Inside the Brain of E.C. Henry

Furiosa and the Apes of a Post-apocalyptic Box Office

Well, we're at Memorial Day weekend, 2024; and typically this is high season for the movie box office in the U.S.

Feels like over the past 5 years or so, this hype has really been missing.  There are several factors for that, imo.  This year, I actually did pay to see two offerings that Hollywood thrust on the masses to kick off the 2024 movie going season: Furosa: A Mad Max Saga; and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Neither of these entries were especially good.  Of the two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was the decidedly better of the two.  But that's not saying much because Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was a complete missfire.

The funny thing is the origin of both of these series were a couple of the best movies of all time, imo: The Road Warrior (1981) and Planet of the Apes (1968) were iconic movies in their time.  The problem is, you can only milk the same cow for so long.  And both of these franchises have been milked dry.  Which brings us to one of the contributing factors for a box office in decline:

Hollywood doesn't make original stories anymore. 

Rather, whatever they dump on us, it's off some kind of past product: Barbie: a movie made by in large due to the success of Barbie dolls in the past.  Mission Impossible 709, Oppenheimer was a biopic, the 3rd wave of Halloween movies, the 3rd wave of Planet of Ape Movies, the 4th wave of Batman movies.  

To be honest I didn't go into either Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga nor Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes with much of an open mind.  I expected bad. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has a very uninspired story: an ape survives his villages conquest by a bigger tribe of apes, then when attempting to free captured villagers finds a plan by the conquesting village to open a depot of past human weaponry that will help their leader achieve further conquests and solidify his power.  Furiosa's story fails in that it relies way to much on the past mythology of Fury Road (2014), and that post-apocalyptic world isn't enough to sustained interest, as the screenwriters didn't introduce enough new stuff -- especially late in the movie where Furiosa really falls apart.  Chis Hemsworth's "Dementus" character never registered a good villain.  Furiosa starts out more good than bad, but once a the Mad Max clone character of Pratorioum Jack comes into the story -- about at the halfway point, the story starts to go down hill, until by the end Dementus' demise doesn't make much sense.  The storytelling in the last third of the movie really left a bad taste in my mouth.  

One of the saddest things about the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the digital artwork of the talking apes themselves.  I would have rather seen the actors in ape costumes from the original franchise (1968-1973).  If you can't even get that right, you are screwed in a movie like that.  The story follows one ape, who seeks to free survivors from his village after it is attacked by a rival village who has a leader want to "open the vault" on the sea coast that is rumored to have technology that will help him do further conquests and solidify his power.  The quest is rather dull with no real elaborate battle scenes.  The talking human girls plight is poorly expressed as well.  Hopefully this we be the last Planet of the Apes debacle that Hollywood makes.  This idea is toast, burnt toast.

I guess I would be remiss if I didn't touch on Anya Taylor-Joy's portrayal of Furiosa.  She looks mad for most of the scenes she's in.  At the ACT II break-point she literally rips her arm off to escape Dementus and his gang.  Then at Imortan Joe's hang-out she make a robotic prosthetic for herself.  This is shown, but is still totally unbelievable. 

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga also suffers from alters in time from the timeline of events that The Road Warrior set into play back in 1981,  In between movies you are expected to now push OUT the evens in Furiosa something like 45 years since the collapse of modern civilization, YET everyone is riding around in supped up monster cars and motorcycles.  This requires a significant suspension of belief.  You gotta go with it, yet what you see doesn't feel plausible.  The Road Warrior you can buy into the fall of civilization and rise of barbarian gang, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga; not at all.  

Stop ruining my legacy - last, parting message from the Humungus

So as the box office numbers continue to be bad, know that are a direct reflection of the CRAP Hollywood is producing.  It's just bad movies, bad stories at the story level.  This is stuff that people who do this for a living should know better.  It's like nobody cares about the final product anymore.  

Hollywood is too infected by the Democratic party, and woke ideology too.  I think that has a way of rearing its ugly head in terms of what gets greenlit. There is less reason for optomism than ever before.  Those at the heads of the studios aren't choosing good stories to  produce, and the effect of this is a post-apocalyptic box office!

Rick Dalton from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019); Celebrating Characters in Cinema: Volume X

Is this character  living   his best life?

Character arcs. 

What are they?

And how are they important?

Oh, and I see you titled this post Rick Dalton; Celebrating Characters in Cinema: Volume X, so I thought that was the subject of this post?

Well, kids we're doing something a little different in today's post.  We're going to focus on character arcs, and what this term mean.  While exploring this subject we're going to use THE BEST character Quentin Tarantino ever came up: Rick Dalton from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) as the object of discussion.

This featured term, character arcs, is indigenous to both screenplays/movies and novels; ie. character arcs  can be applied to both mediums, because character arcs are an aspect of story analysis and development.  I like the think that character arcs derive a product of a character going through the story or plot you just watched or read. From a writer's perspective you can write out a character arc first then fit the plot to achieve the desired character arc, OR you can a analyze the affect the story and its conflicts have on a character based on this experience derive his or her resulting character arcs.  Now that we've got the ball rolling on this key term, character arcs.  Let's define it.  From a November 7, 2022 post by Sean Glatch over at writers.com:

A character arc is a character's personal growth and adaption to the story's particular conflicts

So what we're looking at when the term "character arc" is bantered about is affect a given story has on a character.  So when you analyze or craft character arcs on your own you need to consider what the character started the story off as, then what state of being they finished at when the story ends.  Their character arc is then a product of the personal change the exhibit as a product of going through the story.  The fun thing about character arcs is that this affect can be either high visible in a public sense, AND/OR it can be more of individualistic character improved or worstened state.   Thus the overall character arcs arc a focused on character goes through in story can be a positive one, a negative one, or a neutral one.  

One guy I found on-line, Bryn Donovan, rattled off  50 types  of the he found in characters over the scope of books and movies!  

You can derive your own conclusions about what a character's given was in a given story, but I'd like to give you some "tools" in how you evaluate an overall given character arc: positive, negative, or neutral.  In comprising this I read this post from drabble.com:

Positive character arc: The character grows to be a better person by the end of the story.  Zero to hero.  Or they grow emotionally like Melvin Udal did in James L. Brooks' As Good as It Gets.  

