#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
If you want to save money, and avoid buying my book SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING, I suggest you hang out over at TV writer Paul Guyot’s blog. He’s been leaving one great post after another on breaking into the television biz. Today, he tackles the challenges of writing an episodic spec.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Michael Jackson is moving to the Middle East.
Attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. declined to comment on local speculation that
Jackson planned to sell Neverland ranch, but said the singer is very happy in
his new home."He’s looking much better. He’s with his children, and
he’s moving on in life," Mesereau said. "He’s living permanently in Bahrain. He
has friends there who have been very loyal and helpful to him in a difficult
period of his life."
There are two informative new articles up at www.iamtw.org — an interview with Bruce Bethkey on the wild wild writing of THE WILD WILD WESTRemember when all the kid characters on TV were smart-ass and wise-beyond-their years? It got to be really irritating…but it was a hell of a lot easier to take than the kids on TV today. They are all insufferable morons. Take, for example, the two imbeciles on SURFACE who are raising an alien monster in their bathtub…and let it endanger the lives of family and friends. We are supposed to find them wacky and endearing. I just want to kick in the T.V. Or how about that whiny teenage girl on COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF who resents her Mom for being President of the United States? She’s upset she has to attend events like, oh, her mother’s swearing in as President or a reception for the Russian President instead of hanging out with her friends ("Other kids don’t have to go to their parents’ business dinners!"). This is supposed to make us relate to the First Family as being people like us. Yeah, right. Me, and the rest of America, fast-forward through those scenes to the next shot of Donald Sutherlands sneering and twirling his mustache (yes, I know he doesn’t have a mustache…but it’s there, it’s just invisible).
Bring back those precocious kids of yesteryear. Please. I’m begging you.
ABC has renewed INVASION for the full season. This means that so far two of the three "alien invastion shows" this season have survived…SURFACE will resurface for a back-nine, but CBS hasn’t decided if they’ve hit their threshold of THRESHOLD though they have ordered three scripts. The script order doesn’t mean much. I’ve been on shows where they’ve ordered more scripts — SEAQUEST and SPENSER FOR HIRE come to mind — and we still got cancelled. Scripts aren’t that expensive. The alphabet net (that’s Variety-speak for ABC) hasn’t decided whether it wants more of THE NIGHT STALKER yet.
NBC has ordered three additions scripts for the ratings-challenged E-RING, but hasn’t yet pushed the button on shooting nine more episodes.
Variety reports today that CBS is making a mini-series out of "Robert Ludlum’s Covert One: The Hades
Factor," a book that was co-written by my friend Gayle Lynds. The four-hour miniseries will star
Mira Sorvino, Stephen Dorff and Anjelica Huston.
Larry Sanitsky ("The Last Don") and Paul Sandberg ("The Bourne Supremacy")
are aboard to exec produce the project, which will lense in Toronto, Paris and
Berlin. Project will be available for broadcast later this season, though CBS
has not yet determined an airdate.Elwood Reid ("Blind Justice") wrote the script for "Covert One: The Hades
Factor," adapting it from the 2000 novel by Ludlum and Gayle Lynds.Sanitsky and German producer Tandem announced plans for "Hades" in spring at
MIP, but no network, stars or helmer were attached (Daily Variety, April
12).Ludlum’s bestselling series of "Covert One" novels revolves around a secret
intelligence agency consisting of political and tech experts who fight
corruption and conspiracy, reporting directly to the U.S. president.Dorff will play Col. Jonathan Smith, a disease specialist and ex-agent of
Covert One whose fiancee has been killed by an Ebola-like virus spreading around
the world. When it turns out the virus may have been deliberately spread, the
president — played by Huston — orders a cover-up.Sorvino will play Rachel Russell, a Covert One agent who goes missing after
killing two men.Colm Meaney ("Star Trek: The Next Generation") will play a former spy and
friend of Smith’s, Blair Underwood ("LAX") the No. 2 official at Covert One.
The latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal, from the folks at Mystery Readers International, is just hitting the stands. This month’s issue is dedicated to "bibliomysteries" and includes articles by Bill Crider, Rochelle Krich, Elaine Viets, Carolyn Hart and me among many others. I wrote about the painstaking research that went into writing THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE.
(I’ll be talking to the members of Mystery Readers International up in Berkeley on Friday, Oct 28, at 7:00 pm. Contact Janet Rudolph for more information).
THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE earned a rave review from Mark Terry this week in The Oakland Press. He says, in part:
"The Man with the Iron-On Badge" has snappy dialogue, tight plotting and near-perfect pace. Mapes is laugh-out loud funny in the way of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, and the plot is surprisingly graceful, keeping the reader guessing to the very end. Harvey’s growth as a human being is an added bonus. One can only hope this is the first of many novels about this engaging character.
Thanks, Mark!
Yesterday, I shared excerpts from some of the rejection letters I received for THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE during its long journey to publication. Today, novelist Laurie King reflects on the uncertainty and rejection all professional writers face, regardless of their past successes.
There ain’t no guarantees in the writing business. It’s scary even to mention
the possibility, as if failure is a demon summoned by voicing his name, but it’s
very true, it’s waiting just outside. I’ve got sixteen books out there, sold a
couple million copies, had titles on the New York Times list, and still, every
day I feel the cold draft at the bottom of the door. My accountant talks about
SEP accounts, and I think, well, that may be necessary. My husband asks if we’re
going to have the money for some project or another, and I have to tell him I
don’t know.
DVDs these days come packed with extra features — commentary, documentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, etc. Now author Lewis Perdue is experimenting with doing the same thing for books, starting with his novel THE PERFECT KILLER. To give his readers a sense of the people, places and details in the story, he’s created a page-specific online index with photos, videos, maps, links, and other information. You could read his book with your laptop open beside you and click along with the story. For instance:
Page 228, Dan
Gabriel jogged along Pecho Valley Road, south of Morro Bay (more pictures
here)Page 229, He sprinted the dune
trail, south toward Spooner’s Cove, but the past matched his pacePage 230, sight
of a man and a boy of maybe tenPage 235, San Luis
ObispoPage 243, Blackhawk returned and hovered
over the clearing, Armed men hung out the side door
It’s a cool idea. Will it catch on? Who knows…buttake a look and let Lew know what you think.
