Main Characters

 Main Characters

It has been quite a while since I posted a blog entry.  In this season of reflection and thanksgiving I am thankful that I don’t have to write these entries on any type of deadline.  Since my last entry much has happened.  Summer has turned to fall, and fall to winter.  Sherila and I have gotten married and Christmas has come and gone.

I have continued to write and am closing in on the end of chapter 21.  I believe Chapter 22 will put me solidly on the downside of the book.  A milestone of sorts.  Today I thought I would write about the four main characters. 

As this book is an expansion of a screenplay, the characters are fully formed in my head in a cinematic sense.  However, within the novel format, they are barely formed.  As I work my way through the pages converting and transforming the screenplay into a novel, several things happen simultaneously: the grammatical tense is converted from present tense to past, the descriptive narrative is expanded and detail is added, and the characters are fleshed out becoming more human and more emotional.  Without actors to give them the dimensions of humanity and character, it is up to me, the writer, to do this so that they become fully formed in the readers’s mind.  It is during this phase that I am able to enter the minds of the characters and discover, explore and manipulate their thoughts, feelings and motivations on a much deeper level.  It is very rare in a screenplay that the writer is able to explore a characters thoughts and feelings, unless they are relayed through their actions, spoken out loud to another character, or spoken via voice over.

It is through his interaction with the other characters that the lead character, Adrian Start, finds growth.  Without them, he likely disappears into a bottle and never climbs out again, becoming just another sad story instead of the hero he was meant to be.  He is dragged reluctantly into the sphere of these other characters and they ultimately save his life, even though one of them is trying to kill him and may even eventually succeed.

Adrian Stark

Detective Adrian Stark, the lead character in this story, is a broken man.  Once a rising star in the LAPD, the brutal murder of his wife and their unborn child have basically caused him to check out.  He has submitted his retirement paperwork and is packing up his desk on his last day on the job when we meet him for the first time.  At this point in his life, there is very little he cares about other than his dog Samantha. 

Because his wife Veronica was murdered by an escaped felon, Stark was awarded an eight figure settlement.  Stark has spent well, purchasing an expensive car, a downtown penthouse loft and an expensive watch, but none of these things have dulled the pain of losing the love of his life.  He has spent this money in rage, as a way to somehow take revenge on the organization that no only was responsible for his wife’s murder, but also employs him.  Finding no respite or relief in his rampart spending or in the day to day activities of his job, he has concluded that it is time to move on.  He has purchased a small beach house on the coast of Mexico with plans of moving there with Sam and disappearing into a bottle.

He is alone, wounded and giving up on life when the call comes in that changes everything.  It’s late and he is packing up his desk when the phone rings.  He tries to ignore it, but he is the only one in the office and his conscientious nature won’t allow him to let the call go unanswered.  he answers the phone and that single call completely alters the course of his life.  Slowly, as he is sucked into the investigation, he is brought back to life.  He is a good detective, a cop who believes in right and wrong, and while he has been wronged greatly, he can’t allow others to be harmed if he is able to prevent that from happening.

Throughout the telling of the story, we follow him as he grows, changes, expands his mind, alters his belief system and eventually falls in love.  How and with whom will have to be withheld here, but will become quite clear upon reading the book.  The changes within Adrian Stark don’t come easily, and they don’t come quickly, but when faced with obvious truths he is a man who accepts reality.

Quentin Rutherford

Stark’s nemesis, Agent Quentin Rutherford is in many ways a lot like Stark.  He is smart, conscientious, dedicated, has given his life to public service and he loves his wife and child.  That is where the similarity ends because he is also a power hungry, sociopathic control freak who is rapidly moving toward psychopathy.  Rutherford has a single purpose in life: complete the mission that he has been assignment.  Whatever that mission may be.  In this story, his mission is to track down and eliminating a clutch of bioengineered human beings.  He sees these beings as a mistake, an evolutionary dead end and is happy to see them destroyed.  He also sees everyone he comes in contact with as being somehow inferior.

His single-mindedness coupled with his intelligence make him extremely effective at his job, but he is not perfect and neither are the people who work for him.  Whenever he is confronted with this reality, it usually causes him to over react in some way.  Recently leading to death.  It is this dark journey that we follow throughout the story. 

