R.J. Smith's Blog: THE MADHOUSE, page 11

THE HALTING OF A GREAT CAREER

A Personal Message to my Fans!
R.J. Smith

The Master of Suspense

Today, as I struggle to sit at my desk, I’m depressed and in quite a lot of pain as many of you have come to know.
This year, throughout the summer, 2014, starting in June, I had scheduled and was looking forward to a string of appearances and signings at books fairs, conventions, events and book stores in support of Cataclysm.
Unfortunately, I was forced to cancel much of the book tour again this year due to the very serious spine injury I’ve written about that traumatized me in June 2013.
The injuries  have ruined my personal and professional life. 
Caused by the neglect of a paving contractor who left a huge hole in the sidewalk in my upscale neighborhood, they had dug  up the sidewalk and failed to rope off the area.
Unfortunately, while riding my bike on the sidewalk that evening, and unaware of the hole waiting up ahead (because there were no darn signs or caution tape… nothing) my bike went into that hole and the last two years of my life have been hell on earth.
Thank god it wasn’t a child riding their bike down that sidewalk. 
Just a few days ago I was at another of my endless doctor appointments to try and fix the damage to my spine. Off to the MRI machine again, making sure a surgery went as planned.
You see, by the time you read this, I’ll be laid up recovering from that back surgery which will hopefully correct some of the serious disc damage and spinal cord impingement’s in my back.
This is my second surgery, as last year I underwent neck surgery to alleviate an enormous amount of pain caused by disc impingement on my spinal cord. 
But it’s not over yet, I still have to undergo neurosurgery for injuries to my spinal cord in my neck and discs which has caused motor issues with my hands… and as you all know, if I cannot type normally, the novels will come very slow and the tours stop, everything ends.
I am not sure what the future holds for me anymore, I just had to turn down a movie script offer from Totem Films…. my whole career has come to a sudden stop because of these injuries. I can’t sit for long periods, which means I cannot write books on a ten month deadline or movie scripts in 90 days. I have trouble standing for more than thirty minutes, can’t pick anything up (like a box of books).
Last Fall, I was scheduled to travel to Oklahoma to write the true crime book, The Good Friday Killers. But because of the accident, that entire project has been cancelled until further notice.
This summer, I was supposed to be in New York to write my next novel, Mountain Monsters, a Horror novel and movie script about monsters in the woods who take over a town and invade West Point. But, everything has been postponed or cancelled until further notice. Travelling, or lifting boxes of books and setting up tables is just not possible.
Please send your prayers this way, I need them.

EARTH IS A PRISON PLANET

INSPIRATION FOR WRITING CATACLYSM

WHEN I was a young boy, I’d stretch my young bones out on the roof of mother’s house staring at the vastness of space. My eyes would squint at the stars  peppering the galaxy.
SPACE intrigued me, and I wondered, could the movie E.T. perhaps hold a sliver of truth? Might there really be life on other planets? 
MIGHT the whispers really be true? Were flying saucers real, and more importantly, was it possible aliens were visiting our little blue planet? 
It had been forty years since I was on that roof in Ossining staring at the stars… but even now,  I catch myself glancing to the heavens while pondering those childish questions of life outside our universe. 
IN December 2013, while my friend and I were driving through our upscale neighborhood in the Town of Belleair, I got my answer. I had the sense of being watched.

WE were outside Hulk Hogan’s palatial home when I saw it. There, hovering silently just a few thousand feet above, I took in the magnificence of a gigantic triangle UFO (not the one shown above). Grabbing my android phone, I snapped off two pictures and glanced to my buddy who was busy staring at Terry “Hulk Hogan”  Bollea who stood in the driveway. 

