On Writing - or I how fell into it

This is a blog by an author so I should have something about writing. I never considered writing as a career - I was too obsessed with Hollywood and oddly that is how I got my start as a professional writer. Amateurs are people who write for free - I have been there and will never do it again unless it is something I want to do.

Around 2000 or 2001 I worked on the film Black Hawk Down researching all things Ranger. I called and emailed veterans and tried my best to keep them all in the loop - although some guys were ungrateful dicks - the me-syndrome does hit Rangers just to a far smaller degree than most. In any event, a lot of them were very helpful and I assembled a ton of pictures for production - by the way for free! Eventually a 3rd Battboy (a Ranger from the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment) Mogadishu vet joined production and we worked together for a short while. I also hooked the official military tech advisor up with a prop house (uniforms, gear, weapons) - again for no money though usually some form of kickback does happen. I was too much of a team player and not motivated by money - WTF?

I was paid for maybe one or two weeks? eventually but was not taken to Morocco for filming - I found out later because the tech advisor’s wife thought I would badger the producer and director with my own projects - I was trying to become a producer back then. As if I would have been that unprofessional. I was highly annoyed, well pissed actually, but nothing I could do about it.

But I had a ton of pics, was habitually broke, and cold-emailed Osprey Publishing. Marcus Cowper commissioned me for an article on the relief effort of the Rangers. A 10th Mountain Division medic had provided a lot of photos and information. The article was never published as the magazine folded. But I had an in and wrote several smaller monographs for Osprey. But my focus remained on Hollywood. I wrote Shadow Warriors a history of American Rangers around 2003/4. Way too big a book as a first effort but overall it is solid. To date my best seller.

I produced an independent film called Soldier of God in 2005 which I did some rewrites on because of financial constraints. The DVD market tanked that year and next - of course, why wouldn’t it? Eventually, I decided that most people struggling in Hollywood suck, and the successful ones live in a bubble (I too wish I could live in that bubble) and it was time to pursue proper writing while still hanging on for that hopeful Hollywood career. SEALs came out, co-written with SEAL Chris Osman, and was one of the first books on modern SEAL combat in Afghanistan and Iraq but we got hammered by the 2008 economic collapse. The book did well enough but not well enough - if you know what I mean. I also ghost-wrote scripts and received reasonably decent pay for them and even revived a relationship for the original writer with the studio who had commissioned it. Great to make some money but that was never going to help me succeed in a tough nepotistic industry. I wrote another book, Vanquished, but I had an unhappy experience with a new editor (other authors also complained but were equally ignored) and I shifted my focus to screenwriting again for a number of years. I also co-wrote a few things with a few different people- not always a good thing to do - and came very close to proper agency representation and a sale but alas, not. My co-author couldn’t handle the rejections and flaked.

My common-law wife on the other hand began a very successful career as a TV writer in Canada and I returned to book writing in 2015/16 with a small book on the ancient battle of Zama during the Second Punic War fought in North Africa. It was important to start with something smallish - I think I wrote 40K words including rewrites and sections that were cut. Again Marcus Cowper had commissioned me and Nikolai Bogdanovic was my editor - I really enjoyed the experience and am very happy with the monograph. But it was a work for hire - so no royalties!

Subsequently I co-authored Run to the Sound of the Guns with Nicholas Moore about his Ranger combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq but the Pentagon’s clearance section took eight months instead of 8-10 weeks promised. The book got bumped twice before getting published in 2018. I am proud of the book in that it captures the voice of Nick very well. It also got some spiffy review from Rangers. Yes Marcus Cowper commissioned it.

The book also landed me agent Alec Shane at Writers House who negotiated the offer. I love Alec and can speak to him unfiltered! This is crucial.

I have some proposals out there, am working way too slowly on another non-commissioned book, and am tinkering with some other proposals as well as a comic book. I don’t make a living writing - my wife enables me… she also paid for my MA at King’s College London. She must like me.

Hollywood… that harsh mistress - well I have a pilot out there co-written with director W.D. Hogan based on a comic by Jim Starlin - people love it we are told, and CAA was looking for showrunners but crickets…

Half? my book collection. Once I owned 7 book stores and newsstands. That’s another story.

My script outline for a TV pilot. WTF? But it works for me.