Origins
We all make choices in life about who we want to be and what we want to do. Sometimes we get there, sometimes the hand of fate has other plans.
I was a business and tech entrepreneur running my own wireless communications company in 2002. The road up to that point had been typical for my kind – a few successes and a few less so. We’re basically urban farmers. You prepare, plant your ideas, work hard, hope for a good harvest and pray you don’t get hailed out. Risk is the price of opportunity.
It was a few months after consulting for the Winter Olympics while working on several projects for clients. Our family was finally back in the black after a couple of business ventures turned ugly and almost ruined us. We were stable and moving forward again.
Then it all went sideways.
I’m one of those people whose mind is always multitasking a variety of different things. It’s like an operations center with a dispatcher frequently reminding me what’s on the schedule. There are a dozen screens around the perimeter of my mind with something different on each one. I might be focused on one or two of them at any given moment, but the others are always there waiting their turn as part of the organized chaos.
When I go to sleep at night this chaos doesn’t stop. It just mellows after a time allowing me to fall asleep. Then it starts up again first thing in the morning. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember.
One fateful morning I woke to realize this internal operations center was uncharacteristically dark and silent. The screens were blank. I waited for the missing images and direction, but there was nothing. The longer the silence continued, the more unnerving and puzzling it became.
The totality of what had somehow happened while I slept was eventually realized when I started forcing myself to think about the day’s schedule for my clients’ projects. A feeling of dread came over me that was overwhelming. When I continued to force the thoughts, the dread became so severe that it actually made me physically sick. Overnight I had somehow developed an involuntary disdain for a career I’d worked in and loved most of my life. It was baffling and frightening.
The hope was that whatever was happening was just some strange, temporary mental hiccup that would go away and “normal” would soon return. It didn’t. The condition became so intolerable that after managing to complete a few of the smaller projects, the rest of the contracts were given to friendly competitors to complete for my clients.
My lifelong professional interest and tech career had been forcefully ended for no logical or explainable reason whatsoever. It was just gone.
Then about three months later, still lost and confused trying to figure out what I was going to do to support my wife and young family, I experienced the first of two vivid, highly-organized and directed dreams. It began with me sitting alone holding a popcorn and drink in the center seat of an old-style opera house. The seats sloped and curved around with a mezzanine over my head. There was a raised stage with closed black curtains and white, romanesque columns to each side of the stage. The walls were covered in red velvet drapes with gold-rope trim.
The curtains opened and a movie began that I had never seen before. I was both watching and participating in this movie. It played until I woke the next morning. When I told my wife about the dream she suggested I document it. I didn’t.
The next night the dream returned and began exactly the same as before only this time when the curtains opened, the movie started from where it had left off the night before. When the movie ended, the curtains closed and I woke sometime around 3 to 4 A.M.
At that point it was unmistakable that something unique and strange had happened and I should do what my wife suggested.
Went to my home-office computer and started documenting the dream and story. Later I came to a time-travel scenario I don’t necessarily believe is logical in science fiction even though it’s common in popular films. The context was changed slightly so it made more sense to me personally and to the flow of the story. Minor changes like that would happen a few times as the day progressed.
It was later that afternoon while still at my computer when another extraordinary event occurred. A powerful, heavy and very clear impression came over me that said, “You’re meant to write out the story in detail and share it with everyone.”
Now, as an entrepreneur and business professional, I won’t consider getting serious about any major project without first researching it ad nauseam. And with that, I’ll pass if I don’t foresee at least an 80% chance of success. The chances of writing a story and somehow expecting it to become a viable financial vehicle to support a family, let alone me, would be like winning the lottery. So my very first reaction to this “impression” was to laugh out loud, stand up and walk out of my office. There was no way I was going to even remotely consider entertaining such a ridiculous idea.
The impression was ignored. I knew that ideas with no real merit or substance will fade with time, so I planned to wait it out. But this impression never went away. In fact, it actually grew stronger and more insistent. I fought it for weeks as being a terrible idea that would put me and my family at unreasonable financial risk. Nevertheless, it persisted.
Finally I came to the realization that regardless what my professional business experience and common sense was telling me, I was being called to a new path by forces beyond me for a purpose or purposes outside my mortal ability to comprehend. Who was I to question those forces? The call was finally accepted. It was the first time in my life I have ever committed to any major project entirely on faith.
The first order of business was to bring my wife and young children together to explain what was going on. A writing project like this would affect our entire family and it wouldn’t be fair to go forward without their approval. They agreed that I couldn’t ignore everything that had happened regardless how strange it seemed. At the time, the oldest of our four children was my son at 14. The youngest, my daughter, was only 5. My wife was a full-time stay-at-home mom at the time.
I’d written a little before with a few short articles published in magazines and was a contributing writer and editor for an International trade journal for a few years. Not sure hordes of business proposals count, but there’s that.
I’m fortunate to have two personal traits that serve me well. One is the ability to visualize a proposed idea or concept completed in detail. This is one reason I was popular in my design and integration company. My clients always got exactly what was proposed on time and on budget because I could visualize the entire project finished then work backward breaking it down into construction phases, labor and equipment costs, time and so forth – something I liken to what The Tubes call “The Completion Backwards Principle.”
The other trait is the ability to honestly and objectively evaluate my own work. Who completes the work is usually of little consequence. Talent can exist within anyone, anywhere. What matters is the quality of work and the end-result. I knew the writing would have to be at least as good as that of popular, published authors in order to be taken seriously. I believed I was up to the challenge.
So with hopeful confidence, and as much preparation as I could reasonably manage, the writing project began.
After the first three chapters were completed, I put on my editor/critique hat and read what had been written. It wasn’t bad, but in my opinion not great. My avid-reader wife said she thought it was as good as anything from a typical publisher. For me it was missing the emotion and feeling I had seen and felt in the dreams. Those emotions were important and hadn’t been properly conveyed even though I thought I had done my best.
Then it settled in me that if I thought I had done my best, and it wasn’t good enough, then nothing I tried to write after that would be good enough. I became despondent, deleted everything, stopped writing and went back outside to work in the yard to try and stay busy.
It was sometime later, maybe weeks, I don’t recall exactly that while doing something mundane like shoveling dirt, another impression came. This one was also very clear, but subtle, like a tap on the shoulder. It simply said, “You’re not the source of the story, only the pen meant to write it.”
With that humbling reminder, I went back to my computer, tried to clear my mind, and just listen. It took time, but the real story eventually started to flow in thoughts, ideas, feelings, images, words. Sometimes it would come so fast I could barely keep up. Sometimes it was so intense I’d be in tears constantly wiping my eyes to see the screen. Many times it would start first thing when I woke and continue until falling asleep at the keyboard late at night. Other times there would be nothing for days or weeks, or even months. Then it would start again. This process went on for about three and a half years.
A powerful passage I titled Proclamation was also received during this time.
On a side note, it was a few months after starting the writing project when I happened to meet an acquaintance while walking near our home. He was always interested in what ‘cool projects’ I was working on for clients. I shared that I wasn’t doing that work anymore and was instead writing a novel. The expression on his face was likely unintentional, but it clearly expressed the opinion that I had lost my mind. It was at that moment I knew that no one else needed to know what I was doing. My family was sworn to secrecy and they kept that secret for about 5 years. Even a next door neighbor wasn’t aware I had written and published a book until she purchased it at a Costco, was home reading the acknowledgments and started recognizing names. Then she realized who the author was.
Some of the investments I had managed to setup while business was good lasted for a while, but started dwindling about a year in. My wife volunteered to go back to work in order to keep us from becoming impoverished. It was a good call. As a matter of fact, she’s still working today 20+ years later in continued support of our family, me, and my efforts with the story. Nothing I have accomplished or am still trying to accomplish would be possible if not for her faith, dedication and tireless devotion.