Hulk Hogan

I, however, was more interested in the UFO. I’d seen The Hulk hundreds of times in Publix. But this thing hovering in the sky transfixed me. I’d never seen THAT before.
Then, just a quick as it arrived, it disappeared.
BATTLING pain, we went back to my house where I scribbled out the ending of my 2014 disaster/conspiracy book, Cataclysm. 
THAT 400-page end of the world novel was eventually released JULY 1st, 2014. It has gotten GREAT REVIEWS and is selling on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and most major retailers. 
You can currently get the e-book for the paltry price of $4.99. 
THIS morning, when I woke up, that experience of seeing the UFO was on my mind, and I decided to give you guys the inside scoop on how the storyline for Cataclysm came about. ENJOY this book… I worked REALLY hard  working through a lot of pain and agony to get this novel out to you all.  

INSPIRATION OF WRITING CATACLYSM

WHEN I was a young boy, I’d stretch my young bones out on the roof of mother’s house staring at the vastness of space. My eyes would squint at the stars  peppering the galaxy.
SPACE intrigued me, and I wondered, could the movie E.T. perhaps hold a sliver of truth? Might there really be life on other planets? 
MIGHT the whispers really be true? Were flying saucers real, and more importantly, was it possible aliens were visiting our little blue planet? 
It had been forty years since I was on that roof in Ossining staring at the stars… but even now,  I catch myself glancing to the heavens while pondering those childish questions of life outside our universe. 
IN December 2013, while my friend and I were driving through our upscale neighborhood in the Town of Belleair, I got my answer. I had the sense of being watched.

WE were outside Hulk Hogan’s palatial home when I saw it. There, hovering silently just a few thousand feet above, I took in the magnificence of a gigantic triangle UFO (not the one shown above). Grabbing my android phone, I snapped off two pictures and glanced to my buddy who was busy staring at Terry “Hulk Hogan”  Bollea who stood in the driveway. 

I, however, was more interested in the UFO. I’d seen The Hulk hundreds of times in Publix. But this thing hovering in the sky transfixed me. I’d never seen THAT before.
Then, just a quick as it arrived, it disappeared.
BATTLING pain, we went back to my house where I scribbled out the ending of my 2014 disaster/conspiracy book, Cataclysm. 
THAT 400-page end of the world novel was eventually released JULY 1st, 2014. It has gotten GREAT REVIEWS and is selling on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and most major retailers. 
You can currently get the e-book for the paltry price of $4.99. 
I was looking forward to a string of appearances this year in support of Cataclysm. Unfortunately, I had to cancel much of the book tour again this year due to a very serious spine injury that traumatized me in June 2013. That injury was caused by a paving contractor who left a huge hole in the ground after digging up the sidewalk and failed to rope off the area.
Thank god it wasn’t somebody’s kid riding their bikes down that route. 
As I write this, I’m laid up recovering from back surgery performed to try and correct disc damage in my back. This is my second surgery, as last year I underwent neck surgery to alleviate an enormous amount of pain caused by disc impingement. 
But it’s not over yet, I still have to undergo neurosurgery  for injuries to my spinal cord and discs.

So here I sit (for as long as I can stand the discomfort) to explain to you guys what inspired Cataclysm.
THIS morning, when I woke up, that experience of seeing the UFO was on my mind, and I decided to give you guys the inside scoop on how the storyline for Cataclysm came about.
ENJOY this book… I worked hard  working through pain.
But my whole career has come to a sudden stop because of these injuries. I can’t sit for long periods, which means I cannot write another book. I have trouble standing for more than thirty minutes, can’t pick anything up (like a box of books). I was supposed to be in New York this summer and fall to write my next novel, Mountain Monsters. But, everything has been postponed or cancelled until further notice. Travelling, or lifting boxes of books and setting up tables is just not possible.
Please send your prayers this way, I need them.
 
 

TIMES SQUARE

STORYTELLER ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS – LIVE SHOWS

In June 2008, I founded Storyteller Entertainment, LLC, with the sincere hope of discovering, and promoting amazingly talented people. I started out managing LIVE EVENT promotions in the South Florida Market. Bringing in Sponsors, like professional sport teams, vendors, corporations and distributors, I spent much of 2008-2010 in the event promotion business.

Then, in 2011, I entered the film industry, creating original written content and

delivering SPEC scripts to my manager in Los Angeles. Soon after,  I started a  publishing division, Storyteller Literature.

But I never forgot what I loved the most. Producing FIRST CLASS, stunning events. Now, six years after I first began this journey in the entertainment industry, I’m back to producing LIVE EVENTS.

Recently I  met a unique individual named Dwight Tisdale. This Saint Pete Florida 23 year old resident made such an impression on me, I  decided to bring back Storyteller Events with a focus on producing stunning music events.

Soon, more information will be posted on our brand new website currently in development.

In the meantime, if you live anywhere on this planet, you might want to follow us on Twitter.

This is coming to a city near you in the next year.

https://twitter.com/StorytellerFLA

We’ll be contracting with the best LIVE PERFORMERS in the business to WOW the crowd at first class shows. Everyone who walks in the door will  be entered to win Caribbean cruises, i-Pods, i-Tunes Gift Cards and Concert Tickets.

VIP passes will be available so you can get up close and meet the artists.

The future lies ahead, and we want you to be a part of this exciting venture.

 

 

 

 

 

STORYTELLER MUSIC EVENTS COMING SOON

In June 2010 I started Storyteller Entertinment, LLC, with the hope of discovering and promoting new talent. Four years later, and after meeting a unique individual named Dwight,  I have decided to bring in a music division.

Soon, more information will be posted along with a redesign of the website.

In the meantime, if you live anywhere on the West Coast of Florida, you might want to follow us on Twitter. https://twitter.com/StorytellerFLA

We will be contracting the best LIVE PERFORMERS in the business to attend our first class shows, and attendees will be entered to win a cruise, iphones, ipods and other great door prizes.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s The End of Humanity

In summer, 2014, I published Cataclysm, a novel which tracks documented UFO allegations taking place on planet Earth.  Although many still deny these intelligent beings are visiting the planet, it remains my belief the end is near.

 

DESTROYING THE WORLD

“What’s it like to destroy the world?”

That’s the question my literary agent, Joyce Keating, asked earlier this year when I flew

to Manhattan to deliver Cataclysm to her agency.

“Destroying the world is a nasty business,” I replied. “For one, you have to find a reason to end everything man has worked so hard to build, and second… I have to leave some people behind or else nobody will read the book.”

She laughed, and then. “Mankind is doing a pretty good job of ending life on its own.”

It was  a joke, of course.

Or was it?

                                                      I still question this.

Sitting in the elegance of Faces and Names on West 54th Street, I wondered if Joyce wasn’t far of the mark. With all the talk of global warming and polar ice melting… I knew storms were getting worse, earthquakes we more frequent and floods would eventually submerge Manhattan, Kill Devil Hills and eventually, all of Florida.

Everything was going to hell in a hand-basket.

What might the end of the world look like?

How would humanity behave during the finality of it all?

I’d just spent the last twelve months pounding out Cataclysm and knew the nuts and bolts of evacuation procedures. There was a mountain of natural disaster research crammed into my head.

I knew U.N. code-words, understood the science behind societal collapse, and yet, the end of the world seemed something out of a Hollywood Production.

But it’s not just talk anymore.

There is something happening.

Last year the National Weather Service met to discuss one of the catastrophe’s facing the East Coast of the United States, and  some scientists now believe the CATACLYSM I describe in my book is sure to happen at some point.

The end of the world may not happen tomorrow, next week or a year from now.

But it will end, and the question I pose is this… are you ready?

RJ SMITH is a Hollywood Screenwriter and the Author of three novels

 

 

 

 

 

DEATH & LOATHING in TULSA OKLAHOMA

The Good Friday Killers

- The True Inside Story -

By
RJ SMITH
HEADLINES

It was spring 2012 when the news blasted around the globe. Five African Americans were shot in North Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Three lay dead in pools of their own blood along dimly lit streets. Their bullet ridden flesh littered vacant lots They’d been gunned down in cold blood by two white men in a pick-up. It was racial. And that made the Good Friday shootings red meat for international headlines.

