Option Renewed

I'm very busy today. Writing.

My agent (Bob Fleck of the The Fleck Agency) has handled the renewal of the film option for THE FLOCK to Don Murphy (at Angry Films) and John Wells (at the John Wells Company). Hopefully we'll see the screenplay advance to production in the coming months.

Well, it's back to writing. In the meantime, one of the funniest cartoons I ever saw from Gary Larson from his late (and greatly lamented) FAR SIDE:

Kelenken guillermoi.

Kelenken guillermoi, fairly recent terror bird discovery. Easily has the largest bird skull known from the fossil record.

THE FLOCK by James Robert Smith.

Touchstones

One reason I really enjoy looking at Ebay from time to time is that I'll find something really cool. I tried to land a copy of this some time back when I was working on writing THE FLOCK, but I couldn't find one. But last month I just happened upon one in a random search. It was very cheap, so I nabbed it.

Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History.

I really do wish I'd had access to this when I was working on the manuscript--it wouldn't have made any real difference in the plot or construction of the novel, but it would have been nice to be able to look at the contents of this issue as I wrote. It would have served as a kind of touchstone, I reckon.

So now I have a copy. And although the book is long since published and a sequel will see print in 2013, I'll keep this slim bulletin by the computer. Who knows what dreams it will inspire?

The wing bone of Titanis walleri.

Eye

The actual eye of one of the world's largest birds. Much as I imagine the eyes of Titanis walleri to have looked in my novel, THE FLOCK.

My agent tells me that I'll probably get edit notes on the sequel THE CLAN very soon. It'll be good to see the book make its way toward publication.

Nature Finds a Way

I've found some new images of various species of terror birds. Some of the more recently discovered species were truly enormous. The ones in my novel, THE FLOCK were the only North American version of terror bird yet discovered, Titanis walleri. These topped out at around 8 feet tall at the largest. But a newly identified species from South America was truly gigantic, topping out at over ten feet tall and having the largest known skull of any bird yet found in the fossil record. (That's the culprit in the sculpture here.)


As people like to say, Nature really did find a way. In this case, to bring back the theropod predators of the Cretaceous in a later age.

Today, the closest thing that we have to these amazing predators is the Secretary bird. Maybe Mother Nature will mold that creature anew into something resembling the tyrant beasts of 65 million years ago.

Whoa, dudes! Looks familiar!