#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
My brother Tod and I are heading up to Seattle tomorrow. I’ll also be speaking about becoming a writer to the students at
Jackson High School in Mill Creek, where my Aunt Britt Barer teaches,
on Friday. That night, you can see Tod and I sitting court-side for the
Sonics game doing our best Jach Nicholson impersonations. On Saturday, Dec. 3, we’re doing some booksignings — at noon at the Seattle Mystery Bookstore and at 3 p.m at the Barnes & Noble University Village.
In both Paul Gallico’s original novel THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and Irwin Allen’s movie version, the doomed ocean liner was tipped upside down by a freak tidal wave. In the recent NBC mini-series remake, the ocean liner was tipped over by terrorist bombs. Reviewers weren’t kind to the mini-series and criticized what they seemed to think was an unnecessary change. Screenwriter Bryce Zabel, who wrote the mini-series, explains on his lively blog the creative reasons for substituting terrorists for the tidal wave:
Poseidon purists (or critics looking for something to criticize)
seemed to feel that, somehow, the freak tidal wave from the 1969 book or the
1972 film should have sufficed. They got their life jackets in a bunch over the
NBC version where it’s a terrorist attack in which only one of two explosive
charges detonates and that causes an imbalance in the ship’s metacentric height
and capsizes it.The reason for making the choice to add a terrorist sub-plot is really pretty
simple. Understand that I was writing a four-hour mini-series version (which
later was edited down to three hours for NBC), not a two-hour feature version.
In a movie theater, the audience has already paid admission and, generally
speaking, is going to stick through the entire film, especially a
Poseidon, knowing the boat’s going belly up eventually. Television is
different. People have their hands on the remote practically all the time and if
something isn’t happening right now, they can, and will, change. This reality
effectively means that simply waiting for an inevitable tidal wave isn’t a
sufficient stake in the TV version: the characters can’t behave differently
because, after all, they don’t know it’s coming.
I didn’t see the mini-series, so I can’t say whether the changes worked or not — but as a writer, I can certainly understand why he felt he had to do something to amp-up the pre-disaster conflict. That said, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is a disaster movie classic — an icon of genre. Everybody knows it’s about a boat tipped over by a tidal wave, so perhaps changing the central concept of the story wasn’t the right choice.
Galleycat reports that editor Joe Blades is leaving Ballantine — and publishing.
Why? Though Blades hadn’t responded to email queries as of this writing, burnout
seems to be the biggest issue, according to a recent post by
one of his authors. Though Blades isn’t certain what his next move will be,
it won’t have anything to do with the publishing world.Blades was especially known for editing mystery and crime fiction, and his
author list included Anne Perry, Sandra Scoppettone, Terrill Lee Lankford,
Rochelle Krich, Mary Logue, Gillian Roberts and William Bernhardt. It remains to
be seen how many of these folks will be kept on by Random House, but Blades will
be meeting with various RH brass to discuss which editors get custody of which
authors.
It’s very scary when your editor, often your biggest champion at the publishing house, leaves. When one of my editors left, on the eve of publication of my non-fiction book, any interest in me or the book within the company just vanished… the book was orphaned. There was no effort made by the sales force to sell the book or by the PR department to promote it. Sandra Scoppettone, one of Blades’ authors, is worried this might happen to her:
What worries me is the new book, Too Darn Hot, which will be published in June.
Even if a new contract hadn’t come my way, this editor would’ve still been on
top of things and moved the book as much as possible. As the book is finished
and there’s nothing for a new editor to do on it, it’ll lie there like a lox.
Unless there’s a new contract and then it’ll be different. At the moment my
book is an orphan.
I don’t blame her. I’d be worried, too. On the other hand, losing an editor doesn’t always mean doom for his list of authors. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky at Penguin/Putnam/NAL on the DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books. I’m on my third editor so far (the first was downsized out of a job, the other left for a richer offer) and they’ve all been wonderful… supportive, enthusiastic, and totally committed to the books.
No, I’m not talking about yet another revival of THE LOVE BOAT.
HIJINKS ON THE HIGH SEAS is a mystery-writing cruise on March 24-27th to Mexico put together by Joan Hansen, the wonder woman behind the wonderful MEN OF MYSTERY event (and she’s the winner of this year’s prestigious Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America). Speakers hosting on-board seminars include yours truly, my brother Tod, and Matt Witten among others. For more information, call (562)
595-6905. Call Now! That’s (562)
595-6905. Operators are standing by! (562)
595-6905.
Variety today "analyzes" the demise of ALIAS, putting the blame for the cancellation on "the vagaries of television." Well, duh. That’s what passes for probing analysis over at the trades these days.
ABC has announced the end of the line for "Alias," which will conclude its
five-season run in May. Skein,
which stars Jennifer
Garner as CIA agent Bristow, earned critical raves through the
years but struggled this season on Thursday nights.
And that’s all they had to say about those pesky "vagaries" — great buzz but low ratings. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more revealing, probing analysis of the demise of a show (except, maybe, from those stories about ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which fell victim to those same pesky "vagaries," and they’ve got bunch of Emmys, too).
Surely there’s a real story behind the cancellation of ALIAS, one that might actually be interesting and reveal something about how network televison works, but far be it from the so-called reporters at Daily Variety to bother digging any deeper than the press release.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the trades experimented with some geniune reporting once in a while?
