Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

On dreary, icy cold days like today and the tired creakiness is just so bone deep all you want to do is sleep. For me the reasons are many that I sleep on days like today. My mood disorder is linked to the weather at times. I’ve been extraordinarily happy these last few days. When an actor or actress you admire says they desire to play a part in your work you’re trying your damndest to the television screen it makes for a delightful day. They give you a name of someone they want you to send the treatment and pilot to makes for a joyous day. I had one of those days yesterday for BELLA MORTE. But if you want to read about it just follow the hyperlinked Bella Morte and see where (hopefully) I’m starting to get a buzz going for the work. Another actor, Jon Lindstrom, favorite a tweet of mine which said I thought he would make a perfect Kravitz. So huge strides. An agent discovering me? Not exactly. Still waiting to hear back from two others with the treatment and pilot.

No, what has me happy today is the fact I’ve lost 10 pounds! Down from 302 to 292! The steps, the fruit, the vegetables, the meals. All started around Halloween means in a month’s time I’ve lost 10lbs.! The holidays always prove to me to be the hardest so Thanksgiving, I know the British don’t celebrate this holiday and I wonder what my ancestors on my father’s mother’s side think of all of this really think of it. Full blood Apache my great grandmother was and my great grandmother on my mother’s father’s side was biracial. Part Cherokee, part African American. 

But boy do my modern day relatives cook up a feast on my mother’s side. How can I say this politely? A friend of mine, his family plans fell through, I won’t give names and I won’t give details because well, this blog is essentially about me and my trials and triumphs. I figured if I asked my mother if he and his wife and daughter could come she shocked me and said no because my Aunt Debbie’s kids were coming. This angered me to no end. I wanted to eat to it. So instead I said I would make dinner for him and his family at home. She immediately asked sarcastically who’s going to pay for it? I scoffed there was an extra turkey in the freezer that would feed four just fine. Missy was making me some of her grandmother’s cornbread dressing with chicken livers. And I could get green beans and a pumpkin pie and cool whip with my EBT card.

The long and short of it, I invited him, he had others volunteer faster and I’m making dinner for my friend whose daughter has an extreme form of autism that doesn’t really allow them to celebrate the holidays like everyone else. And by only making three things with one dessert and one cocktail (white zinfandel and sprite zero) I keep the caloric splurge to a minimum.

Besides, if truth be told big family events bother me and crank my anxiety levels up to sky high levels. And then what do I do? I do what my mother did after our conversation about Thanksgiving I’d grab a bag of chili cheese fritos and down the puppy to its crumbs.

I simply went to my room and wrote. I had a word count to get and I simply didn’t have time for her hypocritical bullshit. I understand my aunt almost died and it has freaked my mother out in a big way. It freaked me out. It gave me what many would say was a ‘coming to Jesus’ moment. Where my aunt was (open heart surgery, her kidneys shutting down, her coming thisclose to death) was where my habits were taking me. I didn’t want to be on that path anymore. I think of where I want to be and that’s what I’m going to do. I couldn’t continue eating late at night. Snacking and sneaking and grazing and pigging out to the point of sickness.

My mom’s not there yet. And I suspect she has her own mood disorder issues as both my sister Sara and I have bipolar disorder, and Brandy deals with depression. The only common like dna wise that we have is my mother. My mood disorder isn’t her ‘fault’ it isn’t anyone’s fault, but there’s a lot of anger in me. I feel it stir every time I write an emotional scene in a book or screenplay, or the teleplay I wrote for Nashville based on the book I’m writing.

I’ve stripped the excuses away. Yeah, I had a crazy, dysfunctional childhood, and mom and dad and Jerry are a good part of that. But the point is, and my mom likes to think she knows me (she doesn’t) and she thinks she knows my mood disorder (she doesn’t have the first clue) and she tries to command me not to face those issues, not feel them. But the reality is, if the weight is going to stay off I’m going to have to face those emotions that I’ve covered up. The pain, the anger, the anguish, the fear, the rage, it’s all to going to come to the surface eventually, I just pray for the strength not to eat to it.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

Here I am 25K+ from my goal on NaNoWriMo. For those who read this blog don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. And I’ll be honest Daniel, you don’t know me, and the reality is will never know me, by that’s not what this blog has ever been about so I’m going to talk about my current state of mind and my mind’s current state is this. It is exhausted.

