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Following Your Passion
entire career to lawyering, she
decided, like Edward Toledano
’83 (see p. 12 ), that she needed a
“ten-year plan.”
“I made a commitment to myself
that I would write and try to sell
at least one book a year,” she said,
“and that at the end of ten years,
I would evaluate whether writing
was going to be a viable career for
me.”
A litigator at the time, she was
working many days from 7 a.m.
to 9 p.m., but she stuck as best
she could to her goal of writing
2,000 words a night—after work.
Of course, there were times when
that was not possible. “If I only
had eight minutes while I was
boiling water, I would set a timer
and write for eight minutes,” she
said. Her remarkable discipline
has paid off. She started writing
The Forest of Hands and Teeth in
November 2006 and finished it in
April 2007. Six months later in
October—less than two years into her tenyear
plan—she not only had an agent, she
also had her first book contract.
Why Zombies?
Why, of all things, did she choose to
write her first novel about zombies? “All
my life,” she said emphatically, “I hated
scary movies.” But when, early in their
relationship, her fiancé talked her into
going with him to see the remake of the cult
classic movie Dawn of the Dead, she found
herself simultaneously “terrified” by the
film’s flesh-eating zombies and fascinated
with the questions of survival facing the
characters. “Then my fiancé, as a joke,
gave me a copy of The Zombie Survival
Guide.” This started the pair on a “zombie
apocalypse” phase of movie-viewing and
reading.
“Why zombies? I love fiction that creates a
whole new world,” she said. “Young adult
fiction today is pushing the boundaries.”
Carrie recalled reading a young adult
classic about an alternate universe in fifth
grade. “A few weeks after we had finished A
Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, the
continued
Carrie answers a CCES
student’s question
during the Alumni Career
Program.
Spring 2009 | 17