by Armand Rosamilia

I lied. There ya go.

In all fairness, I’d already started Dying Days: Family Ties before I’d finished writing Dying Days 9, the last in the series.

As part of my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/ArmandRosamilia) page I was releasing a new chapter every month. Subscribers got the first draft of chapters to read.

January 2016 I posted the prologue and first chapter. Over the next two years I added a new chapter each month until the end. I knew, because of the one chapter per month structure, the YA novella would technically be completed after Dying Days 9 came out.

While it is all set in the Dying Days world, I felt it was a different mindset entirely. I knew there would be way less focus on the zombies as characters. They would be mindless creatures like they were at the beginning of the original series. I’m not going to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the original Dying Days series (I will tell you I am very disappointed in you, though…) but the YA novella is set around the time Darlene Bobich gets to Florida.

I also knew I needed to build a set of characters which fans of the YA genre as well as zombie readers would embrace.

The main characters, Emalee and Mason, were easy enough to write. I’d fleshed them out with a short story in the Bite-Sized Offerings anthology already, so expanding on this story meant getting back inside their heads.

It was the rest of the characters I created on the fly I had some fun with because I’d never written a book with the complete cast being kids. It was a lot of fun and I had to think each step of the way how teenagers and youngsters would act in certain situations, especially when faced with real-life things like bullying, Down Syndrome and being without parental guidance.

I think it has a different feel to the story, too. They face hardships but more from the angle of a teenager. My writing had to refocus to not be so adult oriented when it came to how they processed and dealt with life in the zombie apocalypse.

Did I succeed? I guess readers and reviewers will let me know down the line.

So, in conclusion… yeah, yeah, Dying Days 9 was supposed to be the very last Dying Days book. It ended up not being. If you have a real problem with it maybe you weren’t a fan anyway? I dunno. I only write this stuff and hope someone reads it.

Oh, and if the wonderfully amazing Jay Wilburn lets me on the Winter of Zombie tour in November you’ll be treated to yet another book after the last book, with the Dying Days Compendium, which will feature everything else associated with the series.

Then that will be it. I swear.

Unless, of course, Dying Days: Family Ties has enough feedback for another book.

Then I can keep lying to you and writing new books.

I feel like an aging rock band doing yet another farewell tour.

Please call me the KISS of Zombie Fiction.

But don’t call me late for dinner…

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Dying Days: Family Ties – A Zombie YA Novella is available for Pre Order until June 12th and available forever after that!

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

Jay's Patreon Page | Purchase Signed Books