Let me explain. NaNo is 50K in one month. However, I am attempting 70K overall. I’ve never done that before. Ever. The furthest I’ve gotten is 60K and that was after trying to get out of it, several times. It lead to my first advance, which I gave back because they wanted to strip my voice out of the manuscript.

Don’t get me wrong they were nice people and it’s a fabulous indie publishing house but it wasn’t the kind of fit I was looking for. It meant turning down a 500 dollar advance. Which in this world was very hard to do.

But as I said it’s a year later and I know 70K is within my grasp but I’m very, very tired. When I tell my parents I’m toast after a day’s work they think I’m nuts. Point is after all the tweeting, FBing, and blogging one should be sick to death of even being on line, yet, it’s part of the daily grind.

Now, I love writing. Penning tales is kind of my thing. I feel like something’s wrong if I’m not writing. Like maybe I’m fidgety and my skin starts to jump. I’m restless and without direction. I wonder if it’s like that for other artists, that is you’re not creating you feel like perhaps something is just off.

Which brings me to the flipside of that, the exhaustion. My parents are tolerant of my pursuit of my creative endeavors. In my dad’s eyes my mother is a saint. And to some degree she is. But no one is perfect. 

Especially her or me. Dad is pointed in his assessment of this. He says living at home bothers me more than it bothers them. Of course it does. I spend two thirds of my time in that room. Partially because it’s conducive to writing and partially because it protects me from whatever particular mood they’re in that day.

Back to #NaNo. I struggled in the beginning. I thought, how am I going to make it to 50K? And then I realized what was blocking me. I had never written an EPIC before. A book with varying viewpoints. Flashback fully realized. And characters, even the bad ones, could have humanizing qualities. Innocents turned bad due to circumstances beyond their control. Heroes who are inherently flawed making them more anti-hero than hero. And with only one true heroic character, the heroine, I suddenly realized somewhere between 5K-15K that this book could go the full 70K distance. Which truth be told was still a little too short for NY but it just might wiggle through if it was good enough.

What makes things so awesome is I have my own personal cheerleader in someone I will not mention because I don’t know how they feel about me using their name. Of course there’s a part of me that doesn’t want me to share her. She simply too awesome.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I want to share something with you and those who read this blog. The handful who’ve graced me with their readership know that my recent trajectory is nothing short of mind boggling. I’ve been writing since I was five. Been watching t.v. and going to the movies before then. One of my first memories is being in a let down hatchback of a Pinto. Yes. I said hatchback and Pinto. And my mom, dad, sister Brandy and I were at the drive-in. And yes, I realize I said drive-in. The movie we were seeing was The Empire Strikes Back. I can’t remember if I made it through the whole movie since that was 78 and that would make 3 at the time. But the experience I remember distinctly.

The speaker you hung on the window. The warm night air. The way you had to walk all the way back to the concession stand. The stickiness of the floor. Honestly one shouldn’t probably eat anything that came out of that place. Every now and again we had the money for it but ultimately we had large paper bags and this was before the advent of microwave popcorn. We popped our own popcorn. When I got older my aunt and uncle did this, brought a cooler of cokes and lawn chairs and we sat outside the car and watched the movies that way. It was a cool and special way to go to the movies.

Growing into adulthood I found I wanted to be a part of the magic. I wanted to write movies. But being in the middle of nowhere when it came film (I live in KY) and being part of a blue collar family I didn’t know anything beyond NYU and USC and  UCLA film school. And the competition for those scholarships it seemed was way out of my league and my parents didn’t have the money to send me anywhere. I went on a partial scholarship to a theatre arts program school where the focus was on acting. My mental health problems were already raring their ugly little heads so I dropped out after the first year.

After a brush with cult called Amway and bouncing around to several nothing jobs, I began to write. Not particularly well. But I played in my sandbox alone, playing around with the kinds of stories I wanted to tell. No one told me  what I was doing was right or wrong. I was pretty much allowed to develop on my own. Reading books, going to films of all kinds from Batman to Muriel’s Wedding.