Like many, I shook my head and turned back to this thing called life. I was a screenwriter back then, and was just starting my second novel, Cataclysm. Following the Tulsa case as it worked through the sluggish process of justice, I learned the shooting spree was payback. The rampage was retribution, planned and executed by Jacob England, a nineteen year old Tulsa Native American who’d seen his father gunned down by a black man twenty three months prior. England had been struggling with cravings of lashing out ever since.

I wondered who’d write the inside story? Which well-known True Crime author would take on such a sordid affair? The story had all the hallmarks of an emotional yarn. England was a troubled young man struggling with drug addiction and alcoholism. His mother was already in prison serving decades for arson, and on top of that, he’d reportedly watched his girlfriend put a gun under her chin and pulled the trigger.

But even that was called into question. Some said he killed her and covered it up.

There was talk of demonic possession and hints at Rosemary’s Baby.This was, by all accounts, a strange and captivating case.

Who’d step from the shadows and peek into the killer’s minds?

As 2013 ended, I was preparing to fly to New York for a meeting with the literary agency that represents my work.

“What’s your next project about,” a buddy asked.

“Not sure,” I replied. And, that was true. There were so many projects pinned to my storyboard, I couldn’t decide whether Beach Bodies, Monsters in the Woods or Murder in Hollywood was next on my list of creativity.

“Did you see LOCKUP the other night?” he asked with raised eyebrows, a grin stretching out the corners of his lips. My friends knew where my emotional buttons were.

“I saw the show,” I replied, catching the baited words formulating behind his secretive eyes.

 “Why don’t you write the Tulsa shooting spree?”

“Nah, it’s not my thing, real murder is messy.”

It seemed too involved. The crime WAS too flashy, there was so much press.

And the suspects weren’t talking…

The Good Friday Shootings affected the lives of real people, who were already coping with tattered emotions of anger, pain and loss.

“Maybe you should re-examine your thing,” the friend suggested. “They’ll relate to you, and that might allow you to get the real story, stuff the media has no idea happened.”

No way, I thought. The last thing I wanted to do was follow the trail of two men as they were shuffled through the courts, and into the death chamber for execution.

It’d be one heck of a scene.

I’d watched the deathwatch scenes outside state penitentiaries back when I followed the Ted Bundy and Eileen Wuornos executions in Florida.

“This Jacob England thing,” my friend went on, “it’s explosive.”

“I don’t know,” I murmured. “I don’t like racial stuff.”

After all, one of my best friends was from Saint Thomas and the story shook something inside me, you know? I had so many African American friends and colleagues.

What might they think of this?

“You write fictional serial killer novels,” my buddy went on. “Why not write about real life. Who makes the rules that says you can’t write about real murder?”

I shrugged and considered the proposition.

Secretly, I’d been writing a handful of serial murderers across the nation, like David ‘the Son of Sam’ Berkowitz. The letters were mostly for psychological information; an education. I’d considered scripting a Hollywood screenplay involving murder and wanted to know why people killed. But those dispatches were nothing more than intellectual research.

That was, until November 2013… when my buddy hit on something.

They’ll relate to you, I recalled him saying. That might allow you to get the real story.

His suggestion caused me to re-examine the Good Friday Shootings.

It was true, I realized. The Tulsa shooters probably would relate to me better than some highbrow intellectual biographer, simply because I had been where they were going.

After contacting my agent, Joyce, and finding out the Tulsa shooters were turning down a lot of media interviews from a friend, I reached out to my band of strong willed advisers.

My question: Is there anything good I can get from this horrible story?

“Yes,” my African American friend, Oscar, answered. “It’ll allow people to see racism still exists in this country.”

“I don’t need to write this book for people to know that.”

“You think,” he probed, “England would’ve shot Caucasians if a white guy killed his dad?”

That was a good question.

And, it deserved an answer.

So I wrote everyone involved for the exclusive inside story.

What I found out was explosive. And, it shook my belief in everything the media had reported.