So…the Kate Shugak series is under option. Again.

Yes, this means that someone, brow furrowed, is thinking hard about making a Kate Shugak film or a Kate Shugak television series and paid me money so no one else could think about it for the length of the option. I am not allowed to say who or the deal goes south. All this happened a year ago and I’m still under omerta by my agent.

It will probably be another nine to twelve months before there is any more news, which will amount to one of three results: They drop the option, or they renew it, or they write a script and start casting. It is in the laps of the Hollywood gods, so don’t even ask.

This is the eighth time the Kates have been optioned for a film project. I’ve given notes on I think it’s seven scripts total now (maybe eight, I lose track, and who wouldn’t). These are some of the things that past screenwriters have done:

*made Mutt a boy

*made Kate an ex-Marine

*made Kate a bar singer (I never should have hung that guitar on the wall of her cabin)

I read English pretty well, the contracts were in English, and I signed them, so I kept my mouth shut and went along. The hardest truth for a writer to accept in selling screenrights is that they no longer have control over their characters.

On the other hand, an author who should know told me, “Dana, even the worst television series sells more books.”

So here I sit, limp in the hands of fate in just about every direction.

Except one. I can keep writing Kate Shugak novels.

And I just did.

And while you’re waiting, please do give the Eye of Isis novels a try:

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