GAP BETWEEN WRITER AND AUDIENCE BECOMES EVEN SMALLER

Yesterday, I was introduced to an app that I really found pretty cool. I mean, they have an app for everything nowadays. But, for me, this one really piqued my interest. It's called WATTPAD (not sure why yet). It allows people to post ongoing serialized stories (you can post poems and other things, but I'm focusing on the storytelling aspect). What's even more interesting is that the audience can connect right back with the writer in the body of the story itself. 

I'm going to do a little more investigation, but I believe that as I write my next book, a YA novel called "THE MOON BEAM RIDER," I will post every 2,000 words on Wattpad (the entire novel should be about 60,000 words). I will also adjust my story according to the reactions of the readers into the finished work, which will be a book I release through Kindle Direct Publishing and CreateSpace.

I'll keep you posted. If you're already on Wattpad, start looking for my work. I should begin MBR in about three weeks.

OTHER NEWS

DEATH DEFYER

I'm finally beginning to assemble a team for my proposed TV series. I can't name names now, but it is looking good. Everyone really liked the rewrite I did of the pilot teleplay. I brought the storyline into the crime action world. 

SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY

I'm halfway through the edit of the book with my editor. 

I'm also a third of the way through the tandem screenplay adaptation of the novel. 

I'm about to start prepping for the photo shoot for the cover art for SPOOK and MOON BEAM RIDER. Also getting ready to hire an artist to do the cover design.

Anyway, that's all the updates for now. It's such a long process writing a novel. I'm completing my second one now. When you're writing them, it seems like you're never ever going to be finished. Then one day, you just are. I'm close. The true excitement will come when I hold a copy of SPOOK in my hands. 

Thanks for reading.

Carlton Kenneth Holder

Ring-a-round a zombie

Images courtesy of "The Black Album"

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

Below is an excerpt from the foreword of my upcoming novel "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy." The foreword was written by Beauregard Freidkin aka The Freak King.

If I were to believe John Henry, and his every movement and expression seemed to ring true, the events he had been a party to, the secrets he had been privy to, were mind numbing. Incidents and information the superpowers have kept from the masses for decades. Secrets that would let us know just how fragile all our little lives really were. If the world only knew how many times we had flirted with the brink. How close we had stood to the edge and spit.

     
John said there was the known history of the world and then there was the history the superpowers unanimously agreed to keep hidden from us. The secret history of the world. A clandestine transcript that included historical assassinations, recovered alien beings, conspiracies on a global scale. My head felt like it was going to explode from all the things John offhandedly revealed to me. 

Things I don't dare believe. 

UNDERSTANDING CREATIVE FREEDOM

Hi all,

Creative freedom is the goal of all artists. Or is it? I think it depends on the project. At least for me. I have big action adventure scripts that require large scale budgets. On these projects, I am one hundred percent open to going in different directions with the material, as long as it still gets me excited about the project. Then, I have very small indie style screenplays that I plan to direct. I'm fiercely loyal to seeing those executed exactly as written.

On my very first script sale, I had a disasterous situation. I had written a "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" style script (years before CTHD) called "A BRIDGE OF DRAGONS." The actor who agreed to star in it, 'got' my script (Dolph Lundgren). Unfortunately the company who bought the script didn't. They just wanted to make a movie with DL. They were famous for shoot 'em up action films with helicopters and machine guns. Needless to say, I was unhappy with the result even though it became an HBO World Premiere movie and made lots of money. The company knew their niche.

I just finished a rewrite of the pilot for my TV series "DEATH DEFYER" that is now being well received. I took the storyline away from the movie industry and played up the humor, action, and crime element. Depending on what directors, company, and actors come into the project, I am open to changes. It could be more serious, or more humorous. I do believe it is a cable show because of the the R-rated content. I also see it as a serialized ongoing storyline, rather than an episodic series. 

However, when it comes to my novels, I am very particular about the vision of the projects. My editor makes suggestions and I am free to accept or reject them. I don't understand how a novelist could write by committee. 

To me it seems a very personal thing.

If you're going to put your thoughts and feelings into a world you create, you damn well better have some passion about it. 

There has been the temptation to submit "SPOOK" to agents and publishers, because I believe it is the best thing I've ever written. But I just couldn't imagine compromising, changing one single word unless I absolutely thought that word needed changing. "SPOOK" is my vision. I love it. If everyone in the world hated it, I would still love it. 

My company, BROOKLYN APACHE PRESS, is my universe. And I'll keep writing novels for it until the day I die. 

