Hi, everyone!
I've had an incredibly busy few months, ever since getting back from a too-brief two weeks in Paris and London. The day job has kept me hopping, as has a novel I'm ghostwriting--a high-concept legal thriller-for a couple of screenwriters. I'm nearly done with revisions, after getting some notes on the mostly well-received first draft. Novels and screenplays (I've written a small handful of those, but more than 70 novels) are very different beasts, structurally and in almost every other way, so writing a novel based on a screenplay concept is a strange exercise.
I've also become involved with a transmedia company called Monster Forge, started by some friends, and am anxious to get going on Monster Forge's first novel, based on some monsters I created years ago when I worked in comics publishing. I thought then that I'd use them in comics, but that never happened, so I'm repurposing the concept as a book and can't wait to dig in.
I hope everybody's ready for fall. Here in the Phoenix, AZ area, it should start any month now....
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalkowitz/2023/04/26/monster-forge-annou...
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Should've mentioned that "Killers of the Flower Moon" is a modern masterpiece. Best movie I've seen in ages.
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Hello! I have novel in process - such a labor of love! Congratulations of your success!
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Hey Jeffrey J. Mariotte - great to meet you and glad you're with us on Stage 32. I started out as a graphic novel writer and went from that to authoring books and then screenplays. Transmedia companies and efforts have always fascinated me so I wish you all the best with that. Have a blast!
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Thanks, Angela Romeo! You have to love a novel, because you're with it for a long time!
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Interesting progression, @Leonardo Ramirez! I wrote screenplays in college, along with short stories (one of which won a literary award--the first money I ever got from writing). After years as a bookseller I got involved in comics publishing and started writing those--then my first novel, published in 1999, was based on comic book characters our company published. The novels kind of took off from there, and they're still coming!
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That's awesome Jeffrey J. Mariotte - so do you feel most at home with writing novels?
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It's the form I know best. I'm still doing some comics work, here and there. But novels give me the space and flexibility to tell any kind of story, in as much detail (or as little) as I want.
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Makes sense, Jeffrey J. Mariotte. I'm having fun writing screenplays. At some point, I'll need to get back to writing books again.
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Good to see you and hear you're keeping yourself busy and creative, Jeffrey J. Mariotte
Welcome back, Jeffrey J. Mariotte. Congratulations on nearly being done with revisions and joining Monster Forge! How was Paris and London?
Maurice Vaughan, it was a great trip. I lived in and around Paris from ages 6-10, and visited frequently for the next couple of decades, but it's been a long time. The main goal was to introduce my wife to my "home town." The real highlight of the London part was a side trip to Stonehenge--on an after-hours tour. During the day, the thousands of visitors are kept at a distance and the stone circle is roped off. On our tour, there were about 30 of us present, and allowed inside the circle, able to really see what it's all about. We had to schedule that months and months in advance, and basically planned the rest of the itinerary around it. An amazing experience!