Harvest Time Down South



After several weeks of research into ten years of "Black Books" - the notebooks where all the valued information from other notebooks that I write in on a daily basis end up - I have begun the rewriting of one of my favorite screenplays. My much discussed writing plan has changed over that time as I gathered more information and took everything into account.

One of the biggest issues facing this self-published writer is "time." Working full time means I have had to find more free time to really focus on the transition of the first project, from a screenplay to a novel series. How do you make more free time?  It's a question we all ask ourselves. The Answer: By using what time you have more wisely. That is easier said than done, of course, as it takes discipline. Regretfully, I became a bit of a night person over the past few years. I can't tell you how much I've missed watching the sun come up each day. Plus, I feel like I am a more productive writer in the AM.  In order to recapture a few more hours, I have begun getting up earlier. Hopefully my body will adjust because I am dragging a bit as I transition to this new routine.

Work is progressing nicely. The plan is to transition this 140-page screenplay into a two-part series, and to write another three-part series by May 1st 2016.  Of course, these will only be the first drafts.  The hope is to then begin releasing the first of the script-to-novel series by this time next year.  After that I hope to be releasing a new book every few months for the foreseeable future. Details on those stories will follow as things progress.

My thoughts on screenwriting have not changed. My biggest issue with the transition back to literary work is a fear that I may be missing out on screenwriting opportunities. There is a precedence for this fear.  When I left screenwriting and filmmaking back in 2010 to began work on Monarch, I stunted the progress I had made here in Atlanta in those fields. My contemporaries began to make headway, while I was toiling on my first big literary endeavor.  Do I regret that decision? Absolutely not. I have gained the valuable experience of delivering both screenplays and literary work on a deadline. Am I a little envious of the strides others made during that time in the field of screenwriting and film production. Of course, I'm only human. But then I have to weigh what is most important to me as a writer. Do I want to be making short films? No way. Been there and done that. But the connections I lost touch with and the new ones I could have made sure would have been nice to have now. I write because I have an as yet unexhausted supply of stories that I need to tell in some way or another. As long as that is happening I have no worries.

New Plan, Same As the Old Plan... but different

New tweak to my current literary writing plan.  I mentioned it briefly with my screenwriting partners last night at a meeting. Ever since my last post here I have done some thinking on that plan.  While I am still on board with writing three novel series, I am wanting to add to that.  Ambitious, I know.

While I will remain available to work on screenplays, my focus has turned to literary work. Previously I had mentioned three novel series, with one of those series having its origins as a two-volume screenplay. As I was making preparations and revisions on those three series, I realized that I have two dozen screenplays to draw from and that limiting script to novel focus on just one might be postponing the inevitable.

Therefore, I came up with another idea, or a tweak to the previous plan. This new one allows me to work on up to three projects at once. Screenwriting has become a bugaboo. I love the thrill it gives me to be working on something new but I loathe the remorse I feel when nothing comes of hard work. It's a classic catch 22.

The new idea allows me to work on rewriting one previously written screenplay into a novel series, while also writing a "new" story. I am reluctant to say they are new stories as all these stories have been on back burners for  several years now.  So the material is not necessarily new to me, but the writing of these stories would mark them as being newly written.

It is the last part of the previous paragraph that leaves wiggle room for screenplays.  As an artist, and after twenty years of writing I am no longer reluctant to call myself an artist, I need NEW thoughts and ideas sparking through my circuitry. While transforming a screenplay into a novel has its own set of creative challenges that I welcome, I am moved to do so for one simple reason.  I love these stories.  And I fear if I do nothing with them you will not have the opportunity to take the journey as well.  Whether you find it worth your time is another thing all together. All I can do is make it so you have a chance to decide for yourself.

This plan is fluid and may change yet again. However, it is exhilarating for me to shift from work on a new novel from scratch, to work on a new screenplay, to work on transforming a previously written screenplay into a novel series. It will surely keep me on my toes for some time.

The fact that two of these four novel series are screenplays should, in theory, speed up the process.  Working on one of them while also working on a from-scratch novel series should keep me creatively invested and moving in the right direction.

