I have always found it funny how life can sometimes be so incredibly cyclical. That doesn't mean we are about to get into some grand discussion about fate and destiny, but you have to admit, it's a little strange how we sometimes step away from a particular aspect of our lives for either good or bad reasons, only to find ourselves standing in front of whatever we walked away from one more time. To me it simply means you have unfinished business with said matter, and if it's back after all this time...you need to finish whatever it is you started. 

From a career stand point, that's exactly where I was after several years of working on other projects. I had in essence forgotten about Fallen Angel while I spent all this time working on other projects to build my resume and that's okay. I wouldn't have traded any of the experiences we've talked about on digital paper here away for anything. But it dawned on me just how far this book had fallen by the wayside one fine morning when I was pouring myself a cup of coffee, pondering on what I needed to do that day project wise and coming to the realization...there was nothing on my list.

Hurricane Kid was out in Los Angeles. The website was up and running and doing just fine and the anthology was out there on the web, garnering reviews. If anything I found it strange that I had a quiet morning to myself for a change and while I basked in that peaceful glory for a little while, my mind began to drift back to the novel and it didn't take long to remember that getting this book published was the end game all along and while life had taken me on a crazy trip the last couple of years, that goal still remained; but I also came to the realization that with a resume now in hand and with my schedule finally free...it was high time to get back to that goal, to finish what I started. 

But before the query letters could flow once again, something inside told me I should probably give the novel another pass editing wise, just to make sure it was absolutely perfect for when the moment arrived and I'm glad I listened to that little voice in the back of my head. Because not only did I find a few places to fix, but I also discovered that for the first time ever, I was actually enjoying the editing process, I know, crazy, huh? But my joy from this process wasn't because I found only a few things to fix on this particular pass, it was because of the fact the book felt ready...and so did I. I felt confident in what I was about to do for the first time ever and that made the last few months of 2015 that I spent polishing this book extremely exciting.

Which means, we have come to present day. It's March 25th, 2016 and while I wanted to spend my new year sending out query letters, I was "delayed" for all the right reasons. I had a quick movie project to with in January that I quickly worked on and that's just fine, any opportunity that comes my way I will always jump upon...but that project is now complete and the query letter is rewritten and ready...which means it is time to find an agent, have them find a publisher and hopefully live my dream of becoming a published novelist. 

That also means, this blog may no longer pop up on a weekly basis, simply because this story has come to a standstill...but thankfully not its ending. But on the plus side, this is no longer a history lesson or a discussion of the past. This blog now lives in the moment, and I'll now be keeping everyone up to date on the latest news when it comes to my hunt for an agent, and everything that comes with that. Please bear in mind, I won't be naming what agents I am looking at or communicating with, nor will there be any negativity if they say no. It's unprofessional to do those things and I'm not really one for negativity anymore, and besides, this has already been one incredible ride as it is, and I can't wait to share with all of you what exciting things happen next and I thank you so much for taking the time to come with me on this journey. Until next time.

When it comes to the writing process as a whole, everything you do is all about getting you to that final goal of finding yourself published. The endless hours of planning, the long nights searching for that perfect word or sentence, the constant rewrites and carefully piecing together a query letter are the ingredients that go into seeing your name in print, and seeing your book in stores. It's really what every novelist dreams of and believe it or not...it's possible to find yourself published well before your novel is with an agency or a publisher.

Now I'm sure some of you are saying, duh John, it's called self publishing. But that's not what I'm getting at. I've said it before and I'll say it again, traditional publishing is where I have always wanted to be and well, I had the distinct honor of having my work put into print by a regional publisher and that's what we are going to talk about today. The wonder of getting an official credit under my belt and what the publishing process actually looks like, and all of this came courtesy...of the short story market. 

In fact, I'm of the opinion that short stories as a whole are a lost art. It seems as though everyone swings for the fences for the novel and the novel alone and while that's not a bad thing, I've always found short stories to be wondrous to read. It's so amazing to see a complete tale come together in quick fashion and truthfully I am a firm believer the master of the short story in this day and age is the maestro himself, Stephen King. Now I had written a few and sent them out right before I settled in to write a film called Hurricane Kid and honestly, I didn't bank much on hearing back from publishers on them. Not because I thought they were terrible stories, but simply because I wasn't sure there was much of a market left for them these days. 

