GALT, CA (MPG) - For many years, Galt native Savannah L. Jones toyed with the idea of turning her creative writing master’s thesis work into a full-fledged novel. 

She had previously received some interest from major publishers, but Jones felt that the publishing houses wanted to change too much of the story that she worked diligently on creating and fine tuning.

For years, the book sat on her shelf. But in September, Jones returned to the novel with renewed interest and in November, she took the plunge and self-published “Zombie Mom,” which follows the story of a mother trying to find her way and protect her young children amid a zombie apocalypse. After being bitten, the protagonist finds out that not only does she not die, but she remains trapped inside that decaying zombie shell with all of her mental faculties. 

Jones, who teaches seventh, eighth and eleventh-grade English at Franklin High School in Stockton, spoke with The Galt Herald on Jan. 10 about the idea behind the novel and her process writing her new self-published book.  

Sean P. Thomas: This is your first novel, correct? 

Savannah L. Jones: Yes, this is my first novel. This was actually my creative writing master’s thesis that I started years ago, then I kind of decided to publish it last year. 

ST: The plot is interesting to me. I’m a fan of the zombie genre. Where did this idea come from? And can you walk me through the process of kind of developing it into a full-fledged novel? 

SJ: In my class, we had a create professor who kind of wanted us to look at the concept of ‘What if?’ What if this happened? And my idea was ‘What if I got bit by a zombie, what would happen?’ When I started to do the research on it and I started to really look into the zombie genre I noticed there were a lot of unanswered questions. You kind of had to accept it for what it is. It’s a zombie novel; they eat brains and they are dead. Simple. I kind of wanted to answer all those questions. Scientifically, how would it feel? What would it be like? That is kind of where it started. I also had little kids at the time and I started to question, ‘What would that be like? What would I do with them? Would I survive? How would they survive?’”

ST: Can you describe the protagonist a little bit? 

SJ: She is a mom with really young kids and it begins when the apocalypse has kind of already happened. They have already gotten into that groove of surviving in that world. But she is bit, and suddenly everything changes and she has to try to survive and help her kids survive. She is really motivated for that, and once she figures it out, she kind of goes to give up, but then figures out that she doesn’t die. She finds out that zombies don’t die, she figures out that zombies are actually still alive in their brains. And she is just trying to figure out how to handle that. 

ST: Did you have any inspiration? Around what time did you start working on that thesis? 

SJ: I started working on it about seven or eight years ago in my master thesis class. And in terms of inspiration, it was more of a ‘why haven’t I seen this before?’ I hadn’t really seen anything from a first-person perspective and I actually was told by a lot of students in my class that you can’t write a first-person zombie novel. That doesn’t work. And I did it. And my professor was like…‘Well, she did.’ I just wanted to try something different.” 

ST: Did you hit any roadblocks as you were working through this idea? Any moments of writer’s block?

SJ: Well with that first-person perspective there were a few moments of ‘How am I even going to show this scene?’ If a zombie is tied up inside of a van, how is she going to express those feelings? But ultimately, my biggest challenge was just doing it myself. Self-editing, having people reading it and getting all the feedback and trying to finish it was really the biggest challenge. 

ST: This is self-published, and I know self-publishing can be tough. What was that process like for you? 

SJ: Originally, I had planned to publish through one of the big-named publishers. And I originally had what is called a revise and resubmit from an agency. They liked what I had, but they wanted me to change the ages around to make it a little (young adult) friendly and a few other things. At the time, it was the very beginning of my divorce and I ended up shelving it because I didn’t have the time to fix it. A lot of the feedback was ‘Oh, it’s a zombie novel, we have read zombie novels before,’ and they really weren’t giving it a chance. At the time, the market was flooded with zombie novels. I actually took it off the shelf this summer and I thought, ‘I really like it, I don’t want to change it.’ So, I decided to self-publish it.

ST: In terms of the setting, did you pull anything from your life and add it to the book? 

SJ: It’s funny you ask that. When my son read the book, he said it reminds me of our house in Galt. I was 100% picturing my neighborhood. We lived in Galt for most of my children’s childhood and I grew up in the house in Galt that we lived in, and then me and my kids moved back into it. The way I described the neighborhood, the way it was off of 99, Washington Park, the wide streets. The fences. It was really meant to be modeled after my house. I think that was just because I lived there my entire life; it just felt safe to me. 

ST: Have you had the itch to kind of continue this story? Or jump into another story since then? 

SJ: I actually already started.  The next one that I am working on actually started as a screenplay, and I’m in the process of turning that screenplay into a novel. I think it could be considered a thriller. It’s about a couple of boys out in the woods on a camping trip. A tree falls on their tent and they are kind of left alone in the woods.