ADRIAN: You are the author of the Warm Bodies series. In the books, your zombies still have human qualities and habits. I personally found it extremely refreshing and new while reading them. What inspired that?
ISAAC: The main idea of the book was to imagine a zombie story from the other direction. What does it feel like to be in that undead state? What drives them to do what they do? Are there any thoughts going on in there that aren't visible from the surface? I started the story with that basic idea and then just let it take me where it wanted to go.
ADRIAN: One of the most beautiful things about the series is the power of love and its ability to infect and change things. Also, the idea of humanity being crushed by its lack of hope and negative emotions. This concept is so powerful and human. Can you touch on that a little?
ISAAC: It took me four books to touch on that concept, so there's not a whole lot more I can add here, haha. Except maybe that it's a common misunderstanding that it's about "the power of love" in any romantic sense. It's not "love" that cures the zombies, it's their inner struggle against the plague, the grayness and deadness that they push back against to recover their spark of life. Romantic love just happened to be what triggered the first transformation, because let's face it, that kind of love is one of the most potent human emotions.
ADRIAN: What was it like having one of your films turned into a major motion picture?
ISAAC: Surreal. Deeply gratifying. Looking back on it all these years later, it's hard to believe that was really me in all those scenes. It feels like another life.
ADRIAN: What drew you to zombies?
ISAAC: I thought it was weird that with all the zombie stories out there, no one was interested in what the zombies were experiencing. That was always the most intriguing mystery when I watched those movies, like is there still some of the person left in there? What are they thinking when they eat their friends? What's the inner monologue as they go about their day hunting and feeding? There had to be something going on in there, because almost all zombie fiction shows them making choices and reacting to their environment. So I wanted to explore that, and it just happened that it made a really perfect vehicle for exploring depression and alienation, which were my own big struggles at the time.
ADRIAN: You are working on a new novel, The Overnoise. I'm honestly really excited to read it. Is there anything you can say about it?
ISAAC: It's a big departure for me. No monsters, no undead mysticism. It starts in the real world as we know it right now, and then watches that world gradually mutate into something horrible. A new technology hyper-connects the world and floods it with cheap products and experiences, with the side effect of an irritating hum all over the globe. It's about a singer struggling to adapt to the new era as the noise keeps getting louder and the life she was building becomes obsolete.
ADRIAN: What is your process for writing?
ISAAC: I wake up, make coffee, and start writing before looking at my phone or engaging with the world at all. I try to hold onto the connection to the dream space as long as I can, so the less time elapsed between waking up and writing, the better. I work until I get stuck, then I go outside and walk around in the wilderness a bit to reset my head, shoot a few arrows to focus it, then go back to work.
ADRIAN: Where do you get your inspiration? What inspires you?
ISAAC: This question always makes me chuckle because I think of someone asking "Where did you get those shoes?" Oh, I just head down to the Inspiration aisle at Target and load up my cart! But seriously, there isn't really any answer to that. Inspiration is just all the chemicals of your life experience having an explosive reaction. I guess if there's anything I "do" to find it, it's just trying to continue having new and interesting life experiences to add to the brew.
ADRIAN: You have a brilliant YouTube channel! How are your wilderness adventures going? Also, you have the cutest cat ever, would you like to talk about your furry friend?
ISAAC: The wilderness life has its ups and downs. It's definitely an experiment that hasn't delivered its results yet. The extreme solitude is good for the art. Not sure yet if it's good for the soul. The Youtube channel is kind of my journal on the experiences of living alone out here on the edge, mostly off grid, trying to build a life and savor the quiet beauty. But yeah, all anyone cares about is my cat, haha. Bob Squishman is the star of the show, and for good reason. Very charismatic dude.
ADRIAN: You have a twitch channel! What games are you playing right now? What games have been your favorites?
ISAAC: Yeah, video games have been my evening unwinding time for a few years now, there's just nothing quite like the experience of immersing yourself in another world that you can inhabit and change first-hand. I mostly play games that focus on that sensation, mostly open world RPGs like Fallout, sometimes narrative-driven ones like Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit Become Human, etc. Streaming them is just an extra layer of fun on something I'm already doing. It sort of simulates the old feeling of playing a game while your friends hang out on the couch.
ADRIAN: Do you have any advice for aspiring creators?
ISAAC: I think one of the most crucial questions every creator needs to ask themselves is why am I doing this? Because there are two very different paths you can take. There's the path of prioritizing success, where you will do whatever works to build your career, change your art to fit the current needs of the market, chase trends, follow formulas, whatever leads to mainstream popularity. I don't judge that path, there is a place for that kind of art, and for some people art is just a trade, like building furniture, so why wouldn't you build the kind that sells? The other path prioritizes the true expression of what's inside you. It's not a trade, you aren't building products, and the market may or may not approve. If you follow this path, you never know what will happen. You might stumble into success, you might die in obscurity, and you'll have no control either way because you're just following pure instinct to create the thing that's calling you. It may be possible to combine these paths to some extent, follow your instincts while still being vaguely aware of what "works." But I think it's good to be aware of which goal you're prioritizing, so you can make peace with the results.
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