Trunk stories: every writer's got 'em. In a sense, PERSONAL DEMONS, JOHNNY GRUESOME and THE FRENZY WAY were all trunk stories - screenplays that went unproduced because their budgets were beyond my ability to raise (although I saw the potential for each one to become a novel soon after the scripts were written; my first attempts were abominable).

I've still got some left, though I see them only as films, not novels: a Brooklyn set crime drama which I could easily re-jigger for Buffalo/Niagara Falls; a swamp monster story I'd still like to shoot; and the first two thirds of a trilogy that follow a magician from childhood to middle age (like all good wizards, he's home schooled...can you guss why I put that one aside?). And then there's BODY HORROR, which would have embraced horror and crime drama the same way most of my novels have, while catering to the SLIME CITY audience.

I've been offered the opportunity to participate in a multi-media project (my favorite kind!): a horror anthology film that will also be a graphic novel. Reflecting on my options, I've decided to revisit BODY HORROR, which will be the leanest film I've ever made; I'm basically taking the first ten minutes of the script I wrote and the ending I never got to and surgically attaching them (maybe this is why I never pursued the feature version). I have no idea when we'll shoot the short or when the graphic novel might move forward, but expect a professional effort in both mediums.

And if it's well received, maybe I'll still make that feature...