Negative character arc: The character becomes more morally reprehensible by the end of the story.  Typically the villain's story: they get defeated by the hero, and show themselves to be some version of monster as a result of the problems they cause in story.  This is indicative of trouble protagonist or minor characters, who actually become worse people as a result of going through the story.  A good example of a character having a "negative character arc" is Natalie Portman's Nina Sayers character from Black Swan (2011).

Flat (or neuteral) character arc: The character really doesn't change at all as a result of their part in going through the adventure seen on screen.  A good example of this is Sherlock Homes, as the mystery to be solved takes center stage, and Homes comes in highly skilled and adapt at solving problems.

So now that we've got an understanding what character arc is about let's apply this to the featured character in today's post: Rick Dalton as written by Quentin Tarantino and portrayed on screen by Leonardo Dicaprio.  I'll apply 

How Rick Dalton starts: Rick is established as actor coming off a TV series named "Bounty Law" where his antic contributed the show's cancellation, and now Rick is looking for new acting work, preferably in the movies.

Main goals: Proving that he has "it", can act, and is still good enough to get roles in the changing landscape of Hollywood of the late 1960s.

Key Dilemma: Comes to work on a series pilot hungover, and in while shooting a scene forgets his lines.

How Rick Dalton ends: Is a hero in real life, as he torches one of the Charles Manson cult members who broke into his house and threatened to kill everyone in there, which gets rewarded by Rick Dalton getting to meet Sharon Tale who worked with a director that he respected.

All of which leads to...

Character arc of Rick Dalton: An actor who prove that he can be a hero in real life that rivals any of those in his past, acting career, despite his worries and excessive drinking.  If rated this would a positive character arc.

See how I derived Rick Dalton's character arc from the movie?  When trying to find character arc just see how the action affect the character.  In Rick Dalton's case, he suffers a blow to his ego, yet overcomes that.  Then later in the movie he's DRUNK when the Manson cultists show up, yet he takes action and helps his buddy, Cliff Booth, ward them off; thus proving himself to a hero in real life.  Rick doesn't overcome his drinking problem.  He only partially addresses it by getting married to an actress he fell in love with while shooting a series of spaghetti westerns in Italy.  

As far as my own rating of this character.  Form my way of thinking Rick Dalton is a 10 out 10.   Perfect score, the best any writer or actor can hope to achieve when endeavoring to create meaningful art.

To me he is sooo interesting, you don't want the show to end, you just wanna keep following him on adventures.  And that's really the gold standard of ICONIC movie-making.  Can you create a product that people love and wanna see more of?  Well, Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo Dicaprio did just that with the magic they work in the creation and execution of the character Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  And for that Rick Dalton is my favorite character, all-time in the history of cinema.  EASILY winning the top prize of top character in my "Celebrating Characters in Cinema".  Speaking of which, I'm going to do a follow-up post on the other nine featured characters in the "Celebrating Characters in Cinema" series so be looking for that in the next day or two.

Lastly, as I close this post on character arcs lets briefly look at how character arcs can be used in story creation.  I think it's a good idea to post character arcs in an author's character bio pages -- if you do them, which you should as they'll help you build better stories.  For most scripts I write to do separate character bio pages in which I really do into my thoughts as to who and what a given character is.  Most times I don't write an official arc for the character though.  As I think character arcs are derived from the story as a whole.  Usually with the character bio pages I write, that's more for me to understand the character and build momentum to have enough courage to write the story.  I am a HUGE advocate of character bio page before a writer sets down to start their first draft, less enthused about a writer deciding on the character arc of the character before they actually start writing.  Why?  Because I believe writing is about discovery, and how can you discover anything if everything is laid out firmly in pre-writing?  So writers out there, go into your stories with an idea of where the story could go, but leave room for bouts of "inspiration" where your characters and story come alive.    

 

Filling the Hole of the Empty Wedding

I just woke up from the strangest of dreams:  me on my wedding day!   Yeah, I was getting married, but I didn't know to who!  The dream took place in a gathering room.  This audience was seated in folding chairs.  I was on the groom's side seated next to my mom and dad on the other side of the aisle was where the bride's family and friends were.  My mind flashed to a girl I had a crush on in high school, and I thought, "Wow, somehow I did the impossible, and got her to agree to marry."  But then the fact-based side of my brain took over, and I knew that couldn't be the case because several years ago I looked that girl up on social media, and found her to be married with children not to far from where I was living in Western Washington.

"The dream" I had didn't last long.  It was kinda melancholy which is bad when you're dreaming of the day of your own wedding.  I remember thinking, who would marry me?  I was in a room about to say, "I do" to I-don't-know-who!

Kinda farcical, right?  The day of my wedding and I was looking across the room searching for clues in the bride's section for who I would be marrying shortly.  Hey, I was in a conundrum, I had to know the name of the girl so I could complete my vows before the priest! 

How weird is that?!  I didn't even know the name of the girl I was about to marry!

But at least I'm still dreaming and thinking about  girls  on some kind of subconscious level.  AND there is Sue Foster, one of my mother's prayer partners from Bonney Lake, Washigton; who told my mom the   Lord  would "complete me" in Tennessee. 

Faith and romance...  Hmmm.  Never been one to doubt the  Lord --and I'm not going to start now!  So, I'll take in on FAITH that the  Lord  will complete that which concerns me.  It's been a long, hard, mostly lonely journey that's for sure.  52 and 1/2 with NO ROMANTIC prospects (can only go poop brown when confessing that) really sets the stage for the Lord to get all the glory when I do finally get "completed".  

Yeah, I do look forward to being completed.  I wasn't made to live life being alone all the time.  Sure, as a writer, there are times you have to be alone to do your art; but God never intended that to be a 24/7 360 days a year prison sentence!  

As you get older your views and context of things change.   As I write this post I have the song and harmony for Taylor Swift's "State Of Grace" --

Going through my head.  A couple nights ago I scrolled through T.S. most recent re-release: Red (Taylor's Version) on I-tunes and downloaded three new songs: Red, State of Grace, and --

The last of those songs, Message in a Bottle, has a lot of clips from Message in a Bottle (1999) which starred Robin Wright Penn and Kevin Costner. Off IMBD here's the logline for that Costner/Penn movie:

A woman discovers a tragic love letter in a bottle on a beach, and is determined to track down its author.

