A while ago, I thought it might be time to try novels for “big people”. Juvenile novels didn’t seem as challenging to write anymore, and I like to feel I’m constantly learning something.
I started a novel, titled Angel’s Flight, and enjoyed getting to know some adult characters. It was a wonderful experience.
Then a week ago, something changed.
I realized that I needed to choose between novels and screenplays. My time and energy is limited, and if I want to succeed in one of these two genres – which I do! – it’s now time to choose between them. For a variety of reasons, one being ”gut feeling”, I believe screenplays are the best fit for me, despite the fact that it’s a much more competitive world.
That’s not to say that working on Angel’s Flight has been a waste in any way, shape, or form. I loved my time with Vashti and her friends. Angel’s Flight might even make a good movie (with a lot of changes, as screenplays and movies are very different). And even if it never makes it to the screen, I may get back to it someday in its novelistic form.
However, until then, the name of my game is now screenplays – and I cannot deny that it’s a wonderful feeling to realize this! I love the immediacy, the power, the visceral, almost raw, nature of a story in script form.
I hope to start my next script in June, at the latest. I have four ideas on the go, so it’s going to be hard to choose between them!
And I’m still able to get my novel fix, or at least I hope so. I have a proposal out for another twelve book juvenile series. Fingers crossed that it gets picked up!
Best of luck to you. Follow your dream.