Dear Daniel Craig

Dear Daniel,

I spent my birthday quietly, thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! Promoted a few of my friends' work and had an interesting discussion with Stephen Zimmer. He asked me if I didn't want the success and the fame why was I working and going at it so hard. I told him I wanted to be protected. It made me think. From what? Success? Failure? Disappointment? Well I do want the success and I have always been ambitious.

The truth is, I have always been a driven person. Even as a kid. I wanted to be the best at what I did. But with the writing contests I could never unlock the mystery to winning the competition. Winning I’ve found to be two parts writing from the heart. One half part finding the right reader. And one half part dumb luck. And all of it born from busting your ass on a daily basis.

Still you can go your whole life and never win a damn thing and go without signing a single solitary contract.

I find I’m still as obsessed as ever where it comes to winning. But somewhere along the way I lost the mentality that I was an ‘imposter’. I think it happened somewhere along the 13 books that are now out and the myriad of contracts I’ve signed and the self-publishing ventures I’ve made.

None of this came to me gift wrapped in a box with a box on it. It started when I was kid and the bibulous desire to write and create was stirred in me by the acts of reading, watching television, and going to the movies. I thought I want to do that. At five years of age. Now that would take a while to crystallize into any form of validation of my writing. But the desire was there. I was given wonderful teachers who introduced me to the Success program where we had a notebook and once a week we were given a prompt and we would write stories about them.

I wanted success. But I found only emotional truth brought any kind of success. I kind of stumbled onto this when I was 13 when I wrote a short story about the French Underground and the survival of people living in the woods. This was way before I ever knew about the Bielski Brothers and the movie Defiance. I’m 39 years old now it’s been awhile since I wrote the story. But inside of it was the story of survival, and a love story. (I had a boyfriend at the time.) The name of the book was A Candle In the Darkness. I won my school’s competition for it and received a medal at a county wide awards ceremony.

Validation. Emotional truth and people responded to it.

But it was a lesson I had to hear and learn again several times over. But this last time. When I started the blog, by the time I had graduated therapy I had learned the lesson. But talking to Stephen tonight made me think about why I was so nervous, so scared of going to Film-Com.

I’m just as afraid of success as I am of failure. I’ve gotten some blowback recently that I won’t go into here from people that I love and adore and I don’t want to lose them because I’m ‘livin’ above my raising’.

I forfeited a booklaunch. Stephen if you’re reading this please attach book launch back to screening of Letters to Daniel. But please try to slide in the one thing we were talking about.

I do want the fame and the glory, but I always write because the stories in me drive me to write them. I don’t control them. They most definitely control me LOL. I want to be financially set. I don’t want to have to struggle anymore. I want the power to meet my heroes on equal footing.

I work really fucking hard at what I do. And for people to dismiss that or take it personally really bothers me. The list goes like this:

1.      Writing

2.      Chyna

3.      Missy

4.      Pam

5.      Parents

6.      Siblings

7.      Debbie & Frank                                                                                                                                                

Everything else is secondary. I’m starting to be known on the scene here locally. Now just to find a way to make that spread out. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Thank you Stephen for setting me straight tonight. Film-Com here I come!

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I often talk about Missy and what she does for me. She often compares herself to a pack mule and me as the thoroughbred. She does the hard grunt behind the scenes that often lifts me up from just another writer to someone who looks like a star. She is a Taurus in every sense of the word. Steady, calm, nurturing, and if she wants to give she will, and she will do it without question.

But there is a flipside to this Missy’s bibliography reads like this: It’s Your Love, co-authored efforts Gunpowder and Lead Series (2 more novellas to come), and the short novel When Doves Cry. Then there are our screenwriting efforts. They have been many and we are finally starting to see a payoff in that area. And again her helping me (a big nod for ALL the hard work both she and Pamela Turner have put into to this) bring my documentary based upon this blog to life.

However, here’s the thing. She has never had a solo book launch. She has never had the day where as she put it last night where the mule was prettied and shined up to show and be made to feel like the star. Everything that is out with exception of It’s Your Love has either been a shared effort or as she put it, my dreams coming to life.

So here I am doing for her what I should have been doing all along. Doing for her what she does for me. Letting her shine like the star that she is.

Her most current project is My Summer With the King, a coming of age tale about a twelve year old girl named named May and her friendship over the course of that summer with the King himself Elvis Presley. It covers her relationships with her single mother Rose, her sister Daisy, and her cousin Thelma. The rush of true love with Jack, and the confrontation with her mother’s menacing boyfriend Nick.

