What now?

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

Jan 22, 2025

It’s hard to know what to say or do at a time like this. I believe with all my heart and soul that as Martin Luther King Jr. said:

The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.

But it doesn’t take a very close look at history to see that evil is always an active player, and even when it’s beaten back, it’s always waiting in the wings. Without constant vigilance, it takes the stage.

This election was on an historic razor’s edge. And, funded and enabled by billionaires who do not give a flying f**k about anyone but themselves, we are entering a very dark time.

Those of you who are living in California, love California, and have family/friends in California are experiencing a double dose of absolute unreality.

So what now?

I expect that most people who follow this newsletter/site are in deep mourning. And shock. Of course we are. Some people are in active danger, and not just from wildfires.

Please do what you need to do to take care of yourselves.

I hope that writing is part of that self-care. For me, writing is profoundly meditative. I can spend most of my day in places I choose, losing myself in fascinating characters, leaving my own worries and fears far behind.

The Redwood Highway, California

Further, I believe that narrative is more important than ever. This election was the result of many factors, but one of them was the dangerous ignorance of a gullible and easily manipulated public. Writing is one of the most powerful of the antidotes, tools, and weapons we have.

If you’re committed to writing a book in the New Year, and you’re still able to focus, fantastic. To get you going, here’s an —

Act I Checklist.

And if you’re somewhere in the middle of your book, here’s the section linking to posts for

All Four Acts

This is a hard week. It’s going to be the first of a lot of hard weeks. You might not be able to concentrate on writing yet. But when you do feel able, it would be valuable to spend some time thinking about what writing goals you have, and write out in detail how you can use your writing both for your own mental stability and to bring more light into the world.

Personally I am committing to:

· Finishing our new book by next month.

· Restructuring my historical newsletter

· Writing Book 7 in the Huntress Moon series

· Continuing weekly posts in this newsletter.

#1 – The new book.

I took myself seriously back in July when I laid out a plan to finish a book by the end of the year.

Craig and I were on track to finish Book 2 in our new Lost Highway series by the New Year, but got a little behind because of exciting developments on both TV and book deal fronts, which I’ll write about very soon.

Right now we’re doing a few hours of writing every other day and a lot of meetings and related writing material the rest of the time. But I love this last stage of writing a book, when ideas are crackling and connections are being made and suddenly there is room to get in all the cool things we weren’t sure we could fit in, and it all makes a crazy kind of sense that is already very exciting to read. It’s also so encompassing that it doesn’t give me much time to think of anything else, which right now is lifesaving.

How about you? Are you committed to writing a book by the end (or sooner) of the year? It’s always a good time to start a book, or finish one! I’m here to help.

#2: My historical newsletter, After the Gold Rush

In between doing all kinds of theater and dance at Berkeley, I studied history, especially California history. During the pandemic I went down a rabbit hole of historical research and started putting together a massive novelization of California history, featuring people who usually get left out of white male-dominated history books. Everyone sort of knows the Gold Rush part of California history, so I started right after the Gold Rush — with the rush toward Civil War (from a seldom-seen California perspective). That very dark time period has just about everything to do with what’s going on in the US right now. And with right wing groups trying harder than ever to censor and whitewash history, banning books that tell non-patriarchal stories and pushing to substitute a cultish religious indoctrination for education — it’s more important than ever to tell our whole history.

I’m thinking that as I return to active posting, I’ll write some posts out of order, to make more parallels between now and then.

You can subscribe to the free After the Gold Rush newsletter here.

#3: The next Huntress Moon book.

I’ve had the seventh book in my Huntress Moon thriller series simmering on a back burner, because I knew the election would have a profound influence on the motivations and actions of my characters. Now I know what the fight will be. And when we finish the new Lost Highway book, I know what I need to do with the new Huntress book.

I base all the crimes, predators, social and legal failings I depict in the Huntress series on real-life crimes, real-life predators, and real-life laws and failings of the legal and social services system.

I wrote this series to spark a dialogue about the atrocity of rape culture, how it affects women, children, and men - and to ask readers to think about real life solutions to this horrific social, legal and spiritual problem.

At the same time, readers usually find the books extremely cathartic, as predators don’t fare well. At all. In this book you can bet those boys and men who are going around shouting “Your body, my choice” at schoolgirls are going to regret that.

Check out the series here – all six books are free on Kindle Unlimited.