I finished writing MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT, my 10th original MONK novel, last night and delivered it to my publisher. I always feel a little bit dazed and lost after finishing a book. It takes a few days for me to adjust to not having the story "in my head" all the time and to no longer feeling that ever-present deadline pressure. It's also kind of odd to suddenly have a bunch of hours open up in my day (and nights) for other things. But that will change soon. I've got to start writing a new spec feature script, thinking about the plot of my next MONK novel, and preparing for pitch meetings that I have later this week and early next week…
Me Me Me
I Was The Author Who Was There
Today I was a guest speaker at a gathering of 250 members of the American Association of University Women in Ventura. As always happens at these events, I had some bizarre encounters.
There was another author who'd cancelled his appearance at the last minute because of a death in the family. During the morning signing, a woman came up to me and asked:
"Are you the author who isn't here?"
"No," I said, "I'm here."
"That's good," she said and walked away.
I thought of a couple of better answers to her question after she left. I should have said "Yes, I am the author who isn't here" just to see what she would have said next. Or I could have said "No, I'm just a hologram." I wonder if she would have touched me to see if I was real.
Another woman came up to me and asked me to sign a book to her.
"Make it to Katie," she said.
"Why does your nametag say Phyllis?" I asked, just to be saying something.
"Because the woman didn't show up and I swiped her tag."
"Why didn't you use your own?"
"I'm crashing the party," she whispered and winked at me.
A better man than me would have turned her in but she bought a book, so I wasn't going to rat her out.
During my presentation, I mentioned my encounter with the woman who asked if me I was there. It got a big laugh. At the signing that followed, that woman came up to me and she wasn't happy.
"You humiliated me," she said.
"I didn't point you out or even look at you," I said. The truth was, I'd forgotten what she looked like so I couldn't have pointed her out even if I wanted to. "Nobody knew it was you."
"I knew I was me," she said.
"That's always good," I said.
"I made an honest mistake before," she said. "You could have been him."
I still have no idea what she meant, but she bought a book. I withstood the urge to sign it in the other person's name. After her, another woman came up to me and told me how much she enjoyed my talk.
"I wish I'd gone to high school with you," she said.
"Why is that?"
"So I could have made love to you and married you," she said.
Okay, that totally threw me. I had no idea what to say. I just sort of stammered, signed her book, and she walked away. She was followed by a woman who had a burning question about Monk
"Is Monk ever going to get any?"
"You mean have sex?"
"Yes," she said. She'd actually asked me the same question during the question-and-answer session but I guess my answer didn't satisfy her.
"Well, the show is over, so no, I don't think so."
"What about in your books?"
I shook my head. "I just don't see it."
"I do," she said. "Vividly."
"You do?"
"I can tell you exactly how it would go."
"With whom?"
"Anybody," she said. "I could send you the scene and you can use it with any woman you want."
I politely passed on the offer.
I don't know what drugs the Four Point Sheraton was putting in the drinks, I'm just glad they didn't put any in mine.
Fast Track Webcast
We had a few technical glitches on our first live, interactive webcast…and weren't able to record the FAST TRACK portion of the show. So we're doing it again this Sunday, Oct. 18, at 6 p.m. I'll be joined by FAST TRACK stars Erin Cahill and Andrew Walker. If you would like to watch, or participate by chat, here's the link. If you would like to join us on camera, via webcam, please send your Skype username to info AT expandedentertainment.com or forward it to me at lee AT leegoldberg.com and I will get it to them.
The Lee Goldberg Show
If you missed my live, interactive webcast last week, now you can catch the archive version. I've posted the first half of the show, where I talked about MONK with my special guest David Breckman (writer-producer-director of MONK), in three parts on YouTube or you can download it here. Unfortunately, there were technical problems at the studio and the second half of the live show, where I talked about my movie FAST TRACK, wasn't recorded.
.357 Vigilante #3: White Wash
After inexplicably holding up the book for over a month, Amazon has finally made available the Kindle edition of my long out-of-print novel .357 VIGILANTE #3: WHITE WASH.
Now ALL of the VIGILANTE novels I wrote back in the mid-1980s have been released, including the never-before-published fourth book, which got caught up in the publisher's bankruptcy. (All the books are also available at Smashwords and Scribd for those of you with other e-readers or who would like to download a PDF)
Here's the back-jacket copy on WHITE WASH:
A Clock Is Ticking — And the Hands Are Dripping Blood!
A red-leathered sadist with a hunger for black victims is talking the streets of Los Angeles — leaving a trail of rapes, tortures and mutilations, which threaten to engulf the city in racial violence. And he's calling himself…Mr. Jury.
Now vigilante Brett Macklin, the real Mr. Jury, is hitting the killing ground with just seventy hours to hunt down the deadly impostor and clear his name. All he has to do is take on an army of fanatical white supremacists, stop a news-hungry reporter from digging too deep into his past, and save a tough black cop from being buried alive.
Time and luck are running out.
"As stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort […] The Best New Paperback Series of the year!" West Coast Review of Books
Post-Game Wrap Up
I just got back from EB Live Interactive Webcast to promote my MONK books and the DVD release of my movie FAS T TRACK. It was the first time Expanded Books has tried to pull off this feat — a live web broadcast integrating text chats, live Skype webcam calls, in-studio hosts, pre-recorded clips, music, graphics, and virtual sets. And they asked me to be their guinea pig.
