My Blog

DaVinci Mania

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On the eve of the release of the DAVINCI CODE movie, Publishers Weekly reports that the book is finally coming out in mass paperback…with a five million copy first printing (that’s few more than the print run for my new book, MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE).

Anchor Books will print a total of 5 million copies of the paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code
when the company publishes the mass market and trade paperback editions
of the huge bestseller. The company has confirmed Friday’s PW Daily report that it will release the paperback editions of Da Vinci
March 28, about seven weeks ahead of the release of the movie on May
19. The mass market edition, which Anchor is calling the movie tie-in
edition, will sell for $7.99, while the trade paper will have a $14.95
price.

In addition, Broadway Books will issue a 200,000 copy printing for the trade paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code Special Illustrated Edition on March 28. And leaving no stone unturned, Broadway will print 200,000 copies of the trade paper edition of The Da Vinci Code Illustrated Screenplay May 19, while Doubleday will release 25,000 copies in hardcover.

Sloppy Continuity

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Tonight I finally got around to watching last week’s LAW AND ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT.  There’s a big debate about whether or not seeing someone shoot someone makes you more comfortable shooting someone yourself. At the end of the episode, a lawyer asks the A.D.A. if she really believes that theory. The A.D.A. makes a speech about how her daddy taught her how to shoot guns and she hasn’t shot anyone yet… then again, she says,  she’s never seen anyone gunned down in front of her. But regular viewers of the show know that isn’t true. Three or four episodes back, the A.D.A. saw an entire courtroom full of people gunned down in front of her — a judge, a witness, two guards, two cops and two gunmen. In fact, NBC re-ran that episode tonight.

I can’t believe the producers would have made such a huge continuity gaff. All I can figure is that that last week’s episode was shot before the other one and, for whatever reason, and was aired out of production order. If that was the case, I don’t understand why the producers didn’t cut the speech or loop a new line. That’s just sloppy.

In Jennifer’s Shoes

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Jennifer Weiner wonders on her blog  why audiences didn’t embrace the movie version of her book, IN HER SHOES.

It wasn’t enough to make a well-crafted, beautifully written,
wonderfully acted, heartwarming, uplifting drama. If that was true,
CINDERELLA MAN would have made a hundred million dollars, and IN HER
SHOES, although cursed with a surplus of estrogen and all of the
built-in dismissiveness that comes free with the label “chick flick”
along with it, might not have been far behind.

But these days,
to actually get butts in seats, you need sex or violence, or violent
sex (or violent, furtive gay sex, a la BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN). You need
raunchy humor, a shocking surprise ending, a real-life singer’s
addiction portrayed by an actor who developed a real-life addiction.
You need a whiff of scandal – Jessica Simpson, pre-divorce; Tom Cruise,
post-couch, Brangelina. You at least need romance. Or, barring that, an
animated chicken, or a pubescent wizard (believe me, I spent a lot of
time kicking myself for not having included either in the novel).

A
film about relationships between women, not women and men, that
featured not much sex, very little violence, no drug use, no
dismemberment and not much to slap the clammy flab, didn’t have much of
a chance.

For the record, I enjoyed the movie. I think it failed because it was soft and, with movie-going  as expensive and hassle-filled as it is,  it didn’t offer anything you couldn’t see for free at home. I bet a lot of folks stuck it on their "wait for the DVD" list.

Mad Max

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Ed Gorman posted an appreciation of novelist Max Allan Collins, co-founder of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, on his blog today:

I wouldn’t be blogging today if it weren’t for Max Allan Collins.
Twenty five years ago, I made a cold call to him to tell him how much I
enjoyed his novels…

… Naturally,
we talked about writing and why I, who’d sold a lot of short stories to
magazines of varying repute, hadn’t ever written a novel. I told him l
I’d started about a hundred of the damned things but that I always got
stuck at some point and started backtracking and then just gave up. He
gave me the single most useful piece of writing advice I’ve ever ever
received. Don’t look back. Finish the first draft straight through and
then go back and do whatever needs to be done in the revisions.

Ed also talks about advice he’s gleaned from other writers… all of it worth taking to heart.

