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[john_sunseri]

Kim, you're so right.  I look back on my teenage years fondly and with pleasure, but I wouldn't go back and do it again for anything.

Hell, I'm actually kind of enjoying the aging process.  Except for the pain thing - I don't like that at all.

[KPaffenroth]

I like the naps!

[john_sunseri]

Naps are heavenly, my friend.  I take them whenever I can.

On the radio today they were interviewing a fellow named John Savage who'd written a book called 'Teenage' or 'Teenaged', exploring the rise of youth culture.  He'd gotten involved in punk rock, drugs, all that stuff, sounded like an interesting fellow with an interesting life.  And then Terry Gross asked him whether he'd like to go back and be a teenager again.

His answer was an unequivocal 'no'.  All the pressure and uncertainty, the trying-on of new roles, new attitudes, new passions, the sheer physical toll youth takes.  When you get to be thirty, forty, fifty, you'd better have at least a modicum of stability in your life, a sense of what it is that you are.  And then he talked about the immeasurable damage done when people try to maintain youth, referencing 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'Peter Pan' and so on...and I was nodding the whole time as I drove home.

Old people rule!

[Kody Boye]

I agree with John's statement: older people do rule.

With me, I have a dislike for teenagers, mostly because the majority of them are stupid and think that they're all that. I have about two friends who are really 'down to earth'  and then that's pretty much it. I think I'm smarter than the average teenager though . . . I know I am, hehehehe.

[KPaffenroth]

Quite so. There is definitely some way in which one is not yet complete when one is young, not just physically, but especially emotionally and mentally, and the growing and changing is fun - in the sense of "thrilling" or "surprising" - but it's also just exhausting, and potentially very dangerous. I remember constantly losing my temper or taking offense and picking fights with people, and I wasn't even a particularly aggressive or violent teen.

[KPaffenroth]

I don't know if we rule, but I do think we should make more of the decisions than younger people, exactly because of the stability that John mentions. Since a teen may well be a radically different person in a short amount of time, you don't want them making serious, unalterable, life changing decisions that their "new" self will have to live with and be completely unprepared for (e.g. why it's not such a great idea for them to have kids themselves).

BUT, that being said, just because we're more stable does not (unfortunately) make us wise. We may well make a really dumb decision (e.g. invade a foreign country and endanger the lives of thousands of young people) and refuse to go back on it, because we've decided that's the right thing to do no matter what. That's being "stable" in the worst possible sense. I do wish I had *some* of the flexibility and adaptability I had as a young person, just not the unbelievably dangerous volatility and lack of self-control.

[Zombie Zak]

Staying firmly planted in the camp of: No comment.

What are "naps?"

[john_sunseri]

Kim, you're a smart man.

Age doesn't equal wisdom, regardless of what most people think.  I know plenty of sixty, seventy-year olds who are complete idiots.  And I admit that I'm only 38, so all my 'old people rule!' stuff is a bit premature, because I'm not even eligible to run for president yet.  But I've reached a point in my life where I can state unequivocally that I know what I am, what I want, and what I'm prepared to do to achieve those wants.

It's sometimes scary to look back, not only at the boy that I was, but also at the MAN that I was, once I achieved my majority.  The loves I professed would last forever - the fire and passion for causes that, in retrospect, were momentary and ephemeral things - the dangerous stunts (both physical and metaphysical) I performed without thinking of the consequences.

And, of course, the prodigious amounts of alcohol I consumed...

Kim, I wouldn't worry too much about your flexibility and adapability.  You're a writer, and a fine one.  Your mind ranges across the big questions, the gigantic conundrums, the galactic 'what-ifs', and from what I've read of your stuff you don't take the easy way out and think you know the truth about any of them.  Instead, you quest and query and question, you present your evidence while admitting the existence of other facts, you examine critically rather than pick and choose those things that help your cause.

Stephen King, in 'Danse Macabre' (I think - it's been a while since I read that worthy book) notes the curious youthfulness in some author's faces - Bradbury and Ellison are two I remember him mentioning - and supposes that maybe something about the speculative process keeps tale-spinners young.  If so, then that's the kind of youth I want to hold onto.  Not the iron guts, or the sinewy frame, or the frantic passion - but the ever-youthful bloom of imagination and fascination with the unknown and the relentless drive to discover the truth, even when you know you'll never be entirely sure that it IS true, and even the eagerness, on your deathbed, to find out WHAT COMES NEXT...

Dorian Gray can have his painting, and Peter Pan his Neverland.  I want to hit that undiscovered country going seventy on a fifty-five, with the wind blowing my gray hair through the open window and rock and roll on the radio.

Sorry - feeling a bit pensive tonight.

[KPaffenroth]

Wow, first Jacob's avowal of the other day, now this. I'm feeling the love.

Yes, I think I can keep the curiosity or openness. And it is a big part of writing. And the opposite qualities - smug satisfaction and closed-mindedness - are some of the most ugly and distasteful of old age. (Though I've seen them often enough in many young people.) But I do miss the passion sometimes. I really can't get as worked up over things as I used to - be it women or intellectual puzzles or friends or movies or music. I may hold on to and pursue the "big questions," I probably even pursue them more effectively and with greater progress than when I was younger, but I can never be as breathless, excited, obsessed with them as I was. I don't regret or apologize for that, but I do miss it sometimes.

[Dr. Pus]

I understand that I am extremely new here to the Permuted Press boards, but I have read all of the books. And being an oldster, and quite the zombie novel fan, perhaps you'll allow me to give my think so's on a Sequel.

I would love to find out more about Milton. In just one novel he's become my favorite zombie novel character. Like has been said before, what exactly did happen to him, is he actually the undead Messiah, will the disease continue to cause him problems as he grow older, what's he going to do when he fills up the correction facility, how about other survivors he is bound to run into and how will they treat a man that has so much incommon with the undead?

I'd also really like to see what happens to Popcorn emotionally. Kim, you write such great insight into the characters I'm thinking this could really be flesh out in a Sequel. Does he remain feral? Does he become introverted. Does he go ballistic? As a fan of the book I'd really like to know more about Popcorn.

And then there's the plan of walling in the park and as they viewed the city, wondering when they could retake it. Or perhaps this could be explored in a third installment. (Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean?)

And as one of those oldsters Kim, may I remind you to "Keep on truckin'!!

[KPaffenroth]

As with Dave's earlier comments, I think I can definitely say we're on the same page. There will be another group of survivors, and other characters who are in the first installment very minor will get their own stories and conflicts.

[KPaffenroth]

Dr P - give us your URL and I'll put a link on my blog. My links section is becoming quite extensive.

[lazy]

If you do a sequel I hope it revolves around Milton. I fell in love with his character. How did you come up with the idea for him?

[KPaffenroth]

I think one way of characterization is to take strong characteristics and split them among several main characters. This has been done to great effect in a lot of literature:

The Brothers Karamazov
Moby Dick
The Bible (many times)
Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Star Wars

You get the idea. So I see Jack and Milton as kind of extremes - Jack all action, not much talk, Milton so mystical and spiritual he'd be happy just sitting around talking all day. Jonah of course is in the middle and can throw down when he has too, but gets tired of that too sometimes.

[Dr. Pus]

Dr P - give us your URL and I'll put a link on my blog. My links section is becoming quite extensive.

Here's the link that you can put on your blog:


http//dr-pus.podomatic.com

The Episode is #7 with the maximum pimpage for "Dying To Live". And just to let you know, four members at www.reelhorror.com and ordered the book due to the banner ad I put as my signature there. No kick backs are needed Kim.