Lee Goldberg

Coming Home

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I spent my last day in NY sitting around the table with the writing staff of MONK, going over each scene in the story, looking for the humor and the heart, the little moments that will add texture to the script. I left with very detailed notes and will start writing the script on Monday.

On the flight back to LA, I sat next to David Strathairn, the star of GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.  He was a very nice guy. He was on his way out for the SAG Awards this weekend. We talked a bit about movies and TV, but mostly we chatted about other things…the sort of stuff you might talk about with any passenger you meet on a flight. I was really struck by what a pleasant, polite, regular guy he was.

I Love L.A.

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I just got back home to LA an hour ago… I’m too tired to post anything of substance. But I’ve scanned through the 87 emails waiting for me and a couple look blog-worthy. I also had an interesting experience on the flight to share.  More tomorrow. Good night, all.

A Jew in the Big Apple

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I’m in NY.  I’m staying at the Hudson Hotel, a supposedly hip spot, judging by all the young, beautiful people in the lobby and bars. I’m sure the bars are great. It’s the rooms that suck. From what I understand, this was a women’s dormitory or something before the Morgans Hotel Group turned it into a hotel. They didn’t put a lot of effort into renovating the dorms into hotel rooms.

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The rooms are smaller than a typical train compartment (the hotel prefers to say they’re "reminiscent of a private cabin on an upscale yacht." More like a fishing trawler). The wobbly steel writing desk, which is about the width of a Time Magazine, and matching steel chair, harder on the ass than a bus bench, appear to have been stripped from a prison cell.  Actually, a prison cell is  more sensibly designed than this room.  No amount of dark woods, mirrors, and pin-point halogens can hide the fact that this room is the size of a Camry.

The room is slightly wider than the low, Queen-size bed that dominates the space. The space can barely accomodate one average-sized person. The bathroom has plexiglass walls, which are covered with a thin, transparent curtain. So if you like privacy while you’re on the toilet, forget about it. If you do sit on the toilet, your knees will hit the wall and you’ll think back fondly on the spacious lavatory on the plane.

There isn’t a single drawer in the room, just an open "closet" in front of the door that isn’t large enough to fit a suitcase and that only has three hangers. There are no ice bucket in the room because there’s no space for one. The tiny TV set is in a narrow cupboard, gets no reception, and makes my laptop screen seem huge. The heater gurgles and whines (even when its off), has two settings (freezing cold and blisteringly hot) and is conveniently located behind the headboard. The walls are so thin, when the guy next door called his wife on the phone, I was able to say hello to her.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is an upscale place.  With luck, this will be my first — and last — night in this hotel.

I’m Outta Here

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It’s dark outside, and the limo that’s taking me to the airport is pulling into my driveway, so I’m outta here.  My next dispatch will be from NY later tonight. 

We Are Family

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My younger sisters Linda Woods & Karen Dinino have started setting up signings and other events for their new book VISUAL CHRONICLES, which is already getting lots of enthusiastic, pre-pub attention in the crafts & hobby art world. They will be on hand at the big Craft and Hobby Association convention later this month in Las Vegas, where their publisher is mounting a splashy debut for their slick, amusing and beautiful book.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

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I’m probably going to be scarce around here for the next week or so…

Tomorrow, my writing partner Bill Rabkin and I are meeting in the morning with representatives of a European TV network  and then I’m doing an afternoon panel discussion and signing at Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks.

On Sunday morning, Bill and I are heading head off to New York to spend a week  in the writing offices of MONK, where we’ll be working on our next script for the show. I’ll also be meeting with my publishers and my agent and, if time allows, visiting a few local bookstores.

My absense may also mean that I may be slow to post your comments — but I hope that won’t discourage you from actively participating in the "back blog" discussions while I am away.

Where We Write

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Myoffice
One of my favorite little coffee table book is Jill Krementz’s THE WRITER’S DESK, which is filled with photos of authors at work in their offices. It’s fascinating and reveals a lot about each author’s personality. John Updike wrote in his introduction:

I look at these photographs with a prurient interest, the way that I might look at the beds of notorious courtesans. Except that the beds would tell me less than the desks do. Here, the intimacy of the literary act is caught in flagrante delicto: at these desks characters are spawned, plots are spun, imaginative distances are spanned.

Today, novelist Brenda Coulter posted pictures on her blog of where she does her writing, so I thought I’d follow her example and share with you where I do mine. This is my home office.  It overlooks our front yard and is adjacent to my daughter’s bedroom. What you don’t see in this picture are more bookshelves, a TV set/DVD/VCR set-up and a walk-in closet full of books, DVDs, CDs, videos and office supplies.  There’s also the original artist’s painting for the unpublished, fourth .357 VIGILANTE book on my wall.

To avoid throwing out my back, I also do a lot of writing laying on top of my bed, using my laptop, with my legs elevated on a couch cushion.

I showed you mine so now you show me yours.  Think of it as a photo "meme." All of you authors and screenwriters out there with blogs, please post pictures of your writing spaces…and provide linkbacks to this post so we can see them (or offer a link to those posts in the comments below).

Hot Sex, Gory Violence

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Newsweek published this My Turn essay of mine back in mid-1980s, while I was still a college student and writing books as "Ian Ludlow."  I stumbled across the essay again today and thought you might enjoy it:

HOT
SEX, GORY VIOLENCE

How
One Student Earns Course Credit and Pays Tuition

My name is Ian Ludlow. Well, not really. But that’s the name on my four ".357 Vigilante" adventures that Pinnacle Books will publish this spring. Most of
the time I’m Lee Goldberg, a mild mannered UCLA senior majoring in mass communications and trying to spark a writing career at the same time. It’s hard work. I haven’t quite achieved a balance between my dual identities of college student and hack novelist.

The adventures of Mr. Jury, a vigilante into doing the LAPD’s dirty work,  are often created in the wee hours of the night, when I should be studying, meeting my freelance-article deadlines or, better yet, sleeping. More often than not, my nocturnal writing spills over into my classes the next morning. Brutal fistfights, hot sexual encounters and gory violence are frequently scrawled
across my anthropology notes or written amid my professor’s insights on Whorf’s hypothesis. Students sitting next to me who glance at my lecture notes are shocked to see notations like "Don’t move, scumbag, or I’ll wallpaper the room with your brains.

Vigilante1
I once wrote a pivotal rape scene during one of my legal-communications classes, and I’m sure the girl who sat next to me thought I was a psychopath. During the first half of the lecture, she kept looking with wide eyes from my notes to my face as if my nose were melting onto my binder or something. At the break she disappeared, and I didn’t see her again the rest of the quarter. My professors,  though, seem pleased to see me sitting in the back of the classroom writing furiously. I guess they think I’m hanging on their every word. They’re wrong.

I’ve tried to lessen the strain between my conflicting identities by marrying the
two. Through the English department, I’m getting academic credit for the books. That amazes my Grandpa Cy, who can’t believe there’s a university crazy enough to reward me for writing "lots of filth." The truth is, it’s writing and it’s learning, and it’s getting me somewhere. Just where, I’m not
sure. My Grandpa Cy thinks it’s going to get me the realization I should join him in the furniture
business.

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