Projects
As both the Laszlos (Senior/Dad and Junior/I) are fiction writers with cinematic ambitions that is what most projects/jobs are about: books and cinema. However, whereas the book part is mainly finished (and ready to be commercialized), the cinema part is just about to get started (yet, there are three existing movies, one screenplay, and one theater script that are already looking to be commercialized). Though 1. BOOKS and 2. CINE is the main source of projects/jobs, but there is much more: 3. REVIVE SENIOR is about applying for grants, etc., to revive Senior’s memory, 4. DRUG POLICY wants to promote my drug-policy texts and videos, arrange lectures & get me a TED talk, and, in 5. SUNDRY there's even more - editing, translating, publicist, finding the right people, applying for grants, in-house salesperson, etc. - it all comes together and becomes specific in 6. JOBS.
1. BOOKS – finishing my own books as well as translating and making Senior’s better/more commercial – is where I have slugged away for the last 10 years. This has resulted in 9 texts by Senior and 7 by Junior; counting translations, that make for well over 60 books, all either available right now or at the push of a button as e-books and print-on-demand (enter "Andres Laszlo Jr." on Amazon). My main question is “Traditional publishing or e/PoD?” The answer will probably be that I will go for both, and I will be looking for traditional agents (to interact with publishers, book me at book fairs, etc.), as well as e/PoD agents (to advise, take responsibility for the promotion, etc.). This “book part” of the project I have divided into "language" and "genre" with links to details. See 1. BOOKS below (follow the language/genre links), and then 6. JOBS.
2. CINE – remakes of old movies, sale of finished scripts, and moving stuff along: idea >> structure >> synopsis >> scenario >> treatment >> script >> movie – is where I intend to focus from now on. I was tempted to start here 10 years ago, and the only reason I didn’t was that I figured that I had better first get our texts in order/prepared-for-the-process-outlined-above. This “cine-part” of the project falls into many sub-projects. See 2. CINE below, and then 6. JOBS.
3. REVIVE SENIOR. Andres Laszlo Senior was once considered a top European writer, and until twenty years ago, Ph.D. students frequently contacted me, asking for my approval/assistance in their thesis writing. The reason that he is being forgotten, apart from that most of his texts never received any proper content editing (and me not having made an effort until now), is that neither of his four home countries (born Austro-Hungarian, nationalized French, writing in Spanish) has "adopted" him. However, today all these countries are members of the EU, an organization that sometimes is willing to finance projects designed to revive the memory of its forgotten artists (and, so are the French). I am looking for someone to find the grants, apply for them, and then lead the revival project. See 3. REVIVE SENIOR below, and then 6. JOBS.
4. DRUG POLICY. As a drug policy researcher, I came to the conclusion that though drugs presently probably are more 'bad' than 'good', the consequences of supply-illegality are much worse than anything that could follow from a liberal/pro-legality policy. In my own narcotics-conservative Sweden, nobody wanted to listen, and as I am a fiction writer, I turned my intended thesis into popular science (The Drug Problem), and wrote a video script (Drug Illegality is a Scam). I want the book, the script, my videos, and myself (as a speaker) promoted. See 4. DRUG POLICY below, and then 6. JOBS.
5. SUNDRY. This is about the jobs/projects that cannot fit under any of the four headings listed above: "Editing", "Publicist," "Resident salesperson," "literary assistance," etc. See the last part of 6. JOBS.
6. JOBS. If you think there is something in my project that might fit you, take a tour around my homepage, get to know more about whatever interests you, then check out the job listing: 6. JOBS.
If you want to know more about my project and our texts/movies, let me send you a copy of The Tale(s) of Two Knaves, which will not only give you a deeper insight into the project but also into our writings.
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1. BOOKS
BOOKS, unlike CINE, is mainly about sales. There are jobs such as: "Language-agents," "Genre-agents," “Present texts to publishers agent”, “Book me for book-fairs agent”, and “Take on a language agent.” So “BOOKS” covers a lot, and you will find all the corresponding job offerings below, under "6. JOBS".
BOOKS BY LANGUAGE
Senior wrote in Spanish, and I write in English (and Swedish). Counting all translations we have over 60 books, with an average of 10 in our six main languages: English, Swedish, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Regarding some languages, I either do not speak the language or I am uncertain about translation qualities (Japanese, German, Catalan, Bulgarian). Read More
BOOKS BY GENRE
Our texts can all be categorized as fictional, apart from my two books on drug-policy, that are dealt with separately. The fiction falls into the sub-genres of adult fiction, juvenile fiction, short stories/biography, and "complete works". Read More
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2. CINE
CINE - unlike BOOKS, which deals largely with finished stuff - is mainly about "developing" (and only a little about selling). I have plenty of cinematic assets - many ideas, a dozen treatment-like short stories, half-a-dozen movie-prepared books, one finished script plus two initiated, re-make rights to three movies, showing-rights, and unpaid royalties - so even if only starting up, there are already plenty of CINE projects. Yet, this CINE-part of the project will focus mainly on pushing the various text assets from ideas and towards new movies. What to push and how to push will depend on 1. Where I find interest, 2. Where I enjoy working, and 3. Where I find interesting people to work with. Unlike BOOKS, the CINE-part of the project is thus very open-ended, and there are often other aspects than simply “Pushing towards movies, and cashing in” (aspects such as "nice places to work", "clever people to work with," and "having fun"). As I am moving away from BOOKS and towards CINE, I will be looking for all sorts of assistance, not only on how to find buyers but also on how to improve/develop texts: “How to structure?”, “What to keep/ditch/add?”, “Where to send?” and “Whom to engage?” I plan to arrive at Mumbai/Goa around December 15th. 2021 and leave in early February with a lot of new contacts established. You will find all the jobs below under the heading "6. JOBS".
REMAKES (OLD MOVIE >> NEW MOVIE)
There are three produced movies: My Uncle Jacinto that became a blockbuster, Paco Never Fails that got "contracted away" to Spain, and Sin Uniforme that I have never seen. In addition, there's Don Juan a performed mime-drama, as well as a possibly performed theater play, Doña Juana.
SCRIPT >> MOVIES
There is a "Hollywood quality" script of The Challenge in English, as well as the first draft of a Spanish translation, there's a to-be-improved first-draft theater script of Doña Juana, and there's also the beginning of the first draft of a new script for Paco Never Fails.
IMPROVED TEXTS >> TREATMENT/SCRIPT
This is where I hope to spend a lot of time the next couple of years because as I spent the last ten years improving and developing my own and Senior's short stories and novels, it has always been with "the silver screen" in mind. Apart from the already started projects mentioned above, I expect treatments/scripts to evolve mainly from these improved novels and short stories.
1. IMPROVED NOVELS >> TREATMENT/SCRIPT
One of Senior’s novels was about to become a movie at his demise (Mother Unknown), Senior’s French publishers recommended him to approach the Spanish film industry with another novel/novella (Doña Juana), his first published book also has movie potential (The Seal Castle) as a love story, and Junior’s adventure series (The Caspian Connection) is designed to become cine.
2. IMPROVED SHORT STORIES >> TREATMENT/SCRIPT
I have lots of ideas but as my project moves from BOOKS to CINE I am so overwhelmed by what seems to lie ahead of me that I have decided to put all other ideas on the back burner and focus on developing my now finished texts. Regarding short stories - that often have been rewritten so as to read closer to cinematic treatments - these are picked mainly from the 49 short stories that make up The Tale of Two Knaves.
There's a lot of other CINE jobs: Rewriting a script for Mumbai or Goa, Bollywood representation, Tangier location-scouting, French & Spanish agents, Staging of a long-lost theater play, etc. You will find it all under the heading "6. JOBS".
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3. REVIVE SENIOR
European writer looking for a home
Dad/Andres Laszlo Sr., in his heydays, was seen as a top-European writer, and a rising one at that. He had written My Uncle Jacinto that in the hands of Ladislao Vajda had become a blockbuster movie, and with Paco Never Fails Senior felt that his authorship had taken another big step. This book, in Senior's mind - a totally decent anthropological history-drama about a totally taboo subject written in generalissimo Franco dictatorship - had said; "Look at me! I'm pretty darn good!" However, though the text was great and unimpeachable by the sensors, the subject matter was one that the Spanish critics did not enjoy commenting on. Senior, after maybe getting a little too appreciated (thanks to Ladislao's superb cinematic interpretation) for My Uncle Jacinto (that competes for "best Hispanic movie all times" at film festivals) felt that he was not given the credit he deserved for Paco Never Fails. Thus, when he should have been (and, in a way, was) ready to take on the world, the success story ended. Bereft of the self-confidence so essential for a writer, he put writing on the back burner, and instead, he devoted himself to family, and pushing forged old-master paintings to museums; he forgot about writing, and - as he had no mother country to keep his memory alive - so did the world, about him. Read More
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4. DRUG POLICY
This Project, which has three parts, has its origin in my life as a drug policy researcher at the University of Lund, and my time at Oxford University. The project has three parts:
The Drug Problem is a popular-science book that looks at the drug problem (drugs = illegal narcotic drugs) from a mainly philosophical/economical perspective, and though it is written to entertain, yet it is pretty profound: a drug-policy book like no other, which I so far have not succeeded to get one single publisher to read. Read More.
Drug Illegality is a Scam is a "sexy condensation" designed to conclusively argue that the consequences of narcotics' supply-illegality are not what we think they are. I believe that the videos that I intend to make - professionally produced (with or without me as the speaker) - actually could contribute to change things.
My lectures. I would like to promote The Drug Problem and turn Drug Illegality is a Scam into the video series they were meant to become, I would like to give a lecture tour based on its content, and I would, of course, love to give a TED-talk. I have no ax to grind in this, I am not even a drug user myself, but as I, as a researcher, feel that I have understood the consequences of supply-illegality better than most, I feel an obligation to explain these in a way that people can understand. Read More.
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5. SUNDRY
Beneath this heading is hidden not only what the heading suggests (i.e. what cannot be squeezed in under any other heading) but also writing-jobs.
The truly "sundry" jobs are for example a publicist to find out whether I am promotable, a resident salesperson to sit next to me, a computer guy, and a rising-talent finder to locate the right people to do other jobs.
"Writing-jobs" is partly about translation, as some texts could do with an English-to-German, English-to-Spanish, or English-to-French translation. Another writing part is about editing, which I have hidden here in order for those visiting other parts of my homepage not to understand that my English is not always as good as I might pretend that it is and that maybe some of my texts could do with a wee bit of editing.
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6. JOBS
If you have read the above, you now have a pretty clear picture of my assets, and what I am up to, and if you think you could be the right person to join one of my projects, here are the associated jobs as I see them. The job listings are designed to "stand by themselves", so if you read several, you might find the first parts repetitive.
BOOK JOBS
Most book projects are described in the "By Language" and "By Genre" links below. I have also listed some other book jobs that I hope to find an interest in either from 1. "Rising talent," 2. Traditional agents or 3. Publishers/producers. Read More
CINE JOBS
As I am moving away from working on BOOKS and towards CINE, I do not intend to do all the hard work myself; instead, I will look for rising talent and agents for help, and I will make a point of staying much of the winter(s) in India (esp. Mumbai and Goa). Read More.
REVIVE SENIOR JOBS
As I started to "fix" (digitalize, improve, translate, adapt and improve) Senior's text I realized that my original thinking - "His two last books must have been ok as they became movies, but his five first must have been less good" - was wrong. Rather, his five first texts were on average better but they hadn't been given any content editing. However, whereas Dad wasn't all that logical, I am, and I have provided the content editing that his five first books never received. Read More.
DRUG POLICY JOBS
As a young research student, I was different from the other guys (in a good way) and I sat out to do something in return for the "magic" life I had furnished with. Drug Illegality is bad, and in addition, it is a scam. I tried to tell the world this at the age of 20 plus but as nobody wanted to listen I instead sat out to do "all-those-things-a-man-should-have-done" in order to be "listenable to". Today I've done it - today I am listenable to, and can eloquently corroborate the proposition that "drug illegality is a dysfunctional discourse" - but today I no longer have the energy and enthusiasm that it takes to fight my way onto the main drug policy scene: assistance needed. Read More.
SUNDRY JOBS
This is not only where I list projects that don't fit anywhere else (mainly promotion) but also where I hide jobs that I feel awkward about admitting that I am not good enough to do myself (like editing, translation, etc.). Read More