It’s currently undergoing revision but the first draft is fantastic. She plans on having it edited and will launch it at Imaginarium! Where I am already quite busy but it’s simply not fair for me to expect her not to taste some of the solo joy I am tasting. Screenwriting has always been something we did together and while we’ve done some books together it’s simply nice to be known for something you’ve created on your own.

Maybe it’s a selfish thing, perhaps it about being in control. But everyone deserves their day in the sun. And Missy certainly has earned hers. Be on the lookout for her relaunched blog, FB page and her official author site.

I really believe in her the way she has believed in me. I hope everyone who reads this will join me in celebrating who Missy is and what she wishes to become over the next year. I really want her to feel like she can shine her brightest around me and not just to be a mirror who reflects my light.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel Craig,

Dear Daniel,

I wanted to have something good to end this volume of letters with. Talking about people best left in the past wasn’t something I wanted leave the audience or you with for that matter. The people discussed in the previous letter don’t approve of how I live my life. Which for the record  is none of their business but for all to know I don’t drink (except for the occasional celebratory drink or New Year’s Eve), I don’t smoke, and the only drugs I take are those I need to in order to keep me balanced (my bipolar meds), my allergy medicine (off brand Claritin), and Prilosec for GERD. And of course the occasional Tylenol or Motrin. Hardly a hardcore drug users medicine chest.

That being said, I work hard every day. Though not everyone can appreciate what I do as hard work even my parents have time just how hard I’m busting my tail end off. But hard work reaps rewards. I’ve talked about Film-Com which a week and a half away. Godspeed to me and my time. I want to enjoy myself, but I don’t want blow my opportunity either. It’s not every day I get invited to one of these things.

I’ve talked about Imaginarium and how there will be book launches and a movie premiere of BLACKOUT: AN AURORA BLACK NOVEL and Letters to Daniel Vol 1&2 and the screening of the film.

I’ve told you of the busy schedule I’m keeping this summer and early fall. But I’ve also told you of the many contests I’ve entered. Nashville, Fright Night/Fandom Fest, Indie Gathering, soon Imaginarium. And I’ve been waiting to hear back on them. Probably the hardest thing for a writer to do is wait and given we all write on spec we spend a great deal of our time doing exactly that.

Nashville was a bust. But tonight I got word on Fright Night/Fandom Fest. Both of mine and Missy’s screenplays finaled. That’s City of the Damned and Bella Morte. I’m getting a table and selling my books there. If I could show you a really awkward happy dance that makes me really look stupid that’s how happy I am tonight.

I would like to acknowledge some people here that really made this happen. First and foremost my sister from another mister, Missy Goodman. We have been writing together a really long time. Last year we broke through at this festival screenplaywise and we would like a chance to win again. We sold a lot of books there. I’d like to do that again. Missy and I met while working at a bookstore 18 years ago. We started writing together a year later. The road has been long and hard filled with obstacles for both of us. But it bonded us in the kind of friendship you don’t find every day. Yes we argue. Yes we fight. Sometimes. But we are always there for each other. And the success we’re tasting now is all the sweeter for it.

The second person I’d like to thank is Pamela Turner, a brilliant author, blogger, screenwriter, and filmmaker in her own right, we met her in 2001 and worked with her on a 2004 project that I just won’t talk about as a professional. We had everything go wrong on that set, including having two people who didn’t know their lines. We liked some of them we barely got along with others. And Pam became the friend who stuck by us like glue. She was disciplined, serious about her craft, and took no prisoners in her career. A little rough around the edges with a tender heart of gold she became a friend when no one else wanted to be. She showed me the ropes in ebook world and told me about free online writing conferences where I found my first taste of publishing success. She also pointed me in the direction of my first Con Fandom Fest and the literary track director, Stephen Zimmer.

Stephen Zimmer is a haus! He regularly champions up and coming writers and authors and helps them get started in their careers. He’s helped me, Pam, and Missy every year at Fandom Fest and  is the man behind the magic at Imaginarium. He has a big vision for Imaginarium and I believe in it what it could one day become. It’s in its first year and I am incredibly honored that he picked Letters to Daniel the documentary to be the premiere event. Because I also have two book launches there and am entering other contests he wants me to get a t-shirt that says McCorklefest on it.

