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.
