As soon as she gets out of rehab.

Sorry, any readers I have here, for not keeping this up to date. I finished the draft of Potemkin and am now on draft six (with no outside editorial support) and it's really shaped up to be the best work I've done yet. Then I started a stylized noir reinvention (what I think of as my Tarantino script because I'm using conventions of a genre while working with a non-genre story). I sort of abandoned that and started writing an incredibly dark comedy called Anhedonic (which means the inability to find happiness, the title setting the tone for the story). That script is pretty good and I'm enjoying it. There's something about making a viewer/reader squirm with your work that is very satisfying to me. I've also been researching hardcore for a triad of novellas. I don't want to say too much about that project (I really doubt it will ever see publication due to its subject matter) but it is ambitious and that excites me. It's historical fiction (think along the lines of LA Confidential in that the stories will be based in historical fact but use that as a backdrop for an original story).

I keep saying original more when I discuss my work. I've always been a quick study and have found it easier to tell my stories in the voice of other writers. I still enjoy that practice and defend it with the argument that almost no artists can live without outside inspiration and appreciation of other artists, so there's nothing wrong with borrowing another artist's style in some ways if the material is original. And oh boy, is my stuff getting more original. I've found a lot of what I do now is taking one kind of story and then finding a drastically alternate stylization to use as the voice of the narrative. It makes things interesting and keeps my prose in top form. I know that a lot of my early work borrowed style as well as themes from the same source, and I know that is counterproductive in an artistic sense. Now it's mix and match, experiment and reconstruction, all with the goal of producing new works. In this new fashion, I find myself becoming a more original artist.

The noir reinvention, I'm heavily borrowing from Nial's writing (which he says is fine because it's not truly his style), but putting my own perspective on it. Work is feeling more like my own and that is gratifying. Lately I have been wondering more if I will ever make a living as an artist. This becomes a natural train of thought as I get older; my work improves while my success is barely a glimmer. I have gotten more enthusiastic response to my work in the last year (helped a lot by my sharing the screenplays I have written), but that doesn't pay the bills. My day job barely pays the bills right now. Dreaming of being financially rewarded for my hard work is about all I can hope for at the moment. A meager living from the life of the mind would be dearly accepted and very satisfying to me. Someday.