Rutherford also has a secret.  The secret he carries affects him both physically and mentally. and drives him in a way that makes him relentless and unyielding.  He tries to hide this secret from those around him, but knows at some point his secret must be revealed. 

The one soft spot he holds in his heart belongs to his wife and daughter.  His wife is loving and caring, everything he is not when he is outside of his home.  His daughter is the apple of his eye and it breaks his heart every time he sees her, because she is sick and there is no cure.  Not yet anyway.  If he can complete his mission, perhaps there is a small chance he can help her, so he will not stop until the hybrids have been exterminated and he has captured the last one. 

Melissa Hampton

Doctor Melissa Hampton is a mystery; she is not only beautiful, smart and alluring, but is also very private and good at keeping secrets.  Early on she frustrates and angers Stark with her lies and deception, and he arrests her in an attempt to elicit cooperation.  However, she is strong and willful and his bullying tactics have little effect on her.  He needs her cooperation and keeping her in jail for obstruction won’t get that from her.  He releases her with the agreement that she will help him in his investigation, and although they have been forced to work together, he still doesn’t trust her and she remains secretive.

It is only later when he discovers that she is first and foremost a mother trying to protect her child that he begins to soften toward her.  It is then that they each begin to accept the other’s need to see this through, finally beginning to work together to attempt to save the hybrids from extinction.

As it happens, the doctor’s company is good for Stark.  Her strength, intelligence and wit help break down the barriers he has erected and over time he begins to rediscover his appreciation of humanity.  Because of her, he begins to live again.

Rebecca Hampton

Rebecca Hampton is Melissa Hampton’s daughter.  And while she isn’t introduced until later in the story, she is an integral part of Stark’s journey.  She too is extremely intelligent and willful, and she also holds a secret.  Without giving anything away I can reveal that she plays a very important part in Stark’s “rebirth”. 

Rutherford discover’s her existence around the same time Stark does.  Since she is Doctor Hampton’s daughter, it occurs to him that she may be the key to saving his own daughter.  Because of this, Rutherford will stop at nothing to find her.  But Rebecca is a formative foe and will not succumb to Rutherford without a fight.

Stark, initially uncertain of her motives, eventually puts his life on the line to protect her.  It is because of her and her mother that Stark realizes that there is more to life than grief, self-pity and remorse.

Perhaps I will examine and explore the other primary characters in a later entry, for now i will simply name them.  They are the Hybrids, (Eve, Simon, Adam, Michael and Jacob,) Stark’s supervisor, Captain Grady, and Doctor Laura Kawamura, the head of the LAPS science division.



Summary

In a nut shell, these are the main characters, however there are other important characters (like the hybrids) that impact the story.  Perhaps we will explore them in a future segment.  Thanks for reading, please leave any comments you like, and have a wonderful 2015!

Prologue

Time for another installment and I decided that rather than bore you with the details of my progress this month, (I’m still working on chapter 20,) I would simply provide you with the first words of the novel.  So below is the prologue. 

As a point of interest, this portion of the story is entirely unique to the book and does not exist in any form in the screenplay.  I felt that a prologue offered the excellent opportunity to introduce Veronica Stark, Detective Adrian Stark’s deceased wife, and that by getting to know her character, even if only briefly, the reader would have the opportunity to better understand Adrian’s grief and desire to leave the police force.

The prologue also more clearly justifies the substantial legal settlement paid to Adrian Stark, allowing the reader to more fully understand the horror, loss and pain suffered by him, as well understanding his anger at the department for allowing Victor Sanchez to escape and his desire to sue the city.

As a point of disclaimer, I must mention that there has been no editing done to the book thus far, and what you see below is just as it hit the screen when it was originally written.  So please try to be kind.  If you can’t be kind, try to be constructive.

Without further ado, Germ Line: Revolution, The Prologue:

Prologue

 

Veronica Stark pulled her three-year-old Nissan into the garage of their modest Valley ranch home and immediately tapped the remote hanging from her visor, closing the door behind her.  The loud rumble of the rollers on their tracks was oddly assuring.  As a cop's wife she knew the drill, "Be aware, look strong, stay in the light."  She knew to close and lock the doors behind her, stay on the main roads, and shout "Fire" instead of "Help" if she ever got into a jam.  She was also aware that she had been drilled in these precautions out of love; that they weren't just lip-flap platitudes because bad things did happen to good people. 

