It's hard to believe that in having spent over three decades on this earth, I still consider fictitious things just as interesting and as important as real life; maybe it's because of my roots in performing and the love I have for make-believe; maybe it’s because life is not always easy and creating realities similar yet different from this one is a great means of keeping my sanity; or, maybe I should just get out more.
Nevertheless, I consider myself very fortunate to be doing what I am doing today. The times we live in are unbelievably eventful; and there is such a rich history to dig into for today’s storytellers that I hope to be bringing you new tales for as long as I am able. But, for me, none of this would be possible if I hadn’t made some tough decisions over the years, decisions that put me in the position to be doing what I am doing today. I won’t go into detail and bore you all to tears – I’ll leave that for a memoir some twenty years from now.
So let’s move on to where we left off last week: Possibly trying to publish something shorter before taking the leap with the first part of Monarch. I agree with Acacia that it could be a very good means of testing the process. But I don’t want to take away too much time from Monarch either. The whole reason I chose to write this novel was because of “time.” I had this ten-year-old screenplay in Cipher, a story that, at the time of writing it, seemed to parallel my own life as I dealt with the passing of my father. A strange time filled with perceived coincidences and rapid change in the world. It was a labor of love that I couldn’t just let slip into obscurity. I wanted desperately to do something with it, but by 2009 I realized there wasn’t enough time before 2012 to get it made into the movie that it deserved to be. It meant so much to me that I made it mean so much to, Ginger Reed, my main character in Monarch. And with less than two years till “that” day, I intend to get this story into people’s hands as soon as possible.
I’m not saying that I won't try and get something a bit shorter out there before part one of Monarch, it’s just that my priority is to the novel. If I can share time between them both, then maybe it will happen. Ideally, I’d like to e-publish not only the novel and a short story but also my screenplay Garage Sale. It was the story that spawned the short story, In the Wake of Newton, which is the same short story that I may try and e-publish sooner rather than later.
Garage Sale is best described by its logline: When several foolish customers at a Garage Sale up in the Hollywood Hills attempt to cheat the mysterious homeowners running it, they each meet a fate appropriate to their actions in this horrifying, multi-chaptered thriller.
I haven’t really written a logline for ITWON, but it is probably best described as the creation story for all the goodies that wind up at that particular garage sale. I wrote ITWON because I felt the opening to Garage Sale was too abrupt, and much of what happens in the screenplay seemed almost unjustified; and I wrote it as a short story because I wasn’t sure, at the time, if I even wanted to write screenplays anymore. Granted, I may need to make it adhere to the screenplay format at some point, but I’m not worried about that now.
I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up to high and then not be able to deliver this all to you by year’s end, but e-publishing a short story, a screenplay and a novel are my goal. And I pledge to do my best not to let you or myself down. Now, I got to get to work. Until next week… thanks for reading.
-aap
No comments:
Post a Comment