Oh hello… I know I’m late with this. Don’t be mad at me!
I will get better at getting these up once a month. So I don’t have to start every new post with an apology for taking so long!
The reason I’m late is because I’ve been hard at work writing my little ass off. I finished a movie script, wrote some extra voiceover lines for a movie that is currently in post-production, wrote a new solo novel (Scraphead - See Plate #2), wrote an outline for an upcoming comic book project, and just recently finished up a new collaborative novel. I truly have been writing a ton every day, putting the work in, because this year is a big one for me. I’ll break it down for you!
Let’s talk movies first.
Since starting my career as a screenwriter, I’ve had to the opportunity to write for Warner Bros, Sony, Amazon Studios, Blumhouse Productions, and more. And like my books, all of those projects were either in the horror genre or at least horror adjacent. I wrote a movie called BINGO HELL, which was my first feature film, and it was released in 2021 as an Amazon original.
So… you’d think that, based on that, I might get offers to write another horror movie. But that wasn’t the case. I did get an offer for another screenwriting job… but it was something I would have never expected. I nearly declined the offer because I wasn’t sure I was the right person to write it, but after a lot of thought, I decided it would be a great learning experience and a fun challenge. And it was BOTH!
I was hired to write the script for a biopic about Jenni Rivera, a Mexican American singer who died in a plane crash in 2012. So I went from writing a movie about an evil Bingo hall… to a music biopic. To add even more stress to the situation, I was actually rewriting a script written by the woman who wrote the Tina Turner biopic WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT, and I had to consult with the singer’s actual adult children who wanted to make sure I was writing a movie that would honor their mother.
I will get into more details about this entire journey in another post when the movie actually comes out, which will be sometime in 2024.
So after this movie, the producers were so happy with the work I did, they immediately hired me to write another one. And this one was in the horror genre! I can say even less about this one, because it hasn’t been filmed yet, and there’s no guarantee it’ll ever be filmed! I’ll say these two things about it: it’s a killer dog movie about pet cloning, and I was ultimately replaced by another writer. Also a topic I will dive more deeply into in a later post!
I was told this movie may film and be released this year, but that is yet to be seen. Any updates to either of these projects will be posted here!
Next, let’s get into comics. Because I’m also not really allowed to say too much about it as of yet. At least I think I’m not!
I have signed a contract to write my own comic, based on a novel of mine. There will be six total issues, plus a graphic novel that collects all of the issues into one volume. I just started writing this now, and let me tell you, after the movie scripts and novels, it’s so much fucking fun to write some comics. Truly a blast!
This particular novel has been adapted into a short film, and was nearly a feature film at least three times now. The short film itself was then adapted into a comic, though I had nothing to do with that. The book itself was nearly adapted into a comic book a couple of times. I even hired an artist to draw some pages out for me. While I’m not saying outright which novel this is, the sample art below gives it right the fuck away. But I wanna show you anyway!
This was the comic I had drawn years and years ago, not affiliated with the new comic coming out in 2025. For those of you familiar with the book, I’ll say this: the new comic is a complete reimagining of that story. It’s sort of my EVIL DEAD 2, if you catch my drift. I couldn’t be more excited about this. Updates about the comic will be posted here!
Okay… let’s talk books!
I haven’t written a new book in eight years, which I’d previously touched upon in other posts. Due to a writer’s strike in Hollywood and the encouragement of many good friends/fellow writers, I decided that I’m going to start writing books again. I was sure I had left books behind for good, was focused on my screenwriting career. But I could feel in my guts that something was missing. And now that I’m writing books again, I can say for certain that what was missing was my love for books, man. Not to mention the creative freedom that comes with them!
If you’ve read my previous posts, you’ve read about my upcoming novel SCRAPHEAD. If not, check out Plate #2: The Legend of Scraphead. I get into detail about why I wrote that book and what it’s about. And I was absolutely positive that Scraphead was going to be my first release. I showed off the cover, made a trailer… but things have changed a bit.
I met a dude named Aron Beauregard at Killercon Austin in 2023. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? I also caught up with my good friend Kristopher Triana, a dude who started in the exact same trenches as me, selling short stories for a quarter of a cent per word… and being damn happy about it too! These guys are the real reason I’m writing books again. We spent hours discussing how the business has changed since I moved to screenwriting, and they told me that if I ever wanted to fly out to their neck of the woods, they’d break it all down for me in more detail. And so two weeks later, I booked a flight to Rhode Island and stayed at Aron’s house.
They very graciously broke it all down for me and gave me a peek behind the curtain of how they do business. Because even when I was writing a ton of books, they were all for publishers. So I had a ton to learn about self publishing and everything that comes along with that.
One night, we were having some drinks, talking about the business and some of our plans for future projects. I had mentioned an idea I’ve had for years, one that was pitched as a comic and a movie at one point, about a story that’s structured similar to Pulp Fiction, with a collection of stories that were all interconnected. I had called it BENJAMIN, and it would follow a $100 bill from person to person. I imagined it as a sort of ultra violent, dark comedy, and figured it would have 3-4 tentpole stories with some connective tissue to hold them all together. When I said this, Aron sat up with a look of shock on his face. Because not only did he have the exact same idea, but he too was calling in BENJAMIN. And so we decided, right then and there, that we would have to write it together.
Now, at the beginning of the year, I organized a writer’s retreat at my grandmother’s lake house in Bay City, Texas. I invited Aron and Kris, as well as Lucas Mangum, Judith Sonnet, and Wrath James White. I believe that every single one of them has written about it, so I won’t go into details, other than saying it was truly one of the best weeks of my life. An amazing time with amazing people, while also getting a fuck ton of work done.
Knowing this was coming up, Aron and I decided to start writing BENJAMIN since we were going to be in person and wouldn’t get another opportunity to actually collaborate in person. I was very close to finishing SCRAPHEAD, but set it aside and focused on our collaboration. We spent hours and hours discussing the ins and outs of the story, staying up until 4-5 AM breaking down themes and diving into character arcs… and maybe drinking just a little. I’d say we wrote just short of half of the book while at the retreat, with a pact that we’d crank out the rest at home. And we did! I’m more proud of the work we did in this book than anything I’ve ever done, across any medium.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I’ll just say that we’ve got some BIG plans for the release of this book, with some bonus materials that will give readers an immersive experience that I’ve never seen done before.
And so I’ve decided to have BENJAMIN be my first release in 2024, with SCRAPHEAD as the followup novel later in the year. Fuck, I can’t wait for y’all to read these!
Along with the book releases, I’ll also be opening up my online store McHorror. net, where you can purchase all of my new books and merchandise. I’ve got some big plans for the store too and am excited as hell to finally get that up and running!
So as of now, this is the year I’ve got planned. If anything changes or there are any updates, I’ll post about it here.
Until next time! MUCH LOVE!