Nobody should care about this, but one of the reasons I haven’t focused on ‘The Dragon in the Basement’ is because my dad died a few days after we wrapped the pilot in October 2022. Spotify also told me soon after that the kids and family program was cut so there’d be no pickup for the show. I regret that the cast and other folks didn’t get to work on the show. In hindsight things not working out was a gift for my mental health. And for the story. I ended up working on a prequel in my offtime, which got me writing prose again. My novel and memoir exist because of this causality. It wasn’t destined to happen this way. It’s just, this is how it happened, and I found the gratitude in it.
Jasmine Romero as the creative producer/editor/ on that show did EVERYTHING and did BEAUTIFUL WORK. And the entire cast did a wonderful job. That’s the only bummer for me – the cast is super talented and the crew and it would’ve been nice to give everyone jobs. I hope to work with Jasmine again some day, but in the meantime I can just listen to all her other wonderful work. Go look for all the podcasts and stories she’s telling. She’s out of sight.
My colleagues from SoundUp said they wanted to read the book version of ‘The Dragon in the Basement.’ They will. But it’ll have a different title. Same thing with the show. The show will be different from the book in a great way because it’s going to have these other creative voices helping write it. And also if the stars align a DREAM of a creative partner. I wish she could’ve worked with us on the pilot. She only would’ve added to it. The future adaptation might be audio. It might be a cartoon. It might be live action. We’ll see.
It’s down the road a ways. But it’s coming.
If my dad hadn’t died so close to that joyful milestone, I might’ve been able to keep going on it. It just took a lot for me to stay sane. And I just barely held on for the next 15 months. But eventually I got hold of myself.
And it all led me here. Such a nice place to be. It was always nice. I can just see it clearly now.