Veronica, (Ronnie to her friends,) was one of the good people. She recycled and lived as greenly as possible.  She volunteered at the Lutheran Food Bank twice a week, helped out their neighbors whenever the need arose, and kept a kind word for almost everyone.  Of course she was perfectly capable of telling some douche bag asshole to fuck off in thorough, explicit and colorful terms if he or she warranted the viper tongue.

People generally liked her and liked being around her.  Those that didn't were most likely jealous of her easy manner and wholesome good looks.  Her blue eyes sparkled humor, she kept an open mind and she took excellent care of her body, working out every other day at the Bally's on Victory and running an average of thirty miles a week.  On the superficial side, she paid top dollar to have her nails done once a week and had artificially highlighted hair.  At thirty-two, she also had a superbly shaped, drum-tight ass she that was secretly proud of and that her husband adored, sometimes caressing and speaking to it as though it were a separate entity.

As a couple, they didn't pull down a ton of money, not by L.A. standards, but that didn't matter because on most days they were happy.  She worked part time at the library, (though her hours were dwindling as budget cuts took effect,) and her husband only made ninety grand a year before overtime as a detective second grade with the LAPD.  Combined, they netted about a eighty thousand after taxes.  It seemed like a lot when you said it out loud but in an area where the average home price was five hundred thousand dollars, gas cost four bucks a gallon and everywhere you went was a forty-five minute drive, it didn't go all that far.  It seemed like they were constantly struggling to save.  With a two thousand dollar mortgage and two car payments they were lucky to put away a steady ten percent, and that was law. 

On that particularly warm Valley day, the coolness of the garage was a relief as she climbed from the Murano.  Veronica didn't run the A/C very often in order to save on gas.  She had money on the brain as she locked the car door, the alarm chirping reassuringly. 

On the other side of the door separating the garage from the house, Samantha their Border Collie was barking up a storm.  With so much on Veronica's mind it was merely itch at the back of her brain.  Samantha was, however, insisting that she hurry up.

"I'm coming, Sammy!  Knock it off."

She had just received news.  Big news.  She had peed on the stick the night before so she had some idea, but it wasn't until her doctor had read her the results of the blood test that she actually believed they were going to have a baby.  They would need to come up with the money to build out the nursery.  They'd have to dig into their savings, but wasn't that what it was there for?

They were going to be parents.  Finally.  After ten years.  It was almost ridiculous. She had met and married her husband fresh out of the academy and they had tried to get pregnant almost from the moment they hit their honeymoon suite overlooking the cerulean blue waters of Maui.  They continued to try when they got home, every night, and sometimes during his lunch break.  They had even sacrificed several mornings a week, often forgoing the most important meal of the day, in pursuit of parenthood. 

Both she and her husband were only children and they had decided before taking their vows that they wanted a house full of kids.  If not enough for an entire baseball team, at least enough for a solid infield.  She knew in her heart that Adrian would be a great father, one of those super-dads who always said the right thing, knew how to build tree houses, and showed up at all the important events whenever he could.  The Job, with a capital J, was important to him, but family came first whenever possible. 

As cop-wives went, she was one of the lucky ones.  He didn't drink except modestly at parties, came straight home after work and he left the stresses of the office in the office.  Beyond all that, after a decade of marriage, they were still hopelessly in love.

After five years and no still bundle of joy, it seemed that Veronica and Adrian were destined to remain childless.  They had discussed other options: adoption, surrogacy, foster care, but there always seemed to be some excuse for putting off the next step.  After eight years they had stopped talking about it.  After ten, they just forgot about it and went on about their lives.

