"Split" is alive!

(hit the pause button on the slideshow and advance it frame by frame if it goes too fast to read)


After many many months of writing and proofing and editing and book formatting and cover designing and master copy uploading and ordering, the happy day finally arrived when we were all able to hold our little book in our hands.

"Split" is the anthology written by my writing group, Humble Fiction Cafe. The theme of this anthology is 'dichotomies', or something that has two opposing aspects. Examples include War and Peace; Real and Imagined; Love and Hate; Body, Soul and Spirit, and many more. Each story examines either one side of the dichotomy, or both sides within the same tale. A group of the stories also form a loose continuity, as one story inspired another which inspired another leading us to tie them together even closer and make them all fit together.

It was a lot of fun, a lot of work, and we're all very proud of this book.

If you'd like to read this masterpiece yourself, please order your copy right here.

Split is here!

Exciting night. I just finished doling out copies of "Split" that finally came in. We ordered these about two weeks ago (112 copies) and it took a while for it get printed I guess. Regardless, it's finally here.

We met at Panera Bread to pass the copies out and spread them all out on a table (well, most of them, anyway). I'll post pictures later. I'm guessing that this is the mid-point of "Split's" life cycle. We still have to have a massive group signing where we all sign each others' books. Then we have to figure out if and how we want to actively market this book. I imagine we'll send a copy to the newspaper that ran a story on us a few weeks ago. Theresa has already said she wants to send a copy to Oprah. We can probably see if Barnes and Noble can do a signing or something for us. And we might get a Split website where we can post links to the Lulu or Amazon pages, and make it available for download if we so choose.

But bottom line, it's tangible proof that we CAN and should continue to write and if nothing else, this is our inspiration to be bigger and better things.

Getting into Gear 2007

So, thanks to the flurry of activity by the writing group I'm a part of, I'm re-inspired to get off my butt and get creative again. Even though my job actually requires me to be creative on a daily basis, it's not the sort of creativity that leaves me with any sort of satisfaction at the end of the day. Well, sometimes...

Anyway, I've ideas for countless screenplays, short films, novels, essays, graphic designs, photographic composites and artwork, etc etc etc. I just need to stop procrastinating and DO them. At least ONE, anyway.

So hopefully this blog will act as a sort of accountability partner for me. Something that will guilt me into increasing my creative output.

Next really big project coming up is 48 Hour Film Project 2007. We did really good last year (link to the video "Eternal" on our Irony Coast YouTube page should be on the sidebar on the right), and we have every intention and expectation to win this year... That's coming up the weekend of May 18th. Should be fun.

Still need to finish my NaNoWriMo novel. I'm only 17,000 words from reaching my target, and I still really like my story, so I have no excuse not to work on it.

I also need to pick which screenplay I want to work on. "Paper Heroes" has the most work done on it, and the one I think has the most potential to be made into a film. "Sword of Texas" has a lot of work done on it as well. "Camp David" is the one most easily filmable by my film group, and the one that has gotten the most positive feedback and requests that we actually produce. Plus, there are a few ideas I've come up with over the past month or two that are jumping up and down trying to get my attention. Tentative titles for these are "The Royal Family", "The Lion and the Lambs", plus my untitled Vegas heist film, and my untitled serial killer movie.

Plus, there's still the "Zombie Wrangler" short film that's percolating, and the "Flunkies" webisodes we need to produce before half of our cast moves away.

Lots to think about. Lots to do.

NaNoWriMo - Update

Okay. Here it is, mid-January. I got sidetracked in November by work and life in general, and am currently stalled out at 33,000 words. I hope to get it kick-started tonight or tomorrow and try to get to 50,000 by the end of the month. Not likely, but I'm going to go for it. In any event, I should be able to finish the rough draft of Word War III over the next month or so at the worst.

But before I do that, a couple of movie reviews.