I was really going to wait to talk about this in the January Moonletter, but I thought that I'd go ahead and post about my 2023 here, in the blog.
I'm about a week from the release of The Copperwheat Collection, my very first published work. I figured that this is as good of a place as any to tell the story behind it.
In the early part of 2023, I was approached by my friend David Copperwheat (hence the name of the book) to write four short stories. "Dreams" was a broad theme, which is why everyone is waking up at some point. In addition, each story was given a more specific premise to incorporate for the sake of his D&D campaign. He offered to pay me for this work and I requested to retain all rights to the stories. I wanted the abilty to publish them at some point but more immediately, I thought that if I wrote a good one, I could write a script from one of them.
Still might.
After that, I wrote all four stories.
Later in 2023, I was on the phone with my friend Sandy and we were having a conversation about her inabilty to write narrative. I told her that she could and to just try.
She thought of a few lines about walking her dog. The way she ended it sounded to me like she was dead and in the afterlife. After again saying she couldn't write narrative, she told me that I should just write something. While working on the follow-up to "Screenshots" (Yes, there will be a follow-up to Screenshots and yes, it will be filmed! Stay tuned!) I was inspired to write what would become "Sunflowers".
"Sunflowers" would be so different from anything I've ever written that I wanted to enter it into short story contest - just because. To do so, the story would have to be published. But instead of getting an ISBN (think social security number for books) for just one 16-hundred word story, I thought, "Well, I have the Copperwheat Collection. I'll just publish that and include Sunflowers in there." - So I did!
The Copperwheat Collection, a single-author anthology, is now available in both eBook and Paperback on Amazon right now!
Right here in fact: Click This
It's surreal to think that right now, you can read this blog (that I wrote) and click a link and purchase a book (that I wrote). It's insane to think that I have a book with my name in the author's space.
I've been called an author before. I've always corrected people saying "I'm not an author. I haven't published anything yet."
But now I have.
Now, I am an author.
And that's pretty fucking dope!
I always told the kids that I never really except to get rich of the writing or the film-making. All I wanted to do was write something, publish it, and hold a copy of MY book in my hand.
And now I have. Look! There's proof!
I've said it SO many times, but I can spare a few more:
Thank you to all the people who supported me throughout the years. From my wife, Chrissie to my best friend Kat. The Wifey, Brittany and the Whiskey Side-chick, Michelle. From Jayson, Jon and Steph to ALL of my Imaginarium people. James and Don. David Wate. My mom for allowing me access to "My office". My Dad. The Kids...
There are so many that I know I've missed some so please, don't take this as a slight. I love and treasury you all.
At the age of 40, I finally did "The Thing". There is always time to do "The Thing" - whatever that Thing is for you.
Geez, that's not even the only cool thing I did this year!
Remember this? I, along with Jayson, Stephanie, and Jon made a whole ass short film!
Screenshots was pretty cool. Another story of something that I didn't really expect to happen the way that it did.
As the story is told, Jayson, Jon, and I made a decision to make films, but to see how well the three of us worked together, we needed "something" to film. So I wrote the script for Screenshots, a short film about a woman who discovers that her boyfriend is disrespectfully cheating on her when she starts to get screenshots of his conversations sent to her phone.
Sound cool? You can watch it on YouTube right now by clicking HERE!
And not only did a script that I wrote get produced, but it won an award!
Dope, right?! While it wasn't first place, getting runner-up in a competitive short-form screenplay category is a pretty big deal to me. 1-for-1!
Beyond the writing stuff, I started my podcasts, The Moon Unscathed and Moon=Wrestling!
I can't believe I started my podcasts, won an award, co-produced a short film, and published a book in the same year. ALL for the first time!
2023 hasn't been the greatest year end-to-end in every aspect of my life, but damn, in the writing portion of it, it's been a banger!
Let's see if 2024 and top this!!!
The Moon