Lee Goldberg

Welcome Back, Goldberg

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I’ll be teaching the "Beginning Writing for the One-Hour Drama" course at UCLA Extension this summer (taking the baton from my friend Matt Witten). Here’s the info on the course:

Modeled directly on how writers write in the real world of one-hour
dramas, this course focuses on what is most central to creating a
strong script as well as the largest piece (40 percent) of the writer’s
deal with any show: the story and outline. The course goal is for you
to master the process of constructing an airtight story and detailed
outline so that you are ready to write a script for any current show as
quickly and expertly as possible. The steps you take include choosing
the best story for your spec script, mapping it out from beginning to
end, and writing a strong outline in proper script format. In the
process, you learn how to identify and capture the tone, characters,
dialogue, and themes of any one-hour drama series–the key to breaking
and staying in the field. This course also introduces students to the
various genres (police procedurals, medical, legal, etc.) and their
specific rules; what’s popular in the current marketplace; and how to
work within the special requirements of timeslots, outlet, and styles
(for example, single-character drama versus ensemble cast). All student projects must focus on current shows; no pilots.

The enrollment is limited to 20 students, so if you’re interested, act now while there are still some seats left.

Who Am I?

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I got this email today:

Greetings – I am looking to purchase 5 text link ads on neilgaiman.com/journal/

Each ad is two to three words in length and can be placed anywhere on your page as long as the ads are visible on the majority of pages on your website. I would be willing to pay for 3 months of advertising up front.  Would you be interested?

I haven’t been feeling like myself lately…but I’m pretty sure that I’m not Neil Gaiman.

The Personal Touch

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I got this "personal" email today from Matt Burke at Vendorpro:

I’ve been to your Lee Goldberg website and I think your books are perfect for our stores. I especially like "Diagnosis Murder Series". We work hand in hand with the largest stores in the country, plus thousands of small to medium sized specialty businesses stretched across the U.S. If you want the opportunity to sell your books through major retailers like Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, Waldens, Target, QVC, HSN, etc …plus the other 51005 gift stores, 16826 bookstores, and over 24000 mail-order catalogs…check us out.

Here’s what I told Matt. I thanked him for the personal email. It gave me a good indication of his honesty, attention to detail and professionalism… because if he’d really been to my site, he’d know my DIAGNOSIS MURDER books are published by Penguin/Putnam, one of the largest publishers in the world, and are already available at major retailers.  Matt needs to work on his pitch (or at least do his homework) before sending out his junk mail — or, at the very least, give up the pretense that he knows anything about me or my books.

Not Interested

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I got this email the other day. Here it is, in its entirety:

For anyone interested.

Real grabber, isn’t it? Who could resist clicking the link after a pitch like that? The link takes you to a blog, where Steve Clackson has posted the first few chapters of SAND STORM, his novel-in-progress, for which he is seeking an agent and publisher. I’m not sure what he hopes to gain by sending me the link. A manuscript critique? A referral to my agent or editor? A TV series option? Whatever it is, I’m not interested. But forget about me…what about the others he’s doubtlessly sent this link to?

Does he really think an agent will stumble on his blog and offer to represent him? Or that a publisher will be so enthralled by his prose that they’ll offer him a book contract? Or that a development exec at some studio will read it and beg to buy the movie rights? Sure, some blogs and websites have led to book and movies deals. But it’s exceedingly rare.

My advice to Steve is to take the chapters down. The book clearly needs lots of work before it’s going to be ready to submit to an agent or publisher. And he isn’t doing himself any favors by posting the rough chapters publicly and — cringe — posting a cheesy, home-made "cover" and — big cringe — linking to a "review" of the pages from some blogger.

Where do people get these really, really bad ideas?

UPDATE 5-26-06:  For reactions and discussions prompted by this post, look here, here, here, here, here and here. The consensus, with a couple of exceptions, seems to be that I’m a bully who reacted too harshly (one blogger, David Thayer,  likened this dust-up to "Godzilla vs. Bambi"). Perhaps that’s true… I was certainly in a sour mood last week.

I’m a Fraud

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That’s how I feel today. I have spent the whole day working on my latest book and all I’ve managed to write is absolute swill. One whole paragraph of it. Yeah, that’s it. One measly, rotten, pathetic paragraph…one so bad, so inept, no professional writer could possibly have written it (nor would he have spent all DAY doing it).

I don’t often have days like this, but when I do, it’s miserably depressing. I know that the best thing to do would be to just walk away from the computer and do something else, but I can’t. Instead I torture myself by counting how many days I have left until the book is due, how many pages I have to write a week, a day, an hour to make the deadline…and that’s not counting the days I will set the book aside to work on my next script (which should be getting the go-ahead from the studio any day now). So I have to take advantage of every free hour. Which of course, only makes me more anxious and upset at my lack of creativity. When it’s going this bad, I have to keep at it, trying to hit upon that one sentence or image that will break me out of this writing funk. Because it will happen. I know it will. I’m praying it will. Okay, enough screwing around on the blog, avoiding the unavoidable, it’s time to go back to it…

(I know what you’re thinking, "how could he post this after linking to Garrison Keillor’s essay about writers who whine?" I’ll tell you why. Because I’m a FRAUD.)

Can I Send a Publisher My Script?

