Current Affairs

Finally…

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…somebody is airing reruns of HARRY O and SPENSER FOR HIRE, two of my favorite (and little seen) PI shows. Set your Tivos, folks, because TVSquad reports that later this month TVLand is celebrating Warner Brothers Television with a marathon thatalso  includes 77 SUNSET STRIP and LOVE SIDNEY.

Is that a new RWA rule in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

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Booksquare reports that The Romance Writers of America have passed a new rule barring the national and chapter websites from linking to authors with certain objectionable images or words on their bookcovers or on their sites/blogs.

… it’s pretty clear
the Board has never once, in their entire lives, taken a gander at the average
romance novel cover. If so, they’d realize they have just eliminated 99.9% of
all covers:

With respect to all RWA programs and services, the following shall not be
depicted or represented: exposed male and female genitalia, exposed female
nipples, cunnilingus and fellatio, hands or mouth covering naked female breasts,
naked or g-string-clad buttocks, and beastiality. The following words: cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, will not be
displayed.

The president of RWA has clarified this regulation, saying this means (and we
quote):

. . .if we wish to retain our charter with RWA, we will no longer be able to
show jacket covers that don’t meet the standard and we can’t even link to the
websites of those authors who might show their own covers, have excerpts that
include certain language, or lead to the publisher’s website.”

So if their rules say they can’t link to any site that has the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit and tit, then they can’t even publish this rule on their own site since, by definition, it means printing the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit.

That said, I’d like to belong to any writers organization progressive enough to have the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit in their rules for anything.  I’m pretty sure there isn’t a rule in the Mystery Writers of America or the Writers Guild that includes the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but I think there should be.  Imagine what DEADWOOD would be like without the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit. Or Harry Potter.  Or our National Anthem.

You can’t use the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but it’s okay to use the following words and phrases instead:
his throbbing maleness, adoring his gargantuan manhood,  heavenly cave
of feminine delight, give me some of that hot monkey love,  butt hole pirate, poop,
and swelling bosom.

I guess they won’t be linking to my site. I don’t use the words  cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but I’ve got a big Dick on the cover of most of my books.

UPDATE : My brother Tod has some thoughts about this new rule, too, the one that forbids certain images and words like cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, though he doesn’t use cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit anywhere in his post (which is a word that, incidentally, is an acceptable alternative for cock)
   

The Metaphor Challenged

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Some writers should be forbidden by law from using metaphors.  This example of a felony metaphor abuse was perpetrated in today’s New York Times by Thomas Friedman, author of THE EARTH IS FLAT.

Indeed, there is a huge famine breaking out all over India today, an incredible hunger. But it is not for food. It is a hunger for opportunity that  has been pent up like volcanic lava under four decades of socialism, and it’s now just bursting out with India’s young generation.

We Can’t All Be James Reasoner

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Some writers (like the book-a-month man James Reasoner) can finish a book and, the very next day, start writing another one.  I need a week or two to decompress…but I always feel guilty about it. Apparently, I’m not the only one.  It seems even first-time novelists are afflicted with this sickness. HelenKay Dimon sold her first novel to Kensington last month and now…

Now…..pfffft. 

It’s been more than 3 weeks – okay, it’s been 4 weeks…whatever motivation kept me writing almost daily through rejections and
while I learned some sense of craft disappeared in a giant poof of
nothing the first week of May.

So, it’s time to start over.  Time for new goals.  Time to … concentrate on writing and, you know, all those things
that helped to get me published in the first place.  One might call
this the quest to find my lost motivation.  I call it what must happen
starting this evening.  It’s time.  It’s past time.  Next project…..

I feel for her, I really do. She’s being so hard on herself…and for what? Taking a short writing vacation.

It’s okay to take a little time off from writing, to bask in the glow of the finished project, to relax and regain your creative strength before embarking on the next book. At least that’s what I always tell myself  while, at the same time, feeling like a lazy ass bum for not writing.

Tod on Self-Publishing

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My brother Tod has used the letter posted here today from iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll as a  starting point for his ruminations on self-publishing.

Publication is not a birthright. If you are being rejected by every agent and
publisher in the land, save for those who want you to pay them for your work,
it’s time to take a hard look at what you’ve created. Art for art’s sake is
fine, but if this is the career path you choose, at some point you have to ask if what you’re creating is, indeed,  marketable.

Authors Guild Investigation into Agent Nancy Ellis

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I received this email today:

Last October, we alerted members that literary agent Nancy Ellis
(also known as Nancy Ellis-Bell) , formerly an agent in Litwest Group, had
settled a suit brought against her by Authors Guild member Raymond Barnett. Mr.
Barnett’s suit alleged that Ellis had failed to remit to him any of a $7,500
advance payment she’d received from Tarcher/Penguin on his behalf in December
2003.

We have now learned of a new judgment against Ellis, filed on April
26 in Mendocino County, California, for the wrongful retention of $19,000 of one
of her client’s funds.  In addition, several other current and former clients of
Ellis have recently contacted us claiming that she has withheld advance and
royalty payments owed to them.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SOUGHT: These are,
of course, quite serious charges, and we’ve assigned an in-house lawyer to
review all aspects of this matter. If you’ve been a client of Nancy Ellis and
have not yet contacted us, we urge you to do so.  Please e-mail us at
staff@authorsguild.org or phone (212) 563-5904 and ask for Michael Gross.