If they are hits, so be it.

If they languish in obscurity, so be it. 

SIN-cerely yours,

Carlton Kenneth Holder

The Demon Jeremy rising.

Images courtesy of "The Black Album"

IS FICTION A LIE THAT REVEALS THE TRUTH?

Humm...

Is fiction a lie that reveals the truth? I think that GREAT fiction is a lie that reveals the truth. So... it is and it isn't. If your goal is to create a summer tentpole popcorn action film, then you probably aren't interested in truth, merely money. And there's nothing wrong with that. If your goal is to write the great American novel, then it is. 

So, it's all about knowing what your goal is. Classic old TV shows like "STAR TREK" are prime examples of lies that revealed the truth about the times the writers of those shows, lived in. "Star Trek" broke new ground with the first televised interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. The episode "City at the Edge of Forever" (written by one of my favorite writers Harlan Ellison), is a meditation on the greater good and whether the ends justify the means. In "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," aliens whose bodies were white on one side and black on the other side, waged a race war against one another based on what side you were black on and what side you were white on. 

Which - btw - is just as absurd as hating a person because they're Black, or from the Middle East, or Gay.

Which - btw - is just as absurd and racist as thinking writers of Color are inferior to White writers.

In my upcoming Cold War spy drama "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy," I put a microscope to the American dream. In "Spook," we have a conflicted protagonist in John Henry. Because he is the world's most powerful remote viewer, the CIA is forced to use him, even though they hate him because he is Black. While fighting for democracy in foreign superpowers, John ironically enjoys more freedoms there, than he does in his home country which has a policy of apartheid towards Black people.

Just food for thought.

UPDATES:

"DEATH DEFYER"

I just finished a rewrite of the pilot script for my TV series I'm currently shopping to studio Hollywood with a producing partner. It's about a rogue group of stunt people who, blackballed by Hollywood, endeavor to create the most dangerous live action stunt show in the world. The only thing that stands in the way is themselves.

We're looking to assemble a team (director, EP, star actor) and so far have interest.

"THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story"

I had planned on doing a big push for TBA last Friday, but was waylayed by a cold that had me so congested, I couldn't sleep for days. I plan to pull more footage from the scarist movie you'll never see and post it Online.

I am talking to investors about a reboot of the movie and have rewritten the original screenplay. I'll keep you posted. 

"SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy"

I finished my first pass of the novel a few weeks ago and handed it off to my editor. I am starting to get back notes from her now. She really dug it and said what I hope everyone says, 'There has to be a sequel.' "SPOOK" is planned as a series of novels that takes our character from 1960 through the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, until the end of the Cold War.

Like I said, this is my Ian Flemings' James Bond.

That's all for now.

SIN-cerely,

Carlton Kenneth Holder

"I see you!"

Images courtesy of "The Black Album"  

  

THANKS AMAZON AND GROUCHBAG

Hi all,

I have been so engrossed with editing my upcoming novel "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy" and doing a rewrite of my TV pilot teleplay "DEATH DEFYER" (which there is now interest in), that I have totally neglected doing promotion for my first novel "THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story" (there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day).

However, Amazon is still doggedly promoting it. I received their promotional email this morning recommending my book. When I went to the sales page on Amazon, I found a new review on it. This is now my sixth FIVE STAR REVIEW.

What also makes this even sweeter is that the person who did the review, Grouchbag, is a ranked Amazon reviewer. I have to tell you, with a name like Grouchbag, I was a little hesitant to read the review. But I was happy I did.

Below is Grouchbag's reviewer:

"This book is everything a horror book should be. While I was reading it, I got a royal case of the creeps. Kenneth Holder is an excellent writer. I think it would be great if this book were made into a movie. I'd be one of the first to see it. Thank you Mr. Holder! I will be looking for more of your books."

Wow, writer's so rarely receive accolades. I have struggled as a writer for twenty years because I love writing so much. It has cost me a lot. To now finally bypass the gatekeepers of studio Hollywood and the publishing world, and go straight to the audience is truly one of the blessings of the Internet. 

I am honored by this review and thank Amazon and Grouchbag for their support. I plan to release many more novels through my newly founded publishing company Brooklyn Apache Press. 

I am going to dedicate this coming Friday to The Black Album. Indeed, it will be a Black Album Friday. I will do promotion, release excerpts from the novel and even attempt to put up another scene or two from the scariest movie you'll never see.

SINcerely yours,

Carlton Kenneth Holder

The Demon Jeremy reborn

Footage courtesy of "The Black Album"