Why I Wrote a Screenplay (and Why More are Coming)

Blog

THE FRACKEN isn’t my first screenplay. It’s my second.

That first screenplay was me experimenting with the form using a sequel (plotted but never written) to an earlier novel (that I never intended to write a sequel for). I was asking two questions with that project:

  1. Could I write a screenplay?
  2. Could I write it in The Journal?

The answer to both questions: “Yes, with caveats.”

That was 2015. Only one other person has ever read that screenplay. I doubt there will be others.

In late 2025, as my wife and I were watching some Truly Bad SF/Horror films from the 50s-60s on YouTube, I had the thought: I should write a bad horror movie.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But I’ve come to believe that there is, in fact, a skill (or at least a knack) to writing even a bad movie. You watch those old films, like THE GAMMA PEOPLE (1956), and you think (or at least I thought), I could do that.

I wasn’t 100% wrong. 🙂

(more…)

Screenplay: THE FRACKEN

New Release, Screenplay

Logline: A workaholic oil company executive and her climate activist father have to work together to escape destruction and save her son when an enormous creature made of sandstone, crude oil, and rusty drilling pipes rises from the prairie and attacks Tulsa, Oklahoma.

AKA: “Kaiju attacks Tulsa” 🙂

The Fracken – Draft 9Download

NOTE: This is draft 7, dated 31 August 2026. If a new draft is released, I’ll update this post.

UPDATE: Draft 9 uploaded 2 October 2026.

The Hits Keep Coming

Blog, Garden

My obtuse–but hopefully entertainingly colorful–post back in November, The Gut-Punches of Life, gets an addendum.

We took another series of punches-to-the-face starting in January, but we’re in recovery now. Things might even be looking up. Which, yes, makes us increasingly nervous.

Next month marks 2 years since [redacted].

I’m just fucking tired. Tired of all the responsibility. Tired of making things work. Tired of pushing forward day after fucking day.

Almost tired enough to punt the garden this year. Even tho I already have several dozen seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, various flowers and herbs). I thought once I had the seeds started and they had sprouted I would feel better. But all it did was add to the load.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is pulling me forward, tho. I’ve slowly been getting the garden infrastructure re-assembled. I’ll have the irrigation set up soon. I’ll scatter sunflowers and wildflowers around the front lawn. Get the lawn mowed (around the wildflowers, of course). And get the seedlings transplanted.

I’m not promising to do any other planting this year, tho. Maybe I’ll feel more in the spirit of things come the middle of May.

I love my garden. I love fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. I love seeing the bees and wasps and butterflies buzzing around the zinnias and marigolds and sunflowers. I enjoy the challenge of trying new plants.

But this year it just feels like one more thing on my list that I have to take care of, and I’m tired.

<deep breath>

I’ll survive. The garden will … maybe not thrive, but at least grow and be pretty, and we can have BLTs with homegrown tomatoes on homemade bread come July. Something to look forward to.

And that’s what I think I need more of: Things to look forward to.

-David