Although there were a few technical glitches, made worse by my fumbling attempt at being a host, I thought it was a lot of fun. And scary, exciting, and embarrassing. My guests were MONK writer/producer/director David Breckman (who was in studio with me) and FAST TRACK star Andrew Walker and technical advisor Sam Barer (both via Skype webcam). My other guests were the people who called in by Skype webcam during the broadcast. I felt a little like an inept Ted Koppel, talking to people "face to face" in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Montreal…while also taking questions sent by "chat" (though my chat monitor kept blacking out).
I have no idea how it turned out…I am supposed to be getting a copy of the show soon and I will post it here. My wife says it was a little rough, and at times I was fumbling, but overall it was fun and it seemed like we were all having a good time, and that compensated for the technical glitches. I'm eager to hear what you thought of it.
But what I found most exciting was the potential of this new technology. It's possible now for someone to have their own live talk show on the Internet…with guests from all over the world on camera …and with the full participation of the virtual audience in ways television doesn't allow (the closest comparison is talk radio). And for a fraction of a TV budget.
It will be interesting to see what happens after Expanded Books works out the kinks….they could really be on to something here beyond promoting authors and their books.
Murderous Musings
Author Jean Henry Mead interviewed me for the Murderous Musings blog and got me to blather on and on about myself and my books, something I hardly ever get a chance to do with my blog, my twitter page, my Facebook page, my… well, you get the idea. Here’s an excerpt:
Lee, when did you realize you were a writer?
I’ve always known. When I was ten or eleven, I was already pecking novels out on my Mom’s old typewriters. The first one was a futuristic tale about a cop born in an underwater sperm bank. I don’t know why the bank was underwater, or how deposits were made, but I thought it was very cool. I followed that up with a series of books about gentleman thief Brian Lockwood, aka “The Perfect Sinner,” a thinly disguised rip-off of Simon Templar, aka “The Saint.” I sold these stories for a dime to my friends and even managed to make a dollar or two. In fact, I think my royalties per book were better then than they are now.
What Happened to my Brain?
I have been working on my MONK novel MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT under the mistaken belief that it's due November 30. Well, I happened to glance at my contract yesterday to double-check when the outline for the next MONK book is due…and discovered the outline for Book #11 is due November 30…and that CLEANED OUT is due November 1. I have four less weeks to write the book than I thought I did. Yikes. My editor is great, she's got no problem with me turning the book when I thought it was due, but I am a stickler for deadlines and I am going to do my best to turn it in on time.
But what really bothers me is how I could have made such a dumb mistake to start with. What happened to my brain? What was I thinking? Or, better yet, why wasn't I thinking?
Meanwhile, this has been, and continues to be, a busy week. I've had lots of pitches, meetings, and non-career stuff to attend to. This Sunday, Oct 4, I'm speaking and signing at the West Hollywood Book Festival and then doing an interactive webcast at 6 p.m to promote MR. MONK IN TROUBLE and the DVD release of my movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS. I am really excited about the live, interactive webcast, which is the first event of its kind (at least as far as we know). I'm sure there will be glitches…it's inevitable when you are doing something brand new, relying on all kinds of technology, sites and services working together in-sync, but it's bound to be fun and interesting for me (and I hope for you) no matter what.
I've also received tons of weird, unusual, and idiotic emails this week…at some point, I will get around to sharing some of them with you.
More on Interactive Webcast
The folks at Maverick Entertainment have created this ad for the Oct 4, 6 p.m. interactive webcast, where I will be talking, and taking your questions, about the movie FAST TRACK and my MONK novels (Click on the image for a larger view). I’ll be posting more details here over the next few days on how you can participate.
Talked to Death
Denis McGrath was talking about fanfic on his blog the other day, and happened to mention my many discussions here on the same topic, prompting someone to comment:
I find your posts re: fanfic far more fun because you actually address the issue whereas poor Lee, who is usually so eloquent, seems to be rendered a name-calling child in the face of the issue, unable to put an actual argument together. Just because he is on the side that is obviously right doesn't mean that slanging nasty words around is sufficient advocacy or even entertaining commentary.
Denis replied, saying what I might have said if I wasn't guilty of exactly what the commenter said.
To be perfectly honest? I think he's just been at it longer than I have. My recent experiences on the Copyright brief have kind of siphoned off my good humor and goodwill, too. There comes a point where you've made the arguments, and when you face utter illogic, misinformation and misunderstanding, that you lose that humor.
I couldn't have put it better myself. I've made the rational, coherent, good-humored arguments 10,000 times…and that's just if you count my posts on the topic when I was producing SEAQUEST. I ended up writing a book about that experience (BEYOND THE BEYOND) and, to be honest, I think I do a better job dealing with the fanfic issues now in a fictional context (eg my novel MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE and my Diagnosis Murder episode MUST KILL TV) than I have done here lately.
I fear I am reaching the same point of humorlessness, repetition, and lack of clarity when I discuss the vanity presses that prey on the desperation and gullibility of aspiring writers. At a certain point, you say everything you have to say, in every way you can possibly say it, and it might just be better to drop the whole thing (which I have largely done on the fanfic stuff, except when highlighting a special case, like the delusional woman who is writing & publishing her own TWILIGHT sequel).
But the vanity press thing is something else altogether. I'm not going to stop talking about those scams because it is so important to alert writers about them. But I'm dialing it down in that department, too, as you may have noticed.