But now…  She could not wait to break the news.  She had held off telling her husband, even after the stick had revealed the parallel pink lines, because she wanted to make certain there were no mistakes.  She could now plan the perfect evening.  She'd take an inventory, run to the store, then start working on the perfect meal: chicken Marsala, garlic mashed potatoes and cinnamon sweet carrots, with a glass of sparkling Moscato for Adrian and sparkling water for her.  He would wonder about the wine but she would wait and deliver the news over crème brûlée--

Movement in the shadows where Adrian kept his golf clubs caused Veronica to drop her keys.  They lay forgotten as the man stepped into the light.  Veronica knew this man from somewhere but couldn't quite place him.  He wasn't a neighbor.  He didn't visit the library.  He was wearing an orange jump suit, which was odd because usually only detainees in county lock-up wore the orange jump suits.  She had seen young people wear them as fashion statements, but he was her age, maybe a year or two older, Hispanic with an oily, pockmarked complexion and two days worth of facial hair; she didn’t think he was trying to be cool.

"You dropped something, mamacita."  He slid around the front of the car with cat-like grace, his eyes never leaving hers.

"What are you doing in here - my husband is a police officer, I think you'll want to be leaving now."  She wasn't scared yet, not exactly.  She was mostly pissed.  She had shit to do.  She needed to take an inventory, get to the store.  She didn't have time for this nonsense.

"I know your husband, bitch.  He that stupid mother-fucker think actions got no consequences."

Phantom icy fingers squeezed her intestines as she fully realized who this man was.  She had just seen him on TV being perp-walked into the station house by her husband; she and Adrian had watched the footage on the news while snuggled in bed two nights ago.  According to Adrian, he was a disgusting, shit-bag rapist wanted for a half dozen killings in the north valley.  Adrian had hunted him down, taken him without a fight, and escorted him to jail where he belonged.  His name was Victor Jorge Sanchez, and he was standing in her garage. 

Veronica needed her keys.  The garage remote was on the key chain.  She needed to open the garage door and run as fast as she could, yelling, "Fire!  Fire!  Fire!"  Survival instincts took over.  It didn't matter who he was, or why he was there, she just needed to get out.  In a blink, without taking her eyes off of him, Veronica squatted and felt for her keys; they were just to the left of her searching hand. 

He was on her in an instant, grabbing her by her ponytail.  She forgot about the keys and stood straight up, powerful thighs driving her compact body like pistons.  She caught him under the chin with the top of her head, knocking him backward onto the hood of the car, forcing him to release her hair.

She bolted for the door to the kitchen, knowing it was locked, hoping she had forgotten, certain she hadn't.  She gave the knob a desperate twist - it didn't budge. 

On the other side of the door, Sammy was going nuts.  A thought flitted through Veronica's mind, "He better not touch my dog!"

She bolted for the garage door, thinking, "Scoop up the keys--" 

She heard them skitter across the concrete a beat after registering the impact on the toe of her Asics.  They were now somewhere under the Murano, where they remained until forensics put them in a plastic bag nine hours later.

The garage door had an emergency switch, just in case you somehow got locked in the garage without the remote.  Where was it?  On the wall.  Which side?  There was also a quick-release handle.  Veronica couldn't remember where that was either.  Shit!  She and Adrian had gone over all this when he had the new motor installed three years ago.  They couldn't afford it, but when it had malfunctioned and closed on his Explorer, that had ended the discussion.  There!

She grabbed it--

Her arms were suddenly wrenched backward, white-hot pain shot through her shoulder sockets, causing her to cry out.  She was swung around and slammed face first into the hatch door of the Nissan.  Blood filled her mouth as her front tooth pierced her lip.  She saw stars and darkness explored the edges of her consciousness. 

Her left arm was twisted up behind her until she thought it would snap.  She felt her shorts being ripped down to her ankles.  She let loose an involuntary guttural grunt as she was entered from behind.  Tears streamed down her face as she struggled, ineffectually, unable to find leverage.  Her last thoughts were of her baby.

Adrian Stark found his wife's body six and a half hours later lying by the rear tire of her car.  Her shorts were around her ankles and her throat was slashed.  He didn't know at the time that she was carrying their only child.  Even so, all he could do was sit beside her holding her hand, his body wracked with deep, gut wrenching sobs. 

The next-door neighbor, who happened to be passing by with his Pekingese, was the one who called 911.

Love and Air Conditioning…

It’s amazing how time flies.  It seems I had just posted my first blog entry, but here it is, three weeks later.  I suppose it is time for another, if for no other reason than to keep a journal on the progress of the book.

