I’m launching a Substack, but first I’m going on a rant.
Here’s the thing:
By the time I was 25, I’d made a stupid amount of movies. Probably 70 at least? Maybe 100? No joshing here. Not a single josh.
With the help of friends both far and wide I wrote these movies, directed them, produced them and edited them. They were short films, music videos, movies I made for contests, class papers turned cinema, documentaries. They spanned drama, sci-fi, horror, stoner comedies and other various sub-genres of comedies. I had a company called Northward Advance (what a name - flashy, fun, bold, wowza). You can still watch some of the stuff I made on YouTube. One movie was like 45 minutes long (I don’t think that’s on YouTube), and the last big one I made was over 70 minutes (that’s Losing Cable 2: Journey to Infinity - and come to think of it I still need to upload the final episode). I premiered that one just before I moved to NYC, and then I immediately, and rather accidentally, retired.
Flash forward nine years and I think my movie making days are well behind me, but I’ve still wanted to tell stories. I just didn’t really know how to tell stories outside of pointing a camera at my friends and apologizing a bunch. But then I discovered you could write something and not have to make a movie out of it. What the fuck.
I mean get this: people just write. Like, they’ll just write short stories. And you know what short stories are kinda like? Short films! Novellas? Longer films! Novels?? That’s a whole goddamn season of a goddamn show! So, four years ago I started to dabble in writing fiction. I was junk at it (still feel like I am), but I realized I at least had years and years of writing experience under my belt with all those dang movies I made back in the day. I discovered that this writing prose thing wasn’t some new uncharted world — it was just a different looking one.
I’m at the point now where I’m less afraid to share stuff I’ve been cooking up. It’s freeing. It’s joyous. And I feel like I’m taking back a part of me that I lost for a long time because finally, FINALLY, I’ve figured out how to not only tell stories again, but also how to share them.
Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I’m starting a Substack.
The first story on here will be a novella I’ve been dabbling in for years called Cherrytown (or Cheerytown, I haven’t decided yet). It’s set during an alternate American Revolution, in the year 1789 (I think), and follows the exploits of an alcoholic demon hunter named Samuel Burtwhistle. It’s a story about family, friendship and the inescapable traumas of war. It also features demons, vampires and I think Benjamin Franklin in later chapters, but I haven’t written those yet.
I’ll release a new chapter on the first of every month. I have eight chapters written already (with a lot of revisions needed), but I think once a month will be a good pace for now.
So, I dunno, come join me as I figure out what the hell this story is about.
Cherrytown, Chapter 1 - releasing October 1.
Sorry for the rant,
Jason