Grey’s Blog

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The writers of GREY’S ANATOMY have their own blog. The latest post from Krista Vernoff tells the story behind her "Christmas" episode:

So
here’s a funny thing: we were never going to do a “Holiday episode” of
Grey’s Anatomy. Shonda, in particular, (though many of us agree) is not
a big fan of Santa Claus in the E.R. and elves in the operating room
and the kinds of things you most often see on medical show holiday
episodes. So, the mandate was: we can have a tree, we can acknowledge
the holiday, but we’re not doing a “holiday episode.” And then Harry and Gab walked into the writer’s room and pitched this: “A cranky, angry little boy needs a heart transplant because his heart is TWO SIZES TWO SMALL.”

Come on. That’s brilliant. The Grinch boy? How do you not make a holiday episode now? So that’s how this episode was born.

She goes into much more detail, but I especially enjoyed this observation:

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this… Maybe because I’m so often asked “How do you guys come up with this stuff?” The
answer is, we come up with it in a largely convoluted, fabulously
meandering, highly collaborative way where bad ideas lead to good ones
and good ideas lead to other ones and nothing is set in stone until
about a week before you see it on TV. Which is why I love working in TV.

This new trend towards blogs (eg CSI:MIAMI, SCRUBS) and podcasts (eg LOST and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) from  the writers room of TV shows isn’t just great PR and fun for the fans — it’s an incredible opportunity for aspiring writers, offering an inside look at how TV series episodes are conceived, written and produced.

Ships That Passed in the Night

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Shipsmenu1
I spent way, way, way too much time last night browsing through Mark Evanier’s remembrances of old Los Angeles restaurants that are no longer around, like Ships, Chasen’s, Zucky’s, and Bit O’ Scotland. He doesn’t include one of my old favorites (unless I missed it in my bleery-eyed haze) The Cock ‘n’ Bull, the upscale buffet on Sunset that is now a Jaguar dealership…but I’m sure he will get around to it.

Book Club Pick

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MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE is a January pick of the Mystery Guild, which is offering members a hardcover edition of the book. When I was a kid, I was a member of the Literary Guild and the Mystery Guild and couldn’t wait for the new catalogs every month. And when those boxes of books arrived, it was like Christmas. Of course, now I collect first editions and I’m not interested in book club editions, but back then it was the only way I could afford new, hardcover titles.

Writers Digest

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There was a time when Writer’s Digest offered useful tips on breaking into writing and sustaining a career in the biz… but over the years they have become a worthless shill for the vanity press industry. I’ve been getting countless emails from Writer’s Digest, hyping one vanity press or another as a way to break into publishing and get your book on the shelves which, of course, is bullshit. Here’s the latest "very special message" from Writer’s Digest pushing Outskirtspress, which makes iUniverse look like Random House by comparison.

Tired of rejection letters?
Disillusioned by the lack of marketing
help?
Concerned about the out-of-control pricing of printers?

The publishing industry has come a long way
since the Gutenberg Press. New York publishers no longer call the shots. You
do! The future of book publishing is here…

* No minimum print
runs!
* Non-exclusive contracts!
* You keep all your rights!
* Your
book is published and available for sale in about 13 weeks!
* Online listings
with Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com are included!

Everyone wants a short-cut. This one will cost you from $199-1000 and get you nowhere.  If Writer’s Digest was a real magazine, they would publish articles exposing the pitfalls of vanity presses and warn writers against throwing their money away.  But Writers Digest sold out a long, long time ago and now exists to promote and legitimize an industry that preys on the desperation of aspiring writers. It’s not Writers Digest any more — it’s Vanity Press Digest.

A Slan Dunk

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Novelist and IAMTW member Kevin J. Anderson has been asked by Lydia Van Vogt, widow of author A.E. Van Vogt, to  complete the manuscript
for SLAN HUNTER, the sequel to SLAN.  A. E. Van Vogt
began the book in 1984, but was unable to complete it due to Alzheimers disease. Anderson received 100 pages of draft manuscript and outline.  Tor will publish the completed
book, with David Hartwell as editor.