| Last week was rough, what with the pandemic everywhere, but this week I’m hanging in there, thanks to some little boosts that add up. Dawn of the Deadly Fang is getting some great reviews. One of my stories is in an anthology up for a major award. I had a super-fun interview. And I had a surprising number of creative folks come out of the woodwork when I asked for a little help on the screenplay for a TV pilot I’m developing. Several people sent me incredibly useful notes, and I managed to organize a virtual table read on Saturday night via ZOOM. Everybody was incredibly encouraging, making me feel like I’m onto something good, and they also had some brilliant insights into the script and how it could be improved. There’s the old adage: Art is never finished; it’s only abandoned. And this is 100% true of screenplays. They are a work in progress until the director says, “That’s a wrap.” And probably even after that, as you know if you’ve seen the documentary about how the original Star Wars film was saved in the edit. I think more so than fiction, screenplays require many, many drafts to get them right. I hope I’m getting closer to a draft that will get read by the right person on the right day. This has gotten me thinking about creativity and collaboration. All the actors who showed up for the table read did it because they love acting, and they want to keep up their acting chops, while all facets of the performing arts have ground to a complete halt, film productions, plays, TV shows, everything. I was honored that they were so generous with their time and skills. An industry friend of mine in LA tells me that Hollywood might start producing again in November or December. It’s all a wait-and-see. But people are still reading scripts, preparing for the day things start moving again. And therein lies my shred of hope. There is value in creativity and art for their own sake. Because that’s what we’re turning to for escape and comfort, right? We’re cooking, crafting, sewing, building. Collaborating with other passionate, creative people is one of the greatest thrills I have found, everyone working together to create something we could not produce by ourselves, something bigger and better than we could have envisioned on our own. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere for the world right now. |
| Books I’m Reading… Since we’re all book nerds here, I thought you might like to hear about what I’m reading right now. I have numerous books in process at any given time. Bedroom, phone, elsewhere around the house. Right now I’m reading… Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull – A memoir about creativity by one of the founders of Pixar. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri – This is Longfellow’s 19th-century translation. It’s been in my To Be Read pile for several years, but, hey, since the world is ending, I might as well read an epic poem about the Afterlife. Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-fi Exploded by Jason Heller – A non-fiction exploration of the cross-pollination between science fiction and the music of the 1970s. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare – Yeah, this is the Slasher Film of Shakespeare’s plays. Mutilation, gang rape, murder, filicide, cannibalism… you know, all the fun stuff! What are you reading this week? |
| Virtual Reading! Last week, I was privileged to take part in a virtual reading to celebrate the nominees of the Colorado Book Award. An anthology with one of my short stories, a horror-western called “Blood Lust and Gold Dust”, which came out last year in Baen Books’ weird western anthology, Straight Outta Deadwood, has been nominated for the Colorado Book Award in the anthology category. If you’d like to watch the recorded video, you can find the Facebook video here. My part comes at about the 21:00 mark, but I would encourage to check out all the readers. They were nominated for good reason. |
| A Fun Interview! It was quite a week for the virtual stuff. In addition to the reading, I had a tremendously fun interview on the Draft2Digital Spotlight with Mark Leslie Lefevre. |