Dead Zone
A Screenwriter's Journal
And so, another year falls into history and into memory…
Here we are, Dead Zone Week, as I call it - that strange, pleasant nothingness between Christmas and New Year. A time of reflection and drastic surges in gym memberships.
2025 marked my 50th year around the sun, which is just bewildering to me. I’m Gen X. The last generation to have a totally analog childhood before being thrown into this strange digital adulthood (I am so glad I grew up when I did - see all my novels). My mindset and outlook on life have shifted somewhat since turning 50, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is my work ethic when it comes to writing. Slowing down, I am not.
I’ve worked on four feature screenplays this year, plus light passes on Improper Bastards, which I originally drafted in 2024. Of the four, two have been original ideas, one was a rewrite of another Rick Roberts script, a western entitled Deadman Falls, and the fourth was an adaptation of a novel. My first book adaptation, and the way that one came about was because of this Substack.
In early November, I wrote a speculative list of novels I’d love to adapt. One of the novels I mentioned was Last Night of Freedom, a survival horror written by my friend, Dan Howarth. Dan messaged me after reading my list and said that a producer was interested in the novel and that he had begun a screenplay, but only had about 25 pages or so. He then asked me if I’d be interested in writing it with him. I had just outlined a new novel and was planning on taking it steady for the rest of the year, but after sleeping on it, I decided to dive in.
The first reason was that I really like the novel. The second reason was that I’ve never adapted someone else’s work, so I thought I’d give it a go. So I took Dan’s 25 pages and got started, and in a sudden surge, a surprising rush, it poured out of me. I ended up writing an 87-page 1st draft in 8 days.
Dan did his pass on top of mine, and now, with some back and forthing, we suddenly have a new 90-page screenplay which we’re hoping will start to move in 2026. It was a great writing exercise, but moreover, I think it’ll make a really brutal and pulse-pounding film.
And so, I’ve laid a lot of groundwork for 2026. I’ve got The Wilding and The House on Lidderman Street going out into the world, plus Improper Bastards will hopefully shoot in the spring. Then there is the revenge thriller for director Isher Sahota, the big-budget action film I’ve written on spec with Matthew Waldram, and now Last Night of Freedom. Oh, and my friend David Bryant has just asked me to jump on his latest horror feature as a co-writer.
Man, all this work…
I think, basically, I want to be like a low-level David Koepp.
Predominantly a genre writer, Koepp often works adapting other people’s IP, but also writes his own originals - screenplays and novels - and occasionally directs as well. Of course, he works at the very highest level (he has written five films for Spielberg, for starters), but I think the template of his career really speaks to me. He’s a go-to guy, which is what I want to be seen as; what I think I am. Collaborative, imaginative, and, well, fast.
I enjoy working on other people’s ideas and stories. I’ve figured out that my real strength is structure. I seem to inherently understand the language of film, and I have a good radar for when a film's story is not working, and often know what to do to fix it. I guess my point is, my career needs to shift up a gear in 2026, and with all this work, maybe it will. I guess we’ll see.
(So if anyone out there wants to hire me to write a screenplay, I’m available…)
Anyway, thank you to all who ventured beyond the paywall to read my short story ‘Kent State’ over Christmas, much appreciated. And to anyone who listened to or picked up a copy of The Winterman. Hope you enjoyed? Maybe I’ll release some more stories on this Substack every now and again. But first, it’s time for me to go dark for a while. January is detox time from online activity. I need to get away from reading about Trump and AI and wars and just the utter monumental strangeness of these times.
Of course, I’ll more than likely still be busy writing, though. I can’t turn that off.
Nor do I want to.
Happy New Year.