First set of two novel series and any subsequent new screenplays (2-3 years)  

-1st Screenplay to Novel series: There are four parts to this series and the transformation is underway.  Each of the four parts will be released individually.

-1st From-Scratch Novel Series: There are three parts to this series and each of them will be released individually.

-The writing of any new screenplays during this time shall be weighed against current literary writing needs.

Second set of two novel series and any subsequent new screenplays (2-3 years)

-2nd Screenplay to Novel series: There will be four parts to this series. Each of the four parts will be released individually.

-2nd From-Scratch Novel Series: There will be three to four parts to this series and each of them will be released individually. This is the least developed story and thus it will be released last.

-The writing of any new screenplays during this time shall be weighed against current literary writing needs.

I figure it might take up to six years to finish the above, while continuing to work full time.  Should things change that time frame could also shift.  Within a few months I hope to start talking in more detail about the first of the screenplays turned novel series.  Until then, I have some work to do.

Now, as a writer who is always organizing and planning for the future, I have also begun to make plans beyond what I have just laid out.  Work that would begin six to seven years from now.  Hopefully I will still be around for that next stage in my writing career, because it promises to be filled with work I have put very little thought towards as of yet.

Much of the work I have laid out above will be on a grand, world-changing scale. These stories became so grandiose and intricate because of all the story ideas I've had through the years.  I needed a place to house all of those ideas so I could get them on to paper and move on to other stories.  The novel series, much like a multi-chapter screenplay, is perfect for this. They provide a wonderful format to deal with multiple stories that are in some way related to each other.

Since it is so far off it is hard to put into words as yet what the next evolution of my writing will be.  If I were to be asked what I thought it might be, I would say it will be a return to simplicity.  The novel series is a tool for all the ideas I've had up until now. While I could serialize a lot of my work, past and present, I also enjoy a one-off.  A story in and of its own.  A stand alone novel. I'd like to venture down that path when the time is right.  We'll see if and when that time comes.

Finding the Write Balance

Since releasing Psykosis in February, a large portion of my free time has been focused on stories intended for the screen, while also leisurely working on another book. Over the past two years I've tried to balance my time writing both literary work as well as screenplays. With streaky writing tendencies that's not always easy.

Working on the novel series Monarch was a life-changing experience. It consumed all my writing energies and I realized afterwards the value of shaking things up. Screenwriting is my original writing love, and after working on screenplays for nearly twenty years I have a comfortable familiarity with the screenwriting process. I am amazed at how energetic I still am about working on stories intended for the screen. Maybe it is just writing in general that gets me motivated. Screenwriting is different than working on a book in that it requires collaboration with others on some level, plus you can crank out a screenplay in no time if you have the right motivation.

My two writing partners, Charles Thomas, who I have worked with on multiple occasions for nearly a decade now, and Ryan Schube, a talented writer who Chuck and I had the pleasure to work with on several projects over the past year, did a hell of a job keeping this old idea machine motivated and cranking out new ideas. I'm pretty sure we broke some kind of speed record for a screenplay we cranked out last year. If all three of us had the time, we could undoubtedly write a dozen brilliant screenplays in a year. It's an exciting triumvirate. Each of us have our own wonderful set of individual skills that we bring to the table. The past eight months have been an intoxicating blur of new ideas intended for the screen. If we catch a break and actually sell one of these projects, I could see us churning out cool projects for years to come.

For me, there is an endless promise of hope with screenwriting. Is that because one can always just move on to the next one (story)? Not sure. I originally turned to literary pursuits because I was tired of things always jumping to the next story. The disappearing ink of screenwriting is the biggest negative. This impermanence is enough to drive the sanest of writers a little bonkers. For what is the point of working on a story for the screen if others will never see it? Almost every screenwriter has asked his or herself that question at some point or another.

Over the past eight months, this triumvirate has had its hands and minds involved to some degree or another in the screenwriting process of around ten different stories. I was surprised by the volume of work when I was recently reading through my notes for the first seven months of this year. At the outset each of those stories held a nascent belief that it might be destined for production. With people interested and attached to some of the projects the wheels are certainly turning.

