Authoring & Playwriting

I'm a writer who is not a writer. Honestly, I've never earned a penny from writing (except for resumes for other people, which sometimes had fees up to $50K, but it's not the same thing!). I've read everything written by Fyodor Dostoeyevsky, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Plato, and all the sci-fi (nearly) of Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Heinlein. Modern writers I enjoy include Thomas Pynchon, who is apparently a 6th cousin once removed of mine, via at least 6 or 7 different lines, but of course I've never met him. My style is a bit minimalist, and I have only one screenplay ("Frozen Stones", which is a dramedy about small-town Curling). Most of my articles are aboiut Logic, Physics, Warp Drives, Time-machines (I have collaborated with a world-leading physicist on a paper, recently), and Information Theory. Even my screenplay is highly based on Wittgenstein's "Private Language Argument"... Wittgenstein once wrote "A serious work of philosophy could be written consisting entirely of jokes"... my inspiration.

How do you keep yourself motivated, even when you're not up to creating?

If you're anything like me, sometimes life will LIFE really hard. And when that happens, writing can fall through the cracks.

Before you know it, your timeline is obliterated and the guilt is real.

For me, there are two things that I do when this happens, depending on what the situation is:

1. Keep the routine.

Maybe it's my Taurus in four houses, but I'm a creature of habit. If I can stick to my routine, the words will come and the projects will get finished.

If I don't, timelines slip and before I know it, the project I thought would take two months has taken two years.

But this only works if there's nothing traumatic going on.

2. Intentionally go into artist hibernation.

Sometimes as a writer, it's important to rest.

If your mind is constantly taxed, then your creativity will be zapped (it might take a while for this to happen but creative burnout is real).

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your work is to let it breathe and pick it back up when you have the mental and emotional bandwidth to focus on it.

This one is harder for me because when I'm not writing, I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

So if you struggle with this too, remember, it's not lazy to take a break. Sometimes, it's exactly what your work needs.

How do you keep yourself in the space to write (or not)?

Trusted feedback may be one of the most underrated tools in screenwriting and authoring. The right note can save a scene, deepen a character, tighten the pacing, or help us realize we’ve been lovingly protecting a paragraph, joke, or scene that needs to go sit quietly in the deleted file.

But not all feedback is equal. Some people help us hear the story more clearly. Others try to turn it into the story they would write.

For me, the best feedback respects the writer’s voice while helping the work become stronger, clearer, and more emotionally honest.

How do you know when feedback is worth taking, and when do you trust your own instincts instead?

https://storyventures.substack.com/p/seven-naughty-words-every-storyteller

Hello everyone,

I have a few questions for those who have successfully pitched novels, books, or original IP to producers, managers, or other industry professionals.

1. Do executives usually expect a screenplay, or can a treatment, pitch deck, or published novel be enough?

2. How do writers choose the right executive to pitch when they have a novel rather than a screenplay?

3. Have any writers successfully secured representation, option agreements, or production interest based primarily on a novel or other original IP?

4. If a two-page pitch clearly states that the project is a completed novel and that the writer is seeking a producer and screenwriter to develop the adaptation, how should one interpret a subsequent request for a screenplay? If no screenplay exists, is it appropriate to provide the novel, treatment, or pitch deck instead?

I would greatly appreciate hearing about your experiences and any advice you may have.

Thank you!

There is a massive list of every book-to-movie adaptation coming out in 2026, and my reading list is officially colliding with my watchlist. We've got Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (Matt Damon as Odysseus), Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars (Jacob Elordi), Greta Gerwig's The Magician's Nephew, Dune 3 with Robert Pattinson as the villain, Practical Magic 2, Verity with Anne Hathaway, and a new Sense and Sensibility with Daisy Edgar-Jones. Also Klara and the Sun (Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams), The Midnight Library (Florence Pugh), and the new Hunger Games prequel.

Emily Henry fans are eating well too, multiple adaptations in the works. And Netflix has The Whisper Man with Adam Scott and Robert De Niro, plus Remarkably Bright Creatures with Sally Field and an octopus voiced by Alfred Molina.

What book-to-movie are you most excited for? And what's one you're still praying gets adapted?

Hey Authors and Playwrights,

Remember a little while ago I asked where you all found unexpected success? I've used the first half of the responses and put them in a blog.

Check it out:

https://www.stage32.com/blog/the-unexpected-road-to-success-stories-from...

I've saved the other responses for the next blog piece. Thank you everyone for contributing - it's a great read! ...if I do say so myself :)

What's the fastest you've ever written a book?

