Lee Goldberg

Out of Options?

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I got this email while I was away. The subject heading was "What to do after you’ve exhausted every resource in writing?"

Greetings.  First off, I am a potential author.  I say potential cause I’ve yet to get anything published.  Have about four finished manuscripts under my belt and I’ve exhausted
agents, publishers, some even overseas.  I’ve found nobody willing to take a chance on rookies (and I’ve got so many rejections that I’m thinking about wallpapering the bathroom).

You discourage the use of POD’s, but what’s a person to do when no other options are available?  Self publishing, perhaps, but cost of DIY is astronomical for some of us.

Could you give some insight that would light the darkness?  Any help will be appreciated.

I have some insight, but I don’t think you’re going to like it. You haven’t "exhausted every resource in writing," you’ve received some rejections. Big deal.  If you can’t handle rejection, you aren’t cut out to be a writer. It’s part of the job and certainly doesn’t end once you are published or produced.

The painful truth is that your rejections probably have nothing to do with people being unwilling to take a chance on a rookie. More likely, your novels aren’t marketable, they weren’t right for that publisher or agent, or they simply suck. What do you do? If you have confidence in the manuscripts, keep sending them out and start writing something new. POD self-publishing isn’t really an option, it’s just a way to spend hundreds of dollars printing your rejected manuscript in book form for your relatives to buy (if you nag them hard enough).  But if you have the money to waste and your goal is only to see your manuscript in something resembling a book, then go for it. You won’t have to work so hard and you certainly won’t get any more rejection letters. 

The Easy Way to Become a Professional Writer

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I have a confession to make. I’m a moron. I worked so hard to become a professional writer — spending years slogging away as a journalist, freelance magazine writer, non-fiction author, freelance TV writer, novelist, and writer-producer — when all I really had to do was join FanStory.com.  Now, thanks to those helpful folks at Writers Digest, who shared with me this moving letter from Jason Parker, I have  learned the error of my ways and can save you from making the same, horrible mistake:

"If it weren’t for FanStory.com, I wouldn’t be a tenth of the writer I am today. For three years I’ve been a Premier Author at FanStory – posting stories, novels, articles, poetry; giving reviews and rating material; remaining in personal contact with published novelists; and enjoying the hell out of growing as a writer.  Not only does the community of writers at FanStory support and help one another, they compete in a yearly ranking system. At the end of each year, the top five authors in four categories receive trophies in the mail. Related to competing, each month FanStory holds many writing contests in which the winner receives $100. To top that, there is a Seal Committee that brands top-notch work with a Seal of Quality, the author gaining the status of professional."

Jeepers. If only I’d known that FanStory had the awesome power, respect and prestige to grant writers The Status of Professional, I could have saved myself years of pointless effort and experience trying to establish my reputation among newspapers, magazines, publishers, editors, producers, studios and networks.

What a fool I’ve been! 

I realize now that what has been missing from my career, and from my life, is the FanStory Seal of Quality, my entree to the exciting world of publishing.   Think of it. Someday, if I really apply myself, I can attain the highest honor in the field. And all it will cost me is $2.80-a-month.

My new goal in life is to become a Premier Author at Fanstory (even if it takes years) and maybe, someday, becoming a true professional. Thank you, Writers Digest, for sharing this important information with me from one of your wonderful marketing partners. You’re doing an amazing service for aspiring writers everywhere.

UPDATE 4-11-06: A blogger disagrees with me. She compares fanstory.com to participating in any competition:

We won the grand final last year and we each got a big trophy. Are the
Hockeyroos scoffing at me because it’s not an Olympic gold medal? Are they
annoyed because I’m just excited about it as they are about their Olympic gold
medal? It’s like gaining particular status just for being a part of a particular
university society. You can’t say that it means "nothing".

It’s about
status. Lee Goldberg sometimes feels like his status means nothing.

It’s
sad, and I don’t why he feels like that. But that, folks, is what it’s all
about.

I don’t think contributing to fanstory.com and winning their competitions is akin to, say,  my daughter playing in a junior soccer league and getting a trophy if her team wins the championship. For one thing, the league doesn’t doesn’t grant her the status of professional soccer player. They give her a trophy for winning the local championship.

What fanstory is selling (and let’s be clear, it’s a business) is the false impression that their granting of status means something (it doesn’t) and that the honor carries some meaning in the writing profession (it doesn’t).

My status does mean something to me. But it wasn’t "granted" by a cheesy website. It was earned.

Archive of American Television

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For years now, Academy of Television Arts and Science’s  Archive of American Television project has been taping in-depth, four-to-six hour interviews with the writers, producers, directors, actors, and executives who have made a lasting impact on the television medium… people like Grant Tinker, James Arness, Fred Silverman, Norman Lear, Stephen J. Cannell, Roy Huggins, Mike Wallace, Norman Felton, Dick Van Dyke, Sherwood Schwartz, Bob Newhart, Carroll O’Connor, Jim McKay, Carl Reiner, Joseph Barbera, Stephen Bochco, Julia Child, Phil Donahue, Robert Guillaume, Alan Alda, Fred Rogers, Larry Hagman,Ed Bradley, Jonathan Winters, Leonard Stern, Delbert Mann, James Garner, and William Shatner to name just a few. Many of those interviews are now available to view for free on Google. This is a tremendous resource, of which I have been a proud contributor and interviewer, and I highly recommend it to any student of television.

“Lori Prokop, Do You Ever Stop Coming Up With Get-Rich-Quick Schemes?”

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Remember Lori Prokop, the shameless get-rich-quick huckster behind the BOOK MILLIONAIRE  debacle? Well, she’s baaaack  with an all-new schtick (gee, Lori, whatever happened to "Book Millionaire?") Now she’s pitching a series of seminars and books called "How to Launch from Good To Great." 

I was being interviewed as an expert for a book on success. The author asked, "Lori Prokop, how do great leaders handle success?"

I replied, "Great leaders are not as devastated by failure or as elated by successes. They take both in stride knowing they will continue to experience both as they move forward. They are more excited by the insights and knowledge they master as a result of both success and failure."

Apparently, either all of Lori Prokop’s friends talk to her like the alien from STARMAN…or she’s written so much junk-mail, she can’t stop writing in the <insert-recipient-name here> format.

I recommend the words of a great mentor of mine, Ted Nicholas, when he advised me, "Lori Prokop, say these incredibly powerful words, ‘I forgive myself and others for mistakes of the past.’"

I also suggest to you what another great teacher said, "Lori Prokop, you cannot look rationally at the equation or steps which lead to any outcome until you have healed the negative or hurtful emotions attached."

The point of her newsletter is to steer you to her latest laundry-list of get-rich-quick schemes and seminars
("Podcasting for Fun and Profit!," "How I Developed My Child’s Genius
–And How You Can Do It Too!," "Develop Self-Confidence and Lose Your
Fears!" etc) A friend of mine said to me, "Lee Goldberg, how could anyone slog through Lori Prokop’s endless list of self-improvement and get-rich-quick seminars and not see right through her?" and  I replied, "I have no idea."

PROfiles

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Ed Gorman  is kicking off a new feature on his blog called "PROfiles" — posing seven questions to  different novelists. Today, he talks to Bill Crider , PJ Parrish, and IAMTW co-founder Max Allan Collins, the multi-talented author of ROAD TO PERDITION. Here’s a quote from Max:

3. What is the greatest pleasure of a writing career?

Hands down, the great pleasure is being able to pursue a passion and get paid for it. I consider myself a storyteller and, accordingly, work in many mediums. I love readiing novels and get to write them for money; I love movies and occasionally get to make them; I love comics and get to script them. My hobbies have turned into my job, and what could be a greater pleasure than hat?

Ditto.

Ken is in da house

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Ken Levine has a very funny post today about HOUSE.

If you’re writing a spec episode of HOUSE, here’s the format: Vibrant
attractive Fox-friendly hottie in her 30’s suddenly collapses for no
reason. Opening credits. House says it’s nothing, send her home. She
goes into convulsions. For the next forty minutes the earnest young
doctors misdiagnosis her, send her into cardiac arrest, remove
something that doesn’t need removing, break into her house for an
illegal search, send House in to brow beat and traumatize her, and
finally he figures it out. It’s something obscure like she licks stamps
with cyanide or swims in a toxic waste dump. Five minutes later she’s
cured and goes home. Last scene – ironic music plays over as House sits
alone in his…well…house, pensive and tortured.

Honolulu Part 6

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The library talk tonight was sparsely attended but just as lively and interesting (for me, anyway) as all the other talks I’ve done during my visit to Oahu (I stayed a good 45 minutes after closing to keep answering questions). I got to meet several regular readers of this blog face-to-face, including a former Writers University student of ours, and some of the library officials who were kind enough to approve the grant that brought me to Hawaii.  I had a terrific time and I want to thank Cindy Chow once again for inviting me and being such a wonderful hostess, tour guide, dinner companion, and event manager during my stay. Tomorrow it’s back to L.A. and work, work and more work…and, oh hell, and jury duty on Tuesday. I forgot all about that.

Would You Like Your Book “Personalized” or Just Signed And Dated?

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Don’t think of this as a blog. Think of this as a virtual booksigning, the hot new thing in publishing, at least according to the Wall Street Journal :

Hundreds of readers watched recently as historian Doris Kearns Goodwin signed copies of her new book at a Chicago stop on her book tour. Many of them were sitting at home.

Via the Web site VirtualBookSigning.net, they saw a live Webcast of the author reading, ordered the book, emailed the messages they wanted her to
inscribe and watched her sign the books.

The latest twist for book tours: no human contact. Instead of meeting their fans at Borders, some authors are beaming themselves to book buyers over the Internet. Methods vary, but publishers and authors are keen to find high-tech alternatives to the expensive, time-consuming author tour.

With 10-city tours costing about $20,000, publishers say they are scheduling fewer of the junkets. As virtual book events becomes more widespread, they’re changing the way books are marketed. Several publishing houses have invested in a remote-signing machine with a robotic arm, conceived by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

When I shattered my right arm, I shouldn’t have had it reconstructed with titanium plates and screws…I should have replaced it with a robotic-signing arm. I could have leased myself out to publishing companies and signed for authors like Stephen King and Janet Evanovich…

Honolulu Part 5

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For some reason, I woke up today with a terrible allergy, so I drugged myself on Alavert and Advil, which left me feeling dehydrated and a little fuzzy-headed. But I figured that was better than going up in front of people with a waterfall of mucus spilling out of my nose, a skull-cracking headache, and watery eyes.

I had two library talks — one in the morning at McCully Library in downtown Honolulu and one at night at the brand new, very impressive library in Kapolei, an hour-and-a-half outside of the city in rush-hour traffic (as I sadly discovered).

Both talks were very well attended by incredibly attractive, amusing, and talented people who asked astonishingly smart questions  (as you may have guessed, I discovered that a surprising number of the attendees and librarians I met today are regular readers of this blog).  I even got asked about fanfic and self-publishing today and managed not to start foaming at the mouth when I replied. I stayed for two hours at McCully and at Kapolei until the building closed and the security guard began eyeing me menacingly.

Between the two events, I managed not to write a thing besides my name on a credit card receipt for a dim sum lunch in Chinatown. I’m giving up any hope that I am going to get work done here. I’ll just have to crack down on myself when I get back on Friday night…I can see a lot of LONG days ahead of me if I am going to make my deadlines on the MONK script and the MONK book.

UPDATE: For a detailed play-by-play on last night’s library talk,and a picture of me looking like a tourist in my aloha shirt, check out Lynn Raye Harris’ blog.

Honolulu Part 4

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Yesterday we spent our time on the North Shore — we spent a few hours watching the Monster Pipeline Pro surfing event on Sunset Beach (getting mightily sunburned in the process) then we went snorkeling up in Turtle Bay. 

My evening library talk was, as my host explained, "out in the country" in the tiny town of Wahiawa. The library was next door to The House of Hair and a strip joint. Only eight people showed up, but they were
bright, enthusiastic, and asked great questions about the craft of screenwriting and the business of television. Most of all, they
really really, really appreciated me being there, which made the
librarians very happy…and me, too.

I got lost on the way back to Waikiki. Even once you realize you are going on the wrong freeway in the wrong direction, good luck turning around.  The freeway system here is terrible and just because there’s an off-ramp on one side
doesn’t mean there’s an onramp on the other.

Today I have two library talks — one in town and the other in Kapolei.  I’m going to try to convince the family to let me go to the events alone so a) they don’t have to spend half the day in libraries and b) so maybe I can get a some writing done on this trip in the few hours of free time I have between talks. We’ll see. I’m feeling very anxious about how little writing I’m doing — but by the time I get home each night, I am totally exhausted and am in bed by about 9:30.