This feels like the opportune time to change gears. I had been holding off on fully committing to a large scale literary project after the release of Psykosis. That story was originally written back in 2010 after a horrifying dream for which the rest of the story was written around. When I sat down to write that story it was intended to be a long short story, but in the end it turned into a novella. A turn towards shorter, one-off stories was preferred after the time-consuming work put in on the Monarch series. The work on novellas over the past year mixed with the recent work on screenplays has allowed me that much-needed separation from working on large scale literary work. I just may be ready to think big once again.

My current plan includes three novel series in a similar vein to Monarch. I don't broach that plan without some trepidation. The time it will take is massive. The amount of energy that will need to be expended is unimaginable at this point. The world will likely have changed in some way by the time I might release all three series. That is all a part of the writing process. After all, we can only control what we can control. And that ain't much. Though we can control what we put down on paper.

This new writing plan allows for some screenwriting time, but my focus will be primarily on these three literary series. One series involves the novella I had been leisurely working on since April Harold and the House Fly . Back in 2005 I wrote the favorite of all my screenplays thus far, a three-part, two hundred thirty-five page sci-fi, fantasy, alternate history epic that spans nearly a hundred years. It was the second multi-chapter screenplay I ever wrote and I envisioned that it might work like Kill Bill in two volumes. Since Lawrence Bender isn't funding my projects, the page count and budgetary concerns of this story kept me from seriously pushing the screen story. At the beginning of this year I considered rewriting the screenplay into a series before focusing just on the novella. It was a decision that was influenced by releasing a novella in February and the attention I was putting towards screenwriting.

Then I spoke with another writing friend a few weeks ago who had just gotten back from a writer's conference in New York. She spent some of her time there speaking with other self-publishers like ourselves, asking about how they had found success and readership. She said that they all seemed to be in agreement about the one thing that helped them generate sales and readership. They all wrote and released their work as a series. That was all I needed to hear. It was reinforcement of what I already practiced and believed and had begun to make plans for again. It was the push I needed to get me back into literary gear.

In addition to reworking that decade-old screenplay into shape and working House Fly into the series, I also have two other novel series that are demanding attention. I began work on one shortly after completion of the first draft of Monarch back in November of 2010. When I shifted into rewriting mode for Monarch in early 2011, I put that story to the side with all intention of returning to it. Every now and again I would think on that story, but some other story always seemed to take precedence. A part of me wants to tackle this first as there is so much new material still to tackle and I crave the writing of new material.

The third novel series is an idea I have been building upon for years. I used a sliver of that story's complex universe to write the pilot episode for a proposed tv series with Chuck. Jumping back into that world along with the other two series is something I would do tomorrow with a sudden injection of time and money. Juggling three series at one time would bring me so much joy you have no idea.

Is it wishful thinking to believe I could finish all three novel series over the span of twelve months? Absolutely. That doesn't mean I still can't get some serious work done on all three.

There are three positives as I set out on work on these three novel series. First, I have a massive screenplay to work off of for one of them. Second, the novella Harold and the House Fly is already in the rewrite process and would slip in nicely to that same series. These two positives lessen the planning and writing burden for one of the series and help expedite its release. The third positive is that I have already begun work on the second series. Granted, I didn't get very far and the story is now a three part series as opposed to a one off, but it is better than nothing. The mere prospect of finally working on the third series has me more than just a little excited. I can't wait to complicate my existence by merely working on it. The third series is massive, not only in scale but also in the big ideas it proposes. I have been fascinated with this story for nearly a decade and can not wait to share it with people.

Realistically, by next summer I would like to release the first book in one of these series. Ultimately, I would like to then be able to release other books in these three series in close proximity to each other. It would be foolish, however, to put a time frame on the release of any of the books in three series at this time. Especially when I anticipate working on screenplays during that time.

These are all good goals. My biggest challenge, as always, is managing my time, but I need also be focused yet malleable to change and be open to other possibilities should they present themselves. .

