#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Tomorrow I’m having surgery to cut away the scar tissue and remove the titanium implants in my right arm. I’ll be out of action for a few days. During my absense, my writing partner William Rabkin and my brother novelist Tod Goldberg will be posting about their writing lives, their rants, and their whinings.
I will be having surgery on my right elbow on Wednesday, Nov. 17th. In my absense and recuperation, my brother Tod and my writing partner Bill Rabkin will keep you entertained, informed, and offended…and let you know how I am doing. Until then, I’ll do my best to fulfill those awesome responsibilities.
I’m going to be in Palm Springs for the next couple of days… perhaps longer… giving my brother Tod a much-deserved break and taking care of my Mom during her next chemo treatment. I’ll also be working hard to finish “Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense” before I go in for surgery on my right arm… and so I can meet the book’s delivery deadline of Nov. 30th. So don’t be surprised if I don’t post as much, or as frequently, on my blog for a little while…
As some of you may recall, I had a freak accident back in April and broke both of my arms. My left arm healed fine, but my right was badly damaged and had to be rebuilt with titanium (which you can see in the x-ray to the left and click on for a larger image). Sadly, I have very limited range of motion in my right arm and will soon be undergoing surgery, most likely in early November, to remove the implants and some scar tissue. 
While I am in the hospital and recuperating, I’ve been thinking of handing over my blog for a week or so to a "guest blogger," like my brother Tod or my writing partner Bill Rabkin, or perhaps both of them.
My question to you… would you prefer I "go dark" during that period, or would you prefer the guest bloggers?
As you may have noticed, the fanfic debate is raging here once again… so I thought I’d post some excerpts from my brother Tod Goldberg’s article on the subject, which appears as one of his weekly columns in the Las Vegas Mercury.
Among his many other wise and witty comments, he had this to say:
For those of you not in the know, fan fiction is when people not involved in the actual creation of a show, book, movie or a celebrity’s actual life create stories about them. It is one of the greatest and most wildly entertaining forms of copyright infringement this side of Kazaa. So, to say I was excited to read the fanfic about this particular star would be a vast understatement. I gravitated to the one where the star gets involved in a prison riot. It came with a helpful dictionary of terms used in the story, including "turn out," "shank" and "keep it real." Our hero was almost gang-raped by some convicts, but, alas, escaped with his anal hymen intact.
I clicked through the rest of the stories and killed a plate of leftover ham in the process. The stories were uniformly…uh…well…bad. All of them were written by women, which I found somewhat surprising, but then I thought about the correlation between Teen Beat and Tiger Beat and fan clubs in general and it seemed to make some sense.
Now I was all fired up to read more fan fiction about bad actors, minor celebrities and long-forgotten TV shows and movies. Forgoing the usual and known–anything involving Spock, Buffy and Elvis, basically–I fired up the Google and got searching. I started with a rather tender story revolving around Face and Murdock from "The A-Team." On the day of his wedding, Face takes a little time from the usual pro-forma screwing of hookers to reflect on the life he and Murdock have shared.
In my quest to read fan fiction about Corey Haim, or inspired by his wonderful life, I discovered a Lost Boys fan fiction site that contained a disclaimer warning others not to "steal my original characters or my ideas…go and get your own characters and ideas; have a little faith in yourself! But don’t steal from me!" I searched the entire story the woman had written and not one mention of the word "paradox" was found.
My sisters Linda Woods and Karen Dinino have sold their book on journaling and art to North Light Books… and it will be out next year. But for a peek at the kind of creative, unusual, and clever work that they do, check out their website.
Now all four of us Goldberg kids are published authors (my brother Tod is the author of "Living Dead Girl" and "Fake Liar Cheat"). I’m looking forward to all of us getting together for a group signing… maybe we ought to form a rock band, too.
My father, Alan Goldberg, died unexpectedly last week. We weren’t close, but I was the only one of his five children and two step children to attend his funeral up in Portland Oregon on Thursday…which says more about him as a father, and more eloquently, than I ever could.I struggled over whether or not to go and finally decided I had to — for me, not for him. I said a few words… and although my sister Linda and brother Tod didn’t attend, they also offered their thoughts… Linda on her blog and Tod in his weekly newspaper column . My comments weren’t much different than what they had to say…
My eight year old daughter Madison enjoys going to my signings so much, she’s decided to write books herself. Last year, she wrote, illustrated, published, signed and sold two books — “The Adventures of Kitty Wonder: Lots of Killing” and “The Adventures of Kitty Wonder: Robots Fighting” — at some of my signings for $1 each. She was thrilled.
She just wrote her first short story — one she warns will scare you TO DEATH — and insisted I post it here on my site. So lower the lights, grab a blanket to hide behind, and prepare yourself for:
A SCARY STORY
There were two girls named Tia and Jenny. Tia had brown hair and was tall. Jenny was tall and had glasses. Jenny came for a sleepover at Tia’s. She arrived at five. Tia answered the doorbell. Tia and Jenny were playing for a very long time and then had a good dinner. It was time to go to bed. When they were in the cozy bed, Tia told scary stories!!
First she told one about Frankenstein who kills a little girl!!!! The story goes like this: “The night before Halloween, a little girl named Ally went in the cemetary.”
Tia paused, “If you want me to stop telling the story, it’s okay. I understand because my sister told me the same story and I got scared too!!”
Jenny said, “You can go on with the story.It’s not so scary.”
Tia went on with the story. “Ally went in the scary cemetary. She saw Frankenstein. She was screaming for a minute. Suddenly Frankenstein killed Ally by ripping her in half and all the blood came out of her body. Frankenstein went to his house near the swamp. He went in this big tunnel carrying Ally. Frankenstein brought Ally dead, with all the blood dripping on the hot ground. Frankenstein saw all his friends, Ghost, Goblin, and Pumpkin. Frankenstein put her in a big pot to cook her and have her for dinner. Frankenstein and his friends were playing and they just let Ally sit there being cooked. Frankenstein and their friends were looking for dessert.Since their friend Pumpkin is a pumpkin, Frankenstein and his friends caught him and made pumpkin pie for dessert!! Frankenstein and his friends went to check on Ally the dead girl. Ghost got out the napkins and the forks, spoons and plates. Ally the dead girl with her blood made a terrific sauce for…. Ally The Meat!!!!!!! The monsters had a–“
Jenny stopped the story and said “Please, stop this story, I am getting too scared.”
Tia said, “It’s okay, don’t be scared, if you want me to stop telling the story, I will.”
Tia’s Mom said “It’s time for Jenny to go home.”
Tia said “Okay.”
Jenny gathered all her stuff and said bye to Tia. She walked out the door and left. They both had a very fun time. But Jenny was still scared!!!!
THE END
I got the cast on my left arm off today — I feel like a new man. I got a new cast on my right arm and an x-ray peek at the new titanium elbow. It’s not a very elegant device — kind of barbaric looking with the long, pointed, screws and the "ball" imbedded in my bone. Buy hey, if it works, who cares what it looks like underneath the skin. On the surface, I have a hell of a scar. It will make me look rugged. The cast on my right arm comes off in 15 days and then the real fun begins, figuring out just how much motion/use I will get back. But at least I know I can type and sign my name.
My brother Tod has written a very funny column for the Las Vegas Mercury about what he learned about parenting while he took care of my daughter last week during my hospital stay.