Lee Goldberg

The Mail I Get…

by

Complete strangers from all over the world are always sending me emails asking me to “buy” or “represent” their scripts. This makes no sense to me. I’m a TV writer, not an agent or studio exec. I’m trying to sell my own work, not get other people jobs. Here’s one of the latest queries…clearly a mass mailing, since the fellow who sent it doesn’t even know if I am a man or a woman…

Respected
Sir/Madam,

I am very much interested in film script writing. I
would like to send the spec. script of a original,
Psychological-thriller story-Original Psycho for your
review and possible representation.

The story’s main antagonist is also the story’s
protagonist – Joy the psycho. Tom and Joy are
brothers who live together. Tom is proud and
dominates Joy and extracts work from him. Because of
this domination, Joy one day murders Tom. He looks at
Tom’s dead body for many days and becomes a psycho.
After a few years, at the start of college Joy is
ragged by his senior – Shaw, for this Joy murders
Shaw. After a few days a girl – Mono falls in love
with Joy. When Mono visits Joy’s house, he murders
her, has sex with her dead body, and reads a poem. The
Police start suspecting everyone and the Police
Investigators start a inquiry into the murders but
they are unable to find the killer. Joy kills a
poet(Mil), a military officer(Sky) and a
painter(Silver). When a investigating officer- Rom
visits Joy’s house, Joy captures the officer and ties
him in the house. Next Joy kills a politician (White)
and buries his body along with the other three bodies
in a single graveyard. Later he creates a pot with the
mud from the grave of his murdered victims. When Joy
drinks milk out of this pot, a Police officer shoots
the pot. Rom comes and holds the neck of the Police
office and asks “ why did you shoot the pot?” and
tells the officer that Joy wrote a poem, and killed
the characters found in the poem, and out of the mud
from their graveyard, Joy made this pot. His ambition
was to drink milk out of this pot, but you broke this
pot. Now his ambition is not fulfilled and he will be
a psycho always. At last, Police officers arrest Joy
and take him away.

If this spec. script – Original Psycho looks
interesting, please contact me.

Registration Number : 975354

Address:
Thanking you,

Yours Sincerely,
3-43-164,
Krishnapuri colony,
West marred pally, MR.U.LAXMINARASIMHASWAMY.
Secunderabad,
Andhra pradesh, India. 500026.

The Mail I Get…

by

This is a semi-regular feature where I share some of the, um, interesting mail I get.

I received this note over the weekend…I have no idea what he’s talking about. Maybe you’d like to try answering the question for him.

SeaQuest Episode Question

What is the episode number or name of the fish guy?

The actor who played the man with gills in the rear of his ribcage. It was an episode where the fish guy went out in deep sea to see about something when his gills closed and clam up causing him to drown. But not before the dolphin save him. (which always made me wonder the logic in this)

Second question, do you think there is the hope of them bringing the show back and letting Dean Cain be the fish man?

A Scary Story by Madison Goldberg

by

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

Pot Pie Heaven

by

If you love chicken pot pie, as I do, I heartily recommend Claimjumpers, a chain of steak places. they make an incredible chicken pot pie and goes for a mere $10. It must be comfort food for me…because lately I have been dreaming of pot pies…

UPDATE: Several folks emailed me… saying I had to try Marie Callender’s pot pie. So I went there for lunch. It’s no contest, friends… Claimjumpers is much better. For one thing, it’s a PIE. Crust all around, not just on the top. Flaky and delicious. Oh God, I want one NOW.

UPDATE – I just discovered that Claimjumpers is selling their pot-pies in the frozen food section of my local Ralphs. While the frozen pies aren’t as good what you find in the restaurant (duhhhhhh), they are still too damn good… I’ve had three already this week.

