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Hi Friend,
Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve had a normal newsie update thingie hasn’t it? I’ve wanted to write. I’ve been meaning to write. There were a few fun things I’d been lining up to tell you, but then COVID arrived and the whole world went belly up trying to adapt to overnight disruption and just when it seemed as if things might finally settle down the disruption shifted in a whole different direction and, I mean, how exactly does one throw together a breezy little newsletter from the middle of a whirlwind?
Clearly, as the long silence has proven, one simply doesn’t.
THE WRITER LIFE: I wish I could tell you that during this long newsie absence I’ve been burrowed in, keeping my head down, and kicking so much butt that I’ve got tons to brag about, but mostly I’ve just kept on kicking. And it's kind of been like ripping a Band-Aid off to get everything over with at once because in the midst of all this chaos-at-large I also sold my house, moved twice, sold off or donated half of everything I owned, and guided my oldest fledgling out of the nest by helping said fledgling do the same.
The mushroom cloud hasn’t fully settled yet as I’m still quasi living out of boxes and it’ll be a while before I’ve dug all the way out of the aftermath, and there are days when, unable to find something among the boxes which I swear I packed but now seems to be forever lost, I feel like I’m losing my freaking mind. But, in comparison to the stress of everything that came before--everything that led to my brain breaking--and compared to the struggle of dealing with the worst aftermath of a broken brain, I’m in a better place emotionally and mentally than I’ve been in…years?
It’s such a fascinating paradox. I should be so stressed right now.
I have no book under contract, no idea when I’ll finish the one I’m working on, am facing the very real possibility that I’ll never be published again, all of which means I’m not getting paid and have no idea if or when I’ll be paid again. And writing isn’t just the only way I know how to pay the bills, it’s part of my identity, it’s all I’ve ever known as an adult in the real world, it’s who and what I am!
And yet stepping off that hamster wheel, letting go of everything I’d been fighting so hard to achieve, and simply accepting what is as it is was the best thing I could have done. I owe so much to every patron who has and who continues to pledge. The monthly support has been a bridge over the chasm. You’ve given me my life back and allowed me space to breathe and to heal and to find a new way forward.
So, I guess I have been kicking butt, I just don’t have a lot to show for it in terms of words on the page.
That said, I have been putting my butt in chair and writing every chance I get.
Making words work is still very much a challenge. In the old days these six months would have at least given me a full outline and a solid half of a first draft and I’d already be talking about what was to come. All I have to show for the time and effort right now are a few clean chapters, although they are chapters I’m especially proud of.
I have good days, I have bad. I get frustrated. But for the first time in forever I’ve also started having moments again where I’m in the flow, immersed in the story and feeling it. And those moments, as spread out as they may be, give me so much hope!
Oh, and also. . .
You may remember newsies last year making mention of a collaborative project that I wasn’t able to share details on at the time? It was a good project for me because, although there was some hands-on writing involved, most of my work was behind-the-scenes stuff, which was really good for easing back into the world of words and proving to myself that I could. Anyway, it so happens, that nameless project now has a name and if you’re looking for a fun read and/or listen that’s a bit different from the way most books are released you can find SerialBox’s Marvel’s Black Widow: Bad Blood here.
Oh, and also. . .
In that last newsie, which now feels like it was written years ago, you might also remember I’d mentioned how some of the struggle in returning to writing Munroe might not have been just from my brain being broke but because I had spent so much time away from the character and that maybe the best way for me to get back into Munroe’s head was to actually read the series. Like, read every book from cover to cover as a reader for the first time. I’ve had so little time free these past few years that I’ve hardly read but a couple of books at all, and it’s not like all of a sudden I had more time. But I really believed—still do—that I needed to do this and so off I went.
Progress has been slow, to say the least, but thus far I’ve read THE INFORMATIONIST and am now early into THE INNOCENT and I’ve book club blogged my thoughts along the way for anyone who wanted to read along. Here are the links to the existing posts if you’d like to catch up and/or continue on with me.
Oh, and also . . .
