Writing Begets Writing, Books Beget Books
As you write books more books come out of you. Tranny was like that—-a niggling fiction story culled from all the things I’d taught, counseled folk about. It pressed to be written. To really delve into transgenderism, transsexualism, and race.
I have a thriller Sanction that I came up with after watching a bad movie and thinking—” What if…instead it…such and such?” at one small plot point. Now I’ve got 200 handwritten pages, about 60% of the book, to type up.
Then popped another idea—-a riff on a character that I’d written one of my personal favorite short stories, Fatal Lovesick Journey, around—-it’s in Escapades and Hush—-there’s a whole time travel, magical surrealism thing to it. But I liked the character so much I thought to myself could I create more versions of her—-throughout sort of my own multiverse? So Calys appears in the short story, the novel Hush and the novel Stay and then graduates to her own 12 book series, Myriad.
Playing around with the concept of a multiverse has allowed a character or two to migrate from some books, so now I think about books as open or closed to this migration.
Race War, a Trilogy
I’ve always wanted to write a book about a race war. I’ve been thinking about it literally for decades. When I teach history and government design I always start at the Haitian War, Toussaint beating Napoleon, the French Revolution, teh American Revolution——so much happened within 20 years because of the Haitian Revolution.
But I’ve wanted to do a contemporary story and a few years ago at a conference in California, Guernerville, 60 attendants, and me, all Black men descended upon a small White town…and the town freaked out a little. That was fascinating so I started working up ideas about that and I presented it to a friend on the trip—-we were going to co-write it but he died a couple of weeks later, suddenly.
I went back and forth on the seed of the idea and then finally envisioned it as a trilogy and then got past my Guernerville plot (Book 1) and how that spills into Book 2 and I’m still chewing through Book 3. I know what Book 1 is and I have a few pages written already—-I want t do it in an unusual way stylistically. Then I know what Book 2 is about, what questions it answers from Book 1 and how I deal with an interracial relationship. Book 3 is still a little pie in the sky. I have my idea of Who, What, Why but How, my deus ex machina of Book 3 is a little sketchy—-I could go one of several ways—-deep realism, surrealism, sci-fi—-I’m still a little hazy on it.
Young Adult
I have an idea for a young adult series because I was a Youth Coordinator. I have some interesting characters in mind. It might be a full series or just a single book. And as I think about the youth I knew—-it might not be Young Adult as Young Adult is thought of in publishing. lol
Sequels
I’ve always had a sequel to Hush, coming out soon, in mind—Moon Children. Indigo Children. Something along those lines.
S and Stay are pretty complete but Stay does have some characters in it that might seep over.
That;’s about an additional 30+ fiction books I have in me so far. I have notes on a few more ideas, from dreams mainly, that I might flesh out—-so give it another 20 to make it 50 more fiction novels.
Educational
From teaching, I’m finishing up 4, a tetralogy (I’m very proud to be able to use that word. Nerd woody.) on the work I’ve been doing over the years in teaching
Rites of Passage
Creatively and Culturally Implementing the Common Core
Why GED/TASC Programs Don’t Work and How To Fix Them and
Omni Mastery Teaching
The above 4 textbooks will probably be released simultaneously or within months of each other. Which is a relief because I’ve been working on them for a while as a lot of my Columbia teaching/learning work.
From them though has come two more educational projects a 12 book teaching series on teachers, professional development—-short books under 200 pages and a larger project of 100–200 books of popular books that I’ve taught and how to teach them. A hybrid book-instructional manual for teachers. That’s about another 100+ books.
What I can tell you is that writing, if you allow it, explore it, reveals more and more to write about.
Kyle Phoenix Briefs!
I’ve been collecting and curating a lot of my blog and Quora posts—-about 2500 separate articles/blogs so I have at least 1, if not more books of essays in there—-probably easiest as like a 12 book set of 20+ essays a piece.
The Original Kyle Phoenix Briefs
In digital publishing I was experimenting with actual (White paper) Briefs—-Digital articles of 10 pages or less in length for 99 cents. There a dozen of those that have been selling well. But they should perhaps be compiled at some point into a full book.
The (Fan Fic) X-Men by Kyle Phoenix
If you Google search you’ll find a long,m torrid, epic X-Men fanfic that I wrote while sitting bored at securities litigation consulting positions. While no, I cannot legally print and sell —-I can print copies for myself. I have several large copies of my insane X-men (the way they should be done, he said with a slight tick and nod towards Chris Claremont who wonderfully has donated his work to Columbia University.)
The Graphic Novels I Can Publish
I used to own an amateur comic book company as a wee lad in my teens. That sent me into a spiral of writing comic book scripts about original characters. Which made me create about 200 5 to 10-page scripts. (At an insane point of writing, it’s both masturbatory and like you’re writing/vomiting to get this out from another place. Am I writing for me or for you? I don’t know. It changes sometimes sentence by sentence, page by page.)
