Accountability

On track...

I’m a list maker and a scheduler. I self-impose deadlines and as near as I can tell, I’m a pretty damn ruthless task master.

Some of that was the nature of my prior job, some of it stemmed from desperately trying to balance the demands of that job with trying to be a writer too, but in truth, I’ve always been this way, and now that my time is truly my own, I haven’t let up.

So, let’s see where we are and what I’ve got coming up—

• Just after I got back from New York in June, I turned in my latest novel to my agent and publisher. Tentatively titled The Black Light Club, I’m waiting now to hear if anyone liked it.

• I also recently adapted and completed a spec pilot of The Black Light Club. I’m not sure what (if anything) I’ll do with it, but I wanted to go through the adaptation process and have a recent script exemplar on hand.

• This week just turned over to my agent the latest draft of a novel currently called 13 Days. It’s been a long road with that story; I’ve been working at a version of it off and on since 2018. It clearly doesn’t fit “genre-wise” with my latest novels, but I like it, probably too much, and maybe there’s a home for it somewhere. This is a novel I probably wouldn’t have had the chance revisit again if I wasn’t retired from DEA, and I’ve enjoyed taking another crack at it.

• I’m in the final throes of a first draft feature film screenplay I’m co-writing, based on an original story idea of mine. We’ll probably get this cleaned up in another month or so. It’s a high octane crime thriller (think Training Day), purposefully written with a reasonable budget in mind to make it attractive and actually producible in the current film environment.

• I’m mid-way through a horror short story I’m planning to finish by the end of July. I have no idea what, if anything, I’ll do with it. I might even convert it to screenplay down the line. I generally don’t write shorts but this one hooked me and I’ve enjoyed tinkering around with it, and I’m far enough down the rabbit hole with it I don’t want to set it aside. Here’s the elevator pitch: When her dying daughter discovers a mysterious green glass bottle washed up on a Texas beach, a young mother must battle the dark and alluring forces it unleashes, threatening their lives and sanity…

• I’m about to start work on a solo high-concept spec feature film screenplay; a cool idea, a great log line, I want to write it and see where it goes. I’m looking to have a solid draft in place by October.

• I have another high-concept spec feature film screenplay I’ve been doing some noodling on, but it’ll be expensive and in a genre I don’t normally write. Great log line too, but I’m going to put this on the back burner for the moment. This is where business meets art and for now, trumps it—there’s only so many hours in a day, and while I think this is a cool idea, the other screenplay is probably a better fit for what I’m doing at the moment. I’ll return to this next year.

• Finally, I’ll start working on my next novel, tentatively titled Black Horses, in August (although sharp-eyed readers will note in the picture above I’d penciled in next week!). Because I want to get that short story done and at least start down the path on the spec screenplay, I’ve pushed this back a few weeks. Books are such heavy lifts for me, and I’ve been doing so much writing the last 90 days, that I am comfortable letting this stall for a bit. When I was working full-time as a federal agent, it would basically take me ten full months to get a novel wrapped up, but with my new schedule, I’m going to angle for this one to be done by February 2025.

Sure, all these dates might slip, particularly if the TV series I went out to Los Angeles for gets a green light. That being said, it’s still tremendously important to me to have a schedule and deadlines in mind, even if they’re ambitious, and even if all of it gets blown to hell!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe July 4th; two of my three daughters are here, so I’ll be taking some time to grill and watch the wild flowers grow.

It’s important to schedule some fun stuff too…

As always, feel free to share—