Well now that sounds like the making of a sappy, romantic drama to me.  I've never seen this Nicolas Sparks inspired movie; but it made its way into a Taylor Swift music video 10/11 years after its initial release.  Makes me think Taylor Swift watched it and it inspired her mind, which then got expressed in the art she does, which is singing and performing.  I have yet to watch this movie, Message in Bottle.  Yeah, I went through a phase where I watched at lot of ROMANTIC COMEDY movies, BUT I never really connected with ROMANTIC DRAMA style movies like say THE NOTEBOOK.  I am a guy.  And guys view romance differently than girls.  Been a long time since The Notebook (2004) was talked about.  This another ROMANTIC DRAMA adaptation from Nicholas Sparks. I think I've watched it 1 and 1/2 times.  Since it's out of the public conscious here's the trailer for that one:

Celebrating women in games of courtship

One of the tenant truths of romantic comedies that I've expressed several times on this blogsite, which also a tenant of romantic dramas.  

Don't worry, I'm not pursuing Taylor Swift anymore to read my scripts or interface with me anymore.  When people bring that up at an online site I frequent, everything they say on that front is easy to dismiss, even though earlier in 2021 I did pursue her.  So why go back and listen to her music again?  Because SOME of it is   romaticaly alive , and in some capacity I hope to fill that in my own life.  Hopefully in the near future.

Romance is an   inspiration  of sorts.  And some of Taylor Swift's music really captures the   magic   of being in love in a fun way.  I'm pretty sure T.S. song State of Grace was based on when Calvin Harris came into her life and became her boyfriend.  Of course now she's with someone else (a Brit named Joe Alwyn) so where does that leave that song I liked?  I liked State of Grace because I think it captures a   content girl   at happy time in her life -- she's enjoying an unexpected romance.   How fun is that?!

Funny how some people are so boat-loaded with romance that they are drunk off it, while others are ravaged souls coming in off the  Sahara desert   desperate for a drink of water.  

  Hey, is there an age limit for moments like this?  

I'm not one to try to go back and map out T.S. love life when I listen to her music, because that's not how romantic music is supposed to work.  When you release something as a professional artist it's supposed to resonate in the heart of whoever takes in it.  They process it.  And the song entertains them in some capacity. 

In watching the teenage girls at a Taylor Swift concert and seeing their over-the-top fawning over her, I think that all ties back to those girls own desires to have romances of their own.  And then seeing Taylor Swift is like a release for them where they live vicariously through their idol and get to experience the same highs and lows that the pop diva did. 

Taylor Swift fans are very passionate people.  And, sorry to say, they really don't have anyone else to look to.  Pop music is really, really bad; from my point of view.  Anyway, I've rambled on enough about that artist.  It's just when you listen to her music, I've got to form a context of how to process it in light of my detractors who beset me occasionally. 

 The day of my wedding ...

... And I don't even know the girl's name, but am looking across the halls for clues who she might be.  There's some message in a bottle rift there that's for sure. 

With how   Sahara desert   my love life and social life in general has been, I'm glad I have writing as an outlet.  The cool thing with what I'm writing now is it is subject matter that naturally engages the mind of my mom.  My mom is my best friend, and a stand-up Christian.  She is a lot more boisterous about her faith too.  Wish I was more like her.  Guess I need to be praying more and reading more of my bible.   I haven't shared or read any of my movie scripts with her for a long-long time.  Gravesite Crows is a slasher-horror movie.  That's not really born-again Christian fare.  Nor was Preyorium, The Commune, or the raunchy So Go Back & Get Her series.  But The Beautiful Kingdom IS DIFFERENT!  A good kind of different.  It has elements of faith and godliness in it.  Furthermore I am committed to honoring Jesus, the Holy Father, and the  Holy Spirit   in this one.  I'm going to entertain you, and at the same time honor the Godhead.  Yep, that's what I'm committed to.  

So as I close, I don't have the answer why I was dreaming of my wedding day and trying to find out it was I was marrying.  Yeah, it's kinda comical.  Over time I've developed a good and healthy sense of humor about my life.  It's pretty easy to deal with my distractors too.  I have a good sense of what matters and what does not.  Plus flippant people who hide behind false names are easy to dismiss.  

Can't believe it's already   Christmas Eve   as I write this.  Still, have the song State of Grace by Taylor Swift of her Red (Taylor's version) running through my mind as finish this post.  52 1/2, romantically alive and still engaged with it, ready for something good to finally come into my life.  State of grace indeed!

 

Merry Christmas from,

E.C. Henry from Kingsport, Tennessee

Big or Small Canvas Writing

Time to have a little fun as I write my 27 spec. script.  Can't help but think I oscillate a lot between "big canvas" and "small canvas" writing.  

 Big canvas  stories are ones with sweeping premises, and are often times referred to as "high concept" stories. 

 

Some examples of  big canvas  movies:

•  Saving Private Ryan  (1998: Steven Spielberg): D-day in France with the Allies taking the beach.  Big opening battle, then the story gets a little more intimate as you follow the Allies search party deeper into France.

One of the best big canvas movies you'll ever see

•  Promethseus  (2012: Ridley Scott): An alien origin movie that involves the creation of man and a bunch of sophisticates who "engineered man".  High concept then backed by the exploration of a new planet, and an spacious alien ship.
•  Dances with Wolves  (1990: Kevin Costner): Coming out of the civil war movie which involves a punch of different settings and an opening battle scene.
•  The Dark Knight  (2008: Christopher Nolan): Yeah, this is a comic book movie.  But one with elaborate action, set pieces.
•  Jurassic Park  (1993: Steven Spielberg): Big high concept of dinosaurs being re-creaated out of synthesised dna, then that product wrecking havoc on the people on an island.
•  Gamara vs. Guiron  (1969: Japanese movie): Aliens kidnap two children and take them to another planet for the purpose of getting knowledge from their brains, but Gamera follows and tries to rescue them.

A guilty pleasure of mine as boy was watching the "monster fights" in monster movies

•  The Poseidon Adventure  (1972: staring Gene Hackman): Nine people explore a cruise ship at sea in a manner that turns their whole lives upside down.

 

Common elements of  big canvas stories  is that the adventure takes center stage.  It's more about characters interfacing with a greater problem, that a detailed focus on the characters themselves.  The central attraction is a  big event: a war, an exploration of the unknown, monster fights .

