Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur,

bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing options and marketing ideas for your book.

You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more information at thecreativepen.com.

And that's Penn with a double N. And here's the show.

Hello, creatives. I'm Joanna Penn. And this is episode number 737 of the podcast, and it is Friday the 9th of February

2024 as I record this. In today's show, I have an interview on writing and producing a low-budget

independent film with Jeffrey Crane Graham, and this will interest you if you've written or

want to write a screenplay, or if you

want to get your work adapted or pitch it to a producer, which let's face it, so many of us do.

In fact, this interview inspired me to take action. And I talked to Jeff about Catecum,

my horror novella, which I wrote last year. And it is actually on a

99 cent ebook promotion right now, if you want to read it on my store, JFPenbooks.com, and also on all the

usual stores. Now, I adapted Catecum to a screenplay once I'd finished the novella, I kind of wrote it, and we talk about this

in the discussion, I wrote it partly in response to an agent who said write something

cheaper, cheaper to film, basically, than what I normally write, which is pretty massive scope

and lots of explosions and potentially expensive.

So I did write this kind of budget film and I wrote the screenplay. I did a pitch deck

and I didn't do anything with it. Now part of this, I've been thinking about this, is it is way

out my comfort zone to pitch. Now, one of the wonderful things about being an indie author

is you don't need to pitch anyone. You don't need to get rejected by agents because you don't

pitch them. And I have not pitched a screenplay. So I have a ticket for London Screenwriters'

Festival in April and I'm going to pitch it there and I'm telling

...