Saturday, January 8, 2011

Great Scott! I'm Writing 'Back to the Future'!


It is no secret that I love Back to the Future. Yes, the whole trilogy. Everything's a trilogy these days, but growing up, it was just this and Star Wars. It's actually because of Back to the Future's trilogy-status that inspired me to make The Coming Evil into a trilogy. I've seen the movie countless times, nearly memorized them, and even still make a point to sit down and watch all three movies uninterrupted periodically. I've studied those movies inside and out, absolutely in love with the characters, settings, and themes.

It is with great humility that I officially announce today that I will be working with Hasslein Books--publishers of the amazing and comprehensive Timeline of the Planet of the Apes and Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes--to co-write with Star Wars author Rich Handley not one, but two unofficial BTTF reference books!

Here's what Handley had to say on the announcement on the Hasslein facebook page:

"Novelist Greg Mitchell and I will be cowriting two reference books, similar to the style of the Apes books, about the Back to the Future films, cartoons and comics. Greg is an avid BTTF fan, and he suggested, back in 2009, that I some day tackle those films. Since that time, he's been invaluable in assisting me on the research end. Now that I'm finally doing it, I figured he'd make the perfect co-author. Luckily, he agreed.

I'm writing the first draft of a Back to the Future lexicon, while Greg is writing the first draft of a timeline book for that universe, after which we'll swap manuscripts and edit each other's work as a second draft. In that way, we'll share co-credit on both."


Rich has already broken ground on the lexicon while I'm finishing up a top secret project that I can't talk about yet. Then, I'll be pulling double duty, promoting The Strange Man, while dissecting the timeline of Back to the Future. I've never done a timeline before, and am thankful to have Rich guide me through the process. It's fun that I'm finally going to be putting all my useless BTTF knowledge to use!

Stay tuned here for updates on this and other projects. And remember, in the words of Doctor Emmett L. Brown:

"The future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. The future is whatever you make of it. So make it a good one."

2 comments:

Caprice Hokstad said...

Wow, Greg. This is AWESOME. Here I thought you were having a similar (but lame) experience to mine where a story you were writing somehow morphed INTO the same story as BTTF. One day it just hit me. I'm writing Back to the Future. However, in my case, I wasn't SUPPOSED to be, so it wasn't really a good thing. But look at you. A contract and all that. Just WOW. Don't forget all us nobodies when you're a household name.

The Gill-Man said...

That is too cool! I absolutely LOVE those movies! Here recently, my son came home from his granparent's house just raving about these cool movies he had seen...you guessed it, BTTF! He got the Blu-Ray discs for Christmas, and has been watching them over and over ever since. He even used his allowance to buy the Mini-Mates DeLorean with Marty set! This book will be on his must-have list, I can guarantee it!