I once wrote a complete book in 3 months after challenging a friend to a daily word-count race. Another was drafted in less than 4 days. My longest? An intentional year, committing to just a couple of hours every Saturday.

It reminded me that books don't always arrive on the same timeline. Some take years. Some seem to pour out all at once.

What about you? What's the fastest—or slowest—book you've written, and why do you think it moved at that pace?

Hey Authors and Playwrights!

I'm about to release a traditionally published picture book through an Australian publisher. This isn't my first rodeo - this is just my first time releasing a picture book.

I find with each release, catching up on new trends and finding what works is like starting from scratch every time. Let's take marketing for example...

Marketing a book locally and internationally requires different strategies to reach the target audience effectively. Local marketing often focuses on community engagement through book launches, local media coverage, library events, school visits, and partnerships with local bookstores.

International marketing, on the other hand, relies more heavily on digital platforms such as social media, online advertising, author websites, and global online retailers to reach readers across different countries. International campaigns may also require adapting promotional content to suit different cultures, languages, and reading preferences.

Depending on your publishers distribution channels, depends on where your book will be selling first. However, by combining both local and international marketing approaches, authors can increase their book's visibility and attract a wider audience.

So I'm asking the panel - every time you release your books, has your marketing strategy changed with every release or do you stick with what you know works?

Where do you do your best writing?

Silence?

Coffee shops?

Late at night?

Early mornings?

Rainstorms?

Complete chaos somehow working in your favor?

I always find it fascinating how differently creativity shows up for different people. Some writers thrive with structure and routine, while others seem to do their best work in unpredictable bursts of inspiration.

Personally, some of my most creative moments have happened very early in the morning, when the world still felt quiet.

What about you?

Where do you feel the most creatively alive when you write?

The entertainment industry is no longer undergoing a transition; it has completed a paradigm shift. Most discussions in creative forums still treat AI as a temporary threat to be regulated or a tool to be boycotted. This is a severe miscalculation of macroeconomic entropy.

The market no longer requires a massive intermediate layer of traditional script editors, freelance script readers, or concept artists. This is not a personal indictment of anyone's talent; it is a cold, mathematical reality of automated supply chains. The traditional administrative barrier between a concept and a greenlight has been dismantled by compute power.

Recognizing this systemic lockout, I have deactivated my reliance on the obsolete "defensive copyright" model. In an era where deep-pocketed studios utilize machine-learning pipelines to scan, desensitize, and arbitrage creative intellectual property, holding a traditional script fragment or a "pitch deck" tight to your chest is a strategy for default obscurity.

My counter-strategy is complete structural openness: I am open-sourcing my core narrative architectures.

I have published my foundational frameworks, including The Chronicles of Blackwater and Currency of Empire, entirely on open platforms like Wattpad and Substack. Under the common law landscape, a macro-worldview cannot be monopolized by copyright, but specific derivative screenplays can. By completely open-sourcing the world-building, I strip corporate legal machinery of its ability to lock down the premise, forcing them to compete on the raw execution of derivative screenwriting—where independent creators and AI-integrated architects stand on the exact same starting line.

However, open-source world-building is not a license for lazy "trope sewing." The world-building I have established is an unyielding, high-density system locked down across a multi-book architecture. It governs everything from fundamental simulated physics and welfare/institutional distribution mechanics to religious sub-routines and individual human behavioral templates.

To maintain the absolute empirical integrity of this open-source infrastructure, the system enforces a strict Zero-Hard-Setting protocol for any derivative works or screenplay adaptations:

The Axiom of Zero-Derivation: You are strictly prohibited from implementing unverified scientific hypotheses, soft sci-fi tropes, or convenient narrative shortcuts.

The "From Scratch" Mandate: If a scientific theory, technological apparatus, or economic arbitrage loop cannot be mathematically and logically derived from absolute zero within the text, it is excluded. Multiverses, casual time travel, and unearned warp/Alcubierre drives are fundamentally banned.

The Proof of Work: As a derivative screenwriter utilizing this architecture, if you introduce an advanced system, you must possess the technical architecture to write its emergence from the ground up within your documentation. If you cannot derive it, the system rejects the narrative node.

While the displaced intermediate layers of the old Hollywood ecosystem remain asleep or defensive, studio-level algorithmic crawlers are already actively scanning open-source repositories for high-tension, internally consistent logic engines.

I am not here to debate the ethics of this realignment or comfort those caught in the middle. I have adjusted my operational code to match the actual rules of the current era. The archive is open, the parameters are set, and the old ledger is already obsolete.

Khoni Chin

c/o Wattpad/Substack Open Source Projects