I Can Fly

I grew up thinking I could fly. I was a skinny and energetic kid, running instead of walking and constantly fidgeting. I grew up on an avocado and citrus ranch. Every year, the commercial pickers would come and harvest the fruit, but after they left, my mom would have me climb up to the top of the trees to get the ones they missed. I'd toss them into the thick pile of leaves and then jump (or fly, as I thought) down to a soft landing.  After I grew up and became a computer programmer and consultant, I got to work in Australia and went diving on the Great Barrier Reef. That was the closest I've been to flying again - a wonderful feeling.

I liked to make up stories to tell kids and one of my favorites was of Kira - a fearless princess who had trained her whole life to rule, but then her father remarried, and a male heir was born. I wrote it while working with a large dealership group, Lithia - in Medford, Oregon. Their head of IT was Kyra, and loved that name. Today, Lithia has 290 dealerships, including 40 in the UK. My favorite movie then was Princess Bride, so I wrote Princess Quest as my first project after graduating from UCLA's Advanced Screenwriting Program.

I shelved it until last year when I wanted to enter as many scripts as possible into The Austin Film Festival. I completed the Native American Media Alliance Fellowship and learned more about screenwriting. I rewrote the original Princess Quest script and renamed it Kira and Henry to make it more the story of both characters and appeal to teen boys and girls. I wanted Kira to have a secret - so I added that she could fly, but had to hide that because raptors are banished because of their mutation. I had learned how to write TV pilots in my fellowship, so I wrote it as TV series. I made over a thousand changes and then wrote the young adult novel Kira and Henry using what I learned by taking classes through Good Story. This time, is was published by SmilingEagle Press - specializing in books written by Native Americans and older folks. I hit both marks of their target market!

Kira and Henry did well at The Austin Film Festival, enabling me to get a coveted 2nd Rounder Badge and here are the reader's notes, "This is a solid script that showcases the writer’s creativity and knack for world-building. It sets the stage for an abundance of storylines while, at its heart, drawing the reader into Kira’s character development and her relationship with Henry." I also got these notes from my entry into Final Draft's Big Break, "The reader enjoyed KIRA AND HENRY, which held their attention cover to cover through successive reads. It is a classic GAME OF THRONES style of tale, albeit in the animation format that will likely appeal to a younger demographic rather than adults." 

Next up is entering it into SeriesFest, and if I get accepted to pitch in Denver in May, I will be soaring and truly believing that I can fly!

You can order Kira and Henry on Amazon -https://www.amazon.com/Kira-Henry-Young-Fantasy-Forbidden-ebook/dp/B0CPYY7Q5C

Here's my pitch deck of the TV pilot.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFvpYX2w74/IfD4mFgVynLq6uBNhpV7nA/edit?utm_content=DAFvpYX2w74&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton