Hey there! 👋 I hope this post finds you well today. I wanted to take a moment to provide an update on what I have been up to these days. Let’s start with my debut novel, The Condemned.
The Condemned
The book has steadily been getting sold more and garnering positive reviews, which is awesome. The latest one that I got was from Jennifer, who came to my speaking event at Riverview Coffee, Tea & Books in Sebastian, Florida. Here is the review: 😊
I am so immensely grateful for this wonderful review! The story behind it is that Jennifer came to the speaking event that I mentioned previously. She say the book store advertise my speaking event and specifically came to buy the book! I was so humbled that she did that. As for the speaking event, that went so great! Here are some photos:
I am so thankful to Riverview Coffee, Tea & Books for having me in. It was great meeting everyone and speaking about my writing process, the book and sharing everyone’s experiences and love of books. I am hoping to do another event at Vero Beach Book Center. I am working on coordinating that, so fingers crossed. 🤞
Short Stories
WND Press, located in Florida, has asked me if I am interested in putting out a book of short stories and of course I am! So I am working on compiling a collection of short stories. I will be using three that my friend Michael Diccico and I collaborated on and that I wrote screenplays for. He gave me his approval to use our story ideas in this anthology and I have been converting those stories from screenplay to prose. That has been fun to do and has allowed me to expand the stories a bit more. After all, technical direction is just a few sentences while in a book it can be two paragraphs describing the same thing.
I am just about done with the second of the three stories. Mike and I are going to review them together and I will be listing him in the book so he gets credit for the work we have done on the screenplays since the stories started with an idea that he had that the two of us grew. I am very excited to share these stories because we feel they are really great and that a lot of people can relate to the themes in them. I am planning on putting about six to eight short stories in this book. I suspect this will take about a year to get into people’s hands.
Theatre of Death
It has been really great working on the story with Hordur, the developer from Denmark, for the Theatre of Death game. Hordur asked me if I would be willing to help develop some characters using some headshots he has generated. I was able to cerate six characters, each with their personalities, goals, etc. I enjoy creating characters and establishing their existence and goals. Here is an example of what I did in Scrivener, which is the writing program that I use.
For now, my work is done on the project, but Hordur told me that he will contact me if he needs anything else. Realistically, this project may not come to fruition until 2023. I am looking forward to the progress they make on this.
Now what was a lovely surprise was that Hordur told me that if I wanted to expand this into my own story to publish, that I have his permission to do so. He loves the story and told me that the world I have started to create could be really great if expanded upon in story or film. I am not read to start that project yet, so I have to shelve it for now.
The Next Novel
Work has stalled on the next novel as I work on the short story anthology, but once I am done with the anthology, I will resume work on the novel.
Podcast Work
My story for The Bane podcast by The Grey Rooms podcast is set to start production in the next month or two. The Bane podcast is currently only available to Patreon subscribers. I completed an author’s interview and am waiting for the next steps for that if any for me. Once I know more, I will let you know.
I also found a few other podcasts that I could submit stories for and I have a few ideas, but I am finishing the short story anthology manuscript first.
Now Reading
A few people have asked me what I am reading currently and I am still reading Every Last Drop, by Charlie Huston.
This is book four in the Joe Pitt series and Charlie does such a fantastic job in character creation and world building where you can very easily visualize both and it all feels familiar. He is also excellent at dialogue and creating that pulp-noir atmosphere…with vampires. 🧛🩸
If those things sound interesting, definitely check it out. My wife, Dana, also bought me the comic series, East of West, in hardcover format and it’s stunning! I didn’t get past issue 10 in the series, so I am looking forward to finishing it. The series is from Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta and its such a great story. Here is the summary from Image Comics website.
The things that divide us are stronger than the things that unite us. A Sci-Fi Western set in a dystopian America where all hope for the future rests in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…who just happen to be trying to kill the President of the United States.
https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/east-of-west
Literally Jesse 