Well, It’s certainly been a while since my last blog post – December 2000, to be exact. A lot has gone on in the world since then. People have been born; people have died. Some wars ended, others have begun. As much as people claim that we live in unprecedented times, I must respectfully disagree. While some instances and circumstances are new, the underlying humanity involved remains the same: greed, lust, vengeance, power, love, hatred.

And, as it also so happens, a lot has gone on with me as well. I’m a few years older, and I managed to publish two (2) new novels. BLOOD RED MOON came out Oct. 2021, and JUST BEFORE DAWN: a NOCTURNAL novel, came out Oct 2023. I am currently working on ALPHA MALE, a sequel to BLOOD RED MOON and the second installment of my werewolf series, which I think of as, “The Caleb Jacobsen Saga”, after the main character.

As some of you know, I suffer from the after effects of my bout with a Stage 4 Throat Cancer, which the medical types refer to as a “head and neck cancer”. The radiation that killed my cancer also fried my thyroid, leaving my with hypothyroidism. It also fried my left Trigeminal Nerve, leaving me with a chronic pain condition called, Trigeminal Nerve Neuralgia. Neuralgia means “nerve pain”. It never goes away, it is simply a matter of degree of pain. I am on painkillers (including opiates for the really bad days), and will be for the rest of my life. What fun! Further, the chemo that killed my cancer also gave me a permanent case of what medical types called “chemo brain”. It fucks with your short term memory. Long term memory is largely intact. I can tell you where I was 30 or 40 years ago, what I was doing, and who I was doing it with. But I walk also around in a fog half the time, trying to figure out what word to call something I’m holding in my hand or recalling what I had for lunch yesterday.

Yeah, it sucks, but what am I gonna do? Living sure beats the hell out of the alternative, so I take my meds, suck it up, and continue to march.

Because giving up to me is tantamount to failure, and for an ex-military type like me, failure is simply not an option. It is NEVER an option.

So daily chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and periodic surgeries to keep an open airway notwithstanding, I keep going. I keep writing. I have accepted that novels are my main focus now at this stage in my career. This is because novels are where I exert the most control and oversight. Novels are also where I’m making most of my money; where I’m winning international book awards (BLOOD RED MOON – Best Horror, Creatures and Monsters at BookFest Fall 2023), and writing Amazon bestsellers (JUST BEFORE DAWN, Oct 26, 2023).

That’s not to say I have given up on my Hollywood aspirations. I am still incredibly fortunate to have major Hollywood representation for my feature film screenplays by Judy Fox Personal Talent Management. She is tasked with trying to find someone who will buy and finance my scripts. Not an easy task these days as the business, financing structure, and distribution landscape of Hollywood is changing rapidly. Seismic shifts in the business equate to most financiers (who are as conservative as a banker in a three-piece suit when it comes to THEIR money) sitting it out until they can see for themselves how the dust will settle.

I get it. If I was a film financier, I would keep a tight grip on the purse strings, too.

But I do have a couple of things coming up in 2024 that may shift the tide in my favor. First, a movie I did help finance about 18 months ago, BROKEN INNOCENCE, comes out in the summer. Secondly, a script I sold ten (10) years ago just got shot last November. I cannot divulge any info on it as of yet, but the film is in post production as of this writing, and we can reasonably expect a global digital distribution to multiple streaming platforms sometime in 2024. So with this happening, it may help move the needle on one or both of my scripts that my Manager is actively shopping.

Stay tuned.

Well, that’s about it for today. My main goal was to create a new blog post. I want to get back into the habit of posting monthly from here on out. As always, i try to maintain a positive attitude for myself, and an encouraging one for others.

We’ll talk again soon.