Lee Goldberg

Three Ways to Die

by

Three Ways to DieI've only written and published three short stories in my career — "Jack Webb's Star," "Remaindered," and "Bumsickle" — and just for fun I've bundled them all into THREE WAYS TO DIE, a collection that's now available for a mere 99 cents on the Kindle.  

"Jack Webb's Star" originally appeared in the anthology Hollywood and Crime. "Bumsickle" originally appeared in the anthology Fedora III. And "Remaindered" originally appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and was a Reader's Choice Award finalist (It's also been available as a download on Amazon for a few years now).  

Here's what some critics had to say about one of the stories…

"Lee Goldberg's 'Jack Webb's Star' is a riotous caper crime with a nasty twist that starts in a traffic school class in the Taft building, where among the offenders is a hapless man ticketed for drunk driving in his wheelchair…"
—Los Angeles Times 

"Editor Robert Randisi solicited more than a dozen familiar crime-fictionists to contribute their own Tinseltown tales to this volume. Among the best are Lee Goldberg’s clever 'Jack Webb’s Star'” – January Magazine 

"Veteran television screenwriter Lee Goldberg has some fun with a small screen legend in 'Jack Webb's Star'" – Booklist

 "Top billing should go to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch story, 'Suicide Run,' and to Lee Goldberg's 'Jack Webb's Star'—the former for the detection and the latter for biggest laughs," Publisher's Weekly 

Take a Walk on the Kindle

by

WalkCoverMy 2004 novel THE WALK is now available on the Kindle for a mere $1.40. I hope you'll download it for your next airplane trip, subway ride, or visit to the bathroom. 

Here's what the book is about…

It's one minute after the Big One. Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.
Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do … that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.
All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.
There's no power. No running water. No order.
Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be … if he can survive The Walk. 

Here's what some of the critics had to say…

 "Harrowing and funny…"
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 

 "Lee Goldberg's hard-to-classify but not-be-missed The Walk, set in the aftermath of a major Los Angeles earthquake, pokes fun at the TV industry in the midst of disaster…"
—Jon Breen, The Year In Mystery and Crime Fiction 2004

The Mail I Get

by

I got this email from an aspiring model who wants to create a reality travel show about herself and is worried about somebody stealing it.

I am in the process of trying to write a treatment for a travel show I'd like to pitch to networks, but I am afraid that even if I have my stuff registered with WGA and have it copyrighted that my idea and/or ideas will get stolen. I am just starting out in the business so I am a little naive as far as what exactly I should do. Everything I've found so far seems so negative towards beginners and isn't exactly the most helpful as far as what to do when starting out (other than to hire a show runner or give your idea to someone else, but I want to see if I can do this myself as opposed to having someone else have all the credit).I am also wondering if there is a different process regarding a travel show, since it will only follow my life and is not a sitcom.

You have nothing to worry about registering your idea with the Writers Guild. No one there will steal it from you. It is completely safe. But registering it with the WGA doesn't "copyright" it…it only establishes when you wrote your treatment and holds a copy for safekeeping.

You can't copyright an idea…only your unique execution of it. For example, how many shows have there been about cops in Los Angeles solving murders? It's not the idea that makes each of the shows different, it's the execution and the unique characters.

You may be leery of getting involved with an established producer but let's be realistic. You are a complete unknown and have no experience writing or producing television programs…so what makes you think that any network would buy a travel show from you, especially now, in this terrible economic environment? That's like sketching a car on a napkin and expecting Ford to manufacture it.

One way around this would be to do the show yourself on the cheap on the web. If you can generate some buzz with the webseries, you might attract a cable network to your idea.

Tod Answers Burning Questions

by

34519484My brother Tod talks at BiblioBuffet about writing the BURN NOTICE books, the latest of which, "End Game," just came out:

It was hard at first. I re-watched all of the first season (this all came about in November of 2007, so the first season had just concluded), read all of the scripts, talked to Matt about how he created the characters, their motivations, fears, etc. because I really wasn’t comfortable stepping into an established character. […] I essentially decided once I started writing that I’d treat the books like a band doing a cover song. I wasn’t going to get it exactly right and I really couldn’t hope to. It wasn’t going to be the same as the show, because, uh, it’s a book. You want a different thing from a book than a television show. But it would be pretty close and I’d put my own spin on it.

