Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
After Nine Days, I Let the Horse Run Free
Do you remember that part in the book Interview with the Vampire (not the movie) when the vampire has to bury himself deep in the ground and then come up a couple of decades later as a new person after everybody he knew before forgot he was alive? That is basically what I did in 2009.
I started a new day job career, but it was an excuse to stop screenwriting for a while. Back in 2008 I saw the end of what was going on in DVD and thought I would take some time off to look at what the next model would be post-80s video store boom and post-90s DVD store boom. Despite a few really interesting changes, like Netflix Streaming, I don't know that the new model is really there in the same way it was during those two crashing waves before (and may never be).
I really think the new future for the independent writer is the ebook. With Kindles and Nooks flying off shelves and free/cheap downloads from Amazon by the pound it has that Wild West feel that the heady days of Direct-to-DVD did, when I was working on Among Us and before we were done shooting the distributor wanted four more.
People are so starved for ebooks, the way they were for my mockbusters like The DaVinci Curse, that writers are putting up all kinds of things and doing pretty well, or well enough. Readers are willing to take chances on things they wouldn't normally, and all kinds of niches are springing up. This, by the way, is how I built my fragile screenwriting career, in that long tail.
I have been afraid that if I wrote about this, however, I would have to do something about it, like many of my friends who also worked in the D2DVD market and then moved over (looking especially at Gary M. Lumpp, Scott Phillips, and Bill Cunningham) as well as some pals who published tree-killers but have a new life in the e-world (looking especially at Allan Guthrie).
I have been slowly, achingly, trying to write again after a couple of false starts, clawing myself up from the cold earth. I have written an entirely screenplay over a long weekend, but my brain doesn't seem to be wired for other types of writing. I am thinking if I write it here, somebody might hold my feet to the fire to keep going. If I have any real updates, I will put them here. I do have a title: The Gun with the Blonde-Eyed Green.
Until later, I'm at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
I started a new day job career, but it was an excuse to stop screenwriting for a while. Back in 2008 I saw the end of what was going on in DVD and thought I would take some time off to look at what the next model would be post-80s video store boom and post-90s DVD store boom. Despite a few really interesting changes, like Netflix Streaming, I don't know that the new model is really there in the same way it was during those two crashing waves before (and may never be).
I really think the new future for the independent writer is the ebook. With Kindles and Nooks flying off shelves and free/cheap downloads from Amazon by the pound it has that Wild West feel that the heady days of Direct-to-DVD did, when I was working on Among Us and before we were done shooting the distributor wanted four more.
People are so starved for ebooks, the way they were for my mockbusters like The DaVinci Curse, that writers are putting up all kinds of things and doing pretty well, or well enough. Readers are willing to take chances on things they wouldn't normally, and all kinds of niches are springing up. This, by the way, is how I built my fragile screenwriting career, in that long tail.
I have been afraid that if I wrote about this, however, I would have to do something about it, like many of my friends who also worked in the D2DVD market and then moved over (looking especially at Gary M. Lumpp, Scott Phillips, and Bill Cunningham) as well as some pals who published tree-killers but have a new life in the e-world (looking especially at Allan Guthrie).
I have been slowly, achingly, trying to write again after a couple of false starts, clawing myself up from the cold earth. I have written an entirely screenplay over a long weekend, but my brain doesn't seem to be wired for other types of writing. I am thinking if I write it here, somebody might hold my feet to the fire to keep going. If I have any real updates, I will put them here. I do have a title: The Gun with the Blonde-Eyed Green.
Until later, I'm at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
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