In the immortal words of the God MC, Rakim: “It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you” without a SubStack to get through.
It has indeed been a while since my last update, but that’s in large part due to how busy I’ve been with my writing. Read on for an update on all things Lucid…
Raindance Film Festival Success!
I’m pleased to share that the new draft of my TV Pilot Screenplay “Obeah Bloodlines” achieved quarterfinalist status at the Raindance Film Festival Script Competition.
This was a big achievement for me and the news arrived at the perfect moment… just as I was losing all hope. This win catapulted my script up the charts on the script-hosting platform CoverFly, where it is now number 15 in the TV Thriller chart and in the top 10% of scripts overall. It’s still in consideration for a number of other festivals so I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed.
I also attended the Raindance pitching competition where I had two minutes to deliver an elevator pitch in front of an audience and a panel of industry experts. Before taking to the stage I was so nervous that everything felt upside down- my palms were sweaty and my mouth was dry. But when it was my turn to take to the stage, the adrenaline kicked in and the pitch flowed freely. In the end I was nominated as one of the four winners!
You can read the pitch and access the full script on my website here.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
The Obeah Bloodlines story has evolved dramatically since I started writing it and I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed the research element of this process. When creating character profiles and exploring the history of the universe I built, a spider web of stories emerged, tying in historical figures and events that enriched and evolved the main narrative of the story. I spent several months writing these in prose, forming the foundations of a novel that helped to forge the new and much-improved version of the screenplay. I’ve now decided to take chapters of the novel and edit them into short stories that I will be sharing via my SubStack over the coming weeks. I hope to eventually publish them in book form as an anthology of paranormal crime fiction entitled “Death by a Thousand Cuts”. Look out for the first of these coming soon!
My First Men’s Retreat
Earlier this year I attended my first Men’s Retreat. It was something my partner Cherice had been encouraging me to do for some time but I’d resisted, in large part due to my own preconceptions and prejudices that I’ve no doubt many of you, dear readers, will be feeling right now. There are a range of men’s work organisations around the world but the one which caught my attention was called Sacred Sons. It was an opportunity to connect, to share, to release and to heal.
I joined sixty other men to attend an event called EMX (embodied masculine experience) for four blazing hot days in June. I hadn’t given the experience much thought after booking my ticket but felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation as I made the 4-hour drive down to Devon. If you want to hear some specifics of the kinds of things men do at a Sacred Sons retreat, you can check out this Guardian article. But the truth is that words cannot do justice to the magnitude of what I felt and witnessed. It was a revelatory and life-changing experience.
I met men from all different walks of life, travelling from Europe, the US, Australia and beyond (one even came from Saudi Arabia!). We talked, we laughed, we cried, we danced, we sang, we fought, we hugged, we roared at the heavens and howled at the moon until our voices were hoarse, then slept beneath the stars as brothers. I met some truly incredible men who restored my faith in humanity and taught me things about myself I’d never even imagined.
I returned home from the retreat on Father’s Day to find my loving family waiting for me with gifts, cards and dinner, a beautiful way to conclude such a powerful experience. A Sacred Sons Men’s Retreat is certainly outside most people’s comfort zones (that’s the point!) but I’d honestly recommend this experience to any and all men. I truly feel it has the potential to make the world a better place. As I write these words I’m preparing to join an even larger cohort of 150 men in Edinburgh for another Sacred Sons retreat entitled Convergence, and that familiar feeling of excitement and apprehension sits heavily in my gut.
Reviews
I’m keeping the reviews section brief this time, in large part due to the fact that I’ve not been watching much and have mainly been reading comics (strictly for research purposes of course) in preparation for the comic books I’m working on (more about that in a future update) but I’d love to hear any recommendations you may have, so please do send me a reply or comment with suggestions for next time.
Films
They Cloned Tyrone (Netflix): This brilliant absurdist black comedy mixes elements of sci-fi and horror and stars John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris as the archetypal drug dealer, pimp and prostitute who stumble upon a jaw-dropping conspiracy in their Atlanta ‘hood. I’m not going to drop any spoilers because there are so many surprising twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat, but if there is one film I can recommend this month, it is this. I know I have a very particular taste in movies but this ticked all the boxes for me. I came away feeling inspired and reflecting on it for many weeks afterwards.
Barbie (Amazon Prime): I know it’s been impossible to avoid the Barbie hype train and I admit I had no interest in watching the movie until my partner and daughter convinced me to go with them. My son sat beside me in the cinema preparing to be unimpressed, but we were both pleasantly surprised to discover we absolutely loved it! I laughed my arse off the whole way through and was incredibly moved by an impassioned speech given by one of the characters addressing the existential struggles women have to deal with living in a “man’s world”. The movie did an excellent job of critiquing the patriarchy and the nature of the modern world in which we live. Highly recommended.
Books
Night Fever by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image Comics): In my opinion Brubaker and Phillips are a perfect partnership, and with Sean Phillip’s son Jacob on colours for this book it seems the apple really does not fall far from the tree! Brubaker has such an incredible knack for pulp noir storytelling, the reader is drawn straight into the world and you feel as though you are walking in the main character’s shoes. The aesthetic created by Phillips’s artwork blends perfectly: dynamic perspective viewpoints, emotive characters and incredible attention to detail. It’s like reading an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
The icing on the cake is Jacob Phillips’s colouring which uses vividly contrasting hues to emphasise the moods of different scenes whilst still being true to the “noir” conventions, with a great focus on shadows and darkness. This is very much in keeping with the previous colourists that Brubaker and Phillips have worked with and symbolic of their style. I don’t want to get into the story too much because it has so many wonderful twists and turns- it is classic Brubaker but very much unique in its content. I highly recommend this to any mature comic readers who like grounded crime stories and if you enjoy this, definitely check out the team's other work - particularly the Criminal series and Reckless.
If you’re into comics (or just curious) you can check out more of my reviews on League of Comic Geeks.
Music
Reggae Roast - ‘More Fire’ (album): The latest release from my good friends at Reggae Roast came out recently and it is an absolute banger! 12 tracks of the finest UK Dancehall and Reggae music featuring an all-star cast of vocalists including Mr. Williams, Soom T, Horseman, Natty Campbell, Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy and Earl 16. It’s available to purchase on vinyl or download from their Bandcamp page here (where the money goes directly to the artists) or you can listen to it on your streaming subscription service (Spotify/Apple Music etc.).
Chase & Status - ‘Disconnect’ feat. Becky Hill (single): I stumbled across this tune recently on Spotify and it has been on steady rotation in my system. I absolutely love the powerful vocals by Becky Hill and the Shy FX remix adds his signature heavy Reggae and Dub influence flavour to the track. This is one for you to get tun’ up to!