Category: Newsletter

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Life After Life Chronicles: Progress Update

Progress! “Life After Life Chronicles” Slow, but right!

I just made progress on My Undead Mother-in-law! That’s the second volume of my “Life After Life Chronicles”, my comic parody of the zombie genre. So far I’m 93% complete on the Week 4 phase. 5 Weeks remain until the deadline.

I spent 37 years as a programmer, systems analyst, and project manager, and the classic description of project management is “It takes 50% of the time to get 90% done, and then 100% of the time to get the last 10%”. Project management has such low standards that any completed project is considered a success, even if it’s late and over budget.

By these generous standards, my book “My Undead Mother-in-law” is doing great! The first draft is only five weeks late! I have real hope of getting it to my editor by May 1st. So, I’m not as big of a turkey (zombie or otherwise) as I could be!

Zombie Turkey from Life After Life Chronicles
A zombie turkey in attack mode

I believe this volume 2 of the “Life After Life Chronicles”, my series of comical zombie books, is more complex and just as entertaining as “Zombie Turkeys”. (Available for purchase on Amazon: link.)

My Undead Mother-in-law
Phase:Week 4
Due:8 years ago
92.7%

Please reply to this post if you want a FREE copy of an excerpt from “My Undead Mother-in-law”. I have one just for you.  Here is my signed guarantee:signed-andy-zach

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A Normal Work Day, Except for Zombies

Andy Zach Writes About Zombies

Expert on Turkey Zombies
Andy Zach, expert on Turkey Zombies

I joined Prose and wrote a short piece about regular zombies. It’s right here: A Normal Work Day, Except for Zombies

Now let me explain about the background to this piece: Prose is seeking to create the world’s longest book: they’re soliciting 15,000 entries about Zombie Apocalypse, which they’ll stick together into an enormous book.

Here is Prose’s explanation:

It’s record-breaking time. Together, we are going to break the world record for longest book. 100 word minimum. When this challenge gets 15,000 entries, it will expire, and we will turn it into a book. Each entry will be its own chapter. The plot? It’s the first day of a zombie apocalypse, write a diary entry. Each contributor should share this challenge prompt with as many people as possible. If we break the world record, this will be read by people for generations to come.

 

What Is Prose? Are they about Zombies?

Prose is a website for authors. Here’s their self-description:
Continue reading A Normal Work Day, Except for Zombies

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Don’t Make My Mistakes: How I Wrote My First Novel

How I Wrote My First Novel in 2016

How I wrote my first novel: I Began with Nanomo in November 2015

In October 2015, I got word I HAD to retire from Caterpillar–or be laid off. What a perfect opportunity to pursue my writing career! But I was certain I would fail, at first. I accepted that. Here is the story of how I wrote my first novel, what went right and what went wrong.

How I wrote my first novel, by Andy Zach
Author Andy Zach

We ate a fried turkey, as a test of our new turkey fryer that month. “Say, wouldn’t it be funny if the turkey came back to life?” I remarked as we ate. “A Zombie Turkey,” my wife Julie commented. “Wow! What a great title for a book! That’s what I’ll write about in Nanomo. Link to Andy Zach’s page on Nanomo If you’re not familiar with Nanomo, follow the link to the site and read all about this wonderful organization.

I Succeeded at Failing

Continue reading Don’t Make My Mistakes: How I Wrote My First Novel