Hunter's Moon

It’s been a busy and in some ways trying few months since my last post in March. As always I’ve been busy writing. Shortly after my last post I completed the first draft of my next project due for release, transforming the first part of one of my favorite screenplays into novel format.

Transitioning a screenplay into a novel can be mundane work at times – almost copy and paste to some extent. However, the devil is in the details, and screenplays are notoriously scant on details. As a younger man I never imagined that I would return to a screenplay to transform it into a novel. Rewriting felt torturous at times when I first started to write screenplays. I preferred to bathe in the invigorating creative pool that is the writing of a first draft – the world building. Through the years I’ve come to enjoy rewriting. There is so much that can be discovered, tweaked and improved or just plain gotten rid of.

All three of my books, Monarch, Psykosis and this current project, are different in many ways. Monarch was a massive undertaking that helped shape me as a man and as a writer. Psykosis was closer in length to a novella than a fully realized novel, and after the time consumption on Monarch it was a real treat to work on. My current project is a combination of the two. It’s a two-part story that was initially a 120-page script. With Psykosis I fell in love with the shorter format, but the current project, with its multiple intertwining stories, has too much content to be relayed in less than two hundred pages.

Once I completed the first draft of part one I had the need to take a break and work on something else - to stretch my legs so to speak. Thankfully, I always have other projects to work on and new ideas percolating to the surface. Screenplays aren’t my main writing focus like they used to be, but it is nice to switch it up on occasion, especially if I’m not on a deadline to release something.

Screenwriting has many challenges but the main one undoubtedly is dealing with other people. It is a completely different type of writing compared to working on a novel, and there are challenges when shifting between the two. Trying to cram all that I have to say after working on a novel into the restrictive format of a screenplay means my first drafts can be long-winded in parts. Thankfully, I enjoy rewriting.

Dealing with others in the realm of screenwriting is a mixed bag. You can learn a lot from writing with others, both good and bad. There is bound to be friction at times but as long as the goal is the same then things have a way of working themselves out. When goals are not shared things go awry. Once you have to start trying to sell your hard work you have to deal with all sorts of people. That is the real soul zapping aspect of being a screenwriter and you have to harden your skin and be on point to even get your foot in the door.

Switching between novel and screenplay writing has become a way for me to stay balanced and fresh creatively. Once I tire of working with others I can merely switch back to my literary ventures. And when I get sick of living in my own little world I venture back out into the madness that is writing for the screen.

I spent the summer outlining a miniseries and the first season of a new TV series: one is a historical fiction miniseries; the other is a sitcom. A writing partner and I recently finished the first draft of the pilot episode. It was nice to have a break from the novel series but I am chomping at the bit to get back at it now.

Outside of writing some of you may be aware of my lingering health issues. These issues have been affecting my writing ever since I began work on the last movie I wrote, directed & starred in nearly a decade ago. These issues began to really affect my quality of life about five years ago as I was working on Monarch and have only gotten worse since that time.

Earlier this year I decided to do something about my health. Five weeks ago I had surgery and have been recovering ever since. While I am still not back to 100% I am hopeful that I will be there by year’s end. Regardless, I will keep chipping away at things. If the first part of the novel series was any example, I should be finished with the second part by spring. Knock on wood.

The pilot for the sitcom will likely be rewritten well before next spring and hopefully we can tickle a few of the right funny bones and get some traction on it. While I took point on writing the outline and the pilot, when we actually start sending that out will depend on when my writing partner and I are in agreement that it is good to go.

So, it’s been a busy few months. Even when injured or recovering from surgery I can’t seem to stop writing. Is that a good thing? At least it keeps me busy. Once I’m completely healed I can only hope I’ll be able to get even more work done and make more time to do so. 

For the Love of Sport

For several years now I have written here mainly about my novel writing ventures and an occasional movie review.  Not one who likes to repeat himself unless it is absolutely necessary, I would like to utilize this spot to talk about more than just the act of writing and what movies are out in theaters.  As my Twitter page states, I have a passion for sports and other forms of entertainment, but what has shaped my writing even more are my other interests.  For the past twenty years the discoveries and advancements made in the fields of Science and Technology have piqued my curiosity enough to do extensive research.  However, it is not merely what makes the headlines that I gravitate towards.  My real interest comes from my own curiosity about how we as a civilization have gotten to this point and where we might go with what we learn.  For me, it puts the now in perspective to think about the future and the past.

Anyone who has read my work will know that I am fascinated with the human condition and especially the workings of the mind.  It is the main difference between us, our pets and the other animals in the world.  Sure, being bipedal and having hands that can do more than claw at the earth helps, but having a human mind allows me to put two thoughts together and is therefore far more interesting than my ability to type these words.  Now if I were a dog who could type out his thoughts that might be just as interesting.