 

Conversely here's some examples of small canvas movies:

•  Black Swan  (2010: directed by Darren Aronofsky): A ballet stars desire for the perfect performance becomes the catalyst for her descent into madness.
•  While You Were Sleeping  (1995: staring Sandra Bullock): A lonely woman's life changes when she saves a man from the train tracks in Chicago and gets taken in by that man's family.
•  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  (2017: staring Frances McDormand): A woman goes to extremes to put the heat on the local police to find the rapist and murderer of her daughter.
•  Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)  (2014: staring Michael Keaton): Self-absorbed man tries to rehabilitate his art as an actor and his relationship with his ex-wife and daughter.  

Character arc of Riggan Thompson was the focus of this movie

•  Halloween  (1978: directed by John Carpenter): A masked man terrorizes a teenage woman on the anniversary of when he killed his sister.

 

Common elements of  small canvas stories : a focus on a single character and the flaw the story sets up that they must overcome, few locations, dialog heavy movies with lots of drama.

 

Some movies blur the lines of small canvas movies movies that really want to be big canvas movies:

•  There Will be Blood  (2007: directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, staring Daniel Day Lewis): A ruthless oil tycoon carves out an empire for himself.
•  Bohemian Rapsody  (2018: directed by Bryan Singer, staring Rami Malek): The story of Freddy Mercury with the rock band, Queen.
•  Arthur  (1981: staring Dudley Moore): A millionaire, alcoholic playboy must choose between real love or an arranged marriage that allows him to continue to be rich.
•  Sense and Sensibility  (1995: staring Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson): Women enjoy and anguish over their romantic prospects in England of the 1800s.

Remember when Kate Winslet was like in a million of these "period piece" movies?  I do.  1995-early 2000s

•  How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days  (2003: staring Matthew McConahuey and Kate Hudson): A pair of career-minded people place wagers on their mastery of manipulating dating.

 

Common elements of  small canvas movies trying to be big canvas movies  are big name actors playing someone famous in biography style movie that jumps all over the place.  Period piece movies.  Romantic comedies that have lots of elaborate set pieces in multiple locations.

As a I writer I like wring stories on both canvasses.  The  spec. script  I'm first drafting up deals with two infantrymen fresh from trench warfare in World War I going to antediluvian times to catch the Greed gods at the apex of their power.  

To date I think I've written a pretty even slate of  big canvass  vs.  small canvass scripts .  Let's see...

 

E.C. Henry's  big canvas scripts  (10):

•  Preytorium : Explorers go to a foreign planet and fight gigantic, monsters.  
•  Indians of the Ancient Plains : Native Americans due battle with the last of the dinosaurs in the Badlands.
•  The Commune I-III : A man weaves his way through the greater story of other people's dabllings in alien bio-engineering.
•  A King for God's People  THEN  The Rival Kings of Israel : Epic story of the David & Saul of the bible.
•  The Beautiful Kingdom  (coming soon): A celestial castle, the ocean, and Heaven; plus with dinosaur affects.

Yeah, you can expect something akin to this in The Beautiful Kingdom

•  The Chosen Redeemer of Thars : This is a lot like Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia. 
•  Beyond the Apes : Sci-fi world, creature affects at actor and blue-screen level.

 

E.C. Henry's  small canvas scripts  (9): 

•  A Heart Built on the Sand : Follows the dissent of a sexually charged woman after she rejects the Lord.
•  The Judas Project : Centers around a Mexican young man who is dissatisfied with his life, then commits a robbery that forever changes his life.
•  An American Princess : A love-starved girl watches as her high school sweetheart moves on into stardom as a writer.
•  Puppies?  Puppies?!  Puppies!!! : A slouch must deal with puppies and an overbearing friend as he works up the courage to ask out a girl at the pound.

Cute, right?  Who wouldn't want to see a script like that?!

•  Cupid's Helpers : A writer's helper accompany's him to his hometown for his high school reunion where he meets the girl who was the inspiration for all the stories he wrote that made him famous.
•  Cupid God Stupid : A construction worker faces a crissis of conscious when his wife learns about his extra-marital affair.
•  After the Glory : An ex-athlete bums around town as he re-interacts with people he grew up with and slowly finds a new focus for his life.
•  Revenge of the Fat Chicks : girls teen comedy mostly filmed at houses and a school.  

 

E.C. Henry's  small canvas scripts that really want to be big canvas movies  (8):

•  Bubblehead Saves the Day : A high school senior pines for a girl, has his life complicated by a robot from outer=space and aliens.
•  Give It Up for Chimpy I and II : A man uses the monkey he can interpret for to woo the girl of his dreams.
•  Gravesite Crows : A Halloween-eque story yet with considerable more special affects.
•  Hometown Professional Football : Athletes in romance, yet will too many football scenes in action to make this low budget.
•  When the Motorcycle Calls : A rural hick uncovers a robbery attempt in a small town made bigger by all the outside actions shots on dirt bikes.  What the main character's dirt bike jam is:

•  Cowboy Alien Diaries : A husband winning back his wife story complicated by alien abductions and differing locations.
•  Kathy Smith Conquers Duboose High School : Mostly low budget teenage rom-com material, but there are some callouts for mixed real-life and animated scenes.

 

Well, it looks like a fairly even 10-9-8 split: big-small-mixed canvas.  Still, overall, I think writing  big canvas stories  more.  They're definitely more challenging to write than a drama heavy,  small canvas script .  

Oh, before I close this post don't forget to visit Antonio Sabato Jr.'s movie fundraiser site for his new movie Trail Blazers.  Its been almost a year since I've heard anything from either he, Kaya Jones or Nicholas Tizekker.  Sounds like Antonio and Nicholas are still trying to make this movie, I THINK Kaya dropped out.  Anyway, I gave 'em $500.  When I get back to work I'll try to give them more, if they're still trying to drum up founds in 2022.  Gotta support our fellow artists!  *Strike-through the campaign for Trail-blazers, got an e-mail, 12-28 that my contribution of $500 had been refunded, then checked on the campaign and saw a $150,000 had reached a little over $4,000, but the crowdfund had been canceled.  :(   I feel bad for Antonio, as this was a script that he had written.

Tried to graft a little  "lit expression"  in this post--and in my script logline page.  Till we talk again, I would like to wish you a  merry Christmas   and a  happy New Year .  Will try to do another post before the end of 2021, but no promises.  Till then, as Kaya Jones would say,  love and light ,

 

 E.C. Henry  from Kingsport, Tennessee

 

 

Alternating Between Two Disciplines

Well, I'm at it again: working on a new screenplay.  BUT I'm also busy editing book #4 in the Legend of Thars series too.  The 4th book is entitled The Making of a Legend.  The new screenplay is entitled, The Beautiful Kingdom.  

