Big Update

Okay, so here's what's happening in no particular order:

1) I have a day job for this first time since last March. Steady paycheck good, decreased writing time bad. I have to make what little time I do have count even more, and screenplays come before blogs. And having said that, the way things run, I'll probably be updating twice as much as before.

2) I've back-burnered "Artifact" for the time being. After doing three straight horror gigs, I was afraid of burning out. It's no big deal, I was planning a couple of comedies for this year anyway. I just bumped up the timetable. I will get back to "Artifact," though, as I have some fun stuff in mind for it. And about those aforementioned comedies...

3) The one I'm working on now has a working title of "Heart Attack at 30," and the synopsis is thus:

Days after her 30th birthday, up-and-coming writer Rachel Wagner goes to the hospital for unexplained chest and back pains, where she learns she's had a massive heart attack. After a  stent-implant she goes back home, a small town in Ohio, where her mother and twin sister help her cope with the new direction her life has taken.

Yes, it is a comedy. Yes, it is a chick flick. No, it is not going to be a particularly dark comedy, though it may have its moments. No, it is not like anything I've ever written before, which is a big part of why I'm writing it.

I do need to do some big, jumbo, monster-sized research, because I want this to be as realistic as possible. You see, I'm really, really irritated by 'disease-of-the-week' movies that treat medical conditions like props. The vast majority of the time they're just not interested in whatever condition they're using beyond story-beats or plot-points or cheap melodrama. I think it's far more interesting -and honest- to get into what would normally be considered mundane details. The day-to-day stuff. And I think that's where a lot of the humor is going to come from. Just a feeling.

I only have the first act on paper right now. I'm still I'll probably be writing more about the writing of this one than any of the horror pieces (refer to bullet-point 1). Maybe because horror is a lot more natural for me than this. I don't know. Stay tuned.

And finally...

4) Remember "Mythos?" The semi-sequel to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" which was a finalist in the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival this past September? That "Mythos?"

Well, this past November, on a whim, I submitted it to Joe Bob Briggs Productions. He's a drive-in kind of a guy, I'm a drive-in kind of a guy, and it's a drive-in kind of a script. And someone at J.B.B. Productions agrees because it's under consideration for production. They have to crunch the numbers, consider the budget, consider the locations, but yeah, they're at least thinking about it, which is farther than I've ever gotten before, film production-wise.

I don't expect to hear anything back until at least summer. And that's okay. I'm a lot more patient than I used to be. Again, stay tuned.

And that's about it right now. I'll try to throw up a review or two over the next few days. I dunno. Depends on what free time I have.

Till then.