Heading Home

by

I have one more meeting this morning for tea and then it's off to Heathrow for my flight home. It has been a very busy and productive week of "get-to-know-you" meetings in London with top level executives at various networks and production companies. I believe that my agent and I accomplished exactly what we set out to do here this week — introducing people to me and my work and establishing relationships that will lead to writing & producing opportunities in the future. 

All the meetings went well and I made some great contacts, so I am feeling very optimistic. I am eager to get home and foll0w-up on everything (sending thank you notes, pitch treatments, etc.) I get home late Saturday and that gives me two days to conquer  my jet-lag before a week of pitching and staffing meetings.

You probably know what a pitch meeting is, but if you aren't in the TV biz, you  might wonder what I mean by "staffing." Now that the network schedules have been announced, everybody (me included) is running around trying to land one of the few available writing staff jobs. It's an intense, competitive and exciting time…full of big emotional ups and downs.  I try not to get my hopes up on any particular project…but I do anyway. I never learn. But I guess enthusiasm and optimism in this business is actually a plus…even if it it inevitably leads to some disappointments.

It wasn't all business in London. I had great dinners with screenwriter & novelist Stephen Gallagher and author James Swallow, browsed lots of bookstores, stocked up on DVDs of UK TV series, and even squeezed in a show of STAR TREK at the BFI Imax theatre. And I won't tell  you how many times I ate chicken pot pie at Square Pie at Selvridges…but the sales clerks and I got to know one another on a first-name basis.

But I am eager to get home and see my family. For some reason, it feels like I have been away much longer than a week.

In London

by

The big news here are the ridiculous expenses claimed by MPs for taxpayer reimbursement…everything from flat screen TVs to sacks of horse manure.  Its ridiculously entertaining stuff. Last time I was here, just a few weeks ago, the scandal was some underling of Gordon Brown's who was planting fake, salacious news about political adversaries with bloggers. I must say politics are a lot more fun and sleazy here than at home. 

My first day of meetings went very well. The hardest part has been finding my way from one corner of London to the other but I've been managing all right. Today may be a bit more difficult…I've got a bunch of meetings all over town and I understand from the news this morning that there are lots of troubles/closures on subway system, so it should be even more challenging to get around.

I have been learning more about the UK TV biz…and how it constrasts with how biz is done in the U.S. and Germany. I may have more to share about that in a future post.

Dishing on Disher

by

Disher and Lee2 I'm sure glad I recuperated in time to meet author Garry Disher today.  I arranged to pick him up at his hotel and take him on a quick visit to Santa Monica before his 6 p.m. signing at the Mystery Bookstore. 

When I met him at the hotel, he handed me a copy of his new book BLOOD MOON and said "I dedicated this to you." I smiled and opened the book, assuming that he meant that he'd signed it for me. And he had, right there on the title page:  

Lee,

This one is for you, with thanks and admiration. 

Garry Disher

I thought that was a very nice thing to say.  And then I turned the page and was stunned to see this:

For Lee Goldberg

Holy Crap! He actually did dedicate the book to me. I hadn't done anything to deserve such an honor. I honestly didn't know what to say, so I mumbled a thank you and then rambled on about something stupid for the next five minutes as we drove towards the beach. And then I thanked him again, properly this time, by letting him know how surprised and honored I was. 

I'm still not sure why he did such a wonderful thing for me, but I am very, very flattered.  It's the second time a book has been dedicated to me –Max Allan Collins floored me a couple of years ago by dedicating a CSI novel to me. That's two more dedications than I deserved.

We had a very nice conversation over the next two hours. I learned about his writing life and methods, his family, and some of his signing mis-adventures. I also learned something about the Australian book business  – did you know authors get additional payments from book sales to libraries to take into account the books that aren't sold as a result of loaning? And there's good news for Disher fans: there's finally a new "Wyatt" novel coming in 2010. I enjoy his Inspector Hal Challis books very much, but I love Wyatt, sort of the Aussie equivalent of Donald Westlake's Parker. There's even a western version of Wyatt in one of Disher's short story collections (which gave me the inspiration to do a western version of Monk, which you will see in December). 

His signing at the Mystery Bookstore went well. He was followed by Laura Lippman, who came along with her husband David Simon, creator of THE WIRE. So I finally got to meet David, who I've admired for years. It turns out that he's a fan of SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING, the screenwriting book that Bill Rabkin & I wrote. I told David how much I love the "f-word" scene from season one and use it often when I teach and he shared some anecdotes about how the scene came about.

