So, Ya Wanna Make a Movie?

There a sense of magic when a movie is being viewed. If it's a decent one, the viewer is transported into another dimension and we sit and enjoy an hour or two outside our heads and into the world of cinema.
Sound glamorous?

It does to many, including to me.

As an author I suppose it's not too far fetched to want your novels to be film. Many of us write for the screen, hoping our books will one day be 'picked up' by...hmmm whomever does the picking up, and presto! Our characters come to life.

When I began my writing career I was pure amateur, struggling without a mentor, trying, succeeding, failing, trying again. I learned how to write, publish, promote, edit, network, advertise, do research, all by myself. Wouldn't it have been great to have been the daughter of an author? No such luck.

Like many authors out there, and I really am speaking to the independents and not the few fortunate's' who have been 'picked out' either randomly or by nepotism to fame and fortune, we try for lofty goals. Do we succeed? I don't know. Many of us are still in the trying mode.

So, for myself, my fans, and my sanity, I am going to attempt to document my exploration of making a full length feature film. Myself. With the help of an incredible cast and crew. Oh, did I mention you need one of those?

Wow. Did I bite off more than I can chew? Who knew this process was quite literally, nail biting. By its very fragile nature, the whole project can just disintegrate and according to the experts who are guiding me, most do. Rarely does a concept find fruition to its completion. Really? I didn't know that either.

But the steps that are going into making a film have been like a roller-coaster ride and to be honest, fair rides terrify me or leave me spewing at the sidelines.

So, where did I begin? Well, finding capable people to actually be pumped about the idea. That was harder than you'd imagine. The lip service I got from 'the real deals' out there was laughable. More like 'I'll have my people call your people' and then they'd vanish. Too many to count. Let's just say, think flake and you'll find all the people who could have but never would have.

Then the book has to become a script. Hold on to your hats for that one authors because if you do not have control then you will ask the screenwriter, whose book did you read? Because it will not resemble your novel, at all. Luckily I can write those too. And did. (then had a real screen writer take it from there)

The process continued, and I am leaving out the sleepless nights, the rending of garments, purely for dramatic effect, because it was giving birth without the epidural.

Then something unbelievable happened.

Men came to auditions in LA to try to be my two leads. Mark Antonious Richfield, and Steven Jay Miller.

Mark and Steve in the flesh. Anyone who knows me and my Action! boys knows that was Mission Impossible. So again, no leads, no movie. But- when two men who fit the bill, sat in the same room and read to each other? I nearly passed out. There it was. Mark and Steve come to life speaking lines I had written. Could this film actually become a reality?

That question is yet to be answered, so stay tuned.

Be safe.