When it came time to edit the manuscript, I couldn’t afford a “real” editor, so 3 copies of the several hundred page manuscript were printed and given to avid readers and teachers I knew. The changes were compiled with 3 more manuscripts printed and distributed to different people. A total of 12 different people edited the manuscript. Even with that, over 500 mistakes were later found, and there are still more. Proficient and professional editing definitely requires a highly-specialized skill set.
Kate, my Editor-in-Chief. She finally crossed the rainbow bridge at 21 years of age.
With the manuscript as ready as it was going to get, the arduous task of querying literary agents began. It was 2007 and just my luck, the economy was crashing. Most publishers of note specify they only accept submissions from literary agents. After about 60 queries were either rejected or ignored, self-publishing seemed the next best option.
Self-publishing requires money. By this time there was not only none left, but we were in debt again. A Print-on-Demand subsidiary of Amazon was chosen just to get some books in hand. In order to spend as little as possible, I did all the publishing myself including book-block editing and formatting, artwork and cover layout.
The first few books were poor quality with the cover material flaking and creases cracking in white lines. After working with the company on the issues, they finally got the quality problems mostly sorted and a few decent books were printed. The cover just didn’t quite look right to me, though.
I had photographed a row of dominoes to represent our life progression as individual moments. The dominoes then had images placed on them to represent life events in those moments. So as the dominoes fall, so do the moments of our lives pass. The original title was to be ECHO OF LILIES, a representation of ongoing influence from the main character’s wife, who had died. She was an avid gardener who loved lilies. That title subsequently became the name of Chapter 12.
While working on changes, I was inspired to use the title, CIRCLE OF DOORS, a visual reference to a scene toward the end of the story as well as a reference to our entrance to, and exit from this world. Regardless which door we enter from or exit through, we arrive from, and will return to the same realm. Therefore our life here on earth, regardless who we are or where we live, is metaphorically within a circle of doors.
In the original DOORS artwork with the arch, an iron mask was placed on the ground next to the archway, a reference to the fact that whatever masks we might wear in life to change our appearance, or hide what we don’t want others to see, will be removed when we leave this world. We will then be seen for exactly who and what we truly are. But I couldn’t get the mask to look quite right because let’s face it, I’m an amateur graphic artist. So well-enough was left alone.
A note here is that the story was originally intended to be released as two or possibly even three books. The story arc after the climatic forest scene was to be much more involved as the story progressed. But as I got to that point, there was a feeling that for whatever reasons, there may not be additional published books. So the rest of the story was severely condensed.
Dozens of people started ordering the book and one impressed reader forwarded a copy to a gentleman who owned a book distribution company. This gentleman contacted me relating that he believed the novel was good enough for mainstream distribution, if I could get it professionally published. This was to establish a wholesale price point. It would also improve quality.
With this promising news, I went back to agents and to some smaller publishers directly that I thought might bite. No one was interested. I approached wealthy friends and acquaintances and large business owners who had money to burn, hoping one of them would help. No one would.
At that point my wife and I had a serious decision to make. We either needed to cut our losses, hang it up right there and walk away, or do whatever was necessary to continue working to get the book and story out to the world. Because of the way the story came to me, and what I felt was, and still is my responsibility as its scribe and curator, we decided to continue forward regardless of the challenges and risk.
So with the economic downturn spiraling at the end of 2007, my wife and I squeaked out a second mortgage on our modest home to fund commercial printing of the novel. I again did all the publishing including all final editing, formatting and artwork including producing the negatives for the embossing plate and UV application, and purchased ISBN numbers. We were able to print 3,500 books with the proceeds from the loan. And again, none of this would have been possible if not for my wife’s continued employment and dedication, or long-suffering, take your pick.
The distributor set up signings at Barnes & Noble stores and later at Costco warehouses. There were speaking engagements, TV and radio interviews and news articles throughout 2008 with the book receiving notable praise. Many readers and even some B&N staff were indicating that it was one of the better works they’d seen from anyone. A B&N store manager even declared me “up and coming” at a regional meeting. Genuine comments received from readers are listed on the page Reader Comments at PowerofSouls.com.
