Speaking of Writer's Block...

​Where have I been? My goal was to publish a newsletter monthly, but I ran out of steam back in March.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been writing. It's just...I'm primarily a screenwriter who also writes novels and short stories, and it's a bit difficult to craft a newsletter around screenplays...unless, I would imagine, your newsletter is about screenwriting. The most interest for my books span the months of October through March, so it kind of makes sense that would focus on those months for the newsletter.

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​I have been doing a ton of work on the screenplay version of Bad Elf and The Krampus--promoting, connecting with industry insiders, and taking home a trophy for Best Holiday Feature Script at Show Low Film Festival. I met the most amazingly creative people at the festival that I hope continue to be friends inside and outside of my writing career. If you haven't yet read the novel, check out the review by Book for Every Season podcast--it's a short listen (2 minutes), and my favorite line is how the cheerful ending makes you forget all the things you've just witnessed.

My "big" book release this year has been a children's picture book, Herbie Jumps Over The Moon...about a cow who dreams of jumping over the moon. Try as he might, he just can't jump high enough! The majority of time spent on that project was tinkering about in AI art software and using tools like Photoshop to create the images needed to tell a story with a consistent look and feel. The actual story was written many, many years ago for my daughter as a bedtime story, using her stuffed animals as characters. She is now a mother, and for my granddaughter's first birthday I had decided that I would finally put that story down in a book. I think I may take the similar approach with Dingle's Dozen and properly illustrate it. I have this long term goal to turn Bad Elf and The Krampus into a graphic novel, and I think trying my hand at that with Dingle's Dozen would be a great learning opportunity. (Unless I find the right artist to work with, who can help me explore my vision, that is.)

I have been working on a pilot for a television series--The Holler! It's a supernatural, action, dramedy in the vein of Buffy The Vampire Slayer gets Lost where a socially awkward misanthrope becomes ensnared in a strange town no one can ever leave, a town full of ghosts, demons, witches, monsters, and worse…people. He is forced to develop real relationships on his quest to escape them and ultimately sacrifices his chance to cheat the town’s curse in order to save those he has come to love…the family he never had. This one is tracking some interest already, and I'm hopeful that if I can't sell it, that it will at least help me land representation in Hollyweird.

And finally, I have been working on polishing up my latest novel. Some of you have read it on Kindle Vella as Still Skin. Some of you have read its prequel The Hermetic. One of the things I have been struggling with it is the title. Still Skin kinda sorta fits if you squint just right, but I'm not happy with how it plays with the overall theme of the story. While brainstorming title ideas, I realized I had already come up with the perfect title when I wrote the prequel: The Hermetic. I have been amping up the horror and expanding the narrative and hope to have it ready for publishing soon. If you would like to get a free copy once it is ready for publication, please let me know...all that I would ask is that if you enjoy the read to please leave a review once it gets published.