Whither the Book Tour?

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17813888The LA Times devoted the front page of their Calendar section today to a feature on my friend Harley Jane Kozak and her book tour to support DATING IS MURDER. It’s great to see her getting some well-deserved publicity.  The article is about her, but the angle really seems to be whether a book tour  makes sense anymore for authors who aren’t mega-bestsellers.

There are fewer Kozaks — new writers hoping to stake out a readership — out on
the road these days. When they do tours, the trips tend to be shorter and closer
to where the author lives or where the book is set, hoping to play off local
interest.

"What we have learned is that if you are going to go out on
tour with basically an unknown author and set up a book-signing, chances are
you’ll have two to five people show up," says Justin Loeber, publicity director
for Simon & Schuster. "It’s just not very cost-effective."

The reporter followed Harley to several of her signings, including some in Houston.

Each morning, Kozak visits a handful of bookstores to meet the owners and
managers and sign copies of her books. In smaller ones, such as Houston’s Blue
Willow Bookshop, tucked between a tailor and a gift store in a neighborhood
strip mall 10 miles west of downtown, that means three hardcover copies of the
new book and four paperback copies of her first one…

…an evening reading and signing at Murder by the Book, where she is double-billed
with Randy Wayne White, author of the bestselling Doc Ford mysteries and former
"Out There" columnist for Outside magazine. Together they draw about 50 people,
and Kozak signs 34 books for 19 readers, many of whom tell her they came for
White but decided to buy her book too.

The question is whether the schlep to Houston was worth it.  Most likely, she wouldn’t have sold 34 books at Murder By The Book otherwise (and will now sell more since she signed stock), but when tabulating the costs of the trip (and time away from family and writing), was it worth it?  Did she gain anything in the long run by signing seven books at Blue Willow Bookshop?  I don’t know. But those are questions that authors, publishers and booksellers are asking themselves these days as it gets more and more expensive to send authors out on tour (or for authors to send themselves).

The Book-A-Month Man

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Uber-prolific writer  James Reasoner, author of 177 books (probably 178  by the time you finish reading this post) answers some of my questions about how he works on his blog today. But get this:

Over the course of my career, I’ve averaged about eight books a year. Last year was my most productive year ever, with twelve books and about half of another written. If I keep up my current pace I may beat that by a little this year.

Wow.  And I whine about how hard it is to write four-a-year.

The name is Goldberg, Lee Goldberg 2

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The slick James Bond site MI6 is celebrating the 20th anniversary of A VIEW TO A KILL and has posted my interview with screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Michael Wilson as part of the celebration

Meeting Richard Maibaum was a very big deal for me and had an enormous impact on my life.

I was (and am) a big James Bond fan.  At the time, I was an 18-year-old kid on his way to UCLA to attend college…and putting himself through school as a freelance journalist (mostly doing phone interviews so no one would know how old I was).  I chose UCLA because it was near the film and TV industry and I wanted to learn as much as I could about both.

As soon as I arrived in L.A, I made up a target list of writer, producers and directors I admired and wanted to interview for articless (I know I could do them for the UCLA Daily Bruin if no where else).  The two names at the top of the list were Richard Maibaum and Steve Cannell.

I don’t remember how I tracked Maibaum down, but with my heart pounding with fear, I called him at home and asked if I could interview him for the UCLA Daily Bruin. Not only did he agree, he insisted that I come over for lunch. I nearly fainted.

Richard was a sweet, lovely man…and so was his wife. He showed me around his house (including a closet decorated with James Bond wallpaper) and shared some momentos he’d collected doing the films. He was delighted that someone was taking an interest in how the 007 films were written (in fact, I would later discover that my interview…not the one reprinted at MI6… was the first significant, detailed discussion with him any journalist had ever done. To this day, I see quotes from the lengthy article have been lifted without attribution books about the movies).

We spent six hours together that first day…and many hours together after that in person and on the phone.  He became my friend and an unofficial mentor.  Not only did Richard give me the confidence to approach other artists I admired (snagging the interview with him gave me the confidence to go after everybody else on my list…and I nearly all of them!), but he encouraged me to try screenwriting myself. 

The article itself was a financial and professional success for me — it won a college journalism award from Rolling Stone magazine (that came with a $1000 check, a HUGE amount of money for me at the time), a Society of Professional Journalists award for college journalism, and I sold it to STARLOG magazine as a two-part interview. That story led to many other freelance assignments, for STARLOG and other publications, writing about the Bond films…including an all-expenses-paid trip to London (my first!)  to cover the opening of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and interview the film-makers.

I remember how proud I was…and Richard, too… that years later we were able to walk the picket line together during the 1988 WGA Strike as  fellow professional screenwriters. It was a big moment for me…and one I will never forget. I like to think, in some small way, it was a special moment for him, too.

I don’t think Richard Maibaum ever got the appreciation and recognition he deserved for writing a dozen 007 movies.  It wasn’t in his nature to seek the attention… but consider his achievement:  How many screenwriters today have been nearly as successful or stuck with a single franchise for as long as he did? He was a terrific writer and very nice man. I miss him.