(This isn’t exactly a new rant for me. Check out The Journalistic Integrity of Variety Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)
I liked everything about THE ICE HARVEST except the ending, which was different from the book and not in a good way. I have also yet to see a film featuring Oliver Platt that he doesn’t steal.
The Contra Costa Times, the largest newspaper in the San Francisco East
Bay, has reviewed THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE.…three weeks after my signing up
there. Oh well, better late than never!
Hero Harvey Mapes is one of those
Everyman kind of guys. Yep, he’s more than a few levels down the ol’
status totem pole. In fact, he might be one of the few guys in the
world deemed unemployable by the car wash."What?" you say. "Can’t even get a job at a car wash? That’s
impossible." Tut-tut. Where do you think overnight security guards come
from? 7-Eleven? Perhaps you believe the urban legend that they are
dropped off by the Great Pumpkin?Yes, Harvey is an overnight security guard. But a guy with some
brains, good instincts, stick-to-it-ness and an encyclopedic knowledge
of TV detectives: Think everything from Frank Cannon to Magnum.
"Iron-on Badge" is the story of Harvey’s transition from security guard
to MAN.Writer Lee Goldberg is a local success story. Walnut Creek native.
Northgate High School grad. Former freelancer for the Contra Costa
Times, UPI, Newsweek. He’s written for numerous television shows:
"Monk," "Spenser for Hire," "Martial Law," "Hunter" and — boy, he must
have done something right in his past lives — five episodes of
"Baywatch.""Iron-on Badge" is his latest book. It is a fun read, and it proves
that as a fellow Contra Costa Times columnist, I have something to look
forward to. Pamela Anderson, here I come! Woo-hoo!
The Marketing for Authors blog, based in the UK, has an interview with me today talking about (what else?) marketing yourself.
I went to my brother Tod’s house for Thanksgiving. In his office, he had a stack of ARCs and review copies (he reviews books for a Las Vegas newspaper). There was a new book by an author I’m curious about, so I picked it up and started reading. I didn’t get past the first two paragraphs and, as it turned out, neither did my brother.
The first howl sang across the night void and trembled the frozen air, a sound thin as the starlight poised on the blue plains of snow, with no more presence than the memory of a vanished loved one, and just as inescapable across the face of the world; and as with a ghostly visage rising before me, I might have denied the cry existed. But the horses plunged.
Sergei Gorlov, the friend and fellow mercenary who had mentored me for the last two years of cavalry warfare and who guided me now into the vast mysteries of his homeland, sat beside me, bundled beneath blankets in the open sleigh.
Publishers Weekly has a lengthy article in the current issue about the Romance Writers of America, which has 9500 members, only 1600 of whom are actually published authors.
That can make for some uncomfortable moments at the group’s annual conference,
says agent Irene Goodman, who maintains that these aspiring authors "often view
editors and agents as gatekeepers who are the bad guys barring them from their
dream."The agent, whose clients include bestselling romance writer Debbie Macomber,
continues, "They act as if we’re all part of some semishady, sub-rosa group."
Still, Goodman attends the conferences, wading through "this vast population of
the great unwashed masses of inexperienced, unprofessional people trying to
break in," in search of "a brilliant newcomer."And there lies the paradox of RWA’s highly democratic (anyone willing to
write a $75 dues check is in) admissions policy. On the one hand, it is the
group’s greatest strength, enabling it to claim the largest membership of any
not-for-profit genre writers’ association in the world. And it creates an
important mission for the group, with a national conference and numerous local
conferences each year that make up a kind of finishing school for romance
writers. But this inclusiveness may also be the group’s biggest weakness,
diluting its clout by making it seem amateurish and, as Goodman points out,
making it harder for agents and editors to discover the truly motivated writer
among the dilettantes.Still, as the group celebrates its 25-year anniversary, it’s a safe bet those
unpublished—or, as some prefer to call them, "pre-published"—writers will
continue to be welcome in a group that also boasts such big names as Nora
Roberts and Jennifer Crusie. Providing networking and support for aspiring
authors was, after all, the original mission when 37 charter members founded the
association in 1980……Crusie, who says everything she knows about the business she learned from
another RWA member, is more than happy to share the group with aspirants. "RWA’s
strength is that it’s got unpublished members. That’s where all the juice comes
from," she says. "I was a wannabe once."
The article makes passing reference to only one of the many embarrassing controversies that have rattled the organization in the past year.
At the annual conference this summer that marked the group’s 25-year
anniversary, some attendees felt less than celebratory after viewing a video
montage with a right-wing bent that was the centerpiece of the awards
presentation. It edited together footage of important political events from the
last 25 years with a pop-tune soundtrack, so that bouncy music played over
sobering images—none of which had anything to do with romance writers. Roberts,
who had been scheduled to serve as emcee, opted out. "I could not and would not
be a part of a ceremony that, rather than honor the organization and the
nominees, took the audience through 25 years of world tragedies," she says in an
e-mail. "I felt, and continue to feel, that it was horribly inappropriate and
offensive."Crusie, who served on the RWA board for three years in the late 1990s, says,
"there’s always upheaval," but adds, "it’s the same with any organization."
Yeah, but few do it quite so publicly and over such incredibly stupid stuff.