good guy in a bad situation, and he doesn’t handle it well?

The last character to form was Brenna, a ten-year-old girl from central Missouri who’s excited about her once-a-year free plane ride to see her dad in Richmond. Her story shows how rough things have already gotten in other parts of the country and sets up a large part of book two, Three Meals to Anarchy.

Do you think that America could really fall apart as literally as it does in Collapse?

Collapse embodies some of my worst fears for the country. (Hence the series title, “The Yellow Flag Series.” A yellow flag means caution on a race track, sickness on a ship, and a penalty on the field.) When I wrote the first two books, no, I never thought any of it could truly happen. Over the last five years, though, now I’m a little unsettled. I wrote Collapse before I knew anything about ObamaCare or other policies that have since been enacted. Several of my readers have questioned if I have some kind of future-telling abilities, and every time I hear that, I’m sick inside. God, I hope this doesn’t happen to our country.

Besides your dystopian stories, what other stories have you written/are you writing?

I love to write Contemporary Women’s Fiction and Chick Lit. It gives me an outlet for my funnier side and lets me tap into that which I know well: failed romantic relationships and lifelong friendships. “An Afternoon with Aunt Viv” is a short story about a woman in her thirties that discovers one tantrum-filled conversation with her father twenty years earlier altered his life and happiness for the rest of his life. Independence is about Claire, a thirty-something mother of two who leaves her alcoholic husband and leans on her best friend, Brenda, a hot-headed, man-hating woman about to be rocked by love against her better judgment. My latest novel, The Breakup Mix, is about five friends (only three have voices in this novel) who are all in different phases of life (two married with children, two divorced, and one bitterly single) and keep each other grounded when the winds of the world are trying to tear them apart. This book is laugh-out-loud funny and “holy-where-are-the-tissues” heart-wrenching. I can say this as the author, because I experienced all this myself while writing this book. LOL

In addition to your own stories, what can you tell us about your involvement with BOD’s upcoming anthology?

Prep for Doom

I’m thrilled to be a contributing author in the novel, Prep for Doom. When the call for submissions came, I knew this was something I wanted to do, so I tabled The Breakup Mix long enough to work up a submission. I was elated when my story was chosen, but I was blown away when I read all the other stories and completely humbled to be included with these brilliant minds.

What has it been like to collaborate with other writers in creating such a unique project?

This has been an awesome experience for me. I’ve never done anything like this, and truthfully, I’ve never been fond of group projects. (It’s the Aries in me.) But this has been phenomenal. I think my favorite part was when we were all reading the first draft together and posting right and left about it then doing an author reveal. I’ve made some great friends and had a ton of laughs over the last several months.

Now share with us some fun, random info about yourself.  You have an infectious, humorous personality. Where did you get it from, and what do you do to always see humor in the world?

My whole family is quick-witted and full of life, so I have to give credit to genetics on part of it. Some people say I ate my twin in utero, and that’s why I have double the personality. (Thanks, sister.) I’ve always liked to make people laugh and find the humor in situations, but it really became an invaluable character asset after my divorce. I made a decision in 2010 that I could either laugh about things or cry and let the world overtake me. I was going through some really hard times and trying to figure out how to be a single career mom and homeowner and not be squashed by it all. So I started writing a blog called My Ms.Adventures to share my experiences and find the humorous twist so I could cope. It worked wonders for me and has become widely popular. And, I’m constantly having some crazy-funny stuff happen to me. I’m like a magnet to the unusual.

What is the craziest, or funniest thing you’d like all of us at BOD to know about you?

When I was a kid, I wanted to do character voices for Hannah-Barbara or Disney when I grew up. (Along with all the other careers I’d planned: attorney, journalist, waitress, etc.) I started mimicking the voices of people on television and developed a talent for various impressions. (Gizmo, Scooby Doo, Bungee, then later came Cartman, Linda Richmond, and several I just made up on my own.) It’s not uncommon for me to quote movies or bust out different voices during normal conversation- often it’s unplanned and unexpected to everyone, myself included.

Would you like to share about any future writing projects you’re doing, and give us a heads up of some things we can look forward to?

I’m currently working on book three in the Yellow Flag Series, which is due out this summer. (I hope.) After The Breakup Mix, I’ve had a bit of a book hangover and haven’t been able to write much for nearly two months. Having three other women take over your mind for seven months can jack you up, apparently. But, I’m plugging along and hope to launch late summer.

Thank you so much for sharing yourself with us and for making BOD a better place!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this group and for all the joy it brings me. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this side of me with you. Thanks!

ABOUT TK CARTER

Learn more about TK Carter on her website.
and connect with her on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter.

Collapse on Amazon
Collapse on Goodreads