Through the years I’ve occasionally made mention of The Taylor Stevens Show podcast and I’m making mention of it here again now because, even though podcast listening isn’t everyone’s cup of tea—less so if you’re not necessarily interested in seeing how the writing soup is made—we nearly always spend the first five to ten minutes chit-chatting about what’s new in life (which lately has been my adventures in gardening and raising chickens and a few surprise encounters with snakes(!!)). Which is to say it’s the type of fun personal stuff I’d probably put on social media if I’d ever gotten the hang of social media and if converting thought into coherent writing wasn’t still so excruciatingly difficult. Anyway, since I’ve been showing up less and less in your inbox and even less online and God only knows how long it’ll be until I have another book finished, the Taylor Stevens Show is a fun way to keep up with the stupid little stuff that makes me laugh.
Oh, and also . . .
MOVIE NEWS: In the long-running vein of "Has there been any update on what's happening with the movie?" I can finally say I have heard something. And I’m about to tell you what that something is. But for it to make any sense I have to backtrack a tiny bit to 2013 when THE INFORMATIONIST was first optioned for film. At the time, James Cameron and Jon Landau had just started in on the project of making Avatar 2 and 3 and it was made quite clear that those movies had priority and nothing was going to happen with Munroe until those projects were finished.
I was fine with that because I’d always felt that Munroe should be done right or not at all. The “not at all” part has always been a given. Very few books get optioned for movies and only a small percentage of those ever make it to the screen. And as far as “done right” was concerned, unless you’re some big name author with multiple parties fighting for your material, once you sign on the dotted line you relinquish all control, and I do mean ALL. Whoever controlled the rights could ditch the entire story, set it in, say, downtown LA, make Munroe an undercover cop and stuff her in a tight pleather outfit and 6-inch heels and turn her into yet one another generic Fighting F*ck Doll that Hollywood is notorious for churning out, and there’d be not a darn thing I could say.
But both Cameron and Landau totally got the character for who she was and they were big enough in the industry to follow their own vision and avoid the pitfalls and pressure of a movie made by committee. They also didn’t take on projects willy-nilly and, in fact, had already shut down their production company with the intent of focusing entirely on Avatar films. So for them to take THE INFORMATIONIST was a huge, huge course reversal and I figured all that together at least upped the odds on both counts and I didn’t care how long it took if it meant they would be the ones to do it.
You know that saying, “be careful what you wish for?”
Well, what started as Avatar 2 and 3 then turned into Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5, and there were long delays in getting the script finished and other delays due to the technology not yet being caught up to what Cameron wanted to do—not that I was an insider to any of this, I got it from the news just like everyone else. And then finally filming began and Avatar 2 was pushed back yet again for an it’s-for-real-this-time December 2020 release (though, considering the state of movie theater releases and COVID and yada-yada, Lord only knows what’s happening with that now.)
And you might wonder what this fascinating-but-very-much-a-digression-down-memory-lane has to do with today’s news about a Munroe movie.
Well, as it happens the option on THE INFORMATIONIST was seven-year agreement (initial 3 years followed by two 2-year renewals,) and if you’re good at math you might notice that 7 years from February 2013 takes us to February 2020. Which means the entire agreement would expire before even the first of the Avatar sequels was finished.
And here’s the thing about film options: While, in theory, a film option means you’ve sold the film rights, in practicality all it really means is that the other party might one day maybe want to buy those rights and has gone to the effort of negotiating the details of that hypothetical maybe-one-day sale and, in the meantime, is offering you a small portion of the agreed-upon hypothetical future sales price to keep you from selling those rights to anyone else. At each renewal period they get to decide if they want to give you another small portion of the future hypothetical sale to keep the agreement in place or just let the whole thing expire.
It’s always been my understanding that if the production company continued to renew at each renewal period and if we reached the end of the full agreement they’d have to either fulfill the contract by buying the rights or let the agreement lapse. And that’s where we were in February. And given the nature of the delays on the Avatar projects and the stage of production Avatar 2 was in, both of those options felt lose-lose. Because I just couldn’t imagine any situation in which there’d be time or focus for Cameron and Landau to work on anything but Avatar for another year at the very, very least, and I also didn’t see the production company buying rights to something that was just going to sit there.
Which meant the most likely outcome was that they’d let the agreement lapse. And while letting it lapse did mean the rights would become available for someone else who might want them, that just put us right back to square one [doing it right or not at all + most options dying before making it to film] but now trying to do it with an “old” story with zero buzz around it that’s already been cut loose by one of the biggest names in the business.
I figured the best possible outcome we might hope for here was if the production company bought the rights and then either sold them to someone else (a different version of back to square one) or brought on someone else to develop it, as they did with Battle Angel Alita,which also felt like a longshot and a crapshoot.
So I took the head-in-the-sand approach and tried to pretend that February 2020 wasn’t even a thing. Like, maybe if I didn’t look at it straight-on everyone would kind of forget it existed, and it could just hang there in limbo like Schrödinger’s film option, and then a couple of years later they could be like, oh hey, so about your Munroe character, we’re ready to make a movie now.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
What did happen is my film agent reached out to tell me he’d heard from Jon Landau who'd said that although he and Cameron had been slowed by Avatar they still had an undying passion for developing THE INFORMATIONIST and were asking if they could extend the agreement by another 24-months.
And just like that lose-lose turned into the best of all worlds.
Okay, fine, maybe not best of all worlds. But considering it wasn’t possible to just magic away the current circumstances and start getting that movie made now, best of all reasonable, available worlds.
Does this mean we’re guaranteed to get that movie started in two years? Nope.
Does it mean we’re guaranteed to get the movie at all? Also nope.
But it does mean that, assuming big theater production movies are even a thing a few years from now, we’re still in the game for getting it done by someone who gets the character and who is in the position to do it right.
In summary: The something I finally heard about the movie is that James Cameron and Jon Landau haven’t forgotten about it and still want to do it but there's no idea of when and we're still waiting and I’ve still got something amazing to hope for.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE BOOKS GIVEAWAY: When one of my books gets published in a foreign language, the foreign publisher usually sends a few copies my way which I try to pass on to those who will appreciate and use them. It's been a while since we last did this and I’ve now got another box of babies that need new homes.
So, if you have a US mailing address and if you/ any of your friends/ family/ acquaintances read in any of the below languages and would like to have a copy of a Munroe title in one of those languages, please email me back with FOREIGN BOOKS in the subject line and let me know which language and where to send your copy(ies) and I’ll get them on their way to you.
Unfortunately, due to the insanely high cost of shipping books abroad, I can only extend this offer to US addresses. Please also know that these are being offered on a first come, first serve basis, are in very limited quantity, and some languages tend to be requested often and thus get claimed quickly. All are variants of trade paperback except where otherwise noted.
Languages available are:
* Chinese
* Czech [Hard cover]
* German
* Japanese [pocket paperback]
* Finnish [mass market paperback]
* Polish
* Portuguese
* Romanian
GOODIE GIVEAWAY: And this newsie would not be complete without fun stuff to give away. There are five books in the giveaway pile this month and if you’d like to be entered to win, simply respond to this email with the subject “GOODIE GIVEAWAY.” If your email program likes to be difficult and won’t let you change the subject, just put GOODIE GIVEAWAY in the reply and I will make sure it gets to the right place.
The 7th, 19th, 34th, 55th, 71st readers to respond will be prize winners this month. I read every single email that comes in but due to the volume, I’m ONLY able to respond to the 7th, 19th, 34th, 55th, 71st respondents. If you email and don’t hear back, it’s not because I’m ignoring you, it’s because due to time and volume, I just can’t.
[Standard buzzkill disclaimer for all giveaways and offers of free books: Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Limited to U.S. addresses. I am not responsible for lost or misrouted emails, interrupted or unavailable network or server connections, other computer or technical failures, or post office mishandling.]
Hugs and love until next Newsie, whenever it may be.
--Taylor
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