It was shortly after book signings began when a few people contacted me relating they were ‘sorry for the bad review on Amazon.’ I took a look. It wasn’t a review. It was nothing less than a personal attack spawned by anger and hate.
Apparently the person was affected in some manner by the story to the extent they felt it necessary to lash out. To a casual observer it was a bad review. To me it meant that what was in the story was powerful enough to evoke a strong response. Good or bad, as a writer that means you’ve done something right.
Honestly though, I felt sorry for this person. Why? Because the underlying themes of the DOORS story are about overcoming loss, persevering through trial and finding value and purpose to your life. It goes to our entire existence being orchestrated by a divine intelligence with a plan that should instill hope for us all. So if a story like DOORS evokes anger, an individual must have some pretty serious personal issues that won’t be resolved by spewing hate.
A more pleasant experience was when the book producer for a certain author with a reported 35+ New York Times best sellers found the book on display in the printer’s lobby. She obtained a copy and was impressed enough to recommend the work to her client’s New York agent. The agent responded that she found the work “well-written and intriguing,” but didn’t think she could sell a new author to anyone at the time because of the state of the economy. This producer invited me to speak at one of her client’s conferences along with a few other “real” authors, and I signed with her client afterward. His fans didn’t really care who I was, but it was a fun experience nonetheless.
Over 50 signings were performed in 2008 and the novel received two national awards for Visionary Fiction. One of those awards was the same presented to the Dalai Lama. The book was also displayed at the New York Book Fair.
Signing at Barnes & Noble and Costco.
Then toward the end of 2008, some highly-questionable behavior was exhibited by Costco’s regional book buyer. The book was suddenly cancelled with all remaining copies at a dozen stores dumped into boxes and shipped back to the distributor. This was while signings were still scheduled toward Christmas with 50 to 80 books selling at each signing. Most of the returned books couldn’t be resold due to permanent price stickers and damage from greasy pages. You know, free food samples.
A poignant but professional letter was sent to Costco’s national book buyer, who managed the regional book buyers. It brought a loaded response via a phone call. The excuses were all based on misinformation and in the end she apologized for what had happened. That didn’t get my book reinstated or the more than $3,000 reimbursed for damaged product. Then a PR Guy decided to rip me off for almost a grand in unfinished press work. By that time the book had also received close to 300 rejections from literary agents and publishers.
It was now early 2009. I was out of money again and tired of the fight. That was it. I was done.
There’s a stigma about self-published books that instantly diminishes their perceived quality in the industry’s perception. Even though I had professionally published the book using all available industry standards, since it wasn’t produced by a recognized, mainstream publishing house, it was considered inferior sight-unread.
Readers and audiences could care less who writes or publishes a book, or makes a film, as long as it’s good quality and gives them something of value.
You develop a tough skin as an entrepreneur and artist. One incident that I have to admit really stung though involved an on-air personality at the well-known, clear-channel radio station I used to work at. She reviewed books in a short morning segment. What a great opportunity to get the word out. She had a ‘happy sunshine’ coffee table book of some type published by a local publisher and was at a book event I attended. I asked if she would review DOORS. She replied, “Oh I’m sorry. We don’t review self-published books.”
An award-winning writer described the CIRCLE OF DOORS novel as ‘rivaling the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien in a modern genre.’ Welcome to the industry that not only judges a book by its cover, but by its publisher as well.
A friend once told me that the good and important things we try to accomplish in life are many times the very things that will see the most opposition. Whatever forces were at play, they did not want me to succeed in sharing the DOORS story with the world.
A few months later I was contacted by a former producer for Orion Pictures who was interested in film rights to the novel. That never went anywhere for reasons I now can’t recall, but it spurred me into working on getting the story optioned to film. After all, it had first been seen as a movie, two actually.
For years I met with Hollywood studio reps, producers, agents and other ‘front-end’ people. While I met some good people and a few who were genuinely interested, I never felt comfortable giving the story to most of them. I won’t get into those specifics here only to say that it was and is still important to me the story remain true to its origins. In many situations I didn’t see that happening.
While busy with my Hollywood walkabout, a certain Oscar-winning filmmaker requested the novel and later described it as the ‘best he’s seen’ for adaptation to film. He said it was too big a project for his group and was also aware of what I was running into with Hollywood. He suggested that because of my artistic talent and entrepreneurial business background, I consider writing the screenplay and produce the film myself. To that end, he believed I would need to develop the project into a studio package/proposal and solicit studio or private film funding for production.
Organizing and running companies and large projects can be highly taxing, so I worked at finding a champion to take the lead – a seasoned filmmaker with the resources and connections to head-up the project and run with it. Came up empty. So I ordered Final Draft, wrote the screenplay for what I saw as part one of two films, organized a production company and started looking for production partners.
Franklin Covey Printing Facility
A director friend told me about a producer he thought I should contact who had worked with Spielberg for about 20 years. This producer had produced a film for a filmmaker I had access to, so I reached out to that filmmaker to see if he would introduce me to this producer. This filmmaker asked to read my screenplay first so he wouldn’t be recommending something that might be crap. Understandable. He contacted me excited the day after the script arrived relating it was the ‘best he’s read in years’ and asked to meet. After a 4-hour lunch, he ended up offering to partner on the project. For certain reasons, it didn’t work out and I never got to meet Spielberg’s producer.
This producer I was trying to contact had apparently retired around this same time, but I was pretty sure his son worked at DreamWorks. From the ‘nothing ventured’ department, I sent this person a two-sentence introduction letter stating only that I had a project they might be interested in and would like to send them more information. Got the letter back in the infamous yellow envelope stating they didn’t accept “unsolicited submissions.” I understood that perfectly well, but it wasn’t a submission. So I sent another introductory letter. That one came back the same way only this time accompanied by a letter from their attorneys stating that if I contacted them again they’d take legal action. Nice.
Another frustrating experience came after meeting with a rep from Village Roadshow Pictures. They had produced The Matrix and Sherlock Holmes along with other successful projects. I liked their work and this rep was interested in the DOORS project. She gave me an NDA to fill out and asked me to send it to her along with the screenplay, which I did. A week or so later I got the whole thing back with a letter stating that they don’t accept unsolicited submissions. Brilliant. I tried to contact this rep again but could never get back across the industry moat.
Then there was the personal assistant to a certain well-known studio executive who asked if I had an agent. I told her I was a producer and didn’t have nor wanted an agent. She told me to “Get an agent,” and hung up on me. And the fun continued.
Earnest Hemingway once said, ‘the best way to deal with Hollywood is to drive to the edge of town, throw your script at them and run away.’ The longer I was there, the more I began to relate.
Later a producer contacted me who had worked with major Hollywood talent but had literally moved away from that environment in order to be involved with, as he put it, ‘less hectic and less politically motivated’ film projects. He said he still had a full plate but believed the DOORS project was “important” and wanted to be involved after hearing about it from an acquaintance. We hit it off and formed a partnership.
The problem was he didn’t have a garage full of cash and obviously neither did I. Since I was lead producer, it was still my job to raise development capital. About 15 years prior to this I had raised close to $1M for my second company, so I thought raising a few hundred thousand to develop a film based on an audience-proven story with the potential to bring in hundreds of millions, was an easy bet. Wrong again. I couldn’t convince anyone to pony-up a dime.
Even though I have a good personal and business reputation, the investors I knew didn’t want anything to do with film. One investor told me they could offer up to $25M if I was starting another tech company, but they believed a majority of films that come out of Hollywood lose money, so they wanted nothing to do with a “Hollywood” film. They weren’t wrong. I even contacted a certain double-digit billionaire (yes, with a “B”) who had funded his own studio at one point in the past. He said he was ‘getting out of that business’ and wasn’t interested. Without funding, the film project and partnership faded away.
