Current Affairs

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

by

The vast majority of execs I’ve worked with in TV and publishing during my career have been terrific people who I count as friends. But I’ve had several situations in recent years where I’ve caught a few executives lying about me or the work that I’ve done. When I’ve confronted them with their dishonesty, they freely admitted it without shame or apology.

In one case, I accidentally found out about some damaging untruths about me from a friend and quickly contradicted the story, figuring there had been some unfortunate, but innocent, mis-understanding somewhere along the line. It never occurred to me that the exec I was working with had intentionally lied about me…until I heard from him.

"Why did you tell X the truth?" he demanded.

"Because someone gave X the impression that I’d fucked up." 

"That was me," he yelled.

I was astonished.

"But I didn’t fuck up," I said. "I’ve never done anything like that."

"I know."

"Then why did you tell X that I did?"

"Because I was the one who fucked up," he said. "Now you’ve made me look like a liar!"

"You are!" I yelled back.

"They don’t have to know that," he said.

"You lied about me to hide your own fuck-up. You made yourself look good and me look bad."

"So? You should have gone along with it," he said. "You’ve deeply hurt my feelings."

No matter how much I tried to explain that it was his fault, and that the injured party was me, he just couldn’t (or wouldn’t) understand. Nor did he seem to care about the damage he’d caused to our business relationship.

In another case, an executive told me how happy he was with my work writing/producing a TV series, how much he loved being in business with me, and how he hoped we’d enjoy a long professional relationship together. Which would be nice, except that I knew for a fact that earlier that same day he’d told another producer how much he hated me and offered him my job for the following season. What the exec didn’t know was that the producer was an old friend of mine and immediately called me.

When I confronted the exec with this, he simply said "So what? That’s business. Grow up."

Another exec we worked with took credit with the network, right in front of us (and in conference calls), for creating and developing stories and scripts he not only didn’t come up with or work on, but that he didn’t even see until roughly the same moment the network did.

We never confronted him about this, nor revealed it to the network of course, because it would have made him and the show (and us) look bad. But the exec had no problem whatsoever lying to our faces or, apparently,  any fear that we’d contradict him. I guess he was right on that score. I didn’t know how he could do it without feeling deeply embarrassed and ashamed every time he saw us. That said, we are team players and we thought that establishing that was more important to us and our careers than speaking up to him or anyone else. In the end, this came back to haunt us, but if we had it to do over again, even knowing what I know now, we’d make the same choice.

Lying isn’t new…but I think the complete lack of shame some execs are showing when they get caught in the act is a new wrinkle. I mean, they aren’t even bothering to make excuses or dodge blame or cover up…

Hmm. Come to think of it, I may have discovered a new kind of honesty: being honest about your dishonesty. Pretty soon, if we aren’t vigilant, that may become the new definition of integrity in Hollywood…

Sex Sex Sex

by

Sex_1Novelist Tess Gerritsen talks about the difficulties of writing sex. She offers a lot of great advice, but the bottom line is:

Ask yourself, as a writer, what your love scene is supposed to accomplish. If
it’s just to show that your hero is a normal guy having sex, that’s about as
interesting as watching him eat bologna sandwiches. No, the best sex scenes are
those that accomplish something far more profound. They offer us a deeper
understanding of character, or show us emotional awakening or healing.

I agree with her. She was brave enough to share an example from one of her books to prove her point, so I will, too. This one comes from MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE:

I guess
something I learned from “Mannix” was true. Being a private eye really is an
aphrodisiac to women. Carol had never attacked me like that before.

I’m afraid the surprise and excitement were too much, because I came in about three minutes. But I
don’t think Carol minded; it calmed me down and allowed me to concentrate real
hard on getting her off. And believe me, it took my complete attention.
Pleasing a woman, especially Carol, isn’t easy and with me, at least, there’s a
lot of potential for embarrassment and humiliation.

She rewarded me for all
my hard work with a nice, squealing, writhing orgasm that nearly broke my nose
on her pubic bone, but I didn’t mind. I even jumped in, literally, to enjoy the
last few squeals of it with her.

It was so dark, and things happened so fast, she never saw my cuts and bruises, so she mistook my
occasional groans of pain for pleasure.

Carol fell right to sleep afterwards.

Between the sex, the pain, and the things on my mind, I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have
liked. But I get laid so rarely, I’m willing to sacrifice just about anything
for it, especially sleep, when I usually dream about having sex anyway.

While the scene is explicit, more by implication than actual description,  it’s not about the choreography or body parts. It’s about attitude and character — or, at least, I hope it is. To me, that’s how you get around the pitfalls of writing the sex scene, unless the point of the scene is to arouse the reader.

By the way, I’ve written my share of awful sex scenes. I honed my "craft" in college. My girlfriend was an editorial assistant at Playgirl and she got me a gig writing sexually-explicit  "Letters to the Editor" for the grand sum of $25-a-letter (Gasp! You didn’t know they were fake? You probably think Penthouse letters are real, too).  I actually had a lot of fun writing them (often in class, which got me some strange looks from the people around me)  and it helped me learn to write in different voices for different characters. Plus the letters got my girlfriend all excited, but that’s another story…

Blog Suicide?

by

A few days ago, author Sandra Scoppettone  blogged about her editor, Joe Blades, leaving Ballantine and her anxieties about it.  This prompted an anonymous commenter to warn her that her very candid blog posts could be damaging to her career. Sandra angrily fired back. Soon, the ugly little argument spilled over to  other   blogs. Now Galleycat has picked up on the catfight, so-to-speak, and it will mushroom from there…

Unfortunately, it illustrates that even someone who’s been in the
business as long as Scoppettone has (and whose influence on two
different genres continues to be felt) can sometimes let things go all
too haywire. And it further illustrates the power of blogging in the
publishing world — because you never know who’ll be out there reading,
passing judgment, and jumping to conclusions.

The blog skirmish brings up an interesting issue — how honest should you be on your blog? I have to admit I cringed a bit at some of Sandra’s posts, and at my friend Paul Guyot’s surprising candor about the ups-and-downs of his pilot experience, and at my cousin regularly trashing her employer. Sure, it makes good reading and can be cathartic for the author  — but is it self-destructive? I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to find out for myself.

I’ve been very careful here not to talk about the shows I am working on (except to hype them when they air), or the executives and producers I am working with (or hope to work with), or authors/writers I work and socialize with (unless it is to hype their latest work).  I  rarely name individual producers, writers, editors or executives. I talk in general terms, for the most part, or about personal experiences that are safely in the past. 

I’m clearly not shy about expressing my opinion — but I’m careful about it. I don’t hesitate to criticize fanfiction, self-publishing scams, the RWA, or people searching the Internet for Lindsay Lohan’s nipples  — those are safe. But, for example,  you won’t see me trashing a producer, a studio, a network, or a major publishing company.

I think some bloggers forget that they aren’t writing a private diary — it’s like a column in a newspaper. You have no idea who is reading it or how your words are being passed around. Blogging is fun, but my career is far more important.

The Writing Adventure

by

Poseidon_poster_2_2In both Paul Gallico’s original novel THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and Irwin Allen’s movie version, the doomed ocean liner was tipped upside down by a freak tidal wave. In the recent NBC mini-series remake, the ocean liner was tipped over by terrorist bombs. Reviewers weren’t kind to the mini-series and criticized what they seemed to think was an unnecessary change. Screenwriter Bryce Zabel, who wrote the mini-series, explains on his lively blog the creative reasons for substituting terrorists for the tidal wave:

Poseidon purists (or critics looking for something to criticize)
seemed to feel that, somehow, the freak tidal wave from the 1969 book or the
1972 film should have sufficed. They got their life jackets in a bunch over the
NBC version where it’s a terrorist attack in which only one of two explosive
charges detonates and that causes an imbalance in the ship’s metacentric height
and capsizes it.

The reason for making the choice to add a terrorist sub-plot is really pretty
simple. Understand that I was writing a four-hour mini-series version (which
later was edited down to three hours for NBC), not a two-hour feature version.
In a movie theater, the audience has already paid admission and, generally
speaking, is going to stick through the entire film, especially a
Poseidon, knowing the boat’s going belly up eventually. Television is
different. People have their hands on the remote practically all the time and if
something isn’t happening right now, they can, and will, change. This reality
effectively means that simply waiting for an inevitable tidal wave isn’t a
sufficient stake in the TV version: the characters can’t behave differently
because, after all, they don’t know it’s coming.

I didn’t see the mini-series, so I can’t say whether the changes worked or not — but as a writer, I can certainly understand why he felt he had to do something to amp-up the pre-disaster conflict. That said,  THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is a disaster movie classic — an icon of genre. Everybody knows it’s about a boat tipped over by a tidal wave, so perhaps changing the central concept of the story wasn’t the right choice. 

Abandonment Issues

by

Galleycat reports that editor Joe Blades is leaving Ballantine — and publishing.

Why? Though Blades hadn’t responded to email queries as of this writing, burnout
seems to be the biggest issue, according to a recent post by
one of his authors. Though Blades isn’t certain what his next move will be,
it won’t have anything to do with the publishing world.

Blades was especially known for editing mystery and crime fiction, and his
author list included Anne Perry, Sandra Scoppettone, Terrill Lee Lankford,
Rochelle Krich, Mary Logue, Gillian Roberts and William Bernhardt. It remains to
be seen how many of these folks will be kept on by Random House, but Blades will
be meeting with various RH brass to discuss which editors get custody of which
authors.

