Indies On The Line: Emily Goodwin

Indies On The Line

Emily Goodwin

 

So with out futher ado here are 6 awesome questions for one awesome lady! Hope you guys like it :)

~Heaven Lyanne

 

1) Frankenstein, Dracula, the wolf-man or the Mummy and why?

      The Wolf-Man. He's human some of the time, is the least likely to kill me, and I'm just not into necrophilia ;)

2) Who or what is your inspiration to write?

      This is a hard question to answer. I think my imagination is my inspiration, if that makes sense. I get random ideas and come up with a story. The characters pretty much bug me until I write their story down. And I know how amazing it is to get lost in a book. I love reading fantasy because it allows you to escape to a magical place. If I can give that escape to readers, then I feel like I've done a good job. Knowing that others can benefit (even if it's just for entertainment's sake) from my writing inspires me.

3) Favorite Football Team?

       My husband will have a fit if I don't say the Cowboys! I'm not a huge fan of football, to be honest. I don't dislike it, I'm just not that into it because I'm writing instead of watching the game.

4) What are your top 3 favorite movies of all time?

       Practical Magic, Ever After, and Hocus Pocus

5) What inspired u to write about zombies?

       I had a very weird dream about waking up in a hospital after surgery to get my appendix removed (the surgeon replaced it with pot roast in my dream) to find that everyone was dead. I wandered around and was saved by an attractive Irish doctor who became the inspiration for the character Padraic. He explained that people had become infected with a zombie virus that first turned them crazy and very aggressive. I woke up and thought not only was that the most random dream ever, but it would be fun to write a book about zombies.

Zombies are just fun to write about. The possibility of some sort of apocalypse is very real and very scary to a lot of people. And if it manifested in the form of a ZA, it would give humans a fighting chance. Plus, the ZA brings out the best and worst in people, which is also fun to write about!

6) Can u tell us a little about your Contagious series?

          The Contagium Trilogy stars Orissa Penwell, and she’s not your ‘typical’ heroine. When you meet her at the beginning of Contagious, Orissa is pretty much responsibility-free and living for herself. She doesn’t worry about the people around her because she doesn’t have to. As the series goes on, more of Orissa’s layers are peeled back and you learn that she has an interesting past. She has made poor choices and bad decisions, and is living with the consequences of her actions. She’s definitely not your first choice for a leader in the zombie apocalypse, and I wanted to showcase her struggles as she grows as a person.

I also wanted to make sure that the book had a lot of the gritty real life situations we face every day. In reading other zombie books and watching zombie movies, I noticed that a lot of that stuff is left out and the main focus is always on killing zombies. There are other things to consider, and although less fun than bashing zombie skulls, they are just as important. The temperature drops in the winter, so location is important. If anyone was sick before the zombie apocalypse, their health will quickly decline when there is no pharmacist to fill their prescriptions. Finding water might not be that hard, but finding clean water will be. It’s not safe to drink from just any lake or stream. Even if the zombie virus isn’t transferred through water, bacteria certainly are. And there are other issues like loneliness, depression, and the lack of hygiene that are usually neatly avoided. I made sure to bring all that to life.

Contagious is more than just killing zombies - it’s about surviving and finding the will to live in a completely hopeless world.

-Emily Goodwin