The bottom line had become painfully clear. Even though there are a number of very talented, visionary, resourceful, successful and ambitious filmmakers who can recognize the potential of good material and properly produce it, I simply couldn’t get an audience with any of them. And no one on the outside was going to invest in a film project that wasn’t attached to a proven and secured film production resource.
At various times during this journey, I felt like financial dead weight to my family and especially to my wife who was still working to support us. I looked into going back to work somewhere to earn something, anything to contribute. But as possible jobs were seriously considered, the dread returned, as if I was being steered back on course. But that course was like trudging through a bog riddled with stress and disappointment, and it was about to get worse.
It was 2013 when ever-increasing debt, failure to perform and fast-approaching self-imposed deadlines finally took their toll. I had started creating other personal projects as a deflection to try and actually finish something that would feel like an accomplishment of some kind – to prove to myself I wasn’t a failure. But my degrading state of mind sabotaged even those efforts. Working all day in over 90° heat building a large shed, along with the stress of everything else fueled by bitterness, finally led to an ugly mental break. It was like suddenly being thrown into the passenger seat of your own vehicle with another one of you driving who’s out of control, and you’re helpless to do anything about it.
The popular medication I was prescribed only exaggerated the feelings of anxiety and depression, kept me from sleeping and made me nauseous all the time. Lost 40 lbs. in two weeks. Xanax was prescribed to help me sleep. I’d wake in the middle of the night and have to take another one just to get back to sleep. The last straw was lying in bed one day screaming uncontrollably for hours until finally passing out.
I stopped taking the prescribed medication and felt less terrible almost immediately. Did my own research and requested another medication that I believed was more likely to help stabilize my emotions. It did with the side effect of nasty headaches. With me it’s those “man” headaches. Any task requiring cognitive reasoning beyond tying one’s shoes was problematic. I started reducing the dosage gradually until the headaches subsided. A quarter pill a day is still taken to help prevent the breakdown of serotonin. Exercise and reduced stress are presumed to be major factors in producing serotonin that is believed to help keep a person’s brain chemistry balanced.
However, things weren’t quite the same after recovery. It’s almost like having what I would suspect is a mild case of PTSD. Before the breakdown there was a lock on the door where the demons live. Afterward, that lock was gone. Now it requires more diligent focus and keen situational awareness to make sure my back stays against that door and the door remains closed. Even a crack, usually caused by excessive heat or sensory overload, now initiates an immediate and strong proactive response that some may understand, but many do not. Regardless, I never, ever want to find myself in that place again for any reason.
In addition to a consistent exercise regiment, part of my recovery was also a serious introspection regarding expectations of myself and the story. As a business owner and project manager, I was always in control of my work and always knew exactly what the end result was going to be because me, myself, I would produce that result. You know, success is what we make it.
In trying to sell a story, you have control over what you write, what you say and who you talk to, and that’s pretty much it. For your work to find its way to the rest of the world requires people of that world to accept it and take on a portion of the responsibility to help spread word of its existence. In other words, its success depends on other people.
But an individual can’t control what other people decide to think, do, or not do. Influence, yes. Control, no. All we can do is provide the information along with a dog-and-pony show, hope that the right people will see the value in what we offer and help champion our efforts. It’s a course that can be plagued by seemingly endless challenges and very few, if any successes.
A mistake I made early on was assuming that because of the way the story came to me, that a path would also be cleared for it to achieve what I believed was/is its intended destiny. The fact this assumption wasn’t true was a very difficult and at times painful lesson to learn. Everything has its agency. Even hope and faith can’t change that irrefutable fact.
It’s impossible for someone who hasn’t actually experienced a mental break to know of the literal hell a person goes through. I can say with absolute assurance that I now understand why some people with mental illness commit suicide.
Let’s move on.
Later I tried raising funds with Kickstarter. Fail. GoFundMe. GoFail. Then I had the brilliant idea of putting together an organization called The World Film Coalition. Millions of people would be invited to contribute just $5 to be credited as Executive Producers on the film as The World Film Coalition. To be a regular Joe or Jane anywhere in the world and be able to say you’re a legitimate Executive Producer on a major motion picture seemed worthwhile and just crazy enough to work. Well, it didn’t. And the worldwide press release I sent out to introduce the project got ZERO responses. None, nill, nessuna, nevians, nimu.
That was it, again. I was out of ideas and hope and quietly accepted defeat. It was what it was.
Then early in 2020, you know, the year of Covid written and directed by Stephen King, that first impression visited me again – “Share the story with everyone.” I may have dropped my head into my hands, and sobbed.
So, here I am giving it one last final try. This time I decided to narrate the story as an audio book. No fabulous big publishing-house deal, no mega-popular film…yet. Just a story given to me through dreams to be shared with you.
A friend donated a couple of laptops and I picked up a decent mic and mixer to set up a studio in the basement, which is near a noisy furnace in a tiny house next to a busy street under a medical helicopter traffic corridor and turn-to-final for a local Air Force base with stupid-loud F-35’s. Then there was my senior Editor-in-Chief tabby, Kate, who when hearing my voice from the basement late at night, the only time it was reasonably quiet, would call forth loudly from the top of the stairs to her servant in the dungeon to come hither and open the gate to the out-world because royalty didn’t use a dog door. One morning while it was snowing and quiet, I thought I might try to get some recording time in. Then the next door neighbor decided to run a saw not far from a basement window. Sigh…
To say my recording environment was a little challenging would be kind. And while I strive for perfection as a former production and audio engineer, my voice-actor client may have a broadcast voice, but is still an amateur. Many times it would take more than 20 hours to clean up a recording session enough to meet my professional standards. Many times his performances didn’t even make par so they were deleted and he’d have to do them over.
Audio editing. I should point out the mic position was only for the picture.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for voice actors. There are nuances to a good performance that go way beyond just having a good voice. Jim Dale, who narrated the Harry Potter series (Haweeee!), is one of the most talented narrators I’ve ever heard. Perfect? Of course not. Good? Very. These Harry Potter audio books are one of the few I can actually enjoy listening to, especially on long trips. Lou Diamond Phillips, believe it or not, is another actor whose performance in book narration impresses me. Who knew? Just exceptionally well-done.
Will the audio book ever get finished? I honestly don’t know. Gave up fighting the noise at home but later stayed for a couple of weeks recording the rest of the book at our family’s empty farmhouse in Idaho after my mom passed away. Editing is tedious and monotonous though, and my quest for perfection doesn’t help speed things along. So maybe it will get finished, maybe not.
Regardless of issues and challenges, the story will keep searching for its champion and go forward one way or another until a perceived destiny becomes reality. Hopefully someday when that goal is reached, an impression will visit that simply says, “Good enough.” That would be nice.
Even today people still occasionally ask if I’m ‘writing more books.’ As a matter of fact, a woman asked that question of me just last night. The answer is “no.” Without an agent and publisher I see no point. I had other original stories in the works and from time to time my wife still encourages me in that regard. NBC Universal expressed interest in a new action, adventure, grounded Sci-Fi screenplay I was working on, but the ambition was lost somewhere in that aforementioned bog. It’s an original, unique and interesting story, though. I’m not a person who is easily impressed. If something isn’t really good and worthwhile, I don’t bother.
A woman approached me at a signing one time and asked why quality material doesn’t get published while so much trash does. I told her it’s the same old story – it isn’t so much what you know, but who you know. It would be nice if quality of talent, or even audience approval was the prime motivator in championing someone’s work. That’s seldom the case however, and one reason why I despise playing those games.
What I saw in Hollywood more than anything was the “sell-up” – writers trying to sell anything to anyone and producers looking for something to sell to a studio. The thing is, most successful film projects begin with a quality story that audiences actually want to see. What an agent, producer or studio likes or wants, or who knows who, or who sells what to whom, is usually of little consequence to the ultimate success of a project. That ending is about us, the audience. You and me. We are the judge and jury of what becomes successful vs. what falls into the abyss of bad decisions, poor judgement and wishful thinking.
The audience or customer should always be the core focus of a project that ultimately depends on that same audience or customer for its success. That’s just simple, common business sense. Money and marketing can’t and won’t save a bad story or poorly produced project. Audiences aren’t stupid and wishful thinking never trumps reality. A pig in a dress, sunglasses and a hat, is still a pig.
I’ve had a critical interest in the technical aspects of film and film production for decades and have researched, in detail, what makes many films successful or not. There are a simple set of rules that work and at one point I even wrote what I called “Eight Rules of Engagement” that incorporates these guidelines and common business sense. A few filmmakers already know what these rules are and their productions show it.
The CIRCLE OF DOORS screenplay was nominated to be part of the 2018 Beverly Hills Film Festival. While I suspected the story was too commercial to win any festival awards, my wife and I attended the awards ceremony and dinner and enjoyed the experience.
Truthfully, if DOORS is my only work that ever gets released to the public, then so be it. I have an endless list of personal projects to pursue when the curtain finally closes over this stage, unless I’m dead by then.
As a musician, and while courting delusions of grandeur in producing my own films, I was investigating who I thought might be a good candidate to score a DOORS film. At the time, Nicholas Hooper (Harry Potter), impressed me, and his group expressed interest in the project. Then there are, of course, the well-known industry-standard composers like Hans Zimmer, Alan Silvestri, Patrick Doyle and so on. Alan Silvestri composed Contact, one of my all-time favorite films with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey.
Two composers who have seriously impressed me with their talent more recently are Henry Jackman and Rupert Gregson-Williams; Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Wonder Woman (2017) respectively. These two efforts are simply outstanding. It’s somewhat noticeable when a composer is just doing their job vs. becoming invested in a project where they take the time to compliment a film story’s complex personality. Apparently Jackman caught some flak for using synthesized elements in his Winter Soldier score. Whatever. It was brilliant and fit the film exceptionally well. That film was also incredibly well-executed in every other regard. One of the best I’ve seen. Lorne Balfe is another composer who impresses me. My wife likes watching Mission Impossible: Fallout in part because she says she loves the score. That was Lorne Balfe. Highlighting the previously mentioned composers in no way detracts from others who are incredibly talented, but may not be as well-known.
A young woman approached me at a signing one time sharing that she was an editor for a popular publishing company in Utah. This same publisher was one of the hundreds that had rejected a submission of the DOORS manuscript. She questioned if my work was any different than other ‘stale material she had to constantly read.’ I knew what she was referring to and suggested that my novel was likely quite different. She was skeptical but agreed to purchase a copy and give it go.
About two weeks later this same young woman tracked me down at another signing in a neighboring town. As she approached the table, she was smiling and excited and went on and on about the story and the plot and how this related to that. After a few minutes of working it up she finally blurted out loudly, “I just think you’re a friggen genius!”
It was a very nice complement. But in truth, I wasn’t the source of the story. Only the pen meant to write it.
Anyone can produce average. Real quality takes talent, character and concerted effort. DOORS is a powerful, inspiring, proven, epic story that if produced and marketed properly should have a very high chance of success with the world audience. Of that I have absolutely no doubt. But it’s going to take industry people of strong character, vision, experience, ambition and resources to make that happen. The search continues.
While writing the DOORS story, there were times when I could feel an immense presence with me – a seemingly infinite force behind me – a reassurance that what I was doing had purpose and value. It’s my sincere hope that someday audiences of the world will have the opportunity to experience this story as I have experienced it, to feel its power and importance, to be immersed in its compelling journey that can expand one’s vision, and stir emotions deep in one’s soul.
This is your story. Welcome to the Circle of Doors.
– Ranse Parker
My wife and daughter.