My Blog

Where Do Ideas Come From?

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Novelist Joseph A. West, who writes the GUNSMOKE tie-ins among many others, shared this story with me about how he got the idea for his new book:

I’ve just started work on a fairly traditional western I’m calling CANTINA.
As you are aware, ideas for novels come in strange ways. [My wife] Emily and I were on the
New Mexico/Texas border and a busted muffler on the Wrangler forced us to stay
at a Bates motel in the middle of nowhere, run by an old German lady with 100
cats. She told us the only place to eat was a Mexican cantina a mile down the
road, and that’s where we ended up that night. The food was good, the beer
better, and as we were settling the bill, the owner said to me: "Hey, why don’t
you buy this place. I got two fat ladies in the kitchen and all you have to do
is sit back and rake in the money."
I refused Emilio’s kind offer, but I got to thinking…suppose a puncher
rides out of the blue hills with $500 in his jeans, money he’s saved from 10
hard years nursing cows. He stops in a cantina to eat and the owner says: "Hey,
why don’t you buy this place. I got two fat ladies in the kitchen
and…"      
My hero jumps at the chance and thinks his troubles are over…until
Mexican bandits, marauding Apaches and the three deadly Retzin brothers convince
him otherwise.
[My Editor] liked the idea, and now it’s a go. Thank heaven for very spooky old ladies with cats.

The Ultimate Fan Letter

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Gregg Hurwitz received a remarkable fan letter today. It began like this:

I have been reading your novel, "Minutes To Burn" for the last 10 days since the
hurricane destroyed my home and too many others here in Biloxi. I’m a physician
at the VA Hospital here, and have had to live in my office since Katrina hit in
order to be available for duty 24/7. I just wanted to say that I think reading
your novel helped keep me sane and in balance through this trial.

I couldn’t imagine a higher compliment than that.

What do Tie-In Writers Do?

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Ever wonder  how authors go about writing books using characters from movies, TV shows and games? Or how the business of tie-ins and novelizations works? Now you can find out.

The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers (IAMTW or I AM a Tie-in Writer) has updated their website to include interviews and articles that cover such topics as "how to write a tv tie-in" and the "how tie-in royalties are divvied up." Even if you aren’t interested in tie-in writing, you’ll learn some interesting things about the publishing business by checking out the articles.

The IAMTW website will be updated regularly with new article about  tie-in and novelizations. There’s also an online membership application for those interested in joining the organization, which was founded by yours truly and Max Allan Collins.

Monday Chuckles II

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17813888_1Over at Lipstick Chronicles, Harley Jane Kozak talks about her efforts to sell her award winning novel DATING DEAD MEN as a TV series:

Being
clueless, we did what any pair of neophytes would do: we bought a book.
“Writing Treatments That Sell, or, How to Create and Market Your
Story Ideas to the Motion Picture and TV Industry” is written by
Kenneth Atchity and Chi-Li Wong, who assure us that “success comes
through individual effort combined with access and luck . . . . ” Well,
hey. That’s got Wendy and Harley written all over it.

So flash forward a year. Yes, it took Wendy and me a year to write
the treatment—or bible, as Kenneth and Chi-Li tell us it’s called in
television. Put that way, it doesn’t sound so bad. How long do you
suppose King James spent on his bible? Anyhow, that brings us to this
week, the week that we began to Take Meetings.

Her first meeting ended up being with two producers she’d slept with. More than once. But not together. I hate it when that happens.

And over at my brother Tod’s blog, he patiently explains to one of Walter Scott’s readers why Tom Cruise dates Catholic girls.

Catholicism is the second most popular religion in America, with over
63 million guilty fuckers claiming to believe in that particular story
of God. 63 million people, E.B. Do you know what that means? That means
unless you live in Utah, you probably have just as close a connection
to that religion as Tom Cruise does, though you’re not terribly likely
to end up with your face buried in the cross that dangles in Penelope
Cruz’s cleavage, nor will you find yourself running your fingers
through Nicole Kidman’s hair in search of tangled rosaries nor can you
expect to find yourself sailing along Katie Holmes’ Dawson Creek. Why?
Because the connection Tom Cruise has to those women is that THEY ARE
BIG TIME FAMOUS ACTRESSES THAT, IN ADDITION, HAPPEN TO BE INCREDIBLY
HOT WHICH, BY NO COINCIDENCE, MR. CRUISE HAPPENS TO BE AS WELL.

