Variety reports today that Fox has picked up BONES, based on the Kathy Reichs novels, for a full 22-episodes next season… but the future isn’t looking so bright for the new midseason crime dramas HEIST, CONVICTION or THE EVIDENCE, which are suffering from anemic ratings. HEIST was partially undone by poor lead-in from LAW AND ORDER, which reportedly had it’s weakest ratings in 15 years, presumably thanks to its new 9 pm Wednesday timeslot.
My Blog
The Love Boat
Today, I’m joining writer/producer Matt Witten (HOUSE, JAG, etc) on a four-day cruise to Ensenada on the Monarch of the Seas, where we will be talking to mystery fans about writing cop shows and crime novels. The cruise is another exciting program from Joan Hansen, winner of an Edgar this year for her wildly successful, annual Men of Mystery seminars. Matt is bringing along his lovely wife and I’m bringing my 10-year-old daughter Maddie. This is the first time Maddie and I have ever gone on a trip together without my wife, and it’s the first time either one of us has been on a cruise, so it should be exciting.
I’ve stockpiled some posts that will show up here while I’m gone, but I won’t be around to clear your comments. But please go ahead and post your thoughts… I’ll get them on-line when I return on Monday.
This Goes to the Top of My List of Works of Art I Will Never See
"A nude Britney
Spears on a bearskin rug while giving birth to her firstborn marks a
‘first’ for Pro-Life. Pop-star Britney Spears is the "ideal" model for
Pro-Life and the subject of a dedication at Capla Kesting Fine Art in
Brooklyn’s Williamsburg gallery district, in what is proclaimed the
first Pro-Life monument to birth, in April…
…[Artist Daniel Edwards’] "Monument to
Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston," Pro-Life’s first
monument to the ‘act of giving birth,’ is purportedly an idealized
depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy,
like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior
view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of
baby Sean’s head.
The monument also acknowledges the pop-diva’s pin-up past by showing
Spears seductively posed on all fours atop a bearskin rug with back
arched, pelvis thrust upward, as she clutches the bear’s ears with
‘water-retentive’ hands."
[From the Press Release for the sculpture, via Defamer]
“Brilliant Writing…This is why the English Language Was Invented!”
Chicago Sun-Times reviewer David J. Montgomery is single-handedly revolutionizing the publishing industry. No longer will authors have to scrounge through his reviews looking for a blurbable phrase. Today, David has launched his Blurb Machine.
My reviews get blurbed fairly often, but that seems like such a
roundabout way of doing it. Why not, I asked myself, just give the
blurb directly and cut out the middle man?
Why not, indeed! The first recipient of a Blurb Machine Blurb is Lee Child:
"The Hard Way is the best book
yet from one of today’s top thriller writers. Put a pot of coffee on
before you start reading it, ’cause this one’s going to keep you up all
night." -Crime Fiction Dossier
Mr. Monk and the New Deal
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve accepted a deal to write three more original MONK novels, which will assure new books about the obsessive-compulsive detective through July 2008. And my third MONK episode "Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing," co-written with William Rabkin and very loosely based on my novel "Mr. Monk Goes to The Firehouse," started shooting this week for airing this summer.
Signing Angst
My sister Linda Woods is having her first booksigning event tomorrow for VISUAL CHRONICLES (which she wrote with my sister Karen Dinino) and it’s giving her nightmares:
In the first nightmare, I
gave birth to a baby that projectile vomited Styrofoam. I am not sure
what that has to do with the book, but it was damn scary. The second
nightmare was slightly more realistic. I was trying to decide which of
my 12 black jackets to wear and glanced at the clock and saw that it
was 8:30 and that I was an hour and half late to my own book signing.
Welcome to being a professional author, sis!
Lori Prokop to the Rescue
Lori Prokop, the self-described "selfless supporter of families, children and animals," is apparently tired of blogs like this one mischaracterizing her as a get-rich-quick huckster. In fact, "her life goal is to advance the well-being and enlightenment of humanity" when she isn’t selflessly striving to help the downtrodden "achieve the goal of Best Selling and Celebrity Status" and showing "people how to choose most any car off the showroom floor and drive it free while our company makes your payments."
So Lori Prokop, who "lives in and creates from the upper energy levels of life (Anyone can choose to live and create in these powerful upper levels as detailed in Lori Prokop’s Life Guidance System)," is tackling the problem as only she, Lori Prokop, can:
Blogs are a powerful force for good in the hands of those people living in their upper level energies/emotions and less-than-good in the hands of those living in their lower level energies/emotions. (Continue reading to learn about the Energy Mastery System.)
Lori Prokop has an upcoming work being release called, “Launching from Good to Great Online,” which is a definitive work on blogs where she interviews leaders and experts in blogs and human psychology.
I, for one, am looking forward to this definitive work which, no doubt, will be published by Bestseller Publishing, the vanity press run by future Nobel Prize winner Lori Prokop, who describes herself in her fascinating and definitive mass mailings as "Leading Expert, Author and Creator of books, CDs,DVDs, Online Videos, workshops, television shows, speaking and more!"
To learn more about this selfless individual, who has profound "respect and humanistic regard for all species," (She is, afterall, the visionary who asked the burning question: "Where are the best sellers by Doctors of
Chiropractic?”) just read her previous definitive books, like "Awaken Your Million-Dollar Intuition," "77 Streams of Super Lucrative
Income for Authors, Experts and Speakers," and Employee No More: How to Stay Home and Still Make Money."
You, too, can feel her humanistic regard, especially for those species who possess a Visa or Mastercard.
Do My Homework For Me, Please
I got this email today:
Dear Mr.Goldberg:
I am rather interested in learning English through reading, and recently I came upon a text entitled "They Stole Our Childhood", which was probably written by you a long time ago, I guess. I enjoyed reading the text, especially your humorous style, but I found that I could not understand two sentences very well: 1. when our long-pressed childish side rears its playful head; 2. We can start by realizing that this generation, which may have it together intellectually, paid with its adolescence. I am wondering if you could explain to me what you mean by saying these? Thank you very much, and looking forward to hearing from you.
I wrote the essay as a "My Turn" column for Newsweek back in the early 1980s. The piece has since been republished in a number of textbooks, including "Marraige and the Family Experience" , "Writing Talk: Paragraphs and Short Essays With Readings," and "Designing Ideas: An Anthology for Writers." What amused me about her email was that she went to the trouble of hunting me down… just so she could ask me to do her homework assignment for her.
Yes, that’s right, the questions she asked me were two essay assignments from her textbook. I admire her chutzpah — but I wonder why she didn’t put the same effort and creativity into actually doing her home work.
Fanfic Fool
From my brother Tod’s blog today:
The other day, my friend Alex told me that in a creative writing
class he teaches at UC-Riverside, someone turned in Willy Wonka fan
fiction and wasn’t totally clear why that wasn’t allowed in a college
creative writing class.
The student would be much more at home in a creative writing class at Texas State University taught by Dr. Robin Reid, champion of "Real Person Slash Fanfic." Not only would she accept that assignment, but probably one about Gene Wilder getting his Willy Wonked by Johnny Depp, too.