First, a correction.  In the first entry I stated that I was just starting chapter twenty.  Well, I was actually just starting chapter nineteen.  Wishful thinking I suppose.  Or maybe it just felt like chapter twenty.  In any case, I still believe that I am a little over half way through the first draft. 

I have been plugging away (on chapter nineteen) when time has allowed.  Though life has conspired to get in the way from time to time.  Our air conditioning went out last fall so I had to sift through an army of competing heating and air conditioning experts to find a bid we could afford to replace the system.  I now know more about parts and labor warranties than I ever cared to know, but we did find a good local company that has been in business for a hundred years.  It felt good to give them the work instead of a national chain.  They had the whole thing done and the old system taken away within five hours.  Just in time too, because the next day was sweltering. 

Of course, at the same time all this was happening our washer decided that it no longer needed to service the household.  So after several failed attempts to buy a decent used washer and dryer off Craigslist, we ended up purchasing a new, reliable (we hope) Maytag set from Lowes. 

I really struggled with notion that I would have to rent an appliance dolly, buy some ratchet straps, drive ninety miles into Michigan, load my pickup with the used set, strap them down, drive them (carefully) ninety miles home, muscle them down into the basement, hook them up, muscle the old set back up the stairs, load them into my truck, haul them to the recycling center, (where we could collect about thirty-five dollars for the scrap,) then return the dolly and drive home before we could have clean clothes again.  With the dolly rental, ratchet strap purchases, time, gas, labor and hassle, I wasn’t completely sure that it would be much of a bargain to buy a newer used set.  But I was willing to give it a shot. 

After we had two sets sold out from under us, and a third postpone the pickup date, we said, “Fuck it,” and headed to Lowes where we got our set, on sale during Maytag Month, and received a hundred dollar rebate on top of it plus some free detergent, (that Sherila “forgot” but wished later that she had “remembered” because the new washer takes a special kind of detergent, don’t ya know?)

By the way, Sherila is my fiancé, my best friend, and the love of my life.  She also believes she is my boss, my mother and my nutritionist.  We plan on tying the knot this coming August.  You’re all invited to the wedding if you can find it.  Bring cash, we’re not registered anywhere.

So…  after all that, back to writing, right?  WRONG!  We went on vacation.  We had a planned trip to Missouri, about thirty miles outside of St. Louis to visit my best friend Gene and his family.  His daughter just had a brand new baby girl and we were dying to see him, and them and his lovely wife, and spend some quality time with them.  Long story short, we had a great time, ate too much, laughed a lot, and I did no writing whatsoever for a solid week. 

Now I’m back at work and we are back to our regular routine.  Our air conditioning works great and we have clean clothes.  I write when I can, mostly on the weekends, and sometimes in the evenings.  But I write.  That is the key.  Even if I only get a paragraph or two written, it is progress.  Progress pushes me forward.  Progress allows me to not only feel accomplishment, but it also allows me to catch a glimpse into the future.  It allows me to see what this novel can be.  It’s not just a book.  It’s my book.  My first book.  That is one hell of a feeling.  Especially for someone who has hoped to accomplish a task of this scale for most of their life.  I feel good about it.  I feel like I am doing some good writing, and I hope that its readers will enjoy it. 

Sitting here now, I can actually envision a day when people are reading my book.  To be perfectly honest about it, I’m a little scared that no one will read it.  I’m a little frightened that I won’t be able to market it properly or get it to the readers that would enjoy it most.  And I’m a little afraid that no one will care. 

Part of the research I turned up on self publishing covered building buzz.  So a few weeks ago, before the A/C bidding wars, before the washer/dryer saga, and before we took off on vacation I built a Facebook page.  In fact, the page was created just prior to my first blog entry.  (Another bit of advice for self promotion.)  Since that time, the page has received 45 likes.  I don’t know if that’s a lot or not.  It doesn’t seem like a lot.  It seems like forty-five.  I reached out to all two hundred and six of my Facebook friends, and to all one thousand, one hundred three of my LinkedIn connections.  Somehow, I don’t think they’re taking me seriously.  In fact, only one of my three children “likes” the page so far. 