Garry will be speaking & signing with Laura at M is For Mystery in San Mateo on May 16.  

If you're in the Bay Area, you should go see them. He's also speaking at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley that same day.

After his Westwood signing, I took him to dinner at Jerry's Deli next door and did the fanboy thing of having him sign all the books of his that I've collected over the years.  

It was a great day and I hope I can make it down to Australia some time to see Garry on his home turf.

By the way, Garry will also be speaking & signing at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale AZ on May 19, the Poisoned Pen in Scotsdale on May 20, at Murder By The Book on Houston on May 21, and at the B&N in Reston VA on May 22. He'll also be signing with Cara Black at Mystery Lovers Bookshop on May 23 and at the Scituate Massachusetts Town Library on Tuesday, May 26. Those are just a few of the events on his national book tour…I can't seem to find the rest in one spot on the web, so check out your local independent, mystery bookstore to see if he will be coming to your area this month.

This and That

by

Sorry I have been absent from here lately. I have been absent from everything for the last two days, felled by a nasty combination of a stomach bug (that first crept up on me last weekend) and a bad back (that has plagued me for two weeks) that combined to keep me in bed and miserable. The first day I felt so lousy all I did was nap, sweat and shiver. But on the second day I continued my UK video binge and watched a WALLANDER, a LEWIS, two episodes of  THE FIXER, the latest episode of series 2 of ASHES TO ASHES, three series 2 episodes  of MOVING WALLPAPER, and an episode of MISSING.

I'm out of bed today, temperature  normal, eating again, and walking more-or-less upright (thanks to me finally giving in and seeing a chiropractor)…just in time to meet Aussie author Garry Disher tonight before his signing at the Mystery Bookstore. I am a huge fan of his work, particularly his terrific Wyatt novels (inspired by Westlake's Parker  series), which need to be read in order to truly be appreciated. I will try to behave like a professional and not a drooling fanboy.

Tomorrow, I will spend the day packing and getting prepared for my Saturday flight to London, where I will be spend a week meeting with various UK studios and networks…so you can expect more sporadic, rather than regular, posting.  

The Independence Fallacy

by

I have to point you to two terrific blog posts from Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss, who tackles the fallacy behind POD companies calling themselves "independent publishers"  and their customers calling themselves "independent authors." The POD companies are eager to cast themselves as the equivalent of indie movie-makers. But the comparison doesn't fit. Indie film-makers and musicians don't pay someone to package and market their work, they do it themselves. Victoria notes:

If you sign a contract with a self-publishing company, you are not an independent writer, no matter how emphatically the self-pub company says you are.

She goes on to note:

If you are a true self-publisher–if you've handled every aspect of publication on your own–then yes, you can accurately call yourself an independent author.[…]If you've used a print-on-demand self-publishing company, you've granted it a limited license to your work, you've chosen from a pre-determined package of services, you're dependent on whatever distribution the company provides, and you probably don't own your ISBN number. Also, since most self-pub companies reserve the right to discontinue publication for any reason, you don't fully control your work's availability, and since most pay a royalty, you don't control its income, either. In other words, you are not independent.

By the way, there's some very good news coming soon about the future of Writer Beware that will make it even stronger.

Tod’s Burning Sensation Explained

by

My brother Tod talks today about the challenges he faced writing his latest BURN NOTICE novel:

Writing these books is certainly a different kind of experience for me — I write them very, very quickly. More quickly than I'd like, really, but the turn-around time on them is such that I really only have about three months to write each one and have a normal life in-between. And by normal life, I of course mean a normal writing life…

But even after he turned in the book, he wasn't actually done writing it…

I wasn't happy and added a new chapter from Fiona's pov when the copyedits came in, which probably didn't thrill my publisher, but it felt like something was missing. I've been tinkering a lot with adding different povs into the books — Sam's, Fiona's, and in this new book I'm writing, you get the client's pov for a chapter, too — because that's the one thing I'm really able to do that you can't get on the show. Plus, it's fun for me as a writer.

And it's gonna be fun for you as a reader, too, because his BURN NOTICE books are great. And I'm not just saying that because we share a few genes.