How wrong I was. In the middle of writing Hurricane Kid, I heard back from one of the publishers; Evil Girlfriend Media. They were all about a horror short story that I had written entitled An Undying Love and well...they wanted to publish it in an upcoming anthology series, Roms, Bombs & Zoms. It took a while for me to process the fact that someone out there was actually willing to pay me for my story, but once it soaked in, I was over the moon. But me being the workaholic that I am, I saved the celebration for another time because there were quite a few things to get out of the way first for this story. Obviously, there was a contract to sign and all that legalese, but more importantly, there was going to be editing work done for this story, and this is where I fell in love with traditional publishing.

It wasn't a complex process, after all, this was a short story, but I was still enamored by all of it. Not only was this an up close and personal look at how an anthology novel comes together...this was a taste of the big leagues. There were deadlines to meet for going over the publisher's and editor's notes and those notes were fascinating. Each one was in no way negative, and while I know that may not always be the case, it was a great way to kick off my publishing experience as the notes questioned certain words that I had used or outlined what a quick edit of a sentence or two was going to look like. It was done in such a professional and clean fashion that there was little I was going to dispute or fight for, minus a few things here and there because these notes did something important...they made the story better.

It was crisp now, and it flowed all that much better and that was all thanks to the watchful eye of the brilliant folks over at EGM and I will always be grateful for this opportunity because those notes were filed away for a rainy day to continue to make me a better writer. But the magical moment, the time to celebrate came in the fall of 2013 when the book was finally released to the public. I got my digital copy and that was cool as all hell, but nothing compared to the moment when my author's copy arrived in the mail. Because in my hand...was the finished product and to be able to hold it in my hands and see the pages in front of me...well let's just say it was a special enough moment that I needed a tissue or two.

Because that moment was something far more important to me. It felt as though I had finally made a giant step forward, and the pressure that was mounting in my mind to do something, anything and make progress in my career had finally come and well...it made me hungry for more. It helped me finish Hurricane Kid and more importantly, I knew it was time to return to Fallen Angel and see this through to the end. But before I made it that far, I needed to give it one more thorough look before starting the querying process over again. So, armed with newfound confidence and knowledge, I cracked open Fallen Angel one more time, ready to give it one more pass, and that's where we will pick up next time. Until then.

​I think we often believe that a life changing moment if you will, comes to us exactly as it does in the movies. There should be a build up, tension, followed by that moment when everything around us transforms and suddenly we step forth with a smile on our faces and a Journey song rocking in the background. But the important moments are nothing like that. They are simply moments, no different than any other in our day and they don't become important or relevant until we take a little time later on to let it all sink in and reflect upon them. That's what happened to me when an old friend called me out of the blue and asked me if I was still interested in writing motion pictures.

At the time I hadn't written a screenplay in years, but apparently he knew a local author who needed help in adapting her book because she apparently had a producer lined up. This was my "in" if you will, to being able to work as a freelance screenwriter and well, it led to some amazing relationships and experiences. In fact, this particular period in my career ended up being ridiculously rewarding as a writer because screenwriting in my opinion, helped make the novel better and gave me invaluable experience in a slice of the creative industry. Now before we get too far into this blog, bear in mind that I'm going to breeze right through my film resume simply because I'm going to save those stories for a different series for another day.

So, back to the story at hand. That magical phone call from a friend ended with me jotting down another phone number for the author in question and I gave her a call and set up a meeting to see if I was the guy to do this and well, at the time I was extremely nervous. I'd never set up a meeting like this and when all was said and done, I apparently did things right because eventually I got some live experience in the field, took my lumps in the business and learned a lot in the process, signed some development deals that didn't pan out but that's okay because experience of any kind in the professional field is invaluable to a writer and I feel quite fortunate to have any at all but that smile also comes from the fact that it is an absolute blast to do and because my time spent writing these scripts has done so much for me on a personal level. That's actually another reason why I'm flying through my resume in Hollywood...because this blog series is about James Brigman and as I mentioned before, this experience helped improve the novel and it made me a better writer quite frankly in so many different and unique ways. For starters, screenwriting taught me a lot about deadlines and the need to meet them. We've all given ourselves goals as to when we should have something done but when a producer says they want it by the first of the month, you deliver by the first of the month. I quickly learned how to get work done in an efficient manner to make sure I met my deadlines and I apply that to everything I do with the written word anymore.