I'm writing this post because though I so do want to finish the Legend of Thars series along the way I feel the need to create new things too.  Though at times I find it real pleasurable when I write good prose that replaces weaker writing, I find after a while that I get bored with editing. 

Real writers write COMPLETED first drafts

That is one my writing mantras, remember?  And a post I made back in 2013!

Well, I have a lot of writing mantras that I go back to and are foundational to the creative that I am today.  Still after 20+ years it's...

There is always a balance to strike.  You can't just always create new things.  And you can't always edit old stuff. 

The writing life is a strange thing.  Especially when you're not being paid for any of it, and are writing in all on speculation in hopes of someday entertaining the masses with what you've been slaving for YEARS overs.  26 screenplays soon be 27...  Five novels with plans for at least two more, hopefully even more than that.  As is always the case, that all depends on the Lord.  Because tomorrow is not guaranteed...

Along the way trying new things, like novel exchanges at Scribophile.  At one point thinking you've found a good editor only to have that blow away into nothingness.  The road of life sure has many twists and turns in it. 

I wish I could sell some of my intellectual property, but alas the  market is so poor .  There are no opportunities anywhere .   All roads lead to nowhere .

Maybe someday the entertainment climate will change, but I'm not holding my breath.  I'll just keep creating, and keep my chin up, as I alternate between the two disciplines of creating new stuff, and editing to improve the stuff I've already created.   Till then the --

mat is always extended for new friends, and new adventures!

Screenwriting in Lit Expression

What I opened this post with is the first page of my latest completed screenplay entitled which is entitled Gravesite Crows.  It was written using Final Draft screenwriting software.  It was written in lit expression.

So what is lit expression? 

Lit expression is an evocative way of screenwriting that breaks up the static page by using color and font to accent words and phrases in a screenplay.  The lit aesthetic is designed to draw attention to words by adding color and fonts to them.   It makes for a more interesting looking page and it serves a practical purpose to as I hope to show in this post.  So let's break this page down and see how the lit expression works on this page. 

The script starts with an "OVER BLACK" callout.  This means the story begins with a black page.  Here the lit aesthetic of Acten BT font was chosen to draw attention to the drab color.  

The place where a lit expression was used was in the phrase, "WHISTLE OF WIND".  Here the aesthetic of Ink Free font set at Oblique was chosen in attempt to dramatize this sound effect.  

Next comes the screenwriting technical term of FADE IN:.  Here font was changed several ways.  1. Vineta Bt font at 14 size.  2. The text color of gold was selected. 3.  The highlight over this phrase was set to black with the space before and after the technical term given the highlight at the same font size.  What I was trying to show was that this story goes from a black page to a scene in the 1870s.  Vineta bt was the best aesthetic I could find that had an Old West look it.  Gold color to accent the golden grains that the Great Plains are known for.

The next lit expression comes in the master shot heading: EXT. FOREST PLAINS-DIVIDE - TWILIGHT (1870s)  There lit expression begins with all bolded text and underlining the main shot heading so the reader knows this is the beginning of  a sequence.  Then later in the script when new parts of story begin lit expression uses the same technique: bolded text, underline through the main shot heading.   Later on, in the time of day field for this master shot heading I use the BALLONDEXTBOL font in italics, and since it's TWILIGHT were drawing attention to I span three colors across the span of word going from dark purple to purple to red.  So in this I'm trying to visualize the sky at twilight looking west, where you stand in night but off to the horizon it's still light.  Color draws out and draws attention to the setting sun and darkening sky overhead.  Lastly in the time of day field I add the calendar qualifier of (1870s) and spice up with the Vineta BT font we used when we were fading in, and add the gold color same was when we were fading in again.  So were complimenting the aesthetic used earlier and helping the reader transition into the open story world in Gravesite Crows.

Early in the first paragraph of description lit expression is used to draw attention to the text DARKENING FOREST by using the font BALLONDEXTBOL in bold, then using a dark purple to the word darkening, and green to the word forest.  Dark purple cues the reader that its dark outside.  The color green reinforces the word forest, as the tree in forests are typically green.  Since you're in forest I didn't want the change in color because that doesn't reflect what its like to be in a forest when its darkening.  Which leads to a tenant philosophy of writing in the lit aesthetic:

Use the accent to reinforce what's going on in the script

The next application of the lit expression comes in the form of highlight the crows in the story.  Given the very name of this screenplay is Gravesite Crows, you'd think that when a crow shows up in the script it would mean something.  It does.  If filmed these crows would probably be special effects animation, but they could also be a mechanisized prop.  That's up to the filmmakers to decide how to bring that to life.  But as far as the script goes, I brought either the denotation of the crow: CROW, GRAVESITE CROW or the word used in its place when they appear on screen pronoun (three, them).  BALLOON XTD font in bold, in dark purple is how I lit the text depicting the crow or crows when they are shown on screen.  So there is some discipline to the lit expression.  In the case of the crows you only used the lit expression when the crow is on the screen, OR when its CAW is made which could be in pre-lap or off screen.  So the the aesthetic of the crow prop carries over into its sound only because this isn't a speaking character but a bird making sound.  Again--

When you use the lit aesthetic establish rules for their application and be consistent

When the script calls for a shot where a character is using a lantern to look into the grave I used the lit expression to draw attention to the contrast in colors there.  With the color orange in italics drawing attention to the color the lantern is bringing to this shot, then emphasizing the shading by setting the phrase "into the grave" in dark purple, which was the same color I used earlier with "darkening" and "TWI" of TWILIGHT in the master shot heading.  I thought about using a different font for these words but decided not to, just to cue the reader of the shading in play of this scene.  Again, you use the lit expression to help emphasize what you see in the scene.

The next application of the lit expression in the script comes in a paragraph of description that begins with "In the plot".  Here I used orange color for text with a highlight of dark purple around it with the text in bold oblique font.  I also implored an space for the dark purple highlight before and after the phrase, for aesthetics purposes; it looked better this way.  So sometimes using the lit expression you're going to find you need to add extra spaces or play with formatting a bit to achieve the look you want.  You don't wanna go too overboard with this, just add enough to give your page the look your trying to get.  Here the dark purple highlighting draws attention to one color shading aspect of this shot, darkness; yet the orange italicized text cuts though this darkness.  Thus I've cued the reader about the color aspects in this scene which hopefully helps them imagine it for themselves. 

