“Brilliant Writing…This is why the English Language Was Invented!”

Chicago Sun-Times reviewer David J. Montgomery is single-handedly revolutionizing the publishing industry. No longer will authors have to scrounge through his reviews looking for a blurbable phrase. Today, David has launched his Blurb Machine.

My reviews get blurbed fairly often, but that seems like such a
roundabout way of doing it. Why not, I asked myself, just give the
blurb directly and cut out the middle man?

Why not, indeed! The first recipient of a Blurb Machine Blurb is Lee Child:

"The Hard Way is the best book
yet from one of today’s top thriller writers. Put a pot of coffee on
before you start reading it, ’cause this one’s going to keep you up all
night." -Crime Fiction Dossier

Mr. Monk and the New Deal

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve accepted a deal to write three more original MONK novels, which will assure new books about the obsessive-compulsive detective through July 2008.  And my third MONK episode "Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing," co-written with William Rabkin and very loosely based on my novel "Mr. Monk Goes to The Firehouse," started shooting this week for airing this summer.

Signing Angst

My sister Linda Woods is having her first booksigning event tomorrow for VISUAL CHRONICLES (which she wrote with my sister Karen Dinino) and it’s giving her nightmares:

In the first nightmare, I
gave birth to a baby that projectile vomited Styrofoam. I am not sure
what that has to do with the book, but it was damn scary. The second
nightmare was slightly more realistic. I was trying to decide which of
my 12 black jackets to wear and glanced at the clock and saw that it
was 8:30 and that I was an hour and half late to my own book signing.

Welcome to being a professional author, sis!

Lori Prokop to the Rescue

Lori Prokop, the self-described "selfless supporter of families, children and animals," is apparently tired of blogs like this one mischaracterizing her as a get-rich-quick huckster. In fact, "her life goal is to advance the well-being and enlightenment of humanity" when she isn’t selflessly striving to help the downtrodden "achieve the goal of Best Selling and Celebrity Status"  and showing "people how to choose most any car off the showroom floor and drive it free while our company makes your payments."

So Lori Prokop, who "lives in and creates from the upper energy levels of life  (Anyone can choose to live and create in these powerful upper levels as detailed in Lori Prokop’s Life Guidance System)," is tackling the problem as only she, Lori Prokop, can:

Blogs are a powerful force for good in the hands of those people living in their upper level energies/emotions and less-than-good in the hands of those living in their lower level energies/emotions. (Continue reading to learn about the Energy Mastery System.)

Lori Prokop has an upcoming work being release called, “Launching from Good to Great Online,” which is a definitive work on blogs where she interviews leaders and experts in blogs and human psychology.

I, for one, am looking forward to this definitive work which, no doubt, will be published by Bestseller Publishing, the vanity press run by future Nobel Prize winner Lori Prokop, who describes herself in her fascinating and definitive mass mailings as "Leading Expert, Author and Creator of books, CDs,DVDs, Online Videos, workshops, television shows, speaking and more!"

To learn more about this selfless individual, who has  profound "respect and humanistic regard for all species," (She is, afterall, the visionary who asked the burning question: "Where are the best sellers by Doctors of
    Chiropractic?”)
just read her previous definitive books, like "Awaken Your Million-Dollar Intuition," "77 Streams of Super Lucrative
Income for Authors, Experts and Speakers," and Employee No More: How to Stay Home and Still Make Money."

You, too, can feel her humanistic regard, especially for those species who possess a Visa or Mastercard.

Do My Homework For Me, Please

I got this email today:

Dear Mr.Goldberg:
I am rather interested in learning English through reading, and recently I came upon a text entitled "They Stole Our Childhood", which was probably written by you a long time ago, I guess. I enjoyed reading the text, especially your humorous style, but I found that I could not understand two sentences very well: 1.  when our long-pressed childish side rears its playful head; 2. We can start by realizing that this   generation, which may have it together intellectually, paid with its adolescence.  I am wondering if you could explain to me what you mean by saying these? Thank you very much, and looking forward to hearing from you.

I wrote the essay as a "My Turn" column for Newsweek back in the early 1980s.  The piece has since been republished in a number of textbooks, including "Marraige and the Family Experience" , "Writing Talk: Paragraphs and Short Essays With Readings," and "Designing Ideas: An Anthology for Writers."  What amused me about her email was that she went to the trouble of hunting me down… just so she could ask me to do her homework assignment for her.

Yes, that’s right, the questions she asked me were two essay assignments from her textbook. I admire her chutzpah — but I wonder why she didn’t put the same effort and creativity into actually doing her home work.

Fanfic Fool

From my brother Tod’s blog today:

The other day, my friend Alex told me that in a creative writing
class he teaches at UC-Riverside, someone turned in Willy Wonka fan
fiction and wasn’t totally clear why that wasn’t allowed in a college
creative writing class.

The student would be much more at home in a creative writing class at Texas State University taught by Dr. Robin Reid, champion of "Real Person Slash Fanfic." Not only would she accept that assignment, but probably one about Gene Wilder getting his Willy Wonked by Johnny Depp, too.

It Takes a TV Guide

Will Smith is out to unseat Owen Wilson (I SPY, STARSKY & HUTCH) and Colin Farrell (SWAT, MIAMI VICE) as the go-to guy for theatrical remake of TV shows. After ruining THE WILD WILD WEST, Smith is tackling IT TAKES A THIEF, which starred Robert Wagner as a convicted thief who is forced into becoming a spy for the government. Variety reports:

Smith and his Overbrook
Entertainment
partner James
Lassiter
have come aboard to produce the film with Kevin
Misher
, John Davis and Joe Singer. "Four Brothers" scribes David
Elliot
and Paul Lovett are set to write the script.

Davis and Singer set up the project at Universal nearly a decade ago, when it
was envisioned as a potential starring vehicle for Michael
Douglas
. Studio has had Smith in its sights for several years,
but the project just recently gained forward motion with a fresh take and new
writers.

Blatant Family Promotion

Vischroncoverx_1
My sisters Linda Woods & Karen Dinino are celebrating the launch of their new book VISUAL CHRONICLES this Thursday night at Borders in Westwood. But that’s just the beginning of their whirlwind tour of signings and workshops…
 

Our book signing events are free and you are not obiligated to buy the book at the event. If you already have it, just bring it with you. There will be a collaborative art project at the signings (you’ll be able to track the progress at http://www.visualchronicles.com) as well as treats and mingling (unless you don’t like to mingle in which case you can just get your book signed, grab some cake and go home). Here is our schedule:

Thursday, March 23, 2006, 7-9 P.M.
Book Signing
Borders, Westwood
1360 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Second Floor

Saturday, April 22, 2006, 3-4 P.M.
Book Signing
Stamp Your Heart Out
141 C  Harvard Ave., Claremont, CA
909-621-4363

Sunday, April 30, 2006, Time TBA
Book Signing
Borders Booth, LA Times Festival of Books
UCLA Campus

Thursday, August 17, 2006, Phoenix, AZ
I AM ART! Fearless Visual Journaling Workshop.  Visit http://www.artunraveled.com for registration information.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006, Portland, OR
I AM ART! Fearless Visual Journaling Workshop (visit http://www.artandsoulretreat.com/portland-workshop s.php for registration information)

May 2007
The Artful Journey: Mixing the Media of Art and Travel Journaling Workshop in Italy  (WOW! More info on this magical trip is coming soon.)

Breaking CHEERS

Emmy-award winning writer/producer Ken Levine talks about how hard it was breaking stories for CHEERS.

For every story we used there were always twenty or thirty we threw
out. The core of every story had to present a substantial problem for
one or more of the characters. And it had to have some comic spin. When
an idea is on the table and the writers are able to come up with
possible scenes and twists and jokes that’s a pretty good indication
that we may have hit gold. And very often a story will evolve into
something completely different from what you started with. You begin
with Sam has to hire a new bartender and an hour later it somehow
becomes Lilith’s pet rat dies and she keeps it in her purse…

[…] Once we had an area we liked this is how we generally broke the
stories: Our first question was always “what’s the act break?” Then
“what’s the ending?”. Then "when’s lunch?" Once we had the big midpoint
turn and the ultimate conclusion we’d go back and fill in the acts.
Sometimes we would lay out a story and see that two or three characters
would be excluded. So in order to service them we would do a B story
that usually could be told in two or three scenes.