For the longest time I resisted moving out of my family’s house, funny, right? I’d been on my own, living with a boyfriend and his problematic family. I loved him very much, but I couldn’t handle being cut off from everything I’d ever known, and after 5 months in New Mexico I moved back to Kentucky.

My voice was allowed to develop freely. And when I met Missy she approached me about writing a romance novel together. I, in my arrogance and ignorance told her sure let’s write a romance novel for the money. She loved the romance genre, and what I found was that love stories are hard to craft. Especially ones that demand happily ever afters where I had a penchant for killing off one or both of the lovebirds. Nicholas Sparks likes to blather and blither on that he writes love tragedy. The reality is he writes women’s fiction. Where romances don’t always end happily ever after. Honestly, I read how he treated a female writer for even suggesting this and I think he was just being a jerk.

That being said, my twenties were filled with learning the art of the pitch, which I hate to brag but I’m really good at it. And co-writing scripts and shooting short films. Some of which I would never show the light of day. But here’s the thing, my voice was developing over that time. And in my early thirties I exercised my novel writing muscle. I needed a break, and Lea Schizas of MuseItUp Publishing gave it to me for my romantic suspense short novel, Another Way to Die. (Yes, I know, I stole the title from Quantum of Solace’s Bond Theme. Bad Amy.) And proceeded to go through the most grueling edit ever. I now have five books with them. Each better than the last. I was 35. It was 2011. I am now 38, and have books spread out across three other small presses.

Then last fall I got the itch. I wanted to write a screenplay again. Just to see if I’d gotten any better. I hadn’t gone near a screenplay in 5 years. They say it’s a young person’s game, but at 38 Missy and I, women, no less, scored our first win ever with Bounty Hunter. This past spring Missy and I watched Kevin’s Burn In Hell tour. She asked me if I wanted to start down that path again. Why not? What did we have to lose?

In the span of 4 months I penned two short novels and co-wrote two screenplays. Since as you may have noticed I penned a pilot and developed a treatment. Wrote another short novel and now I’m working furiously towards a 70K length novel. My first one that I can actually take to agents.

For what it’s worth I know drive-in’s are dying. That New York will look vastly different on the publishing landscape, but I already have found an agent to submit to quite by accident. But first to finish that book, Bella Morte.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I know I often write of the hardships I’m facing. And though I’m well aware of people having it worse than me I want to share with you some of the really cool stuff that is happening. And there really is some cool stuff going on. Nothing that screams ‘you’ve made it’, but stuff that inspires me to keep going.

Let’s start with the simple stuff. I’ve been contracted by Hekate Press to pen an 8 book series called Bella Morte. I’ve already talked about this on my blog here, but it bears repeating. I sold it on a simple pitch. The idea came out of a reading I had done for me by a gifted woman by the name of Bertena Varney. She said a lot of things but only one that I ran with, that it was a character that was tough and had been through a lot and knew how to fight. She said it would be a 4-8 book tale. And that I would be ‘known’ for it.

Justice Xavier is the character that was born out of those suggestions and the series took shape from that point on. I wrote a fast 25K draft that although good, was limited in that it was told from the first person. I decided to do a massive overhaul and double the length for my NaNoWriMo project. I pitched the series to cover artist extraordinaire and new publisher/owner Delilah K Stephans. She liked the idea and took it on. 

She got the concept and when I told her my plans to overhaul and how I was going to overhaul it she liked the idea even more.

Now, you know, as in Hollywood relationships are key and Delilah was my cover artist with MuseItUp Publishing for almost three years before she decided to venture out on her own with this company. And when Hydra Publications went through a reorganization I asked for the rights to two of my series back and 

Delilah agreed to take them on at Hekate. So as Hekate opens its doors on November 15^th for new submissions, I am proud to say I am the Interim Marketing Director. Another blessing.

In the process I decided I wanted to develop Bella Morte into a television series. So I wrote the pilot. Now I know I’m bragging and it’s bad form, but the pilot totally kicks ass. The treatment, however, took a lot more work. So here is another place where I am blessed and lucky.

As I have mentioned previously I attended (and won at) Fandom Fest/Fright Night Film Festival this past July. While there I got to see some of my heroes (Kevin Smith, Adrian Paul) and meet some really cool people (Brian O’Halloran and Jim Cornette). While there I had the pleasure and good fortune of connecting with Grant Wilson of Ghost Hunters, we spoke about writing and ghost hunting and other some other things and he was impressed with me (I was squeeing on the inside) and he gave me his business card. We exchanged emails and when I asked about how to break into television he told me I needed to start with a treatment.

I had earlier in the year via another writer come into contact with Tom Sawyer, showrunner, Emmy winner and bestselling author of the Murder She Wrote series. I asked for some feedback on my treatment. And he gave me some blunt, but wonderful advice and was kind enough to send me some examples of television treatments he had done. My treatment improved a hundred fold.

Now I have a Facebook contact that I don’t want to overwhelm with requests so I’ll keep him anonymous, but suffice it to say he is a television and stage actor who was able to trouble shoot my treatment further. I have sent him the revisions and I await his further feedback.

I have also entered the Nashville Film Festival Screenwriting Competition in several categories, the Indie Gathering Competition and ScriptPipeline’s First Look Competition with several screenplays and the pilot and treatment for Bella Morte.

Honestly, I don’t know how this will all pan out, but I’m nothing if not hopeful where it comes to my writing career. I have faith and believe and I am always writing. If not a book then a screenplay.

NaNo is cooking right now and the fact I had the energy to do a blog this late at night says something about what the competition does to you. Blessed beyond measure in my career, I take the lumps in my personal life, as my daybed I sleep on is literally falling apart and I have no money to replace it. LOL.  Such is the trade off I make. Hope all is well with you and yours,

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I have the best kind of friends. They’re all batcrap crazy, but still they’re better than the dysfunctional, batcrap family that I have. Allow me to explain.

Last night I had dinner with my mom and dad. Recently, my sister Sara lost her job, due to a ‘personality conflict’. My youngest sister is a total redneck. Not in any negative sense of the word. She’s loyal even when perhaps the person she’s loyal to doesn’t deserve it. But at the same time she’s a manipulative person who will go out of her way to get what she wants.

So as I was saying, I was at Bob Evans for dinner. Mom gets the call on the way home. Yes mom, I know I have a truck and a boyfriend who could get off his ass and go get and do the running that the family needs to do, but instead I’ll ask you to go to Wal-Mart and pay for everything.

Listen, I’ve seen pictures of you smoking. But I’m not a smoker. And there’s no way in hell I’m paying for someone else’s habit. Mom justified buying all this stuff for them and keeping us out until 8:30 at night while Sara and her family sat snug in their apartment.

I used to eat out with my mom and dad A LOT. And they footed the bill. I try not to do it as much because they’ve made it clear on more than one occasion they don’t want to. Which is fine. But they don’t do it nearly as often as they used to, yet I get the same lecture every time I go with them. Order off the cheap end of the menu. Get water to drink. They treat me like a child yet they bend over backwards for Sara and her family and Brandy and her son.

I suppose that’s their prerogative, and given I live in their home so that I can pursue my passion I should count my blessings and let it be at that.

But admittedly it’s difficult. I’m eating better and exercising so the negative emotions, and the old wounds reopen much easier now that I’m not covering them up.

At the table, even in the face of me ordering the cheapest dinner, they tell me I’m hard to live with. They tell me I’m the most sensitive to my own feelings. And all be call me their most demanding child.

What do I actually ask of them? Something they want desperately to give to other people. Their time. They complain when I work and want to talk when I’ve completed a real full day. When I have news, like industry people giving me invaluable feedback on my work or said industry people possibly showing said work to those I couldn’t possibly reach from where I am currently they give me the equivalent of an emotional shrug.

Meanwhile my friends know that for the kind of work I do these things I do are huge and have the potential to get me out of a place where the appreciation is little and the ignorance of what I do is vast.

So why do I crave their validation when it’s obvious they want no part of this life? And will likely only stand up and cheer when the actual ship comes in. My friends appreciate and love me for who I am and what I do. 

My family’s eyes simply glaze over when I talk about what my life is without them.

I love my family, but my friends have been the collective on which I depend both personally and professionally. Pam and Missy, they are without a doubt batcrap crazy, but then so am I. I understand their crazy and for the most part they understand mine. And for that reason I’ll be able to switch gears and finish my NaNoWriMo word count.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle