Tag: Plants vs. Zombies

Locating My Inner Zombie

My friend J. Whitworth Hazzard is running a snazzy 250 word flash fiction contest. It is even sponsored by Big Fish Games. The grand prize is a choice of 3 of their zombie games. You might recall my post touting the virtues of Plants vs. Zombies.

The Game Over Screen for Plants Vs. Zombies

 I am a wild fan of flash fiction contests, zombie games, and also my friend J. Whitworth Hazzard (@zombiemechanics on Twitter).

I am well-known for my love of fairy tales. I have never written a zombie-inflected tale before, but I hope you enjoy this one.

Embry nestled further into her concave of damp earth, rotting leaves crusting off the surface like sad strips of old wallpaper.
First they’d eaten her mother, then her brother. They ate her neighbor, Mr. Sanders, and the boy who brought the newspaper. She didn’t mind that last so much – he’d kicked her shin once.
She’d run for three nights now, but could run no further. So she dug, through black earth oozing with worms and chill decay. She tried to keep her tunnel entrance tiny, packing the dirt in around her, bricking herself up into the darkest place.
“They know we’re in here now, Gus. “
A mahogany curl feathered over her cheek, a slash of red in the dimness. She pillowed her head against a knobby root.
Gus’ nose burrowed into her hand, his tongue giving sandpaper comfort but no warmth.

“I’m glad I’ve got you,” Embry said to the deer, charcoal eyes slitting to tiny half-crescents as they drooped.

Gus started following her on the second day, a silent shadow to her steps. The woods were empty; the birds and squirrels were the first to go.
As it darkened, the embers of her hair muted to faintly glowing ash.
Footsteps shuffled closer, thumping over her pitifully thin layer of dirt. In the world above, they were coming. She was too tired to care.

“Stay with me till the end, Gus?”

Everyone needs an imaginary friend at the end of the world.
Wordcount: 249

Absence of My Muse

Honestly, I didn’t think I was doing so little on my blog until I looked at the post listings and realized I had -one- post for August so far, on the 6th. At my best, I was averaging a post every day and a half. To go a week with only one…

There’s a multitude of reasons, but they may all point to the same thing. My darn Muse has departed for climes less balmy. (It has been agitatingly, soul-sucking hot for the last few weeks: the kind of heat that leaves you languidly lolling about on the veranda, fanning yourself limpidly as the linen sticks to your back.) So my Muse has left for a quick jaunt around the countryside and I am left here staring at my computer screen with the following options: 1) watch an episode of The Tudors, 2) read any of the stack of lovely new books on my bedside table, 3) play Plants vs. Zombies, that blessed time-suck.


It isn’t from lack of time off (just finished 3 days off, which may be one culprit). I have lots of projects vying for my attention: Super Secret Spy Girl, rehearsals for The Laramie Project, Blogcritic reviews, etc, etc.

My brain is a bit parched and it has nothing to do with the heat. It’s rather too many wonderful ideas crowding in, trying to fight their way to the fore; it’s not so much time management as it is time muddlement.

Thalia, Muse of Comedy

So today I present the Muses, since mine is not present: Clio (History), Calliope (Epic Poetry), Urania (Astronomy), Euterpe (Song & Elegiac Poetry), Erato (Love Poetry), Melpomene (Tragedy), Thalia (Comedy), Terpsichore (Dance), Polyhymnia (Hymns). Not to be confused with the Graces, the Muses were a little more workaday and useful. Nine muses, nine arts, all the root of the word “museum” and “amuse” and “musing” and other muse-like words.

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.” – Homer
Oliver Rhys, A Seated Muse

Ever noticed that Muses tend to be young, beautiful ladies? Fickle as well, apparently. That comes with Muse-hood. I’m fairly certain that my Muse tends to the plainer side, with milkish skin, but can look otherworldly at the right angle. She definitely has freckles and likely a penchant for ribbons.

Jan Vermeer, The Allegory of Painting (Detail – Clio)

Muses are generally invoked at the beginning of epic poetry, a convention followed by writers for centuries:

O lady myn, that called art Cleo,
Thow be my speed fro this forth, and my Muse,
To ryme wel this book til I haue do;
Me nedeth here noon othere art to vse.
ffor-whi to euery louere I me excuse
That of no sentement I this endite,
But out of Latyn in my tonge it write. – Chaucer

Muses are also a convenient scapegoat, as I illustrated at the beginning of the post. No writing? No muse. No performing? No muse. No singing? No muse. It’s even more dangerous when flesh and blood women are elevated to Muse status, as in Jane Morris for Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Jane’s marriage to William Morris was jeopardized by her affairs with Rossetti, who married his other muse, Elizabeth Siddal (who later overdosed on laudanum). Read more in Francine Prose’s excellent study of real-life muses: Lives of the Muses.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blue Silk Dress (Model: Jane Morris)
Jane Morris (photo) and Jane (painting) – Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood

So, Muse, any time you would like to return…you know where my door can be found. What do you do to invoke your muse? And what do you do when she does not appear?

Raison D’Etre

This post has been on my list for awhile, yet I never seem to write it. To define a raison d’etre (or roughly, “reason to be”) is very final and permanent-feeling…as opposed to constantly evolving. But perhaps if I put it out there, it will prove a touchstone along the way.

I can’t really explain why I started Yearning for Wonderland. I wrote a blog before. For the gluttonously curious, it was here: ruanna3.livejournal.com. I resisted writing one for forever. Blogs seemed an odd combination of public and private, half-diary and half-who even cares? The really private entries were locked and the really public ones didn’t seem particularly interesting, even to me. After awhile, it became clear that only a handful of people ever read it or cared, so I lost interest (see last entry? 2009).

Then one night I wandered over to Blogger and tried out a few names. Yearning for Wonderland just felt right. I added a vintage photo from my own collection and a few paintings. But what to write?
*cue obligatory finger on chin*

No, this is not me. My picture looked identical, except my roots are visible.

It took a few weeks before I started shaping what I truly wanted to achieve for the blog. This goal was was two-fold:

1) To force myself to write. Regularly. And to let my writing go. I’m such a harsh critic of my own work that it often paralyzes me. I try to write an entry every day or two. Because I only really have a few hours of free time, it forces me to do my best in a set time and then set it free. No writing and endless revising, just write and post. If it’s not Jane Austen or Shakespeare, I’m probably the only one surprised.

This also keeps me from playing endless hours of Plants vs. Zombies…which, incidentally, is quite fun and may one day be reviewed here. Currently the zombies are winning.

2) To offer a platform (however small) to others whom I admire. I have already completed two “3 Question View” posts for Paul Ramey and Sarah J. Stevenson. I have several others in the works: a poet, a travel writer, and a documentarian, Plus, I have a very long shortlist of people for whom I would like to do a 3QV. I really didn’t realize how many amazing, clever, peculiar and talented people that I know…until I sat down and inventoried them.

I have enough 3QV prospects until we colonize Mars…at which point I am heading to Mars for Red Rock Margaritas. My computer (which is smarter than me) can post to my blog.

You’ll find me there ===  , playing Plants vs. Zombies.
                                     ||
                                     ||
                                    \ /