#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
The James Bond site MI6 is celebrating the 20th anniversary of A VIEW TO A KILL by giving my old articles about the movie (written for Starlog and the LA Times Syndicate among others) a slick, new presentation. First up is an interview I did with Roger Moore. Soon they’ll be posting my visit to the set… as well as some of my other 007 coverage.
My God, has it really been 20 years? I can’t believe I’m old enough to have written anything 20 years ago.
Mystery Writing is the focus of this year’s "Writers Journey Conference," June 3-4 at the Sisters of Assisi Retreat House in San Fernando, California. The event is presented by the San Fernando Branch of the California Writers Club. I’ll be speaking along with Jacqueline Winspear, Penny Warner, DP Lyle, and retired cop Lee Lofland. For more information, click here.
I’ve got hundreds of signed first editions and, up until now, I’ve been using My Book Collection, a Filemaker-based program, to slowly catalog them. It’s a pain-in-the-butt and laborious. But along came Book Collector, a fantastic piece of software that uses a barcode scanner to catalog your collection, though you can also input books manually using title, ISBN, etc. The software downloads cover images, plot information, page count, price, and a ton of other details for you from a wide variety of sources in an instant. You can also tweak it in a number of ways to suit your own needs. I was able to catalog my entire, 800+ collection of signed first editions this weekend in about three hours. It’s an amazing piece of software and it’s cheap, too…it’s $39.95. The scanner, which you have to buy seperately, runs about $100 (mine is a Wasp handheld, which I bought on sale a few weeks ago at Frys).
I was so enthusiastic about that procrastination experience, I wanted to get my hands on a program that would do the same for my DVD and VHS movie & TV show collections. The folks behind Book Collector have a similar program called Movie Collector. I downloaded their trail version and compared it with another program called DVD Profiler. Personally, I found DVD Profiler much better at locating titles, cover images, and detailed information about obscure titles (and British titles) and it’s ten dollars cheaper, too… though they offer a shareware version that’s free.
I’ve put both Book Collector and DVD Profiler on my desktop and laptop so I can go where the books, DVDs, and tapes are rather than having to haul everything to my desk. From now on, adding new books or DVDs to my collection will be fast, easy, and nearly effortless.
A friend of mine asked if I knew of any other TV writer/producers who wrote tie-ins based on series they’ve worked on (as I do with DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK). I know of one: Ian Kennedy Martin, who wrote original novels based on the terrific UK cop show THE SWEENEY, a series he also created. I think Joe Straczynski may have written some original BABYLON 5 novels (based on the series he created). And, if I recall, one of the STAR TREK VOYAGER producers wrote a novelization of one of her episodes, but I don’t think she wrote an original tie-in. I can’t think of any others… can you?
This is a test, of sorts. I want to see if I can integrate audio and video files into my blog posts. So here is a half-hour radio interview I did last week on Gregory Vleisides’ "Metro Voice" show on KCWJ in Kansas City:
Download goldberg_interview_.mp3
And here is the sales presentation for THE CHIEF, the unsold pilot I did a few years ago (and talked about in a blog post earlier today):
Please let me know if you’re able to download and listen/view these files. Thanks!
Graham at My Boog Pages has unearthed my sleazy past of Hot Sex and Gory Violence, which I wrote about in Newsweek.
[The article] detailed Lee’s work on a timelessly classic men’s adventure series, .357 Vigilante." I’d only read a few lines when I was shocked to realize that I had read this piece when it came out. 21 years ago.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.I
was a big fan of the Mack Bolan, "The Executioner" series back then,
and when I stumbled across the article in a doctor’s office waiting
room I read it. At that time Lee was a disaffected college student who,
instead of partying or dating, spent his time writing about a man with
a large, loaded, concealed weapon.
At the time, I liked to think of myself as a man with a large, loaded, concealed weapon. Sometimes I still do.
I was trading emails with my agent yesterday when it occurred to me that I have a lot of books coming out in the next 12 months. Here’s what’s coming…
August 2005 – DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE PAST TENSE
November 2005 – THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE
January 2006 – MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE
February 2006 – DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE DEAD LETTER
The only one of those four books that’s hasn’t been delivered to the publisher yet is the MONK, but it will be in two weeks (it has to be or an enforcer from Penguin Putnam will show up at my door and break my kneecaps). In February, I’m hoping to go on a book tour along with my brother Tod, and my sisters Linda Woods and Karen Dinino, who will also have new books out. Maybe we can get a bus like the Partridge Family had…
Things were relaxed at the Book Festival today…perhaps because it was chillier and cloudier than in past years. I signed at the Mystery Book Store with Michael Gruber (yes, that Michael Gruber), who autographed a copy of his new childrens book for my daughter Madison. We had a very pleasant chat and neither one of us discussed ghost-writing. Also at that signing were my friends Paula Woods and Charles Fleming. Afterwards, I chatted with my friends Victor Gischler (who sported a bushy new beard), Scott Phillips, Terrill Lee Lankford, Jan Burke, and a number of other authors, booksellers and mystery fans. I also got the chance to meet Seth Greenland, who has written a highly-acclaimed, dark comic book about TV entitled THE BONES. For obvious reasons, I’m really looking forward to reading it (I’m sending him copies of MY GUN HAS BULLETS and BEYOND THE BEYOND for his amusement).
My brother Tod’s panel on short stories, which featured folks like Aimee Bender and Steve Almond,, was packed with people and was very entertaining…though perhaps not as much as the panel of LA Times Book Review editors past-and-present. I didn’t attend the Steve Wasserman panel, but enjoyed reading The Elegant Variations’ play-by-play. I liked Digby Diehl’s comments, particularly this one on Wasserman’s view that the LATBR is playing to a national audience:
Diehl thought national and international aspirations were "ridiculous … ultimately the L.A. Times failed in San Diego!"
Wasserman also compared the LATBR to a dinner party at his house. What can we learn from this? If you’re invited to dinner at Wasserman’s house, bring plenty of NO DOZE.
Want to learn how to break into television? Sure you do. Everybody in L.A. does. Well, I’ve got some good news for you. William Rabkin and I will be teaching our thrill-packed four-week online course "Writing Dramatic Television" again, starting on May 2 (and again on June 6), for Writers University. What do you get for your hard-earned bucks? Here’s an excerpt from the course description:
You will learn—and practice— the actual process involved in
successfully writing a spec episodic script. You will learn how to analyze a TV show and develop
“franchise”-friendly story ideas. You will develop and write a story
under the direction of the instructors, who will be acting as
showrunners… and then, after incorporating their notes, you will be
sent off to write your outline. Finally, you will develop and refine
your outline with the instructors, leaving you at the end of the course
ready to write your episodic spec script…the first step in getting a
job on a TV series.
There’s an "early bird" discount of 20% for people who enroll ten days before the course. For more information, click here.
If you love books, the Los Angeles Times Book Festival is the place to be next weekend. I’ll be there browsing, buying, standing in line, and even signing a few books myself. Here’s my signing schedule:
April 23
Mystery Bookstore 11-12
Mysterious Galaxy 12-1
April 24
Mystery Bookstore 10-11
Sisters in Crime 12-1
See you there!