Following the awful start to the year, I have finally been able to hit full stride with my creating.  

I finally wrapped up the final draft of “Don’t Make Me Come Down There”.  It’s about 9,000 words shorter and a lot tighter than previous drafts. I have submitted to a horror publisher I have admired for a while. The book is a tough sell. It’s too gory for humor publishers and too humorous for horror publishers.  Still, I am proud of the final book and fingers crossed it finds a home.  

I have also jumped into Comicones with both feet.  What started as inconsequential doodles for my daughter, has grown into something bigger.   Much bigger.  I have created well over a hundred characters so far, spanning multiple franchises and it’s becoming what I hoped the Butch G. Cat could have been.  As most of my ideas for that project were scrapped or rejected on principle that they were simply mine, I can bring this project to light on the manner I had hoped for Butch G. Cat.  I have free books in development as well as dozens of new designs.   I’m very pleased to put my stamp on this.  The new website is currently in development and I will be launching it in the coming weeks when I have figured out some animation issues.  It’s nice working on a project when I’m not getting steamrolled for presenting ideas for no other reason than they were mine.  My eventual goal is to reach out to the franchise owners in the hopes of gaining official licensing. That is a lofty goal, but hey, aim high or don’t bother. Once I’ve built up the world and shown there is value there, who knows where it can lead.  I have a franchise mission statement I am tightening up.

As far as writing goes, I have two books in active development. “The Sentinel War” and an unnamed book on internet etiquette. 

Yours creatively,

CWC

2017 is off to an awful start. Last Monday, Tera’s mom passed at the tender age of 56.  Her death was very sudden and unexpected and has shaken our family to its core.   Death is becoming an all too frequent part of life these days. Julie was a good woman. She was a fantastic grandma and loved Lily unconditionally, We had only just got back from Disneyland the week before. Had I known it would be our last vacation together I would have done so many things differently.  

Her passing reminds me how fleeting life really is and when my number comes up, I can only hope I have achieved the most I can.

Rest in peace, Julie. You will be greatly missed.

Yours lovingly,

CWC

In order to make “Don’t Make Me Come Down There” the best book it can be, I’ve submitted it to a test audience to get feedback on it.  I did the same thing with both “Blood Splatter” and “The Comicon and Convention Survival Guide”. It’s been a few weeks and the reviews have started to come back.  This is one of the hardest parts of writing.  Of course I like the book. I’ve spent years working on it, but how will the rest of the world feel when they read it. Will the jokes work? Is the plot enjoyable? Are the characters interesting?  All I could do was wait with baited breath.

During this time, I started working on the screenplay adaptation of the book. Because, that makes sense right? Writing the script for a book I haven’t sold? Well, to be honest, it was more so a writing exercise to keep the creative juices going.  Converting a novel to screenplay is no mean feat.  You take hours and hours of a story and condense it into 90 -120 minutes, or if you’re The Hobbit, you drag it out over three movies.

During this project something interesting happened.  I edited the first act of the book to be more concise and get to the zombie outbreak sooner. There was a lot of character exposition, but a lot of it really didn’t add much to the characters, so I edited it down. I’m about twenty pages away from finishing it.

In the past two weeks, I’ve had eight reviews back on the book and they have all been extremely positive.  It’s a wonderful experience hearing how they have been affected by the character journey’s.  However, one comment seemed to be unanimous.  It’s a bit slow in getting started.  So I’ve decided to revisit the story and tighten the first act.  It isn’t easy editing your own story when you have become attached to each scene.  But the kicker is I’ve already edited this act.  In the screenplay.  So the novel which inspired the screenplay is now inspired by the screenplay.  I’m hoping to have both the book and screenplay completed by the end of January.

Yours excitedly

CWC

Mew-sings of a blue cat

November 22, 2016

Last week marked the two-year anniversary of the end of the Butch G. Cat project.  A nine-year project killed dead in its tracks because two people on the team decided they didn’t like the direction it was going and instead of reaching out and fixing it as a team, they destroyed it.  I’ve talked about it plenty and didn’t actually realize the anniversary had passed. It still stings.  

I’d been archiving files off of my home computer and rediscovered the soundtrack and screenplay and spent some time listening to the songs and reading the script this past weekend. I was immensely proud of both the script and the songs.  I still am. I have posted the lyrics in the lyrics section of this site if you’re interested.  I think that is why it still hurts after all this time, the project was good. Really good.  I now know how musicians feel when they record an album that never sees the light of day because of a label or studio. It sucks. It really sucks. So much time spent and nothing to show for it.

But more than that, the project failure cost me a long-time friend. Scripts you can re-write and create from scratch, but friends can’t be replaced.   I haven’t spoken to Danny in two years.  The last time I saw him was at his aunt’s funeral.  We parted on good times. We hugged and he thanked me for coming. We spoke about the Butch G. Cat project with enthusiasm and excitement. We drove next to each other as we left and he turned at a light. It would be the last time I ever saw him.  The downfall came via email barely two months later. I haven’t dwelled on this for a while, but the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Tera was putting our friend invite list together for dinner and the first name that popped in my head was Danny, then I realized that was not possible.  Stupid right?   Things haven’t changed. We still don’t speak. There is far too much unresolved drama that we can never get past. He moved on with his life and I moved on with mine.  I’m creating again and enjoying myself doing it.  I have great things on the horizon, but there will always be that part of me that wonders “what if?” How big could we have made this project if inner turmoil hadn’t ripped it apart at the seams.  If we could have communicated better. Trusted each other. Trusted in each other.  We could have conquered the world. Now I’ll just have to do it one project at a time.  

I don’t look back with anger anymore. More disappointment and sadness really. I think this is one part of my life I won’t be able to get complete closure on.  It’s like the divorce you didn’t see coming.  You patch yourself up and soldier on.  I’ve sent out “Don’t Make Me Come Down There” out for critical feedback and I have some edits to make. But the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s always terrifying putting yourself out there for the world to see.  I wear my heart on my sleeve and this is the hardest part of writing.  I’m on the right path. I need to wrap the first act up and put this baby to bed.  

Yours thoughtfully,

CWC

I’ll be honest, I’ve downloaded movies and music in the past, but on saying that, I also buy a LOT of movies and music.  I support musicians, actors and directors I like and own thousands of Blu Rays, DVD’s, albums and CD’s.  My house is crammed full of media I have legally purchased.  So where am I going with this?  Well, today I found “The Comicon and Convention Survival Guide” available for download on a torrent site.  I’ve never had one of my books available on file trading before and I am torn.  The goal of the book was to give Comicon attendees an insider look on how to get the most out of their convention experience.  I was never supposed to make a million dollars from it.  But, being paid for my efforts is not an unreasonable expectation.  What sucks is only three people other than me have it digitally.  Unless someone has taken the time to rip the book apart, scan in the pages and save it as a PDF, which I highly doubt, someone in my inner circle shared it.  

The book has been downloaded over 4700 times in less than twenty four hours.  I’m flattered people are downloading it, but shit, I haven’t even remotely sold that many physical copies.  It might be time to rethink my strategy on how I distribute it.  I can’t fight it. I don’t have the lawyers on my side.  Time to join the digital revolution and hope that those given the choice to legally buy or illegally download will choose to buy.  

Yours with disappointment,

CWC