Back in 2013, I left Louisiana and made the 1000+ mile trip to move to Michigan to work with a self-proclaimed investor for the purpose of producing The Dead Reckoning, a gore-filled, action-packed, horror/western, cowboys & zombies screenplay I wrote in 2009, and it seems to have been my biggest mistake. After working on preproduction with this "investor" for about 6 months, I realized she had not one dime of the $3 million she originally told me she had access to for financing the movie. I ended up homeless and living in my pickup and squatting in a house that winter.
This was the 4th time I had experienced a letdown while trying to get something financed, but it was a much harder fall because of everything I had riding on it. I went into a depression and spent years dealing with it and struggling to climb out of it. I've spent the last decade eeking out a living in Michigan while struggling to get anything financed, but to no avail.
I'm still seeking financing for The Dead Reckoning, plus 3 more completed screenplays: a horror anthology, a monster movie, and an action/drama about a homeless Vietnam vet who risks his life to protect a kidnapped girl from a gang of ex-cons in an abandoned highrise, which was written as a love letter to my father and all the men and women who served in Vietnam.
It's been a struggle to stay creative in the face of failure, and some things take time to get over when they alter the course of your life for the worse, but you gotta keep on keepin' on. In the meantime, I kept writing and eventually pounded out several more screenplays and published 3 books, one of which is a novelized version of The Dead Reckoning. I've got several more books in the works and a few TV series in development, including 2 adult animated series.
So, at least I know that when the right financier comes along, I'll have plenty of projects to keep us busy for quite a while.
1 person likes this
The struggle is real! Know you’re not alone and perseverance always wins!