PRESS. RELEASE.
A few weeks ago I asked a friend of mine to take a look at this site as part of my bug hunt. This is an effort to check for errors and glitches I might miss myself, being somewhat close to the thing. He found a couple and, as a result, I found some more (the bug hunt is eternal) but the biggest comment he had was this: "It looks great and it's definitely the grown-up version of what you've been talking about but, what's it for?" A lot of folks have asked me this question over the years when examining my very large but, to them, apparently, haphazard creative output. As always I remind them, "Just because a pattern or goal isn't visible to you, it doesn't mean one doesn't exist."
As I said elsewhere on the site, the Winterman Project is my lab, the place I return to in order to juice up the batteries and to flex ideas that don't require editorial oversight or studio notes.
In the past the WORKSHOP aspect of the space has been paramount– I come here, I play with ideas the public mostly doesn't see, I get recharged, I go back to making stuff for other people. Roof stays overhead. Belly remains full. Everybody's happy. It's a system of sorts but making things isn't about filling the belly, is it? Not really.
Making things is about making things. On occasion I've invited a few others to join in and the results were pretty fun and always educative. Academic from a public POV but, from a creative one? Tesla batteries.
My old web series, THE DARK, was the result of one such group jam session and I've been itching to do something like that again for some time.
PHANTOM CANYON, the western horror audio drama series I created in tandem with Susan & Jeff Bridges of PENDANT AUDIO was the result of another such collaboration.
The Winterman Project has certainly let me publish the odd novella over the years- some odder than others- but those efforts were largely me scratching the prose-writing itch without wanting to chase magazine editors all over the web to find possible purchase. That was all still, largely, workshop activity. What's coming is not that. When the starter pistol goes off on the first, the Workshop aspect of the Project will be joined by the Forge. Starting on 1/1/18, the Winterman Project will, again, be making things for public consumption. Things like digital comics. Things like webisodes. Things like audio adventures. Things like goofy merch for our fans. Things that people will very much see and experience and, in many cases, buy.
I expect this will be a hard work year which is exactly what it should be. Come back soon. I'll have the first announcement later today.