Screenwriting also taught me how to be concise and neat with my words. You don't have the luxury of embellishing anything in a screenplay. It has to be tight and clean since you only have 120 pages max to work with so one quickly learns to say exactly what they need to on the page. At the same time, writing a few films also improved my ability to write dialogue. Since you're spending little time on exposition, that means the only other way to fill the page is through what your characters say, and I learned quickly what worked and what didn't. But what screenwriting gave me that mattered most, was confidence. Writers as a whole are always wondering if their work is good enough and being able to get notes and feedback quickly and hear that what I was writing was liked, meant a lot and helped to push me to finish a script without question. 

But my proudest moment to date when it comes to screenwriting, and perhaps the biggest confidence boost that ever came along is when I snagged an award for Best Original Screenplay for a movie I wrote called Hurricane Kid at the 2014 Illinois International Film Festival. That my friends, was another magical phone call when I found out the news and well...it's a moment like that that reminds you why you do this and why you stay up late at night reworking a single sentence to perfection. It was purely a validation for me, and I am forever grateful and honored to have won this award and well...considering my battles with fear and doubt, this was the first time that I truly believed that maybe I could do this after all. 

But, since I've broken this part of the blog up into industry specific sections, we did miss out on discussing another life changing moment, one that happened in the midst of this whirlwind and one that is extremely important to any writer. So the next time we sit down to talk, we'll go back in time to that moment, one that solidified my belief that I need to be traditionally published, and one so awesome, it brought me to tears. Until then.

When we last left this blog, I was in a unique place...I was looking for a job. Not just any job mind you, but something that related to the written word and as I started my part time job hunt for a writing gig to beef up my resume for query letters...I found myself kind of lost. Hunting down a gig in the creative field isn't as simple as going on monster.com and looking it up like a regular job, it takes some creativity, networking and finesse. But when all was said and done, I did manage to find a way to put together a resume and that's really what the next three blogs, including this one are going to be about, the various ways I assembled my resume...starting with the odd jobs if you will.

Now the first thing I realized I needed to do, was earn some kind of actual publishing credit and to me, the easiest way to get that accomplished was by way of the short story market. After all, short stories are suddenly on the rise again and hey, they're a blast to write. So I sat down and just started cranking them out. I wasn't quite sure what would and wouldn't sell right away but I had ideas left and right for little stories and I figured now was as good a time as any to get them out on the page. Naturally after I finished my little writing binge for these, I only saw two or three that I found to be viable and commercial. Now these are a little easier to submit to publishers so off they went and well...bear in mind one of them was a zombie story that holds some significance to this blog series, so we'll come back to that one later. 

In the meantime, I ventured off to earn some other credits under my belt and as it turns out...advertising is a great way to do that. I had the opportunity to enter a contest to write a 30 second commercial for Chuck and Don's Pet Food Outlet. The girl I was dating at the time thought it would be a cool way to test the waters and she was right. I won the contest and the commercial aired in the Denver and Minnesota markets a few years back. That of course led me to believe that maybe I should try my hand at copywriting, and thanks to a few film connections that we will get into later on...I actually managed to land a gig as a copywriter for Ultimate Electronics. 

Now let me tell you this...I absolutely loved this gig. It was so cool to be able to work from 8-5, Monday through Friday on just writing. Sure it was a smaller company, and I'm not going to lie...a lot of the job was proof reading, but I'll be damned if I didn't love every single second of what I did. Sadly, the company went under but that's okay. This was some invaluable experience on deadlines, the need to be concise in one's work and how to make your words as compelling and powerful as possible. After all, advertising is about getting the point across in as short a time as possible and we did some great work in that office back in the day.

The last thing I did for the sake of today's blog was help start this site. For one, it's kind of an expectation that writers have some kind of digital presence on the web because that is the way of things these days and I have to admit web writing has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only have I been able to tell this story and talk about other passions in my life, but I got the opportunity to work with Denver Comic Con by way of Denver Comic Con TV thanks to this site and I've made some incredible friendships along the way. But most importantly, it's forced me to become a disciplined writer. To get into a daily routine and write on a regular basis. 

But, while I'm proud of all the accomplishments I've laid out here today, I needed more. I wanted more. I wanted this to be a thorough resume to present to agencies and fate had a few other things in store for me. I received a phone call from an old friend who asked me if I was still interested in writing motion pictures and if so...he knew someone locally who needed help adapting their novel into a screenplay. Now we've all heard the stories about life changing phone calls over the years and guess what? This was one of them...because that call would take me places I never expected to go, and that's where we will pick up next time. Until then.