Writing once for a purpose...

I pulled out my writing awards and put the framed ones up on the wall of my bedroom, facing the bed. I have 24 of them, for my screenplays, a play, a short story, a short script. From Writers' Digest, Worldfest Houston (back when it was The Houston International Film Festival), Shriekfest, Indie Gathering, Script Frenzy...the list goes on and on. And they amounted to nothing.

Well, not completely. I got a cash prize for Bugzters, while Darian's Point and Return to Darian's Point winning a couple of competitions got me almost produced. I'd been promoted by a producer who loved the script, a director who loved the scripts, people in a production company who loved the scripts, but the big man at the top said they already had script set in Ireland and he didn't want to do another one, so dumped it. Killed it.

It's like with Bugzters. That producer took it wide to try and sell, with her as a co-producer, and got nothing. Word was, it needed a big star to join with the kids, and she'd had me take that role out. Once that happened, the script was dead, in Hollywood. Damaged goods.

Now emphasized by how three of the frames' glasses were broken. But hey, the rest are up.

I can't say I stopped writing screenplays when I left LA. I did The Alice '65, Carli's Kills, and Porno Manifesto. But still got nowhere. My books don't sell like Stephen King's do, but they are selling a bit...and that's bringing me more success than I ever had in LA. Hell, my mother doing extra work for movies, music videos and audience work had more success.

I had put the awards up on a wall in her apartment, when I moved back to San Antonio and left them there when I moved to Buffalo. She wanted me to leave them. Liked to look at them. For a while, after she died, I had them on a wall in my previous apartment, up here, but then took them down and packed them away. I felt they were mocking me.

Now they're just a reminder -- no more screenplays. You write books, Kyle. Keep to it.