Introduce Yourself : JP says "Hello" by Jonathan Peace

Hi everyone, My name is Jonathan Peace but most people just call me JP. I live in the UK and started writing back in 1999 as a means of coping with a divorce I was unfortunately going through. Rather than turn to drink or drugs, I chose instead to pour my feelings onto the page. I wrote a novel called THE MAGPIE'S LAMENT which deals with a thriller writer whose modest success jeapordises the one thing that truly matters to him: his family. When he is blindsided by a divorce request, he spirals out of control, treading a very dark path before finding the strength and courage to emerge back into the light and set right all that he made wrong. It has a strong Stephen King feel to it, in that it deals heavily with character, hopefully making the reader feel for them before plunging them into dark situations. I followed this up with a John Irving style novel, THE BOOTH RAT about a young boy who is raised by his single-parent father who works as a cinema projectionist. His father is diagnosed with cancer and slowly the boy watches as his father fades away, regretfully passing away on the boy's 12th birthday. Both books are based on my own life and are now dusty manuscripts in my COMPOST HEAP, a huge box of put aside ideas, novels and scripts. I was working at Showcase Cinema here in the UK in 2009 when I decided to try my hand at screenwriting. I found Twitter and the #scriptchat community and I haven't looked back since, having found success in small forms. My first script spent 2 years in development with Focus Features here in the UK and this has now been optioned by Causeway NY. Now known as CREEDMORE, I had some very exciting news about it last week (which I can't share but frack me it's good!) and am now currently writing the sequel to it just in case ;) Grindhouse style, low to medium budgeted films are what I primarily write as those are the types of films I love to watch - and being a realist, are more likely to get made. However I have written an original big budget western action adventure as well as a 60 page scriptment for a potential franchise reboot. I also have an idea for a spectacular scifi movie - but I'm letting that one bubble for a bit longer before tackling that. I was hired to write the scifi film THE RIFT which you can watch on my profile. Very proud to say this was my first paid gig as a screenwriter. The brief was: "a short scifi with horror elements, that could be a Roland Emmerich style flick." I think I hit it pretty well although I wrote it very tongue-in-cheek with lots of nods to my favourite genre movies. Still was a blast to write, and had a great time with Robert from Vantis Pictures. Having had a little success on my own as a screenwriter, I find myself in the fantastic position of having a script about to get financed and it has been attracting some big cult name attention. When this gets made public and the film goes into production I want to be ready with other scripts and ideally have an agent represent me over there in the US. I'm also busy working on two new horrors one of which has been bubbling away at the back of my mind for over 5 years now; a well-timed Star Wars themed comedy and a revenge-thriller. Alongside all the new stuff I have two completed spec scripts, a slasher/thriller called DEADLINE and a western horror-adventure called GUNSMOKE & GLORY. These have had interest from Fox and Warner Bros. but no bites yet. So that's a little about me. I look forward to chatting with you in the future and swapping some ideas and stories from the trenches. You can also get in touch via TWITTER: @SanctionedJP or direct by email. Wishing you all the best JP