Use the lit aesthetic to help spark the imagination of the reader

When it came time to show the mask I knew I had to use lit expression.  Gravesite Crows is a slasher - horror movie; and, yes, it has a slasher who wears a mask.  An Indian shaman mask.  The first time we see this mask is on the opening page of the script.  I chose to depict this mask in BALLOON XBD BT, extra bold, in a shading dark brown color.  What I was shooting for here was a font and color that was reminiscent of Native American masks that they may have seen before.  I used the lit expression to draw the readers own preconceived memories into the play.  And that's part of the trick of effective story-telling: you get your reader to JOIN you in the story you're telling them.   So now you get this dark brown, balloon xbd bt font anytime the shaman mask is shown on screen be that by direct or indirect reference: ELLIPTICAL, WOODEN SHAMAN MASK, SLITS, CURVED, EXPRESSION OF FEAR, FOREHEAD.  So if it pertains to what is seen on the mask on screen the lit expression of BALLOON XBD BT, extra bold, in dark brown gets used.  So you're using the lit aesthetic to spark the reader's imagination to imagine an evocative mask the likes of which have never been shown on screen before.  Later in the same passage I replaced the color of dark brown with red to draw attention to SIX BEAD on the forehead region of the mask.  I could have used another font for these beads which are later described as the "six eyes of the vengeful snake", but I thought that would be a little much and wanted to reader to identify these six beads with being part of the slasher's mask, which they are.  

The last expression of the lit aesthetic on this page comes in the form of "eye slits" in Roman D font with a dark brown highlight.  What I'm trying to reinforce here is the visual of the shot; you're looking through the slits of the mask.   The dark brown color is the same as the one used earlier to describe the shaman mask.  The Roman D font is used to cue the slight blurring affect that you get when you look past a narrow orifice to a sight on the other side of it.    So I'm reinforcing style choices made earlier, now seeing them in slightly different expression.  Also I'm making the page come alive and drawing attention to a key prop in the story: the slasher's mask.  

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So the you have it, a full explanation for how the lit expression aesthetic works from the author of Gravesite Crows, Kathy Smith Conquers Duboose High School, Preytorium, So Go Back & Get Her, The Commune III, and When the Motorcycle Calls; all of which also implore a lit expression in an attempt to make for a funner read.  So it's not just horror where this expression can be used.    You can use it in rom-com material, and dramas too.  In So Go Back & Get Her I used the lit expression of the color red in dialog to draw attention when one of my characters was speaking from her heart when she told her boyfriend that she loved him.   So you can use the lit expression in dialog or character cues.  It all depends on your imagination and the desired affect you're trying to reach.

In the end the lit expression is just an accent.  It does not mask a bad story or shied you from incompetent screenwriting; you still need to be able to tell a good yarn, and properly format a spec. script when using this aesthetic.  But the reason for using it, as opposed to not, are many.  Personally, I think it helps bring the static page alive and help the reader see visuals, props, and  lighting  better.  It is not the substitute for a competent light department, sound affects, or the director, who is responsible for bringing the script you wrote to life.  The lit expression is best used in SELLING SCRIPTS, where an unknown is trying to  draw attention   to the  words on a page by unsympathetic readers.  The lit expression is intended to bring a spark to black and white pages.  It took the script "MEAT" which I read on Carson Reeves Scriptshadow site for me to start considering using color or tricked out fonts on page.  In the script "MEAT" the color red was used to cover vast sections of this horror story.  Up to that point I'd been a purist and always sought to write the most technically sound script I could.  I still adhere to that, but am now more open to creative changes.  More than anything else I want my readers to see the movie that I have already shot in my head.  That's really what you're doing a screenwriter: describing the movie that you see in your head.  I see things very vividly and have trained myself to key in on aspects in a given seen that I feel need to be emphasized. 

The lit expression helps me do that: show the movie in my mind to people who have never seen it before.

 

E.C. Henry's Expanded Persona Pitch to Taylor Swift

STILL trying to get a reaction from Taylor Swift.  Maybe this video will swing the needle...  It's kinda goofy:

Here's another video I made for Taylor Swift going a little more indepth with the Diamond Mine, freestyle dancing:

Here's an after dinner social video I made for Taylor and Joe Alwyn late at night on Saturday, April 17, 2021:

Here's an video I made for Getaway Car by Taylor Swift completed late Thursday evening, April 23, 2021:

Taylor Swift Top Songs of All-Time

 

At the time of the writing of this post I am 35 pages into the writing of the 1st draft of Kathy Smith Conquers Duboose High School.  This will be my 25th spec. script--when I write FADE OUT: THE END.

O-kay, so what does this have to do with Taylor Swift?  

Well, she is BACK to be my mews again...

I mean, you can't tell me there isn't a MOVIE with this picture.

I mean is there ANYONE better to be a MALE WRITER'S MUSE when that aforementioned writer is writing a teen comedy centered around the story of a 14-year-old, feisty freshman.  So far 35 pages in I'm not in automatic mode writing like I got after about page 68 of SO GO BACK & GET HER, but there is still hope for its prequel: KATHY SMITH CONQUERS DUBOOSE HIGH SCHOOL, because I've got some solid set pieces for this story.  A couple that I've written in the first 35, hopefully for many more in the remaining pages.

Okay, so the writing life is going well now.  35, 1st draft pages in less than 3 days IS a good start.  And don't worry: Kaya Jones (muse for the past year); I still LOVE you, and hope to connect with you some day on other scripts...  But Taylor Swift is special.  Very special.  And it's not that I'm that enamored with what music she's been cranking out lately, but her work taken collectively as a whole, is PHENOMENAL.   Won't lie I'm a MUCH BIGGER fan of T.S. when she's displaying her lighter side, as evident by --   

E.C. Henry's favorite songs by music superstar Taylor Swift:

[Last Update April 22, 2024 after listening to Taylor's new album on i-Tunes]

1.  State of Grace (Taylor's Version)
2.  Love Story (Taylor's Version) [Elvira Remix]
3. The Other Side of the Door (Taylor's Version)
4.  How You Get the Girl 
5.  Untouchable (Taylor's Version)
6.  Fearless (Taylor's Version)
7.  22 
8.  Getaway Car
9.  Style
10.  Shake It Off 
11.  You Belong with Me 
12.  Jump then Fall (Taylor's Version)
13.  I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
14.  Cruel Summer
15.  Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor's Version)
16.  ... Question? 
17.  Red (Taylor's Version)
18.  ... Ready For It
19.  Delicate 
20. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
21. The Tortured Artists Department 
22. That's When (Taylor's Version)
23. New Romantics
24.  Look What You Made Me Do  
25.  Anti-Hero
26.  Mastermind
27.  Karma (featuring Ice Spice)
28.  So High School
29.  Message in a Bottle (Taylor's Version)
30.  Me!
31.  Bigger than the Whole Sky
32.  Wildest Dreams

Notice any trends in E.C.'s top 13? It's domiated by Taylor's more happier songs, not her darker or newest stuff.   I remember watching Taylor Swift on a Late Show with Jimmy Fallon interview years ago, where Jimmy Fallon was lightly poking fun a Taylor Swift for her song: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together; and based on her reaction, Taylor looked a bothered by it all--so Jimmy didn't persist.  That got me to wonder, was that song really that bad?  Heard it for the first time about a week ago and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was:

I had to search i-tunes for that song.  Even when I saw T.S. in concert in 2018?  Well, it was the concert where she had pillars with scary snakes on them, which I thought was in very bad taste given the fact that her target audience is girls aged 9-20.  

Can't really say Taylor Swift doesn't get the credit she deserves because EVERY YEAR she's a favorite with Grammy people, but what I can say is that her earlier stuff was MUCH BETTER that I thought it would be.  I'm not a country music listener.  Some country songs are o-kay, but as a whole the genre isn't for me.  Taylor Swift started off in country music.  So IF you like her today, go back and check-out these two of her earlier albums before she broke into superstardom with 1989: Fearless and Red; have some hits on them too!   Don't miss this gem:

My spec. script soundtrack for Kathy Smith Conquers Duboose High School currently has 17 songs in it--and 4 of them are by Taylor Swift!

Muse indeed.  Rock on, T.S.--and PLEASE go back to your fun-loving days, because that's when you are your best; and that's when your true fans are most pleased with you.   

Okay, enough of the Taylor Swift lovefest time to eat a little late dinner, then go back for another round of writing on Kathy Smith Conquers Duboose High School.  Next post coming at ya AFTER I finish the 1st draft of my latest spec. which I hope to have done BEFORE the end of the month.  See ya then!

Indians and Cowboys get a Fresh Coat of Paint after 10 Years

Western movies lend themselves to a exciting blend of outdoor cinematic shots

Conflict Studios updated their web site CONSIDERABLY in the last week.  They now have a page where they announce the projects they're looking for.  Their first film is set to be a western entitled, Trail Blazers, which Antonio Sabato Jr, wrote and plans to direct and co-star in as well.

So what's my angle?  Well-p, I'm just looking for read.  See what they think of a couple scripts I've written: Cowboy Alien Diaries  and Indians of the Ancient Plains.  Their genres being: Supernatural Western Thriller. 

Looks like a great place to shoot INDIANS OF THE ANCIENT PLAINS to me!

I don't know if I'll get a script request, OR if either project will solicit any interest.  I'm not sure what Antonio wants to do, as I've never talked to him, Kaya Jones, or Nix Tzekker about their plans.  BUT I was pleasantly surprised by how broad of a net they were willing to spread, as the moniker "Christian movies" kinda has a negative stigma.  When you think of Christian movies I think of heavy-handed dramas.  The best "Christian" movie I ever saw was FACING THE GIANTS, I just bought into to the protagonist's journey of a struggling, high school football coach.  Not filmatically even that movie was pretty boring, as most dramas tend to be.   I like cinematic movies with great shots.  I'm a sucker for that shot in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN when Josh Brollin's character is just just looking out over the Texas desert as a cloud changes the lighting on the landscape.  Great movies aren't all about the script.  A lot of greatness comes from the decision makers who PUT THE MOVIE TOGETHER.  Gotta know what to put in a movie.  Can't just be emotional set pieces all the time.  

So what will Antonio Sabato Jr. come up with?  Don't know by I can't wait to see!  When I had a Twitter account I followed him.  And in hearing some of his interviews about Conflix Studio I was a little disappointed by how defensive he got, and the lack of clarity of where he wanted his vision to go.  Combating blacklisting is a great side story, not a fun story to ride 24/7.  No, as an ARTIST you've gotta come to the table with more than that.  Antonio took a lot of bashing by people on Twitter.  Almost all of it was unnecessary, and mean spirited.  But now that he's the CEO of his own studio this is his chance to impose his vision on entertainment.  To ride above the criticism and make his contribution in the wold of entertainment.  And it can't be all about revenge for being blacklisted by corrupt Hollywood.  No, at some point you have to make your own art and present it to the world. 

I am not a very good entrepreneur.  I know that.  BUT I do like to write and craft stories.  With my past four scripts: PREYORIUM, SO GO BACK & GET HER, THE COMMUNE III, and WHEN THE MOTORCYCLE CALLS, I worked a new style of spec. script.  Started imploring the use of fonts, color and bolded and underlined, shot headings to make the read a little funner.  I never went to school to screenwrite, all I ever did was read some books on it, and read other script to get the gist of how to write a script.  I've never been a "disciple" of any one screenwriter or writing guru.  Rather, I just wanted to see how they did it, then work on my own way of doing it.

It's been a LONG time since I did anything with either Cowboy Alien Diaries or Indians of the Ancient Plains, but now I feel it's time to modernize them a bit to my NEW way of writing.  Cowboys was the 5th script I wrote.  Indians was the 9th.  Now if you check that math by reading my Script and Novel Logline sidebar you will see that my counting adds an extra tally.  And that's because I feel deserve credit for writing one.  Cannonogically that would have been my 3rd script, after writing REVENGE OF THE FAT CHICKS.  But the script I can never sell WITHOUT 20th Century Fox's permission is BEYOND THE APES: my revisisualized, Planet of the Apes story in a feature length script.  A V.P. at 20th Century Fox sent me a cease and desist letter on this so the kabosh is on it, still before I got that letter I did write a completed draft so I give myself credit for that one.  

