Push My Epic Film Script to the Next Phase

Hi. My name is Donnell Alexander. My job is to tell true stories. Through my decades as a writer I've mainly worked from the perspective of an American West Coast alternative journalist.

But over the past nine months or so my prime storytelling vessel has been a 16th-century African slave unchained near the Gulf of Mexico. I have been crafting an international story of freedom in the form of an epic film. It's both a significant stretch from the familiarity of journalism and surprisingly time consuming.

Let me thank every single human who helped the Yanga get off the ground last fall, in whatever fashion y'all contributed. This spring I've gotten feedback from my close circle of script readers, and they've signed off on what I’ve shared as legitimate screenwriting. Original adventure storytelling. I've got myself a movie.

The Yanga project is in a really good place. But while isolating myself in Southern California--in service of that draft--conditions got *super* austere.

As I tap this out I’m riding a Portland muni bus to visit a dentist, something I’ve not done in years. Too, I have spent quality time with my sister and that part of my family. And the first-go-round PDX friendships are making the West Coast Sojourn podcast more compelling.

Last week, an architectural firm nearly hired me to write proposals, but I failed to convince them that my "outside interests" would not be a distraction. Perhaps the firm's CEO was right. Maybe the quotes I put around "outside interest" gave away the game.

I really, really need some money. Just to keep the podcast going and to make it to the next day job. Digital services are being shut off.

Yanga: The Legend of Black Mexico is shaping up to be really fucking good. I simply cannot leave it alone. Please help keep my obsession with finishing this project from becoming the death of me.

Or, at least, lend a hand in making the WCS podcast not go go bye-bye.