But I have 7 solid ideas o write, just like a rapper tossing something out to the country & western charts. I saw a comic with Wolverine and Elektra and loved it, stylistically so I’ve been developing my graphic novels along those lines.
Screenplays/Films/The Kyle Phoenix TV Show
I wrote, produce, directed and even acted in a screenplay I wrote in high school. There were about 30 of us in the Soap Opera club and at the first meeting the teacher, Ms. Ann Campbell asked if anyone wanted to try writing the screenplay. I’d been referred to her class by my teaching mentors at John Jay—-Dr, Hunter, Ms. Debbie Freeman, and Ms. Denise Donnelly. I came back Monday morning with a 100-page screenplay—-of sorted, torridness about a high school. I expanded it to 200 pages and then we started doing this co-learning project with Long Island University’s film department.
While yes, I do have The Kyle Phoenix Show—-we’re in our 10th year of a 15-year contract, broadcast here in NYC on Spectrum, formerly Time Warner cable, I have designs for two films so far.
The Veil
Another book that I thought of a few years ago and have recently started writing about a woman in an Islamic country. She wears a jihab—-for many reasons. What I want to explore there is what happens when women have to assert themselves in a land that has varying levels of tolerance for the assertion.
To that end, I’ve always thought it had a cinematic feel to it. I think along with S: A Novel I’ll present it to a streaming service like Netflix.
The Remake
I have a few favorite films. One is Gloria with Gena Rowlands. I remember it coming on TV as a child and probably because I was a mouthy kid with a bit of a ladylike broad for a mother, identified with it. I have an idea for a remake, a twist. Tilda Swinton did a remake and so has Taraji P. Henson but I have another twist, an idea. (No, I don’t want to talk about the Sharon Stone remake. Neither does she.)
Favorite Line:
Boy: What are you going to do?
Gloria: Don’t worry I have my gun. If I have to shoot them, I will. I just hope it’s someone I know.
(Tickles me every time!)
I’ve rewritten about 10 pages of the screenplay so far—-I had a burst of creativity and did it one morning in the cafeteria at work for shits and giggles. It’s gooooooooooooooooooood.
Writing Advice Me, Toni & Fran Sitting In Tree……..
My advice to wannabe writers (and yes, poets—-I have a book of profane poetry, Grade A Cunt Rant, that I have yet to release. It’s profane. But some of the poetry is award-winning. lol The cover though? It’s a rough cover. lol)—-is STFU and write. And read. And then write. And read. And write.
Toni Morrison’s advice which I remember when the quote came out—-”If there is a book you want to read but can’t find, write it.”
Fran Lebowitz, her good friend, amended it to When Toni Morrison said: “Write the book…” she did not mean everyone.
Themes and Short Stories Become Long Books
I have none. I’m trying them all out. I have no genre I particularly prefer. Curiously enough though I have the screenplay of The World Today from teh soap opera and it’s filming—-I’ve never quite perfected writing plays. I took a play writing class and actually had to drop it. It’s the only writing class I’ve ever dropped in college—-I simply could not construct in that way.
Hush was originally a 75 long short story, titled The World Today written in high school at the same time as teh screenplay TWT. (Battling titles in my teens.) Both inspired by Janet Jackson. For awhile I was on a Janet kick of writing short stories from her song titles. It didn’t necessarily have to be associated to the theme of the lyrics just the challenge of the mood, title, etc.. I’ve always wanted to put Prince on for 24 hours and just write, see what comes out. Sometimes I play John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme real low on repeat for the whole weekend—-a whisper through the house. I do the same with Toni Morrison’s reading of Beloved and Paradise and Love. I simply allow teh words to become the atmosphere of my space. I live in language, words.
Hush is now 650 pages (we’re desperately trying to edit it down to 600)—-it went to a publisher—Ronald Sukenick in Boulder on recommendation from one of my mentors Raymond Federman and Ronald said it was a book. He cleaved the manuscript in half—-Escapades it was titled and accepted teh short stories—-all of them in Escapades Volumes 1 & 2 & 3 (1 and 2 are out, 3 is forthcoming) and ordered me to turn the 125 novella into a proper novel. I did, I have.
Stay was originally stuck at 40–125 pages and then I turned it upside down, into a gay, polyamory, love triangle, multiverse, magical realistic jaunt and it’s at 670 pages (we’re desperately trying to edit it down to 650.)
There are three longer short stories in the two Escapades collections—-Clan Chief, Bourgeois, and Last Chance——they have novel potential.
Maybe, we’ll see….
So you know don’t get lost or tied to a theme or style and let short stories flow for a dozen or 100 pages (longhand) you might find a book in them years later.
2025–2030
That’s so far until 2025–2030 that I have planned out in projects.
(I also have 5–10 musical CDs I’d like to create, write lyrics for. Try it out. Maybe drum up that poetry stuff.)
After that, I’m sure I’ll really have some idea. Insanely I look at the above as necessary to get out of the way, then I can really be ready ability-wise and imaginatively, to write some interesting works.
Everything till then is just prologue….