#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
If I was still writing DIAGNOSIS MURDER novels, this would be the next one:
The scars on Craig Buford’s abdomen hinted at the shooting that almost took his life 35 years ago in Denver.[…]But the shooting resurfaced last week when the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office ruled Buford’s Dec. 29 death a homicide, stating that it was caused by multiple organ failure due to complications from his wound.
William Rabkin has launched his own blog and starts it off with a humorous post ribbing author Neale Donald Walsch for stealing someone else's work. I love Walsch's excuse:
“All I can say now — because I am truly mystified and taken aback by this — is that someone must have sent it to me over the Internet ten years or so ago,” Mr. Walsch wrote. “Finding it utterly charming and its message indelible, I must have clipped and pasted it into my file of ‘stories to tell that have a message I want to share.’ I have told the story verbally so many times over the years that I had it memorized … and then, somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience.”
I am thinking of internalizing John Grisham's next novel as my own experience. I'd like to internalize his wealth as my own experience, too, but haven't figured out how to do that yet.
William Rabkin's first tie-in novel PSYCH: A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO READ comes out today. It's also his first novel of any kind, so I think it merits mention and a hearty CONGRATULATIONS! The book is absolutely hilarious and sharply plotted…and I'm not just saying that because he's my oldest friend and we've written together for twenty-some years (including an episode of PSYCH). If you are looking for a few hours of belly laughs and a clever, twisty mystery, I strongly recommend the book.
UPDATE: Bookgasm gives the book a rave review. They say, in part:
Truly capturing the show’s manic energy, the book feels like a super-sized episode with some touches that might have been toned down if this were translated to the screen.[…]Rabkin, who has written for the show, seems to have a lot of fun playing with these characters and throwing in enough pop-culture references to delight the fans — particularly any child of the ’70s and ’80s. This being the first of the tie-in novels, I can only hope they let Rabkin continue, since he truly understands not only the relationship of the characters, but his pacing and their voices come through so clear in his style.
I guess that next time I see my editor, I'm the one who is going to have to buy us lunch. The New York Times reports:
Nobody expects one of the staples of the business — the long lunch — to die off completely because of these straitened circumstances. But publishers, editors and literary agents, who have often been among the best diners in the city, are now reconsidering their favorite restaurants.
“We’ve all naturally been thinking about whether it’s absolutely essential to have a lunch here or there,” Mr. Burnham added, “or whether it can be a phone call or a meeting.”
Bookseller reports the very sad news that owner/author Maxim Jakubowski's legendary Murder One bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London is closing down, a victim of plunging sales.
"Over the last few years our sales have deterioriated," he said. "I was planning to retire this year, but this is earlier than expected. For the benefit of staff, publishers and suppliers, I would rather close the shop now and go out voluntarily with my head held high and no debts."
Anybody have some good ideas for the title of a MONK book that hasn't already been used already for an episode?
The next two book titles are MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP and MR. MONK IN TROUBLE. But I have no idea what the title of the one after that will be…
I'm open to suggestions!
UPDATE 1-11-2009: I've received dozens and dozens of titles both here and on my Facebook Monk page. Out of all those titles, I've chosen:
MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT
for the tenth book. I've already come up with a plot (which Monk creator/showrunner Andy Breckman has approved) and will submit it to my editor tomorrow.
I don't want to give away too much…so I'll just say that Mr. Monk goes broke and that his whole life is up-ended as a result.
So Dave, whoever you are, please let me know your last name so I can credit you in the book for coming up with the title.
I want to thank everyone for contributing so many terrific titles…two or three of which I still might use for future books (like MR. MONK GETS EVEN, MR. MONK IN THE RYE, MR. MONK GOES TO WASHINGTON, etc.)
UPDATE 4/29/2010: MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT will be published in July.
Lee
From the Wall Street Journal:
Dark days are upon the book industry. Last month alone, Random House announced a massive restructuring; Simon & Schuster laid off 35 staffers; the adult division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt stopped acquiring manuscripts for the rest of the year; and HarperCollins sent comedian Sarah Silverman a contract worth $2.5 million to write her first book.
(Thanks to Bill Crider for the link)
Last night I finished reading Robert Littell's THE COMPANY, a 900 page novel about the CIA. It read like 300 pages. I blazed through the book and really enjoyed it…despite its many faults.
Two of my good friends — Max Allan Collins and Zoe Sharp — got rave reviews for their new books in the Chicago Tribune today. Critic Paul Goat Allen called Zoe's new book THIRD STRIKE "one of the very best crime fiction sagas out there" and praised Max's THE FIRST QUARRY as " a neo-pulp noir classic." Congratulations to you both!
James Reasoner is one of the most prolific authors that I know…he's had hundreds of books published, mostly in the western genre. And yet very few people know who he is. Why? Because the majority of those books don't have his name on them (they were written under "house names" owned by the publisher or a literary estate).
For a lot of authors, the most important thing to them is seeing their name on the cover. But for James (pictured on the left hard at work), the most important thing is to make a living writing, something he loves to do and is very good at:
At one point in my career, I had published more than eighty books, only one of which (TEXAS WIND) had my name on it. People used to ask me how I could write a book knowing that my name wouldn’t be on it, and my stock answer was “I don’t care if my name is on the book as long as it’s on the check.”
Of course, that’s not exactly true now and wasn’t then. I’d love to be able to just write what I want, sell it, and have my name on it. But being able to keep writing, period, is more important to me.
It's a refreshing…and dare I say it, professional…attitude that you don't find much today. So many aspiring writers rush to self-publishing companies simply because they want the experience of seeing their name on a book cover, even if they have to spend thousands of dollars to do it. But James is different. He's a real writer and a true professional. I wish there were more like him:
There are dozens of books out there now with my name on them, and I’m thankful for
each and every one of them. I hope there’ll be more in the future. But as long as I can keep writing, one way or the other, I’ll be okay. That’s just me. I don’t really think that’s the only way to carve out a career – I’m sure every author has a different approach – but I feel like I’ve played the cards that were dealt to me and won more than I’ve lost.
I know how he feels. I think I may have told this story here before, but…a couple of years ago, it was down to Bill Rabkin & me against one other candidate for the co-exec producer job on a major hit series. The showrunner couldn't choose between the us and the other guy. So we met with the studio chief, who would be deciding who ultimately got the job. The interview was going great, and I was feeling real good about our chances, until the studio chief said:
"I only have on reservation about you two. Why don't you have sexier credits?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Why haven't you ever worked on Law and Order or CSI?"
"Because we never had the opportunity, either because we were working on something else when they had openings or they weren't interested in hiring us when we were available," I said. "In the course of our career, we didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing our jobs as much as we would have liked. We have families and had to make a living so we took what came along and what interested us. But if you like us, our writing, our producing philosophy, and the way we tell stories, what difference does it make whether we worked on CSI or Diagnosis Murder?"
We might also have mentioned that our friend Terry Winter was working on SISTER SISTER when he got hired on the SOPRANOS, where he won Emmys and WGA Awards. His previous credits include THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER and XENA. Not exactly the sexiest credits.
Well, it goes without saying that we didn't get the job. They hired someone with sexier credits. And fired him thirteen episodes later.
I like seeing my name in print and on the TV screen, but I consider myself first and foremost a working, professional writer. I write because I love it, but I also write to earn a living. Sometimes my creative or personal desires have to take a backseat to simply having a job. I don't think that Terry or I wrote for FLIPPER because we had a burning need to tells stories about a clever dolphin. We did it because writing is what we do and how we pay our bills.
UPDATE 12-20-2008: Bill Crider reviews James Reasoner's latest LONGARM novel (written under the house name "Tabor Evans.") And here's a Saddlebums review of one of Reasoner's 2007 LONGARM tales and an interview they did with him.
