Back on the Creative Side

For most of 2010 I’ve been working hard on the business side of self-publishing. On print books, I’ve been editing manuscripts, buying ISBNs and barcodes, designing cover art, assembling cover elements into a finished cover, laying out pages, then shipping that off to Lightining Source, checking and approving proofs, ordering books, drafting up press releases, sending out review copies and promoting, promoting, promoting.

Then on top of that this year I’ve been busy on the eBook side as well formatting and assembling eBooks, designing covers and coming up with business plans like the free YA eBook exclusives and promoting, promoting and more promoting.

Then there are the articles for the blog. In between working on the promotion of the fiction I’m researching topics and writing up stuff for the twice and sometimes thrice weekly blogs.

I’ve been so busy working on the business side of writing I haven’t done much work on developing new fiction projects. Since I completed All About Nikki in 2009, I haven’t worked on writing a new fiction project at all. I feel I need to get back into the groove when it comes to fiction.

It’s been two years since I’ve written a story from start to finish. And I don’t want to jump into a novel just yet. While I’ve got some ideas brewing for stories, I feel my storytelling skills are rusty and they need to be polished up before I tackle another full-length novel. Working on complex books like The Temptation of John Haynes is draining and I want my writing skills in top form before I take on another project of that scope.

So to get back into that groove of writing fiction, I started a new screenplay last week. Spray Em’ Up is an action pic set in the Webster Houses about an Iraq War vet who comes home to find South Bronx his neighborhood terrorized by a drug kingpin. It’s in the style of those old 1980’s low-budget Cannon Group movies like The Delta Force and American Ninja. It’s the kind of movie I used to watch on Channel 11 back in the day on a Saturday afternoon.

Spray Em’ Up is not deep or complex like All About Marilyn, It’s a popcorn story. Entertainment. It’s not meant to be great. It’s a warm up so I can start other projects and make them top quality.