WHAT’S NEW

It has been some time since I updated my website and there is much to share.

Last year this time I took advantage of accumulated air miles and flew across the country to attend an Open House at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station in Tuckerton, NJ. My story centers around two marine biologists working at a Field Station so what a wonderful opportunity! My goal was to get a sense of their world, a feel for the environment they work in, an understanding of the dynamics between researchers, and many other details. It was such a fabulous experience.

I lived in Southern New Jersey for thirteen years but it had been a very long time since I’d been back. Physically making the trip there jogged so many memories and reminded me of so many details that I don’t think I’d have remembered to capture had I not gone. Well worth the trip. Go Eagles!

Earlier this year I put the novel on hold for a bit to take beginning and intermediate screenwriting classes. Storytelling via script is a different beast and I loved the challenge of having to shift my approach in order to accommodate a visual medium.

While the beginning class gave us assigned pages in different genres for practice, the intermediate class required us to start writing our own screenplay. I decided to adapt a short story that I published a couple years ago. Thinking about how to tell that story in this very different way was incredibly fun… almost too much fun. A few weeks in and I realized how easy it would be for me to indefinitely abandon my novel to start this new project, and I didn’t want that to happen. So I finished the screenwriting class and decided to set that aside. I will be back!

WIP UPDATE

At this point about 90% of my novel research is complete and I am now just writing. Portions had been written before I started researching but then I felt like I couldn’t move forward without doing more. Interestingly, what I learned in my screenwriting classes helped boost the way I moved forward in my novel. Education is never lost.

SCREENREADING

I am nearly done with my screenreading classes and will soon be ready to look for work with some larger festivals and/or production companies actively making films. Please reach out to me at hannah@hannahraythomas.com if you know of anyone who needs paid readers.