For most of my creative life, the basic equation was pretty simple: I had an idea, I wrote it down, and eventually it became something somebody could read. Scratch Writing Productions is where that equation gets considerably messier.
This is the part of Scratch Writing Studio where I'm learning how to combine writing with images, animation, voice, sound, editing, and emerging creative technology. The goal isn't to suddenly declare myself a filmmaker or animator. It's to see how far I can extend the things I'm already creating—and learn some new skills along the way.
Sometimes that means turning a scene from The Midas Files into a cinematic excerpt. Sometimes it's creating a ridiculous eleven-second Funny Newz clip. Eventually, I'd love to experiment with animated chapters, short films, narrated features, and perhaps entirely original productions.
I'm still figuring out what all of that looks like.
That's why this section exists.
Building a Digital Production Workflow
One of the more interesting things I've discovered is that there isn't necessarily one magic application that makes all of this possible. My emerging workflow looks more like a small digital production bench, with different tools doing different jobs.
I use ChatGPT extensively for creative development—working through concepts, scripts, storyboards, visual ideas, production planning, and generating or refining imagery. Flux has become another part of my experimentation with generated images and motion, while OpenArt gives me additional ways to explore visual styles, animation, and emerging video tools.
Then there is ElevenLabs, which has opened an entirely different door through synthetic voice and character performance. I've already experimented with recurring voices for projects such as Funny Newz, and I'm fascinated by what this technology might eventually mean for narrated stories, dramatized excerpts, and other audio productions.
Traditional tools remain part of the process too. Video still needs to be assembled. Audio needs to be mixed. Images need to be edited. Scenes need timing. Things that look great in my head occasionally look ridiculous when they actually move.
There is still plenty of making involved.
From Trailers to Something Bigger
The first real home within Productions is Trailers & Excerpts, where I'm collecting the cinematic pieces I've created around my books and other Scratch Writing projects.
But I see that as the beginning rather than the destination.
I'd eventually like to experiment with animated chapters from The Midas Files, short narrative films, more ambitious Funny Newz productions, visual versions of Magazine features, and audio experiences that fall somewhere between an audiobook and a radio drama.
Some of those ideas may become regular formats. Others may be one-off experiments. Some will undoubtedly teach me exactly how not to do something.
That's useful too.
Learning in Public
That's probably the best way to understand Scratch Writing Productions right now: I'm learning digital production by producing things.
The technology is changing extraordinarily quickly, which means the possibilities available to an independent creator are changing right along with it. I'm interested in the tools, but I'm much more interested in what I can actually make with them.
The story still comes first.
Productions is simply where I get to find out what happens when the story starts to move, speak, and occasionally do something I wasn't expecting.