It’s very scary when your editor, often your biggest champion at the publishing house, leaves. When one of my editors left, on the eve of publication of my non-fiction book,  any interest in  me or the book within the company just vanished… the book was orphaned. There was no effort made by the sales force to sell the book or by the PR department to promote it.  Sandra Scoppettone, one of Blades’ authors, is worried this might happen to her:

What worries me is the new book, Too Darn Hot, which will be published in June. 
Even if a new contract hadn’t come my way, this editor would’ve still been on
top of things and moved the book as much as possible.  As the book is finished
and there’s nothing for a new editor to do on it, it’ll lie there like a lox. 
Unless there’s a new contract and then it’ll be different.  At the moment my
book is an orphan.

 

I don’t blame her. I’d be worried, too. On the other hand, losing an editor doesn’t always mean doom for his list of  authors.  I’ve been extraordinarily lucky at Penguin/Putnam/NAL on the DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books. I’m on my third editor so far  (the first was downsized out of a job, the other left for a richer offer) and they’ve all been wonderful… supportive, enthusiastic, and totally committed to the books.

The Vagaries of Variety

by

Variety today "analyzes" the demise of ALIAS, putting the blame for the cancellation on "the vagaries of television." Well, duh. That’s what passes for probing analysis over at the trades these days.

ABC has announced the end of the line for "Alias," which will conclude its
five-season run in May. Skein,
which stars Jennifer
Garner as CIA agent Bristow, earned critical raves through the
years but struggled this season on Thursday nights.

And that’s all they had to say about those pesky "vagaries" —  great buzz but low ratings. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more revealing, probing analysis of the demise of a show (except, maybe, from those stories about ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which fell victim to those same pesky "vagaries," and they’ve got bunch of Emmys, too). 

Surely there’s a real story behind the cancellation of ALIAS, one that might actually be interesting and reveal something about how network televison works, but far be it from the so-called reporters  at Daily Variety to bother digging any deeper than the press release.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the trades experimented with some geniune reporting once in a while?

(This isn’t exactly a new rant for me. Check out The Journalistic Integrity of Variety Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)

The (Wannabe) Romance Writers of America

by

Publishers Weekly has a lengthy article in the current issue about the Romance Writers of America, which has 9500 members, only 1600 of whom are actually published authors.

That can make for some uncomfortable moments at the group’s annual conference,
says agent Irene Goodman, who maintains that these aspiring authors "often view
editors and agents as gatekeepers who are the bad guys barring them from their
dream."

The agent, whose clients include bestselling romance writer Debbie Macomber,
continues, "They act as if we’re all part of some semishady, sub-rosa group."
Still, Goodman attends the conferences, wading through "this vast population of
the great unwashed masses of inexperienced, unprofessional people trying to
break in," in search of "a brilliant newcomer."

And there lies the paradox of RWA’s highly democratic (anyone willing to
write a $75 dues check is in) admissions policy. On the one hand, it is the
group’s greatest strength, enabling it to claim the largest membership of any
not-for-profit genre writers’ association in the world. And it creates an
important mission for the group, with a national conference and numerous local
conferences each year that make up a kind of finishing school for romance
writers. But this inclusiveness may also be the group’s biggest weakness,
diluting its clout by making it seem amateurish and, as Goodman points out,
making it harder for agents and editors to discover the truly motivated writer
among the dilettantes.

Still, as the group celebrates its 25-year anniversary, it’s a safe bet those
unpublished—or, as some prefer to call them, "pre-published"—writers will
continue to be welcome in a group that also boasts such big names as Nora
Roberts and Jennifer Crusie. Providing networking and support for aspiring
authors was, after all, the original mission when 37 charter members founded the
association in 1980…

…Crusie, who says everything she knows about the business she learned from
another RWA member, is more than happy to share the group with aspirants. "RWA’s
strength is that it’s got unpublished members. That’s where all the juice comes
from," she says. "I was a wannabe once."

The article makes passing reference to only one of the many embarrassing controversies that have rattled the organization in the past year.

At the annual conference this summer that marked the group’s 25-year
anniversary, some attendees felt less than celebratory after viewing a video
montage with a right-wing bent that was the centerpiece of the awards
presentation. It edited together footage of important political events from the
last 25 years with a pop-tune soundtrack, so that bouncy music played over
sobering images—none of which had anything to do with romance writers. Roberts,
who had been scheduled to serve as emcee, opted out. "I could not and would not
be a part of a ceremony that, rather than honor the organization and the
nominees, took the audience through 25 years of world tragedies," she says in an
e-mail. "I felt, and continue to feel, that it was horribly inappropriate and
offensive."

Crusie, who served on the RWA board for three years in the late 1990s, says,
"there’s always upheaval," but adds, "it’s the same with any organization."

Yeah, but few do it quite so publicly and over such incredibly stupid stuff.