To get back to another interest of mine, sports.  I grew up playing all sorts of organized sports: baseball, soccer, football, basketball, and later softball.  There were other sports I played without being in any sort of league: tennis, bowling, golf, volleyball and countless others.  Having such a great passion for playing sports, I also had teams that I cheered for.  The Atlanta sports team were natural fits.  My support for the Cowboys began when I was a kid and both Dallas and Pittsburgh were perennial Super Bowl adversaries.  My brother sided with the Steelers (Boo!) and I the Cowboys.  These were all natural fits for any American.  As I have gotten older my interest for sports has waxed and waned.  When I lived in California I all but stopped watching sports completely.  That was right as the internet was coming on line so it was relatively easy then to not keep up, I just needed to not turn on the TV.  Being in a different place where almost everything seemed new made the decision both easier and harder.  It was harder because I was away from childhood home and knew very few people, and even fewer well.  And at first I gravitated to sports as a common thread, something that felt familiar.  As time went by I wanted to immerse myself in the culture and sports became less important.  My worldview broadened and experience outside my norm was of greater value.

In recent years my passion for sport has returned, but not as expected.  For the majority of my life I was like most red-blooded Americans and watched primarily the big three - Football, Basketball and Baseball.  In 2002 I watched my first World Cup and I bloody loved it.  However, my interest in soccer did not extend past the subsequent World Cups for several more years.  It was after the summer of 2010 that my interest burgeoned beyond the World Cup.  Ironically, in 2012, the year I released my first book is when I became a Tottenham Hotspur fan.  US International star Clint Dempsey joined from Fulham and I wanted to keep up with his progress. It took a year to realize it but I learned that Dempsey was very good but not the best player on the team, at least not at Tottenham. He wasted too many chances in front of goal.  The star of the show at that time for Spurs was Gareth Bale.  Strangely enough, the fact that Dempsey was not the best player on the team actually made me appreciate the game even more and made me want to learn more before the next World Cup.  Bale is hands down my favorite player even though he has moved on to Madrid, yet my allegiance is firmly rooted at White Hart Lane in North London.  So don't be surprised if you see tweets about the Spurs as the lads are pushing for the title this year and it has been an amazing season.

While I still keep up with the other sports, they do not hold my interest like soccer.  If you had told me that I would rather watch a game of footie in another country than most American sports when I was a kid, I am sure I would have laughed in your face and told you you were full of it.  I think it happened because of my interests about life, past and future, as mentioned earlier.  Soccer is hands down the most popular sport in the world.  With all the injury concerns with football, on the field and long after playing days are over, I wouldn't be surprised if future generations don't stop playing it altogether.  Baseball suffers in the technology age from being so slow paced, thank God for DVRs.  Basketball on the other hand, in my opinion, is the only competition, on a global scale, that can hold people's interest like soccer.   The only problem it suffers from is continual stoppage in play, which has made me enjoy watching football less through the years. Commercials are just about the most annoying thing on this planet and some people actually watch the Super Bowl specifically for the commercials.  Drives me bonkers.  Soccer doesn't have that issue.  Two halves played straight through - Brilliant!

Now I'm not trying to tell people to stop watching other sports and just watch soccer.  On the contrary, I am just introducing you to my current view of sports these days.  With the European Championships starting up along with Copa America and the Olympics, there will be a ton of great soccer once the Barclay's Premiere League is decided in May.  And that is another thing that is brilliant about being a soccer fan.  You don't have to wait very long for games that matter like with other sports.  Don't even get me started on the Transfer window drama.

February 2016 Update

I know it's a little late but Happy New Year everyone. Seeing as this is my first Blog Post in some time I want to catch you guys up.

2015 was a mixed bag. I didn't make a big fuss about the release of Psykosis in February, which I do regret to some extent. Sure, it wasn't a full-length novel but it is a story that I am proud of. I mean how often does a writer have full recollection of a dream and then implement it into a story? Not very often for me. I can think of only two other times, and neither had the dream as the main turning point of the story.

Much of 2015 was spent working on screen stories. I was in a creative groove last year. Ideas were coming fast and furious, so even though I did release a book most of my creative efforts were spent focused on new screenplays and screenplay ideas. It was a nice change of pace after focusing on literary work for much of 2014. It did, however, detract from my responsibility to promote my new book. It's not my favorite part of writing, but as a self-published writer it is an important part of the process. So I can not blame anyone for the lack of sales or feedback but myself. If that was what I wanted then I should have balanced my time more wisely. It did force me to reassess my goals as a self-published writer.

With Monarch I was super motivated. I took classes, attended seminars and writing festivals. I scoured the internet for advice and peppered social media with updates. I even updated this blog weekly. In short, I did what I was supposed to do as a self-published writer trying to get people's attention. Was I satisfied with those efforts? In truth, I had no idea what to expect. So for me the results were my litmus test for future endeavors, as I had every attention to keep writing and releasing stories.

Now that I have released a four-part novel series and a novella what are my views of self-publishing? Like most things in life, you get out what you put in... for the most part. The thing with self-publishing that is different than from an actual job is that there is no guarantee that you will make money. If you are self-employed and perform a service, you get paid for the work that you do. The extra time you put in that you don't get paid for is about building relationships and trying to capture more business. That much is true in writing as well. There is just so much more time put in on a job with writing a book than with say a plumber replacing a pipe. In some regards self-publishing is more like a charity than a business. That is why I had to change my way of thinking about my self-published work.

