Lee Goldberg
Beached 4
The sun was out today in Myrtle Beach, where I am speaking at the South Carolina Writer's Conference. I had some interesting encounters today…in the elevator, a woman said to me:
"How much of your books does Tony Shalhoub write?"
"He doesn't write any of part of them," I replied.
"Then why is his face on the cover?"
"Because he plays Adrian Monk on the TV show."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Don't you think that's deceiving readers?"
Another woman came up to me later in the day and said "Your books are very funny. Why aren't you as funny in person?"
Before my screenwriting seminar, a woman approached me and said "I'd like to attend your class but there's a more interesting one at the same time."
Other than those comments, it has been a great day…a long one, and tiring, but a lot of fun anyway. And I had the pleasure of signing with my friend Michael Connelly and introducing him as our keynote speaker. He was an engaging, self-effacing, and inspirational speaker, as always.
Tomorrow I have two more classes/seminars and then I take a late flight back to Los Angeles.
Beached 3
This was the first day of the South Carolina Writer's Conference and I was kept pretty busy. I managed to sneak in a long walk on the beach before the rains came (which have lasted all day and into the night) and my three-hour "Breaking Into TV Writing" seminar. I had a great class of aspiring writers and don't have a single stupid question to share with you — though one guy did walk out when I told him I wasn't interested in reading his scripts or his novel-in-progress. I am constantly surprised by how many people read this blog — three people came up and chatted with me about posts they enjoyed or things that they've learned. One woman thanked me for steering her away from making a very expensive mistake with a vanity press. She was so anxious to get her novel published and the vanity press seemed like an attractive short cut to her — but then she realized it was her desperation talking and not her good sense. It made me feel really good to know I saved at least one person from those scammers.
Beached 2
I'm here in Myrtle Beach. I almost missed my flight — a brush fire shutdown the 405 freeway and I had to go around it using surface streets. I was one of the last people to get on board my plane. Other than that, it was an uneventful voyage. Tonight, I took a long walk on the beach and pigged out at a local fried fish place with my buddy James O. Born (who told me about his new scifi novel, written as "James O'Neill") and some of the other attendees. Tomorrow morning, the conference starts at 8 so I am off to bed. Night night!
Beached
I am on my way to Myrtle Beach, SC to speak & teach at the South Carolina Writer's Conference. Other speakers/teachers include authors Michael Connelly and James O. Born and editors from St. Martins, HarperCollins, Little Brown, Random House and Thomas Dunne as well as a slew of agents. There's also going to be a rep there from Book Surge, and I've already warned the conference that I will be strongly advising aspiring writers to avoid vanity presses.
I've got to get up at 3:30 in the morning to make my flight…and since I usually go to bed around 1 or 2, I might just forgo sleep altogether and try to nap on the plane.
I've never been to Myrtle Beach and I'm really looking forward to it. I have a pretty busy schedule over the next four days, so I don't know if I will have a chance to post while I am there.
Nobody Does it Worse
The London Times lists some of the worst James Bond movie moments. I disagree with a lot of their choices, especially when there are so many truly awful moments to choose from.
For me, the worst moments were in "Moonraker" (Jaws flapping his arms, trying to fly as he fell from an airplane; Bond riding a horse to the theme from "The Magnificent Seven"), "A View to a Kill" (Bond skiing across an ice-lake to a Beach Boys song; getting into bed with Grace Jones and looking like a dirty old man), "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (007's arch-nemesis Blofeld doesn't recognize Bond because he's wearing a kilt!), "Diamonds Are Forever" (Bond tooling around the desert in a moon buggy), and "Die Another Day" (the invisible car and a ridiculous CGI Bond surfing a tidal wave).
(Thanks to Bill Crider for the link)
Taking Your Own Advice
I've taught writing a lot in the last few years — UCLA Extension courses, Writers University online courses, week-long seminars abroad, conference workshops, speaking engagements, etc. One of the many reasons I enjoy doing it is that talking about craft invigorates my own writing and helps me take a fresh look at what I am doing. That point was underscored for me this week.
I have been reading & critiquing manuscripts and screenplays for the South Carolina Writers Conference, which I am attending this weekend. Many of the manuscripts have serious structural problems, point-of-view issues, and are bogged down in insanely dull (and unnecessary) exposition & backstory. The stories never actually get started.
At the same time, I have been wrestling with the first 40 or so pages of a "standalone" crime novel that I'm writing. I am working with a much sketchier outline than I usually do…I thought it might be exciting for me since this isn't a "whodunit" and I pretty much know where I'm going. Maybe that's a mistake, because the writing hasn't been going well. I find myself continually rewriting my work and not getting anywhere.
I was in the midst critiquing one of the student manuscripts, and writing down my advice, when it hit me — I was making the same mistakes in my work that he was in his. I was smothering the drama and conflict in exposition, I wasn't giving the reader a chance to get invested in the characters or the story. I wasn't following that old screenwriting adage — show, don't tell. I needed to get the story started, then carefully dole out the necessary exposition in bits and pieces in ways that reveal character and generate some conflict.
Yesterday I went back and rewrote my first 40 pages yet again…dramatizing key moments that I'd buried in exposition…and suddenly it all began to work. I felt a rhythm to the writing that was missing before. The story had a pulse, a forward momentum now…and it has carried me through my writing today.
That's not to say I won't have trouble again. I'm sure I will. I have been in this situation before on other books and scripts. But what can be great about teaching, at least for me, is that it can give you the distance and perspective you need on your own work.
Fanfic Makes Proulx Regret Writing “Brokeback Mountain”
Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Proulx has complained before about the misery "Brokeback Mountain" fanfic has caused her and now she's doing it again, this time on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
her home five miles outside town, looking out enormous windows onto the
river and the limestone cliffs that define her property.
Not because of the people of Saratoga, a town she doesn't think much
of. Not even because the word "brokeback" has been misappropriated, as
in, "Hey, you're not goin' brokeback on me, are you?"
It's all the manuscripts, screenplays and letters sent to her by men
who rewrite or serialize her story, adding new characters, endings and
even successive generations.
Her frustration has been building for a while. She told the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago that "Brokeback Mountain' has had little effect on my writing life, but is the source of constant irritation in my private life."
She lamented that "remedial writers" are constantly sending "ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the
story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for
'fixing' the story…they know nothing of
copyright infringement, that the characters Jack Twist and Ennis
Del Mar are my intellectual property."
Boston is Back
I haven't heard much about Boston Teran in years, but in the last few weeks he's been back in the news. Teran is a nom-de-plume for a secretive author, perhaps already well known under his own name. His first book under the Teran moniker, "God is a Bullet," got a lot of attention and an Edgar nomination, but his follow-up novels never generated the same heat. That could be changing.
Variety reports that his as-yet-unpublished western "Creed of Violence" has been bought by Univeral.
Story, set in 1910, revolves around an estranged father and son
trying to thwart an arms smuggling ring bringing weapons to Mexico.
The
novel caught fire among studios after the Natasha Kern Literary Agency
submitted it to book publishers. Universal, which hasn't yet assigned a
producer, made an aggressive offer and took the book off the table.
Several foreign territory publishing deals have already been made, but no U.S. publisher has been selected.
A few weeks back it was reported that hot screenwriter Ehren Kruger was adapting "God is a Bullet" for a feature film that he might also direct. Is Boston Teran set for a comeback?
(the portrait of Boston Teran is from www.danielpeebles.com)