Guest Post: Scott S. Phillips, Screenwriter and Novelist!

First off, I owe Carole a big thank you, not just for letting me write this guest post for her blog, but for some very valuable guidance and support. Thanks, Carole -- I sure appreciate it!

A little background: I've worked as a professional screenwriter for about 17 years now — my first produced script was a movie called DRIVE, (the one with Mark Dacascos, not the Ryan Gosling flick). Amazingly, DRIVE was recently named “The Best American Martial Arts Movie Ever Made” by Kung Fu Cinema. Since then I’ve written several other movies and a dozen episodes of the CW Network TV series KAMEN RIDER DRAGON KNIGHT. Along the way I’ve written a couple novels, including SQUIRREL EYES, a darkly funny tale of obsession, lust, pop culture and filmmaking.

I’ve been a big supporter of independent media from the time I was a kid — one of my favorite movies is NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which George Romero made (in Pittsburgh!) in the late 1960s. I’m also a big fan of director John Cassavetes, who not only independently financed several of his movies, he handled the distribution himself. And then there’s the indie comic books I grew up on, stuff like Dave Sim’s CEREBUS and Richard and Wendy Pini’s ELFQUEST. Because of all that early exposure to indie artists, I’m a huge fan of the ebook revolution, and I’ve released several books independently, including my short story collection, TALES OF MISERY AND IMAGINATION.

What brought me to this guest post is the novel I’m currently writing: PETE, DRINKER OF BLOOD — an urban fantasy story of a reluctant vampire named Pete Tyler, a blue-collar guy who was “turned” in 1973 and has kind of become stuck in time. Pete stays out of trouble by living a solitary existence, dining on a specialized menu, and avoiding the other vampires in Los Angeles. Those vampires hang out at a place called Club Emoglobin, but Pete prefers The Starbucket, a seedy Sunset Strip dive across the street. Pete’s simple life goes haywire when he falls for Angie, the cute bartender — and when Carson Fitzgerald (the sinister vampire who turned them all) returns to Hollywood, all hell breaks loose.

I’m releasing PETE as a serial novel — one installment a month, eight total. I chose to do the book in this form while writing a comic book mini-series called SINBAD, ROGUE OF MARS (look for the first issue from Bluewater Comics in August), and it occurred to me that SINBAD was one story, broken into four parts, each released monthly. I’d been wanting to play around with the ebook form, and the serial format seemed like a perfect way to do that. At this point, the first three installments of PETE are available, with part 4 coming in mid-May.

I’m having a terrific time writing PETE, DRINKER OF BLOOD. I’ve had the story kicking around my head since 1999, when I was living a bit of a solitary existence of my own in Hollywood. If you dig vampires, slightly awkward romance, classic rock, and a fair amount of humor in your urban fantasy, I hope you’ll give PETE a look.

 

Scott's published work:

Pete, Drinker of Blood (parts 1-3)  at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=pete%2C+drinker+of+blood

And at Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ScottPhillipsNM


Be sure to visit Pete at his website:


http://www.rattleandblast.com/


Thanks for your time, and thanks again, Carole!

It is my pleasure, Scott. Thank you for this post, I loved it.