Until I start taking my work to a publisher, I have decided to approach my writing as a hobby instead of as a job that I have to make a profit off of. It is a healthier way to approach things. Seeing as I am no longer in my twenties, a healthy perspective on things might be considered wise.

When I was in my twenties I wrote strictly screenplays and some poetry. While the poetry was utter nonsense, the screenplays contained some substance that were worth sharing. One of my greatest fears as a younger man, and this is true, was that I would reach a point in my life when the story ideas would not be as fresh and vital as I believed they were back then. Where that idea came from I can only speculate. I imagine it had to do with my views on other artists who seemed to lose perspective after reaching fame. At one time I did think that achieving success as a young man was possible. I suppose a psychiatrist might question whether I intentionally undermined my chance for success because of those fears, however, that is a discussion best left for my eventual memoirs, should I choose to write them. Now I am more concerned about getting back to work on writing and releasing more stories.

As a kid I never imagined myself a writer. I was tall and athletic and had no trouble making friends. Writing, in my mind, was for people who dreamed of having those attributes. I was a doer. My physical prowess was only one part of me, though. I had a knack for tinkering and had a vivid imagination. I loved taking things apart that were broken to see if I could fix it, learning all about the inside of broken electronics. It wasn't until high school that I discovered that I also had a knack for storytelling. Up until then school was just something I had to do before I could go and play sports. It took an assignment in English class where we were to create a TV commercial to spark my creative juices. My teacher, Ms. Black, saw that I had a knack for it before I did. I will always be grateful to her for helping to foster that in me. Ever since then I have tinkered more with words and ideas than with electronics.

My perspective on life has changed a great deal since those early days of writing. I was invincible then, or so I believed. I had a far more traditional view on the world, one that suited a so-called normal life. Back then I was certain that I would do what society expected of me: graduate from college, begin a career with a path towards retirement, stat a family, and then settle into old age. Along the way I began to question the logic behind my conventional plans for the future. As humans we instinctively want to leave something behind after we leave this life. For most people that means offspring. I too want to leave something behind after I am gone, yet in my mid-twenties what I wanted to leave behind became something much different than the norm. It began with the pretentious belief that I had to leave something behind that might help others learn more about themselves and the world. I had no business thinking that I had something of value to say at such a young age, but I was sure that I had some insight into the inner workings of this world that might open people's eyes and cause them to see things that they might not otherwise have seen. Back then there was already 7 billion people in the world and bringing in more people into a world already overpopulated with idiots didn't and still doesn't make any sense to me. Instead, I decided that what I would leave behind would be these enlightening stories that might also entertain. To accept that I had to do so as a hobby was a hard pill to swallow, which was the cause of my unrest last year. I have come to terms with it though and put it all in perspective. Approaching writing as a hobby has actually been liberating. It has allowed me to remove some of the self-imposed pressure that I had been carrying for a long time. With that burden removed it has allowed me to plan for future writing endeavors as well.

Last summer I came up with the current writing plan that I am still focused on. That plan involves four novel series. Two of those series were former screenplays written years ago. Those screenplays were patterned after movies with a structure like that of Crash and Creepshow with several story lines interwoven. That style works very well for a novel series and so made perfect sense to rewrite them as such. The part of me that wants to leave something behind for others could not allow those screen stories to slip into oblivion without people having had a chance to read them. Seeing as I have made this a hobby as opposed to a job, I can no longer mindlessly pitch and query producers, actors, directors and production companies in hope that they might assist me in making my stories into films instead of the other million stories that pass their desks on a yearly basis. No matter how much I believe in my stories and my skills as a storyteller I just don't have the time that I once had. Time and money, they are the two greatest burdens that all of us face when trying to achieve our dreams. Besides, I can get these stories into people's hands all on my own, thank you very much. And to keep a creative balance and sanity, I will transition to one of the stories that was not previously a screenplay but has been on the back burner for several years. I fear I might pop if I don't get it on paper soon, it has been marinating so long.

I no longer feel it is as pretentious to want to leave stories behind for others. That is what writers do. Not all writers write for the same reason, though we all write because it is who we are. To me it doesn't matter how many people read my work. I just need to write, release and then move on to the next story.

Now you're up to date. Things don't change much in a writer's world, which is the way we like it. Give us time and money and we will carry on as normal, hopefully releasing more work. With or without them we carry on anyway in our efforts to deliver something new. The younger me might be surprised to see me now so passionate about a writing hobby, but the young tinkerer would understand the evolution that brought us to this point, and might even see it as a noble cause. If I were to get a glimpse of myself twenty years from now, would I be surprised to see that another evolution had taken place? Probably, because I have created a situation that allows me to carry on creatively for as long as I have material to write. If I weren't still doing that, and yet still capable of doing so, I cannot imagine why I wouldn't still be writing or storytelling in some other way. I've yet to dismiss the possibility of a return to acting as an old man. That would still surprise me, but again I might understand the evolution.

Cheers