I started Scratch Writing because I wanted a place for my writing. Somewhere along the way, apparently writing books wasn't enough. I started building websites. Then came graphics, book trailers, live video, animation experiments, voice work, short-form video, AI tools, and an increasingly dangerous tendency to look at some new piece of technology and think, I wonder if I could make something with that.
Scratch Writing Studio is where all of that gets to live.
I don't consider myself a filmmaker, animator, audio engineer, or any of the other impressive titles that people who actually know what they're doing get to put on their résumés. I'm a writer who has become increasingly fascinated by digital creation—and I'm learning as I go.
That's really the spirit of the Studio.
The books remain at the center of much of what I create, but I've become interested in what happens when those stories escape the page. What does a scene from The Midas Files look like when it becomes a cinematic excerpt? Could a chapter eventually become an animated production? What happens when narration, imagery, sound, motion, and emerging technology all get thrown into the same creative pot?
I don't know all the answers yet.
That's part of the fun.
Productions: Beyond the Page
The Productions side of Scratch Writing Studio is where I'm experimenting with bringing stories and ideas to life in other forms.
Right now, that includes things like book trailers and cinematic excerpts. Over time, I'd like it to grow into animated chapters, original short films, audio productions, and other projects that I probably haven't thought of yet.
Artificial intelligence has opened some fascinating new doors for an independent creator, and I'm learning those tools alongside more traditional ones for video, audio, graphics, editing, and web publishing. I'm less interested in the novelty of any particular technology than I am in what it allows me to create.
The long-term idea is simple: if a Scratch Writing story or idea wants to become something more than words on a page, Productions is where I'll try to make that happen.
Some experiments will work.
Some almost certainly won't.
Those may be interesting too.
Sites: Building Places for Ideas to Live
The other side of the Studio is something I've actually been doing for much longer: building websites.
I've developed numerous sites over the years and specialize in building and managing sites using the Joomla content management system. ScratchWriting.com itself has become something of a laboratory for that work—a place where I can experiment with information architecture, design, content systems, imagery, and the little bits of CSS weirdness that give a website some personality.
The Sites section is home to the larger web properties I've developed and conceptualized under Scratch Writing, including Across Pittsburgh and Football Fan's Diet. They're independent publications with their own identities, audiences, and purposes, but the thinking, design, development, and editorial machinery behind them happens here.
That's an important part of what I mean by Studio. It's not just a collection of videos. It's the workshop.
Still Learning. Still Making.
I have no idea exactly what Scratch Writing Studio will look like several years from now, and I rather like that.
This is the part of Scratch Writing where I'm giving myself permission to learn new tools, try strange ideas, make things I couldn't make before, and occasionally discover that something I thought would be impossible is actually within reach.
I'm still a writer.
I'm just increasingly interested in seeing what happens when the worlds I write about start moving, talking, glowing, spinning—or becoming places you can actually visit on the web.
Welcome to Scratch Writing Studio.
Where ideas take new forms.