Brendan Peveril . net

So, I’ve been doing this for a year, right? Well, it hasn’t been the best year of my life, but it was better than 2006, I guess. Rather than dwelling on that shit, though, I’m looking forward to 2008. You see, I’ve been taking it easy on the writing for the past couple of weeks, and conducting business. Let me tell you about it.

First off, the ironic bit. I go back home from LA to discover that I’ve got film contacts. Early in this new year I’m going to write something, we’re leaning toward a nasty little horror/black comedy. More on that as it develops.

The novel is still underway. I’ve had time to really discuss it with my co-writer, and it’s big, it’s good, and it actually feels like a real thing that I’m working on. It’s still a lot of work, but once I stop feeling so burnt out and I get back into the swing of writing, it really shouldn’t be too long before it’s written and being shipped to agents.

Comics. I’m starting to rethink A Deeper Shade of Gone, just because I’ve found it nearly impossible to get anyone else to be interested in that. I have, however, found somebody who wants to publish comics but doesn’t really draw or write them, so we’re discussing starting a label. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve got three reasonably large projects in various stages to launch this thing with, so I’ll be working my ass off on those. They’ve even got artists on board! Huzzah! Hopefully before 2009 you’ll all get to hold in your hands the first Peveril brothers’ (all three, not just Shamus and I) joint project. The brother gimmick works, so we figure we should take advantage.

As always, I’m still producing the short fiction and shopping it around. I had a breakthrough today that I think might get a piece that I like, but nobody wants to print, published.

That’s it for now, I guess. The third page of Death’s Children is up too, I’ll probably upload the last on before I leave Halifax. I think I’ll pop up in the next couple of days to tell you all about the webcomics I discovered in the past year too. LOOK FORWARD TO IT!

-bmp

So I haven’t updated in a few days. This is because I’ve encountered someone who has voiced interest in optioning a screenplay by me, and I’ve been wandering around in a fog mumbling things about fairy tales and writing little notes that make no sense (”Who is at the pokergame?”) on bits of paper and loosing those same bits of paper. I’m not good for much, the prospect of getting paid seems to drop my IQ by about 80 points. Have you ever tried to get anything done with an IQ of 13?

Anyway, the main bit I’m posting about: In the past couple of days I’ve heard good songs from both Guster and Cake, two bands I usually hate. What’s up with that? I guess their latest albums are probably worth checking out.

So, a while back I took a week off work to write a screenplay. What did I learn? A week is enough time for me to plan a screenplay, not write one. A while after that I learned that I didn’t much like the screenplay that I was writing (well, I liked it, and still like it, just fine, but I couldn’t imagine that anyone would buy it). I did like pieces of it, though. Here’s one bit I really liked.

To set the stage, the main character, Greg, has taken a vacation from work because he’s too stressed out. To fill the time he’s decided to make the trek from Seattle to LA to visit his sister, an aspiring actress (I may post his encounter with her wacky room mate later). He stops for a sandwich and a cup of coffee in some un-named truckstop town.

Greg pulls into the parking lot of a diner. It’s one of those places that looks almost like a kitchy diner in a big city, but not quite so much, because it’s a diner. These places are, across the board, depressing shitholes, and almost always have horrible food. Decade old smoke hangs in the air, even though nobody’s allowed to fucking smoke indoors in California anymore, and the afternoon sun is wafting in under the half lowered blinds. There are a couple of patrons, but it’s pretty much empty. Greg looks around and sits at the bar, near the waitress who is sitting on a stool behind the bar doing a crossword puzzle. She’s a career waitress, middle aged, stooped shoulders, sensible shoes, runs in her pantyhose, etc., not somebody making ends meet for the time being.

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