I've-read both scripts recently, and immediately found things I'd like to change.  The bed rock story wont change with the 2021 edits, but I still hope to improve the greater "art" of the story.  

This presidential election season was very trying for me.  I watched our systems of checks and balances fail the American people.  At the state level corrupt election officials stacked the deck so the election could be stolen: mail in votes, Dominion voting machines, unsupervised counting at the counting centers, changed election laws; then later refused to to look at the irregularites that they in large part were responsible for.  Now our country is a state of tyranny, where the Democrats ideas are put to practice and their detractors are silenced and shammed.  Kiss free speech goodbye.  The only thing that can save us now is a military coupe.  I don't think citizens rising up is the answer, it's gotta be the military.   I feel the need to DISTANCE myself from politics now.  Not that I'm capitulating to the Democrats, God willing I'll never do that.  I just don't see a means to improve the situation.  The Republicans had their chance, but they as a collective group FAILED to demand for election integrity, and in doing so SURRENDERED America over to the Democrats and their totalitiarian demands.  I guess I'll keep an eye on politics, but my heart is in it anymore.  Too corrupt.   Not enough Ted Cruzes and Antonio Sabato Jr.s to rally behind.  

So I go back to doing what I love, writing and puttsing around with creative stories that the Lord gave me to write.  Will my dreams ever come true? Probably not.  Hollywood is mess right now, and even before all this they were going the wrong way looking to make superhero movies with transexual protagonists, and imposing diversity quotas on film projects.  It's like they're competing to show everyone how "woke" they are (was that PUKE purple I just chose?  Well, that the affect I was looking for woke anything is complete garbage).  The whole "woke" and injustice narrative is founded on false pretexts, siting injustices that no longer exists in order to instill unessary tension into our society.  The civil rights movement ended a long time ago.  It's only corrupt people who insist it never happened.  Anyway, debating these issues is a joke from my perspective; these advocates are making monsters where they don't exist, all so they have an enemy to rally against.  It's a failed mind-set, but that's they way the Left works. 

I love being an entertainer.  At the end of the day, that's what I'm endeavoring to do.  And now it's time to spruce up to of my favorite stories: Cowboy Alien Diaries, and Indians of the Ancient Plains.  Time to ride that horse into the woods of the unknown -- and come back with treasure.  

... When E.C. and Antonio meet at last.

Christmas Creature Feature

Just before Christmas I completed my 24th spec. script!!  This one is a "creature feature" in the mold of Godzilla and Gamera movies from the 1960s and 70s.  The script I completed is entitled PREYTORIUM, and here's its logline which is also available in my Script & Novels Logline sidebar.

PREYTORIUM

Genre: Creature Feature

Logline: Investors send a mining team to the world of Alta-Att in hopes of looting its resources. But these explorers find Alta-Att is filled with cutthroat natives who are bent on taking over their spaceship to go to Earth. 

This was a promo. drawing I drew for the script

So as the year closes out that makes  2 spec. scripts I completed in 2020.  The other was a raunchy rom-com entitled, SO GO BACK & GET HER.  The funny thing in comparing the two scripts was the different dichotomy under which they were written.  I wrote SO GO BACK & GET HER in RECORD times (at least for me) at the start of the Covid pandemic in March through early April.  Whereas I took MUCH longer to write PREYTORIUM which I was working on July through December 24th. 

This was a fun script to write.  I had the original idea for PREYTORIUM a LONG TIME ago.  The kernal idea was that the ruling class of a human, alien world assumes the bodies of crabs with the belief that will help them survive an asteroid cataclymic event, then after that catacycm is over, they find they actually like living with this new nature.  I remained true to this building block, and from it came everything else.

Growing up I loved watching "creature features": Godzilla, Gamera, and to a lesser degree King Kong, though I really like the 1976 movie with Jeff Bridge and Jessica Lange. 

Even as a kid I recognized the hoaky nature of the Godzilla and Gamera movies: men in rubber suits, clumbsily whacking each other.  Action figure attacks in model-figurine settings.  I never remembered a plot that sparked my imagination either.  Rather the core attraction of these movies was the monster fights:

This image was sparked by a one featured by a post made by Carson Reeves, and it just so fit the "vibe" in Preytorium

So why did E.C. write Preytorium?  I wrote this story because I thought it would be a FUN one to write.  I have never endeavored to write a "creature feature" before, though I have written monster oriented scripts before: Cowboy Alien Diaries, Indians of the Ancient Plains, The Commune series: I - III, and Bubblehead Saves the Day.  

What was E.C. Henry's biggest problem/issue writing this Preytorium?  That's easy.  TONE!  There was times I thought I was writing Pirates of the Caribbean in space.  There was time I thought I was writing Godzilla meets Planet of the Apes.  There was times I thought I was writing Prometheus.  Right now I'm waiting for a critique back from a seasoned reader, so we'll see how I did.

E.C. Henry struggles with "tone" in his writing of Preytorium

Why did you use many colors and "tricked out fonts" with Preytorium?  E.C. Henry thought it ADDED something to the zany and visual aesthetic of the READING script.  Sure I could have delivered a STANDARD, by-the-books script; but that's not what this story needed, in my opinion.  Preytorium IS Godzilla meets Pirates of the Caribbean, and when you've got that POTENTIAL, you can't be afraid to take a few chances and TRY to make the reading experience something memorable. 

What am I most proud of with this script, Preytorium?  Probably the humor.  ANYTIME I write something funny, it surprises me because I don't see myself as a naturally "funny" person.  BUT read my last three scripts: When the Motorcycle Calls, The Commune III, and now Preytorium; and guess what?  They're funny!  I have a comedic side!  Yay!  Sorry, this STILL doesn't feel right; E.C. Henry the COMEDY writer?!!

 

In the end I'm VERY PROUD of what I've written with Preytorium.  This is kinda  a middle of the pack script from this writer's perspective.  Wasn't nearly as easy at it was to write, So Go Back & Get Her, but also wasn't near as hard to write: Revenge of the Fat Chicks, Cowboy Alien Diaries, or A Heart Built on the Sand.

The creative life if a fickle thing.  You NEVER know where it's taking you next.  That makes it exciting and terrifying at the same time.  In the end you just follow your dreams and see where takes you.  Next up for yours truly: back to Thars to get some PAPERBACK NOVELS done!  Yep, that is STILL a focus of mine.  2021 will be the year...  That and probably a sequel to So Go Back and Get Her.