Welcome to my post. I hope you are well and that you’ve been productive today – or are just great in general!

Given my recent stint over the last few weeks of being slightly less productive than normal, I am now back on track. I’m back writing my novella in the Survivors mini-series of Beach Town. By now you are all familiar with the town name and hopefully the first two novels, which you can find right here 👈 Let’s assume you are; which makes things a lot easier.

My first Survivors tale, part I was a very dark take on the group of survivors hiding out in the ‘rich’ estate where they rapidly succumbed to other people’s evil and the undead. I take you through that journey to now come to part II which is a continuation yet a self-contained story. Part II is different in the way it is played out, being seen from the perspective of different groups as opposed to one. It is also split into a familiar location within the town and a new, unseen location slightly outside of town. We meet familiar and new faces. We see the extent of the social structure of the groups. There is some political aspect I guess, but it isn’t that prominent yet. The vast majority of survivors are in dire straits but doing the best they can. Being in groups strengthens them. We have cases of survivors going insane. I also introduce some new concepts on the zombies, such as more evolved or somehow more attuned undead to this story.

The towns rats have come out as well with the lack of people and have caused issues of their own. This was an issue I wanted to explore in Beach Town: Hope, but ultimately decided against it as the novel already had its own storylines and it added nothing to the main plot. It wouldn’t have worked as a sub plot or even an interesting point. It does however make sense to add this detail to the novella as it is some time since the initial outbreak and apocalypse. The rats are a main source of disease in the new story. So, you’ve read the first part which was fairly settled compared to the second part.

In other words, a huge overhaul of characters, dynamics, plots, storylines and general arc are going to create a very fun, yet overwhelmed and busy world in a short amount of time. Fun in the sense that it is classic zombie horror stuff; back to plenty of zombie killing, plenty of character conflicts, silly tropes, devastating aftereffects, disease and illness (thanks rats), good old-fashioned fighting!

I hope it’s going to be quite the shock compared to the first part. That is the point, to take the idea of survivors and build on it. As it’s still in the first draft stage I might be telling you all this too early. I guess I just hope to bring you all into this world and make it a place you enjoy reading about. As a fictional town I created, it is quite the place to experience. I hope to bring to you a map at some point too. I know I should have done this for the first book so please forgive me. A map will bring things to life and make it easier to visualise the story.

One more point is that the setting of a once quaint town ravaged by the dead to me at least, is terrifying. The main reason being that it is isolated from another town or city, the island is literally home to one town and nothing more. There is no working dockland that the survivors can access, and even if they could, they probably couldn’t operate the ships.

The streets offer a dark, dreary chance of survival as people move between buildings. The nights bring harsh cold winds and storms. People cannot rely on the authorities who have since the apocalypse started, been killed or turned into rogue survivors themselves. There is no real power other than that the people give themselves. It’s brutal, yet it’s a normal way of life for these people now.

Politics is almost dead yet propaganda reigns supreme as the radio station broadcasts horrifying lies about the Resistance, intent on disassembling its structure.

Thanks for reading and I hope you read Part I. Or you could read one of the novels. Remember all the writings I talk about and the stories are copyrighted © Just a friendly reminder.