Lee Goldberg

The Power of Frak

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Glenlarson
Glen A. Larson is a genius. I’m not saying that because he created KNIGHTRIDER, FALL GUY, BJ AND THE BEAR, AUTOMAN, ALIAS SMITH & JONES and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. I’m saying it because he created  the wonderfully subversive word "frak"…and got away with it.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA should go down in TV history just for that.

While ground-breaking shows like HILL STREET BLUES were using words like "scuzbucket" and "hairball" to get around the network prohibitions on profanity, Glen gave us "frak" and "feldergarb." No one noticed, or seemed to care, that he gave us words that were clearly stand-ins for fuck and bullshit because it was buried in a goofy, sci-fi show. But now frak has fulfilled all it’s awesome, subversive power in the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

There is no doubt whatsoever that "frak" is "fuck." And the writers on the show use it exactly as they would use fuck. Frak this. Frak us. What the frak is going on? Unfrakingbelievable. Frak me…frak me now. Motherfracker.

Used like this, is frak any less powerful that fuck? No. Which is the beauty of it. Every time it’s used,Bsg_s3_cast
it shines a big fucking light on the absurdity of censorship. Because frak IS fuck, and everybody knows it. So what’s difference does it really make whether you use either frak or fuck? None. It’s a big fuck you to network censors, the FCC, and the idiots who are afraid of language.

And Glen A. Larson, the man behind THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO, gave us this. Pretty fraking amazing. He should get an Emmy just for that.

Monk Galley Giveaway

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Monk_germany_cover
I have two extra, bound galleys for MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY which I will be giving away at random.

Here’s the deal…post a review of your favorite MONK novel on Amazon and send me a copy of it by June 1st at:  lee AT Leegoldberg DOT com.

I will put the names into a hat and select two winners at random to receive a signed galley. Please be sure to include your snail mail address in the email. Winners will be announced here.

Scribe Awards and How You Can Enter

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The
Fourth Annual Scribe Awards are now open for submissions. The Scribes,
presented by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers
(www.iamtw.org), honors excellence in licensed tie-in writing—novels based on TV shows, movies, and games. Here are the submissions guidelines:

The
Scribe Awards and How You Can Enter

The IAMTW will present SIX AWARDS in THREE CATEGORIES for books (& comic
books and graphic novels) published in 2008. We will also honor one
"Grandmaster" for career achievement in the field.
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SPECULATIVE
FICTION
(Science Fiction, Fantasy, Supernatural Horror)

BEST NOVEL (original) – A licensed, original novel using pre-existing
characters or worlds from a movie, television series, computer game, play, or
an existing series of novels (i.e., new novels extending a literary franchise,
i.e., DUNE, James Bond, etc.)

BEST ADAPTATION – A licensed novelization based on an existing
screenplay, whether a feature film, episodic teleplay, computer game, script,
or play.

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GENERAL FICTION (Mysteries, Thrillers, Westerns, Suspense, Historicals, Psychological Horror, Romances)

BEST NOVEL (original) – A licensed, original novel using pre-existing
characters or worlds from a movie, television series, computer game, play, or
an existing series of novels (i.e., new novels extending a literary franchise,
i.e. DUNE, James Bond, etc.)

BEST NOVEL (adapted) A licensed novelization based on an existing screenplay,
whether a feature film, episodic teleplay, computer game, script, or play.

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YOUNG ADULT (All Genres)

BEST ADAPTATION (defined as above)

BEST NOVEL (original) (defined as above)


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GRANDMASTER (For Career Achievement)
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The Fine Print Regarding The Categories…
 
For a
category to go forward, three submissions leading to at least two nominations
must pertain. In the case of a category falling short of submissions and/or
nominations, entries will be transferred to the nearest appropriate category —
for example, BEST GENERAL (Adapted) category would go into an overall BEST
NOVEL (Adapted) category that would include both Speculative and General
submissions. 

In the case of BEST ADAPTED (YA) or BEST ORIGINAL (YA), should submissions
fall short of the minimal two nominations requirement, entries would shift into
either BEST SPECULATIVE (Adapted) or BEST GENERAL (Adapted), depending
upon the genre.

