Creativity Through Lesser Known Channels

Sometimes I'm like that easily distracted halfwit of so many stories, drawn to shiny things and pretty, pretty rabbits, George. I find myself falling into as many interests and diversions as you can think of, though often only sticking with them for a short time. But I've always liked that about myself. Not the part about stopping without finishing most of the projects I start. The part where I throw myself into a wide variety of different projects. I feel like it lets me be creative sometimes in ways that most people don't get the chance to.

Case in point. I just designed a card game. The initial game design phase is mostly complete. I have a full deck of cards, 130 in total if I'm remembering them all, some illustrated (poorly), and a working set of rules. Now I just need to play test it with people to work out which rules and which cards work, and which don't. Though it's based on a card game that's roughly 60 years old, I've reset it entirely in a new storyline, added new rules, new cards and card actions and have, hopefully, come up with something fun, though a little geeky and not necessarily family friendly (remember what I said in a previous entry...everything's better with zombies, including card games.)

Yes. I know. Just two entries I was going on and on about making soap. Now I'm designing card games. You'd think I was A.D.D. with the amount of interest hopping I do. I'm not, I'm pretty sure (I've tried Ritalin and it definitely does the opposite of calm me down.) So yes, I flop around like a fish in a hobby shop. I think overall it's a good thing. Some people never have a hobby. I've had twenty six or more, to varying degrees. With some I never got past the initial foot-dipping. Some get waded into up to the knees. Most get jumped into whole-hog with an almost religious fervor, only to be abandoned. But some have stuck. Anyway, how can you ever know what you're good at if you don't give everything that even slightly piques your interest a try? There's nothing wrong with quitting. It's never getting started that's the real tragedy.

I'm still planning on making soap. Now I'll just package each bar with a small assortment of Zombie Run cards. Collect them all!

Zombies Make Anything Better

I don't know what it is about zombies, but they can turn anything into gold. Greatest music video of all time? Thriller...zombies. Most of the great horror movies?...involve zombies. Most enduring video game franchise ever, besides Mario Brothers? Resident Evil...all about zombies.

I assert that you can take anything, insert zombies, and make it better. Most of the classic novel forms can accept zombies. Zombies in space is sci-fi brilliance. Throw zombies into the old west and you've got the recipe for a mean western. Romance novels can be insipid. But throw in a few zombies and you've got a winner. In fact writer Seth Grahame-Smith just published Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a zombie filled send up of Jane Austen's classic novel.

Movie's like Shaun of the Dead and Fido (where zombies are equipped with special control collars and kept as pets) show the versatility of the zombie genre. Zombies just evoke a reaction in us that almost no other character type does. They're us. But not us. Any of us could become one of them. The enemy then is potentially everyone.

I'm working on the zombification of a classic family card game. Early play testing shows it's got legs. Rotten maggot-filled legs, hefting a decrepifying, brain-hungry monster, but legs.