After a Month of Review and Planning

Been awhile since I blogged.  In all honesty it is not my favorite thing to do.  When spending what free writing time I have away from a full-time job all I want to write about is that which I can put into a story. But then that is not the only responsibility of a writer in the digital age.  So I am back to give any lengthier updates that won't fit on Twitter or Facebook.  After a review of a year's worth of notebooks, something I like to do every February, I have filtered things down to my annual "Black Book List."

I began the "Black Book List" last year, and I should probably go back and do the same for nearly ten years, but that's for another time.  There's enough to work on as is.

So I went through the 2013- 2014 "Black Book List" yesterday and found 110 possible story ideas. That adds to my to do list that already includes 54 ideas from the 2015 "Black Book List" and the 23 other novels and novellas in contention to be written.  And it does not include any screenwriting endeavors I might get involved in.

This reminds me of what happened back in 2003/2004.  I had more story ideas than I knew what to do with.  And I was desperate to tell them all. Reality being what it is concessions were made.  So for the next five years I began to merge those ideas into several Anthology/ Multi-Chapter screenplays like Creepshow or Crash.

If I were to attempt that now, I have the flexibility to weave those 164 potential stand-alone story lines with each other into screenplays, novels, or novellas, even short stories should I decide to release a book of them.
I prefer to adapt to a situation rather than force a situation to adapt to me.  And when it comes to story ideas, more is better than less.  I have to grit my teeth and accept that some of these story ideas may never see the light of day.  But we'll see.

A plan for the next eleven months has taken shape over the past month.  However, I also spent a large part of February stressed out about how I might plan for the future beyond 2015.  With so much work begging to be written and such a limited amount of time I began to have a variety of doubts.  Not just about how I would ever be able to finish one year's worth of story ideas, let alone two decades worth, but whether it was wise to continue pushing so hard to produce material.

I made a promise to myself before I decided to return to the blogosphere.  Be positive.  As a writer I like to lift the veil and find out what is really going on.  So I am a bit cynical by nature.  I'll try my best to keep that contained to characters in my work and off these pages.

So, back to the 2015 plan.  Have to remind myself, "Keep it simple, stupid."  That is the idea at least.  My main objective is the rewriting of a novella I wrote back in 2009, Harold and the House Fly.  If I do nothing else over these next eleven months but get House Fly ready for publication, I will be satisfied.  But hopefully I will get more done.

In addition to the novella, a serious organizational effort is in order for the twenty three works that are primed and ready to be written.  This involves an objective "going-through."  Eliminate a few stories from contention, if necessary.  Time and experience dictate that if there is no reason to work on something, then don't. That's easier said than done, of course.

My absolute favorite part of writing is the creative thrill ride of writing a first draft.  It is my bliss.  It is the reason I write.  I want my readers to experience the same thrill.  And it is always good when I get at least one new project written in a year.  I have a feeling I will be writing at least one new screenplay with my writing partners Charles Thomas and Ryan Schube.  However, I would also like to do a first draft on one of the ten or more novellas that I have been marinating on for years.  Better yet, I'd like to have something completely new race to the forefront and demand my attention.

I can't forget education, improving my writing skills is a big part of every year.  I'm not sure if I am quite there, but my number one technical writing goal is to write such a quality first draft that there is little need for rewriting.  Whether that will ever be possible, I have no idea.  It's a great goal though.

My last writing goal of the year is simply miscellaneous.  Most years I don't complete all of my writing goals for the year.  I usually underestimate how long it might take to write something.  This year I am allowing for the unexpected, or better yet, I will not get stressed out should I not achieve my goals for the year.  Miscellaneous also includes the unexpected.  I have considered writing a play, but I am not planning it for the year.  Would I write a play or any type of story if the time seemed write?  Yes.  Inspiration is at the heart of all writing and I am merely her servant.

The year has opened nicely so far.  Psykosis has been released.  I've had a month to catch my breath and regain my writer's bearings. A plan for the rest of the year is coming together nicely.  I look forward to seeing how things will unfold from here.  Keep you posted.