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I got this email the other day:

I recently wrote a heady sci-fi thriller that has gotten good response
from people, but my manager calls "unmarketable". You see, apparently,
if Hollywood wants a Phillip K. Dick type of story, they go buy a real
Phillip K. Dick story. But, unless the budget is under 10mil, they
won’t touch it without his name on it.   So, I was thinking, since book publishers don’t have "shootable"
constraints, would they ever read scripts with an eye on the author
building them out into novel form? I’d love to make it a novel, if I
thought others would love it to be one.   Would Del Rey read a script? Would they even consider, let alone pay for, a property not in novel form?

I’m not sure your manager is right about your script. If it’s good, people will buy it. If it’s not, they won’t.  My guess is that either he’s lazy or he thinks your script is unmarketable because it isn’t very good.  That aside, the answer to your question is no, a publisher/editor won’t read the script. They buy books, not scripts. They don’t know how
to read a script. And most important of all, they can’t tell from a script if you can write a
book.  You might be able to get way with writing a 100 sample manuscript pages and
an outline of the rest if you have a good literary agent that editors trust.

The Jareo Hits the Fan

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The Lori Jareo flap has begun drawing the attention of the mainstream print media after raging in the blogosphere for the last week. As the Dayton Beach News reported:

After it was pointed out by writer Lee Goldberg and spread around by a
growing network of bloggers it became very obvious that Ms. Jareo’s
circle of friends, family, and acquaintances was about to include the
entire LucasArts legal team. Reading the assorted posts this weekend
was like standing amongst a crowd of people watching a swimmer
cheerfully strap on raw meat before diving into the shark tank.

The newspaper notes that her biggest critics were fanfiction writers themselves, who worried about the implications for them of her stupidity.

When you know that what you
are doing is, at best, tolerated by creators you respect who can make
you stop at any time, you get very annoyed when someone walks up and
slaps them. All it would take is for enough authors to start yelling:
"That’s it, everyone out of the pool," and the online world of fan
fiction would fade away.

The more likely result, as Publisher’s Weekly notes, will be more intense scrutiny of POD titles by online booksellers. So far, only one person has come out publicly in support of Jareo, NPR commentator Lev Grossman, who dubbed her an "unsung hero" of the wired universe.  Jareo has remained silent.

Mr. Monk and the Nice Reviews

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My week is off to a great start with two nice reviews for MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE.  The current issue of MYSTERY SCENE notes:

The first in a new series is always an occasion to celebrate, but Lee Goldberg’s TV adaptations double your pleasure. No longer restricted by time, budget and pace of TV production, this terrific TV writer’s latest, MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE brings everyone’s favorite OCD detective to print. Hooray!

And Cynthia Lea Clarke at FUTURES MYSTERY MAGAZINE says, in part:

If you are a fan of the television show MONK, you’ll love this book. If you never had the pleasure of watching a MONK episode, then you should read this book… (Goldberg’s) words are witty, charming and so Monk. Superb! It’s a fast, easy, delightful escape. An excellent read!

My thanks to both Mystery Scene and Futures for their flattering comments.

Book Fest Day 2

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P4300086_1
The day started with Bagels and Goldbergs at the Borders booth, where I signed with my sisters Linda Woods and Karen Dinino.
P4300087_1Steve Cannell stopped by to pick up a copy of THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which was pretty cool, since the book couldn’t have been written without him (like me, the hero learns everything he knows about being a PI from watching shows like THE ROCKFORD FILES). I  chatted again with a lot of the folks I mentioned yesterday, as well as Harlan Coben, Gayle Lynds, Kelly Lange, Rochelle Krich, Thomas Perry, Paul Levine, Harley Jane Kozak, Jeff Mariotte, and Bill Fitzhugh, among others. I also caught some more panels, including Carl Reiner’s talk and my brother Tod in conversation with Sarah Vowell (a very funny woman who is not the warmest person you will ever meet) and David Rackoff (as lively, personable and funny off-stage as he is on) in front of a packed Royce Hall auditorium.  It was another great Book Fest and I’m already looking forward to the one next year…

UPDATE 5-1-06: My Brother Tod has a more detailed, and much funnier, wrap-up of the weekend’s events on his eponymous blog.  Reading his post reminds me of a strange bathroom encounter I had (Tod’s big moments all seemed to happen while he was in the can). I walked into the bathroom at "The Green Room" and saw a guy standing in front of a urinal pissing free-style while thumb-typing a message on his blackberry. At the same time, I heard another guy taking calls on his cell while having an extreme bowel episode. I like to think this was a wacky LA moment…but I fear this scene could have happened anywhere. I also had someone say to me at the my Borders signing that his favorite books of mine were "the ones where something happens."

UPDATE 5-1-06b: My sisters Linda and Karen report on the Fest and the super secret buffet for brilliant authors…my Uncle Burl Barer stargazes outside the Borders tent…and my cousin Danny Barer discovers what he’s been missing.

Learning Howdunit

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The Rutland Herald has an article today (from the Columbia News Service wire) about how mystery writers use consultants and, as an example, talks about how Dr. Doug Lyle and I work together. But if you’re a DIAGNOSIS MURDER fan, and haven’t read THE SILENT PARTNER yet, skip the article — there are major spoilers in it.

"I know absolutely nothing about medicine," Goldberg said. "But I do
know how to write a mystery. I craft situations where I need a medical
clue, then I call Doug. I simply couldn’t write these without him."

Lyle
is part of a select group of plot consultants who help mystery writers
bump off characters with scientific exactitude. He shows writers how to
poison people properly, open up a skull correctly for an autopsy and
talk like a homicide detective to make the character believable.

The article also appeared in The Toronto Star and the Indianapolis Star, among many other newspapers.