More On Fanfic

by

Novelist Sara Donati responded to my post on fanfic by directing me to a long essay she wrote on the topic. Among her thoughts…

But there’s a lot more to fan fiction than the obvious. It has to do with storytelling in the first line, yes, but far more important: fan fiction has to do with communities of storytellers. People who get together (symbolically, of course, and mostly on the internet) and starting with a character they all love, they spin tales. Then they write back and forth about those stories, exchanging ideas. Five hundred years ago people sat together around fires and told stories about the gods, about heroes they all knew and feared or loved, about Coyote, about ancestors. That was a kind of fan fiction, too.

She also pointed me to a very interesting overview on Fanfic from the BBC. I especially enjoyed the “fanfic glossary.” Some highlights:

Fanboy/fangirl – A fan who is childishly obsessive about his or her fandom, and so over-the-top that even other fans are embarassed to be associated with them.

TPTB (or TIIC)/Canon – TPTB – or in full, The Powers that Be – are the producers of the original source material; more specifically – in terms of TV series – the creator, the executive producers and the most prolific writers/directors. The term is mostly respectful, but a little sarcastic; the opposite balance exists in the term TIIC – The Idiots in Charge. The material which they produce and sanction – the series itself, plus some of the accompanying books, comics and what have you – is canon material, and is revered and referenced like the unadulterated words of the gods by the majority of serious fanfic authors. Anything else – and in particular all fan fiction – is non-canon, and fanfic writers feel no compulsion to consider it when creating their stories (but cf fanon).

For example, while a Buffy fanfic writer would be considered bound to respect the fact that the character Jenny Calendar died before the end of season two, they would not be expected to respect a fanfic in which the entire Scooby Gang were turned into vampires and burned down a 7-11 (cf AU).

Fanon – Fan canon. A fan-created fact or event widely accepted as canon, or a fact deemed to be unstated canon.

(To Be) Jossed – To have events in one of your fan fictions be invalidated by a canon development. Originally derived from Buffy fandom, the term ‘Jossed’ is named after Buffy creator/writer/guru/god Joss Whedon.

Plot Bunny – The central idea of a fanfic; the equivalent of a movie pitch. Writers sometimes swap around plot bunnies, especially if they have an idea which they don’t have time to explore more fully. The term comes from the fact that if you get one or two of these ideas together, they tend to breed like…well, you know.

One Arm Free

by

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.

Slash Fanfic

by

It’s as old as fanfic — slash fic. That’s when Kirk and Spock do The Nasty…and so do McCoy/Scotty, Josh/President Bartlett… you get the stomach churning picture. Gotta love fanfic. Anyway, there’s even Diagnosis Murder slash fic. Can you imagine? Why would you? Why would anyone? One particularly upset fan rails on a blog against a new DM slash story.

He’s back…better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster…

by

I’m writing this using Dragon naturally speaking dictation software. isn’t technology grand? I just got home from three days in the hospital where my shattered right elbow was replaced with a brand-new titanium one.  I asked the surgeon to install a laser cannon and a tivo remote while they were at it, but they wouldn’t do it. It’s no fun  having two broken arms. You can’t do anything for yourself.  You can’t eat.  You can’t pee. You can’t button your shirt. You can’t scratch your…well, you get the point. I find myself being far more intimate with my wife than I ever imagined. I’m sure shes as thrilled about it as i am. my daughter is getting a big kick out of feeding me, though. I just wish she’d stop speaking to me in baby talk.

I will try to keep this blog up-and-running…I’ll share with you my efforts to continue writing and producing "Missing"….and making the july1 deadline on my next Diagnosis Murder book… while dealing with my two broken arms.  And I might even find a few Other Things to Rant about. So stick around… and forgive the typos!

UPDATE: I will be attending the LA Times festival of books this weekend. I don’t know if I’ll actually be signing my books — but I will be showing up at all of my scheduled panels and signings.

update

by

Lee is doing fine — he’ll be having surgery to reconstruct his right elbow on Thursday. He’s in very good spirits and wants to start writing as soon as possible. I’m gettinghim dictation software tomorrow. Thank you for all your good wishes and kind words! Valerie