The Multimedia Issue

My vision for Heaven's Wait had always included more than mere text on a page. I wanted others to see the world as I saw it, the characters as I saw them, the sounds as I heard them. Now that the first major story about Heaven's Wait was complete, I needed to find a way to go back to those visual and audio elements and figure out a way to integrate them into my work, so others could experience them.

Linda Jay Geldens, my copy editor, and I got together for a very pleasant lunch. She asked me how I planned to proceed with R.J.'s Story.  I told her that, more and more, I was feeling that traditional publishing was not going to fit the bill. She thought I might be right. Linda thought R.J.'s Story had huge potential to become an animated movie, and that there was great marketing potential for the characters of Heaven's Wait. Her words made me realize I needed to stick to my gut feelings about preserving all that I had envisioned and already created. The illustrations and sounds were important. I jokingly told Linda I was tempted to go knocking on Pixar's door; the company is right down the street from my work. But I knew there was a fat chance would answer the door. Disney/Pixar's story ideas were largely created in-house, and I was dreaming to think otherwise. Besides, my primary goal was to take my work to meaningful places in people's hearts, like that of Linda's, and those places weren't always in a giant commercial world.

So I dug into my numerous character illustration and sound files, most of which had sat unattended for several years. They brought sentimental smiles and reminded me why I had started down this path in the first place. The bulk of my original manuscript still sat on top of my bookcase, wrapped with a brittle rubber band and blanketed with a layer of dust. But the modern-day characters were still alive within the pages, and the illustrations and music I had compiled were all about those characters.

It was time to start bringing all that was Heaven's Wait so far--R.J.'s Story, pictures, music, the Drippils and their activities--to a common home. So I veered down another side path and started work on the Heaven's Wait website, the logical centerpiece for my ongoing project.