On the road again

In much the same way as my friends and UCLA classes suggested I write a book on screenwriting, more of my friends suggested another book. Just when you thought Jimmer was finished, I decided to write on something I really know... 

And it's called "How To Not Get Beat Up In A Small-Town Bar."

Title too long? It will probably take the whole cover. I've registered the title also, just in case.

For those who have followed me from August 2009, you will remember my road trip across

western Canada in the middle of winter. I think I mentioned the idea of a book on not only that subject, but also adding a lot of adventures along the highways of western Canada and the U.S. Roughly it adds up to about 5-6 hundred thousand miles.

In simple words; half a million miles.

There are a lot of drivers who have gone way past that, one man on the east coast has driven two million miles in the same car. But up to now he's never written a book about what he saw besides freeways.

The title comes from an actual incident in a tiny town in North Dakota in a bar when a drunk local wanted to pick a fight with me. I had stopped into the town to grab some dinner and tried to be oblivious, except for this person. It didn't last long because he tripped and fell and passed out. 

I began to get my "big map" out; it's a map of Canada and the U.S. and I used a green highlighter to track my trips. I also put yellow tacks in towns that I stayed over in. You can see that map above.

While my main work is screenwriting and trying to put movies together, this book was a pleasant diversion. If I weren't writing scripts, I would be happy driving along the old highways of both countries, maybe to the south, where I've never been. I always think of "In The Heat Of The Night" when I think of the south. Maybe sometime.


What I like is that I won't really have to deal with a producer or director or actor, I can write what I want how I want.  The book should be ready in a few months as I'm still working on Emperor of Mars and a resurgence of Ghostkeeper 2, which we're gonna try one more time.

Persistence is the thing you need if you're writing screenplays, someone could option your screenplay but never make it or nobody likes it. It's not often that having an option means that "they" are going to make it. I've had maybe fifty options that never came through.

On the other hand, I had the Christmas movie optioned in June 2010 and it was made in September 2010. That's almost the fastest if I don't include Betrayal of Silence, which I wrote in 2 weeks and it began shooting on the 3rd week.

But, back to the highways.

A friend once said that all I need in life is a full tank of gas and an open highway, and he was right. I'm not talking about driving in cities but rather in the quickly disappearing small highways and small towns. One of my most used highways is Interstate 15 which runs from San Diego to Alberta Canada. I have used it to take me to lonely two-lane highways and even grasslands.

Anyways, the pics above are a preview.