In the event a combining of categories becomes necessary in a given
year (i.e., BEST NOVEL Adapted) the judging committee is authorized (but not
required) to give more than one Scribe, reflecting the combined
categories, if the committee members feel such recognition is warranted.

Horror entries have been divided into "Supernatural Horror" under
SPECULATIVE and "Psychological Horror" under GENERAL. This is a
judgment call the authors and then committee chairs must make, depending upon
whether a submitted horror novel is more grounded in reality than the
fantastic. Should a committee chair reject a title on this basis, the chair
will forward all copies of the submitted book to the appropriate committee
chair, and inform the author of the decision.

Should the author already have submitted another title to the other committee,
the author will be given the opportunity to choose which of the two titles he
or she wishes to have considered (since we have a one-book-per-category
submission limitation).

The future of the Special Game-Related Scribes will be decided after this
year’s Gen-Con. If we decide to continue this award, game-related submissions in the Speculative Original and Adapted
Categories will be simultaneously considered by those category judges for the
"Best Game-Related" Scribes. A gaming-related book submitted in those
categories is simultaneously eligible for both the "regular" and
"game-related" Scribe Award.


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How The Scribes Are Judged

The judging committees are made up of three of your peers from within the organization,
writers who know the unique obstacles and restrictions that tie-in writers
face, because they are tie-in writers themselves. The judges will read all the
submissions in their category and select both the nominees and the winners (a
system patterned after the Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller
Writers, and the Private Eye Writers of America, among others).
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Rules for Submission
  • Authors can submit multiple titles, but only ONE BOOK PER CATEGORY/ONE CATEGORY PER
         BOOK (i.e. you can’t submit the same book in two different categories or multiple titles in one category. Authors who’ve done several books in any one category need to pick the one title that seems strongest and submit only that).
  • Only authors can  submit their books for consideration but we encourage you to have your
         editors/publishers send the actual books on your behalf so you don’t have to raid your author’s copies or pay the postage.
  • Judges can submit their work, but obviously not in the categories they are judging.
  • The book must be a licensed work published for the first time between Jan 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2008. Only books with a copyright date of 2008 will be eligible for consideration. Though novels published through December 31, 2008, are eligible, entrants are required to get copies of eligible work into the hands of the category judges no later than December 1st, to allow adequate time to review the titles. Galleys are acceptable.
  • All entrants MUST include a cover letter with each book. The cover letter must include
         the following information: the Category you are entering, Title of the
         Book, Name of the Author, Publication Date, Editor & Publisher, and
         email & "snailmail" addresses and phone numbers for the  author and editor.
  • A copy of all submissions—the book and cover letter—should be sent to each judge in the category you are  entering and to the IAMTW. Please send an email to tieinwriters@yahoo.com for the list of  judges and their mailing addresses. IAMTW members can find the list in the MEMBERS  ONLY section of the IAMTW site.
  • Submission is free for any IAMTW member. Non-members must pay a $10 fee for each submission to cover our costs (payable via Paypal or by check to IAMTW, PO  Box 8212, Calabasas, CA 91372).
  • A list of all  the books submitted will be posted on the IAMTW site and updated regularly. The
         nominees will be announced, to entrants and the media, in March 2009. The Scribes  will be awarded in July 2009 at a location and date TBD.

The Sandwich

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The towncar driver who picked me up at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan yesterday asked me if I’d like a Chinese sandwich before heading out to the airport.
"No thanks," I said. "I just had lunch."
"It’s not food," he said. "It’s the greatest experience of your life."
"What is it?"
"It’s two naked Chinese women covered with soap bubbles who hug each other…with you in between. You can go as far as you want with them."
"No thanks," I said.
"Are you sure?" he said. "It’s something you’ll remember when you’re old, sitting in your rocking chair, and it will bring a smile to your face."
"It’s not my kind of thing," I said.
"Are you gay?"
"Married."
"So what?" he said. "She’ll never know."
"I will," I said.
He grinned. "That’s the point."
"I’m really not interested."
Actually, I was very interested. Not in experiencing the Sandwich for myself, but I wanted to know if he’d done it, how many of the men he drove around took him up on the offer, and how many of them got a sexually transmitted disease. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
"You mean to tell me you’ve never played around?" The driver asked.
"Nope," I said.
"How long have you been married?"
"About twenty years," I said.
He stared at me in shock. "How do you do it?"
I shrugged.  "It doesn’t take any effort at all."
"Because you don’t like sex?"
"Because I love my wife," I said.
He shook his head. "That’s really sad. You only live once, you know."

The Edgars

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P5010027
One of the great things about the Edgars, besides meeting so many terrific authors, is all the free books you get when the ceremony is over. I just lugged up to my room two bulging bags of books to send back home. But you don’t want to hear about that, you want to hear about the Awards…

Well, as Edgar chair, I’ve known who the winners are for a while now and I nearly bit off my tongue not leaking the news to Tana French and Susan Straight that they were winners when I met them at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend. Also Matt Nix, executive producer of BURN NOTICE, won as well…news that my brother Tod (who is writing the BURN NOTICE books) and my publisher Kristen Weber (who is publishing the BURN NOTICE books) would have loved to have known in advance. That’s Tana and Matt in the photo to the left and the Southern California contingent of MWA in the photo to the right…P5010025_2
Jim Warren, Naomi Hirahara, Leslie Klinger, Pat Smiley, Doug Lyle, Deborah  Atkinson and yours truly.

Al Roker was a funny host, and he even said "fuck" a few times, which is kind of weird to hear coming from him. As a number of people noted, he was like a thinner, blacker, Tod Goldberg.  I sat with my agent Gina Maccoby and my publisher, which is always nice, and I did a lot of schmoozing before the event, though I was too tired to hang out in the bar afterwards.

Galleycat’s Ron Hogan has posted more pictures from the pre-Edgars reception here.

A complete list of winners follows after the jump.

Read more

Pre-Pre-Published

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P4290011
Today I went out to Summit, NJ to visit MONK creator/showrunner Andy Breckman and his staff. They aren’t exactly keeping a low-profile in town, as proven by the picture on the left of their building (click on the picture for a larger image). On the train ride out there, I came up with the plot for MONK #8 which, much to my relief, Andy liked. We talked for an hour or two about the murders for the book and then I sat in to hear the beats for the 100th episode — it’s g0ing to be a great one.

I returned to Manhattan in time to attend the MWA’s Agents & Editors party, where I ran into Mel Berger, who was my first agent ever, and chatted for a bit with a woman who loves me, which is always a thrill.

At the party, author Twist Phelan told me that she’d met a woman today who introduced herself as a "pre-pre-published author" and said she was attending the Crime Writing conference to meet an agent.

"What does ‘pre-pre-published’ mean?" Twist asked.

"I have an idea for a book but I haven’t started writing it yet," she said.

"And that’s how you plan to introduce yourself to agents?"

"Yes," the woman said.

Twist said don’t, and went on to tell her just how stupid calling herself  "pre-pre-published" was. That was definitely a new one on me.

If I Were a Rich Man

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P4290007
I flew to New York on Monday on Virgin America which, once again, was like flying in a synagogue. The plane was full of  orthodox Jews, though at least this time they didn’t give  me a Bar Mitzvah (or whatever the ceremony was they performed for me on my last NY flight...and no, it wasn’t a circumcision. Been there, done that). I had a wonderful dinner at Elaine’s last night with writer, producer and bon vivant David Black and today the two of us did a panel together for the MWA’s "Crime Writing University." Tonight I went to the booksigning for BLUE RELIGION, the MWA anthology, and   
schmoozed with Megan Abbott, Harry Hunsicker, Jason Pinter, Paul Guyot (who is in the picture with me), Michael Connelly, Lee Child, SJ Rozan, and many other authors. Tomorrow I’m getting together with the folks at MONK to talk about my next book…and then will attend the MWA’s Editors & Agent’s dinner.