Now, other than the fact I hate my last name it tickles me that he says that. But my last name is what my readers know me by. It’s my brand so even I were to get married I would always be Amy McCorkle or Kate Lynd on the front of my books or in my work.

But there you have it City of the Damned and Bella Morte are both finalists in Fandom Fest/Fright Night 2014 and the winners will be revealed August 2^nd, 2014. And like I did last year, knowing like I did last year, I invite you and your family to come to the awards ceremony. But like I said snowball, hell. For now I’ll just celebrate the moment and be happy. Because this is what I work for. For people to like and recognize my work. To enjoy my work. And by this blog and book and documentary to help people with my work.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel Craig,

I have often talked about my mom and (step)dad and just referred to my stepdad as just dad. Because really, for better or worse, even when I feel like they don’t get me, they don’t support me, and they don’t cheer in an ideal fashion they do their best and at the end of the day I know they do indeed love me, allow me to live in their home as I pursue my dream and supplement my grocery bill that’s far more than others I see getting. So while at times they do forget about me and put others accomplishments above mine I figure, they’re coming in September to Imaginarium and dad is coming to the PREMIERE event along with my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Frank. I have support. But as I’ve taken this journey I’ve learned who deserves to have an emotional relationship with me and who doesn’t.

And the one that doesn’t received a lot of coverage early on in this blog. My biological father. I won’t say his name because he’s not the target of my ire tonight. It’s his former ex-wife current girlfriend, old lady, caretaker, whatever you want to call her. And I will say her first name because clearly as co-dependent personality she thinks her mostly spent cache as my former stepmother who talked shit about me behind my back as a child earns her the right to say anything to me about how I live my life. Her name is Doris. And right now if I could beat the living crap out of punching bag it still wouldn’t cool the coals of fire she has stirred up in me.

A few years ago I wrote my biological father a letter telling him how I felt about what he did to me and others, how his behavior basically got us to the point where we were. And it was as if a hot poker had been cooled in my chest and weight had been lifted from my spirit. I mailed him the letter and well he just took it to mean I blamed him for my life turning out so shitty.

As anyone reading this blog knows, my life may be difficult at times but it is not shitty. Or terrible. If anything it turned out great in spite of him. He doesn’t acknowledge mental illness as a real illness and sees me as a mooch because I’m on disability and food stamps. The goal through all this work is to get OFF of those things. But I use them to survive and pursue my dreams and goals.

So when some dried up, bitter, angry, emotionally broke old woman thinks my biological father is something special it calls into question her basic ability to make sound decisions. Mind you I used babysit my baby sister for her while she worked and went out on the town. She married a man who had held gun on her and my sister so she could have the big wedding only to divorce him two weeks later.

She expects me to let her lecture me on the fine art of emotional relationships. Every single time I put myself out there for either of them they make me uncomfortable, they make me feel like I’m in danger, and like I don’t matter. One shouldn’t be made to feel like trash for being different and I AM different.

I have bipolar disorder. I need help to get by for it. I’ve come a long way WITHOUT ANY HELP from them. People like Pamela Turner who is brilliant as a writer, a blogger, and filmmaker and screenwriter. With rough edges of her own she really allows me to be me when no one is can or will. People like Missy Goodman who has literally at times lifted me up and carried me and all of my emotional baggage and accepted me as I am. Also a brilliant writer, blogger, filmmaker and screenwriter. My mom, as moody and as tempermental as she can be loves me and as hard as it is to get her to come to any of my events she still supports it even though she doesn’t get it. My dad by choice who called me his little iconoclast, who he took he walking as a kid. Turned me on to NPR, Moth Radio, and along with my aunt and uncle turned me on to all kinds of movies.

Of course, Jerry left his mark on me. Pain, addiction, his own struggle with mental illness. Doris, always close with Brandy and eventually when Sabrina was born making us feel like the other kids. I recall one Christmas, Sabrina’s first where everything Brandy and I got fit into a single t-shirt box while Sabrina was showered in her young state with countless gifts.

However, in the end I think I’m the one who won out. She got Jerry and Doris for parents. I got Faye and John.

Daniel, I know you’re not reading this, but in magazines I see you out with your daughter and can’t help but hope she got a Johnny-Dadddy (our nickname for John when we were young) for a father as opposed to a Jerry. And I hope on this Father’s Day that she’s as grateful for you in her life as I am for John being in mine.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle