On Other Blogs

What to Spec?

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With so few comedies on the air, what sitcom should an aspiring writer spec as a sample of his or her talent? Veteran comedy writer/producer Ken Levine tackles that question this weekend on his blog.

Select a
current show you like and think you know the best. “Current” is the key word
here. Once a show is cancelled the shelf life for your spec is about six months.
So don’t start that ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT you’ve been developing. And I hope you
didn’t pour a lot of time and effort into a spec KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL. When
RAYMOND went off the air everyone was sad but show runners. No more reading
fifty RAYMONDS a day when trying to staff! And for that same reason, please let
this be WILL & GRACE’S last year! The good news is if you’ve got a spec
FRASIER you can just change the names and send it out as an OUT OF PRACTICE. And
of course you never have to worry with a SIMPSONS because they will go on making
new episodes forever…

…Unfortunately, there are not a lot of great shows out there at the moment. What
I think we’ll see this year is everybody writing a MY NAME IS EARL. It’s clearly
the best of the new crop. The only caution I give you is that EVERYBODY will be
writing one. If that doesn’t concern you (or you’ve written it already) I say go
for it. If it does then some suitable alternates might be SCRUBS, TWO AND A HALF
MEN, EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, or HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (a far cry from the CHEERS,
TAXI, MASH, COSBY days).

He’s Back!

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078601709001_sclzzzzzzz_There are only a few living authors of western literature who can truly be called legends in the field — Richard Wheeler is one of them. He started a fascinating blog some time ago, then abandoned it, offering his views on writing and publishing on Ed Gorman’s blog and in comments here. But now he’s back with a blog of his own. Whether you read westerns of not, I highly recommend you put him on your blogroll for his valuable insights, candid opinions, and informed take on the biz (he was an editor before he became a novelist, so he knows both sides of the biz)

Today, in a discussion of Gary Svee’s book SANCTUARY, he blames publishers with a deeply-held, anachronistic view of westerns for the demise of the genre in print:

In the last several decades, western fiction has been forced into a procrustean
bed by New York’s mass-market publishers. And now almost all the western lines
are defunct as a result.

The idea, apparently, was to have a "line" of
books with similar classical covers and contents, and this would surely reach
the vast market of western readers pining for stories with 1940s titles that
employ words like "vengeance" and "showdown." This notion had the power of
religious conviction in New York, and still does even though most western lines
have gone to heaven, or hell as the case may be.

Wheeler’s new book FIRE IN THE HOLE is saddled with one of those traditional western covers…which bares no relation to the actual story. The hero isn’t a U.S. Marshal, he’s a detective posing as a vermin exterminator in a filthy, Montana mining camp. Not exactly your typical western hero or setting.  All you have to do is read the opening chapter and you’ll be hooked.

Masturbation!

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"MarytheFan"  defends her search for masturbation fanfic and is applauded, in later comments on her blog, for being a classy gal ("Just wanted to say that I fangirl you madly at the class you’re showing").  Anyway, MarytheFan writes, in part:

I have zero interest in a discussion with someone who functions on the
middle-school level that equates masturbation with something stupid and pathetic
that only losers do because they can’t get anything better, rather than as one
perfectly valid, healthy and fun sexual option in a smorgasboard of sexual
options. Maybe if my actual masturbatory experiences had consisted solely of
sad, pathetic situations in which I was a loser who was only masturbating
because I couldn’t get anything better, rather than situations in which I was
enjoying my own body because holy good god, that felt good, I’d think it
was a pathetic and loser activity. Guess what? You also don’t go blind or have
hair grow on your palms, in case anyone out there was still functioning
furtively in the shadow of those old myths. Well, unless you poke yourself in
the eye, I suppose, in which case, wow. Bendy, aren’t you?

I have no problem with masturbation, Mary. It’s healthy, feels good, and
keeps Cinemax in business. What I find pathetic are people who
masturbate over fanfiction that portrays TV and movie
characters masturbating, and the people who write fanfiction about fictional characters masturbating, and people who would announce to the world that they are
searching for fanfiction about TV and movie characters  masturbating that they can
masturbate to.

This would also probably be a good time to, once again, mention Lindsay Lohan’s nipples.

Show Clothes

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Writer/Producer Ken Levine has a very funny post on his blog about show jackets — the typical Christmas gift from a production company to the staff of a series. My closet is full of show-wear. I’ve got jackets, hats, fleeces, visors, vests, sweatshirts and t-shirts representing just about every show I’ve ever worked on.

I used to wear my show clothes a lot when I was first starting out — it was pride and it made me feel like a member of a special club. I could dress from head to toe in stuff that had a show logo on it.  I don’t wear any of it very often now (except my MISSING, MARTIAL LAW, DIAGNOSIS MURDER and COBRA fleeces, which are all super-warm on chily days). 

I never wear the BAYWATCH jacket because I’m afraid someone will ask me to give them mouth-to-mouth. I don’t wear my SEAQUEST jacket because it makes me look like the ultimate sf fanboy  geek. If I wear the other stuff, I run the very real risk of my waiter or waitress handing me their headshot or the guy at 7-11 slipping me his spec script along with my Big Gulp.

But you don’t always  get show clothing. You also get binders, book-bags, paperweights, belt buckles, pens, flashlights, key-chains, even candles. Ken has received some weird stuff, too:

One year on CHEERS we received lovely dart boards. At the time everyone
had young children. I don’t think anyone even took them out of the box.
(I’m sure there’s still one or two floating around ebay). On MASH one
year the cast gave us all engraved watches. It was a beautiful gift,
one I still have. The next season the new writer on the staff was
counting the days until the big gift. It turned out to be a custom 33
rpm album of all the scenes in which the cast sang on the show. He was
livid. “You guys get watches and I get a fucking album of Loretta Swit
singing?!” (I don’t even think ebay has that one).

A few years ago an actor on a show I was producing gave me a large
heavy rock with the word “remember” carved into it. I put it on the
front porch and am still looking for a companion rock that says “Pearl
Harbor” or “the Alamo” or “to wipe your feet”. I’d tell you who the
actor was but can’t seem to recall…

…Oh well, I still have my memories. And my IT’S ALL RELATIVE fleece, BIG
WAVE DAVE’S cap, ALMOST PERFECT sweatshirt, LATELINE jacket, KIRSTIN
fleece, CONRAD BLOOM bowling shirt, ASK HARRIETT t-shirt, and GEORGE
& LEO beltbuckle…which I would all gladly trade for one FAMILY GUY
handkerchief.

When you’re a producer on a series, the studio and network also send you gifts. From wine and wallets to alarm clocks and dishwear.  I got a bathrobe from Les Moonves once. I have it hermetically sealed in case he calls me to a meeting in a sauna some day.

Just One More Thing

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The folks over at InnerTube noted the uncanny similarity between the real-life conflict between attorney-turned-pseudonovelist Robert Tanenbaum and his ghostwriter cousin Michael Gruber and a classic episode of COLUMBO.

Had this been a plot for a Television show, Tanenbaum would have shot and killed
Gruber before he had the chance to reveal the secret to a reporter from The
Romantic Times. (Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t have been much fun for the
victim….)

Sound
familiar? It’s the plotline for the first episode of ‘Columbo’ as a series
(third ‘Columbo’ outing overall if you count the two pilots). "Murder By The
Book" starred Jack Cassidy, who would have been the Tanenbaum-type character,
and Martin Milner as the Gruber stand-in.

Not that he ever had murder in
his heart, but Tanenbaum sounds like he would have made for the perfect
antagonist to Lt. Columbo. He was not only a lawyer and (alleged) author, but
also a teacher and a mayor! It sounds as if his social standing would have been
quite a formidable challenge to the attempts by the shabby, fumbling little
detective trying to investigate him.

Dating Remaindered Men

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Harley Jane Kozak’s book DATING DEAD MEN has been remaindered…meaning the publisher is going to sell their stock of unsold copies to booksellers by the pound (so the formerly $24.95 books will end up in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble for $4.98).  When your books are scheduled to be remaindered, the publisher first offers you the opportunity to buy as many copies as you like for a buck or two.  Harley writes:

Anyhow, a few days later, when the actual Remainder Notice from Random House
arrived in the mail, it turned out to be 2,740 books @ $1.43 a book. Meaning
that the two thousand dollars I’d rounded it off to turned out to be . . . a
tiny bit more. Okay, $3,918.20. Plus tax.

Which led to another not-so-fabulous dilemma.

Where does one put 2,740 books?

It’s a hard offer to resist. I know, because I’ve fallen for it. I have hundreds and hundreds of copies of BEYOND THE BEYOND and MY GUN HAS BULLETS in my garage. Now, a decade after they were published, I have resorted to giving them away in bookbags at conventions and at signings for my new books — using them, basically, like promotional bookmarks. Even so, I’ve hardly made a dent in my stockpile. My advice to Harley — resist the urge. Buy a 100 of each and let the rest go to the remainder bins of America.

 

Wisdom from Joe

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As usual, author Joe Konrath has some excellent advice for writers. Today’s lesson:  "Avoid Plodding Plotting."

The fact is, readers don’t want your hero to be happy. At least, not
until the end. They want angst, conflict, ruined dreams, dashed hopes,
impossible situations, neuroses, struggle, heartache, near death
experiences, ruined lives, and pain.

All you need to know about plotting is twofold.

  1. Give your characters goals.
  2. Don’t let them reach those goals.

He goes on to give some excellent examples of how to pull this off.

When Popes Attack!

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Emmy-award winning comedy writer Ken Levine has started a blog, but it’s off to a rocky start:

The L.A. Times CALENDAR section did a big feature on local bloggers on Thursday.
I did not make the cut. When I started this venture, way back on Saturday, I
knew it would take time to catch on but not this much time. Jesus! Still, I will
carry on…

I loved his observation today about the two TV movies about John Paul II.

Dueling Popes! Two networks have biopics on John Paul II scheduled. Sorry Fox is
not one of them. They’d probably want to give the pontiff a hot love interest.