July 2003: The representative of the major movie production company, referenced in the June 2003 entry below, has moved to another major movie production company, and we are trying to ascertain if he took along Stopgap, left it behind or is still interested. This move probably arose out of the fact that the company for which he worked had created a new venture to replace the current company following its planned dissolution at the end of 2003.

June 2003: The 2003 Book Expo was held in California at the Los Angeles Convention Center (May 39--June 1). This is a huge annual event attended by publishers, writers, scouts and motion picture insiders testing the waters. My Publicist attended and made the acquaintance of a representative from a major movie production company. A couple of days after the Expo, that representative contacted us with an eye toward reviewing the novel. I have sent additional copies to the Publicist and those will be forwarded along.

May 2003: While my Publisher doesn't represent the film rights, he suggested I write a film treatment in case one of his contacts expresses an interest. Now that's a nice guy! I've actually started on the film treatment, and it will be fairly lengthy, I'm certain. For example, one of the longest I've seen was the 40-plus-page Terminator and I expect my first film treatment to be several times longer. But hey, I'm a novelist, not a movie writer! At any rate, this will slow down work on my next novel (see answers below for more about that), but that really can't be helped.

April 2003: My Publicist tendered an inquiry to a Producer/Director and we're waiting to hear something.

March 2003: The Publicist placed the novel and promotional material in the hands of a producer who expressed an interest by asking, "Do you want a movie or a TV series?" Despite follow-up upon our part, we did not receive a further response.

February 2003: The Publicist and I have a couple of additional movie industry contacts under consideration.