Maybe they’ll all like it better when the book becomes a big hit.  Maybe not.  Maybe they didn’t get the invitation.  Most likely they just ignored it.  I wonder if they knew the invite was from me, or if they saw the invite as just another piece of spam.  It’s also entirely possible many of them just didn’t care.  It’s possible that they don’t like to read, don’t want to read anything by me, don’t care about action/thriller/sci-fi novels or don’t believe in ebooks.  There could be a hundred reasons why they didn’t respond.

I was advised through my research to put up a launch page at LaunchRock.com.  So far not one person has signed up to be notified of the book’s launch date.  I was also advised to blog about the book, and because there is no feedback yet, I can’t be certain that anyone has read the first entry.  So, what do I think about all that?

None of it, not any of it, can matter to me.  None of this can be allowed to affect me, my attitude about the project, or my writing.  Because I have to keep pushing.  I have to keep doing whatever I can do to generate buzz.  Because I believe.  I believe in the book.  My book.  My first book.  I believe in myself as a writer.  I know I can write.  I’m doing it now.  Writing words that tell a story.  Is it a good story?  Who knows?  You be the judge.  You.  The reader.  The one sitting at your computer right now reading this sentence.  You will be the judge.  Because you do care.  You care enough to follow the progress.  You care enough to like the Facebook page.  You care enough to someday buy the book.  And even though I don’t know you, and you probably won’t show up to my wedding with cash, I love you.  I love you because you care enough to read my words.

To like the Facebook page, go here: Germ Line: Revolution Facebook Page

To be notified of the launch, go here: Germ Line: Revolution Launch Page

If you read this, please let me know with a quick comment.  Do I sound desperate for feedback?

In The Beginning...

             Detective Adrian Stark is a broken man. His wife and unborn child brutally murdered by an escaped 
             convict. He has packed it in and called it quits. All he wants is to take his settlement money, retire to 
             his secluded Mexican beach retreat and disappear into a bottle. His papers have been processed, his
             desk is packed, he is headed out the door. Then his phone rings. What begins as his final case, a 
             grizzly and bizarre set of murders, quickly degenerates into a dangerous game of cat and mouse that
             threatens the very future of mankind.

So I decided to publish a novel.  Self-publish to be precise.  After all, who needs all that rejection from established publishing houses and agents.  Hours of query letter writing, weeks of waiting, days of angst and all those sleepless nights.  No thanks.  I reasoned that by self-publishing my novel, the only people who can say no to me are me and my readers.  If I can get any.  But that's another issue entirely and we'll get into that later.  For now, we'll begin at the beginning.

I've always wanted to be a writer.  Stemming, I suppose, from my intense enjoyment of reading.  I started writing in my early twenties.  And I sucked.  Really bad.  But like anything, you have to work at it to approach anything nearing decent.  I'm not saying that I'm a good writer now, that is ultimately for the reader to decide, just that it has become a little (just a little) easier and I have become more (hopefully much more) polished over the years.  They say it takes 10,000 hours to master anything.  I passed that number over two decades ago.

My first failed attempt was a novel that was and never will be finished (because it was so awful).  It was during film school that I turned my (talents?  efforts?) attention toward screenplays.  My first screenplay was called THE RECOMBINANT and was co-written with my classmate, Robert Sloan.  We had some success with it in that it was read by several production companies.  One even showed interest, forcing us through several nonsensical and unpaid rewrites until we told them to basically go fuck themselves.

THE RECOMBINANT was my second attempt at writing a novel.  I started adapting it about a dozen years ago, and then simply lost interest. My third attempt at a novel is still a work in progress.  My GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL.  After about a hundred and fifty-pages in, I decided that it is such an undertaking that I will wait until after I retire to attempt to finish it.  That sounds lazy, I know, but a lifelong perspective is the POV I really want, and feel I need, to do it justice.

Since graduating from film school, I have written many screenplays.  One I actually produced and was co-written with another classmate, Tony Jiti Gill.  The title of that success was MURDER-IN-LAW, starring Joe Estevez, Marilyn Adams and Sandy Snyder.  You can visit the IMDB page here: Murder-In-Law IMDB Page if you're so inclined.  I call it a success because it actually got made and was seen by the public.  It is so difficult to make that happen, that I am of the opinion that any time it does happen, it is a success.

I've had other successes as well.  Minor ones.  Winning a Page Award Bronze prize for my screenplay, PEEKER.  Getting representation from a management company based on that.  Actually being paid to write a short film, WHEELS LOCKED.  (That credit can be viewed here on my IMDB page: Stephen A. Carter's IMDB Page.)  Being paid to do re-writes and to ghost write others' screenplays.  And writing the screenplay for THE DOORMAN, which can also be viewed on my IMDB page.  Though I must admit that I had my name removed from the credits because I didn't agree with and appreciate the changes made to it after I had turned it in.  I did, however, keep my credit for cinematographer because it is (if I do say so myself) nicely shot.

If you count success simply as riches and glory, then I have had none.  However, I do not value myself and what I do solely in that way, and I do count all of the above as successes.  I count every one of my completed screenplays a success.  I count the fact that I have lived (and continue to live) my life doing what I love as a success.  The fact that I have been able to make a living and survive as a producer, writer, director, editor and cinematographer in a brutal and some would say soulless industry as a success.  And I count the fact that I consider myself a "writer" to be a success.

Writing is hard.  Anyone who says differently is a fucking liar.  In my experience, (of course this may be different for others,) you have to be somewhat selfish and more than a little self-absorbed, and you live your life perpetually distracted by some thought or another.  You have to be willing to sit alone in a room for hours on end plugging away at a keyboard.  You have to realize that some of the best writing is really done during the rewriting process.  And you must be okay with the fact that no one  other than you may ever read your material.  Most of all, you must write.  Relationships will suffer along with your self-esteem, health and well being.  For much of your life, you live in your mind.  People who don't write don't understand you, your obsession and often your humor.  In the middle of writing you have to force yourself to eat, shower, answer the phone, interact and ultimately step away from the computer.

But back to the topic at hand.

Over the years many of my screenplays, though not all, had some type of horror or sci-fi element to them, (along with action, comedy and of course a love element,) so it was only natural that my first finished novel, (because I will finish this one, I swear,) fall into the sci-fi/action/thriller genre which Germ Line: Revolution does.  Germ Line: Revolution is also an adaptation of my screenplay, GERM LINE.

Once I made the determination to self-publish, and decided on what that project would be, I started doing research.  It's amazing how many self-publishing companies are out there.  Companies like Lulu, Createspace, Smashwords and Xlibris to name just a few.  For a list of the "10 best" you can follow this link: www.allselfpublishing.com.  There you'll find star ratings for each company, plus a couple of pros and cons, some pricing detail and some general information on features.  If you're looking to print hard copies of your book, this is one way to go.  Bear in mind that they are all in business to make money and the more money you make the more money they make, if you make any money at all.  If not, they are the only ones who make money.  Either way it's a win-win for them.  If you make the mistake of contacting any of them before you're actually ready to publish, be prepared to be bombarded with phone calls and email by sales reps wanting to "discuss your book".

I decided this wasn't for me.  To begin with, it's very expensive.  A sample book can run anywhere between $500 and $2500.  Printing costs get cheaper the more books you print but having boxes of expensive, unsold books sitting around in my basement while I decided what to do with them didn't seem very appealing to me.  Besides, in 2011 Amazon announced that they were selling more kindle books than printed books.  I figured I was on to something.  The future of publishing the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL just may lie with the eBook.

So that's where I'm at.  I am going to finish adapting my screenplay, GERM LINE into an eBook entitled Germ Line: Revolution.  Why did I tag on Revolution?  Because if all goes well this book will be the first of a series.

As of this writing, I have just begun chapter 20.  I am well on my way.  About half way I figure.  Once I get it completely adapted to novel form, I will start the re-write and fleshing out process.

If you'd like to be notified of the launch of Germ Line: Revolution visit the launch page at: Germ Line: Revolution Launch Page

You can also like Germ Line: Revolution on Facebook

Thanks for reading.  Check back often if you will.  In upcoming posts I'll talk a little about the differences in screenplays and novels, post sample chapters, and continue discussing my experiences with the nuts and bolts of self-publishing like creating the cover, and marketing & promotion.

This is my first stab at blogging so please share your thoughts.