First, welcome everyone to my first blog post! Second, I’ll try to keep this from being too philosophical. When I started Story Pulse Creative, I had a very clear vision in mind. I’ve always been highly creative and have fleshed out countless worlds and stories throughout the years, and finally, it came to me. I need a house to put all my orphaned projects. Initially, I had hopes that it would become a massive visual storytelling IP studio and that would be my primary focus, then more recently, the goal was to turn it into a free to experience short story platform. While both ideas had legs and were aligned with my creative passion, there was one major flaw. My brain has been stuck in the mode of treating my creativity like a business or traditional production platform.

I’m not sure when this started, but ever since then, the idea of creating something new was exhilarating, until it was time to share it with the world. My creative journey has taken many attempted forms from author, to showrunner, to comic creator, to manga studio, the list goes on. For years and years, I thought my ultimate goal was to be a successful creator whose stories reached the masses. While monetary gain would have always been icing on top, it was never the driving motivation, however the way in which I went about structuring how I’d bring my creative ideas to the world followed a model that said otherwise.

Even in my most recent attempt to return my creative hobby to its rightful place among my list of priorities, I felt stuck in the same rut. I have all these ideas and at this rate I’d be looking at many years, a lot of energy wasted, and a lot of money spent before some of them even saw the light of day. Some might read this and say “hey man, that’s just part of the plight of being a successful creator,” and they might be absolutely right, but my idea of success actually looks different than what most would see. A major part of my creativity is being able to share my work and see how those interested react. Whether they love it, hate it, are confused, irritated, the second half of the true joy that I get from creating is others’ experience, not for fame, not for followers, but because I know how much I get from being able to discuss popular media, see what others are saying, and developing my own feelings.

I want Story Pulse Creative to reflect that, not a traditional model of production that follows idea, polish, marketing, reach, repeat. There’s obviously a place for this structure, but it’s just not with me. This doesn’t mean I just want to put out garbage, but I’m giving myself permission to allow things to take the form they’re in when I want to share them. For example, The Wraith Code is an action thriller and massive short story series that I’ve planned. At its inception it was maybe only about fourteen short stories with a limited scope of work. Now, it’s ballooned to twenty-two, each one playing a critical part in the overall narrative. Each story has its own song, there’s other bonus content like casting trailers. Originally, each story was designed to be about 20k words. That’s a major lift even with the help of others, not to mention a financial sacrifice.

As you’ll see the first four stories are written in its intended form, but at this rate, who knows when I’ll get to the end, let alone get to all of the other stories I want to tell, that will have their own unique challenges. So, what did I do? I pivoted. I’m now using a model that I call “Mission Details” which allows me to tell the story in more of a synoptic fashion. Is it probably less thorough and engaging than a full story? That’s for you to decide, but I can tell you this, the story will actually get finished. This doesn’t represent burnout or even laziness. It represents my desire to be able to share my creativity with everyone in a way that remains fun for me.

Another example, Bloodlines is a crime thriller that took a different shape over the last few years. Because it’s fun, I’ve decided to write a screenplay for it instead of putting it into novel form, like I previously planned. Will it ever get made into a movie? Who knows, will it get shared with all of you eventually, absolutely. A number of projects are seeing this shift and honestly, it’s been really fun and really fulfilling for me. All that to say, I hope you guys and girls enjoy whatever comes down the creative pipeline. I can promise this, there’s planning, intentionality, and so much heart and passion that I pour into each and every story.