Monday Chuckles

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Sarah and Candy, The Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels, are at it again with another hilarious look at romance book covers. Here’s my favorite from today’s round-up, with Sarah’s comments.

Topazdreams

Sarah: “Your face. I want your face.”


“Oh, Brett ba-Havar-nir-Tamir, I want you, too.”


“No, your face. I want your face. Give it to me.”


“My face? But it doesn’t come off!”


“Sure it does. Hold still.”

“Excuse me, Do You Mind if I Puke in Your Book Bag?”

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Author Charlie Huston says there’s no polite way to decline a drink if you want to remain welcome among professional writers at Bouchercon.

Worse fates there
are than to be asked repeatedly, “What are you drinking?” Indeed, for
that first day it was something of a fantasy come to life. Not only
were drinks being purchased for me, but they were being purchased by
people who had read my books, people who had read them and took
occasion from time to time to mumble a word of praise. As I drank deep,
my ego drank deeper.

The only fault with the scenario being on the second day when I
realized I was supposed to repeat my performance as
sloshed-youngish-writer-with-an-attitude, found that I was in far over
my head, and tried to cry uncle.

You’d think I had squatted in the middle of the carpet and shat upon it.

There is, I promise you, no gracious way to bow out of a round that
has been offered by a far more experienced writer than yourself who has
just told you he likes your work. If you ever have the good fortune to
stumble into this situation, humbly nod your head and repeat after me,
“Hell, yeah, I’ll have another fuckin’ Bud, just let me take a quick
puke in this potted palm here, HHrrrruuuuPPP, whew that’s better, now
where was I? Cheers!”

No offense to Charlie, but while that  might be true with a certain clique,  it’s certainly not true of mystery writers, or Bouchercon, as a whole. I’ve been going to Boucheron for years. I don’t drink. But that hasn’t stopped me from being welcomed  in the bar or restaurant to hang out with "big name" authors more experienced and vastly more successful than I am (I don’t say that to brag, but to make a point).  If I am offered a drink, I take a Diet Coke. No one has ever made me feel like a pariah.

I would hate for Bouchercon to be painted as a convention of puking-on-themselves drunks…though drinking certainly seems to be the big issue coming out of the Chicago fest.

As soon as author J.A. Konrath got back from Bouchercon, he began wondering if he drank too much and behaved like a jerk.

But I also heard many negative things about me, some of them from good friends.
Those include drinking too much and acting inappropriately, showing off, being
loud and obnoxious, trying too hard to be funny, and crossing the lines of good
taste.

His post brought him a lot of comments, prompting him to later write:

Why is it when I act like a loudmouth on a panel and drink too much that’s
grounds for excommunication from the mystery world, but when I work my butt off
and do some good, no one cares? Rhetorical question.

I think that is all
that needs to be said.

Not me. I think too many writers drink at these events as much for pleasure as for a ridiculous desire to live up to an  image. Some writers think that drinking to the edge of alcohol poisoning is what hard-ass mystery writers are supposed to do…and if you don’t, or can’t, you’re a fake.

That’s bullshit. It’s trying to live up to a cliche.

Writing is an art, but it’s also a profession. When you’re at Bouchercon, you’re there as an artist and a professional, mingling with authors, fans, publishers, editors and agents.  Is it any wonder you’re judged by how you behave?  Writing is a solitary profession. Most of the time, people can only judge you by your books. On those rare occasions when they can see you in person, you will be making a far bigger impact than you would if they saw you on a regular basis.  If you’re an obnoxious drunk, that’s what people will remember about you.

I’m not saying Joe Konrath was obnoxious or a drunk — I wasn’t there. But I can understand why people are judging him on how he behaved (besides, in his post he invited them to).

I’m sure there was a lot more going on at Bouchercon than writers drinking and puking into their book bags. Besides, is that really the professional image we want to project to the public about mystery writers?

Gloriously Bad Writing

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140004471501_sclzzzzzzz_V-life, the glossy magazine produced by Variety, recently published an excerpt of FAN-TAN, the posthumous pirate novel written two decades ago by Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell.  It’s about an obese, gluttonous pirate named Anatole "Annie" Doultry, a thinly-veiled version of Brando himself . Here’s an example of the gloriously bad writing:

Whether stuffed to the brim or an aching pit of nothingness, this man’s stomach was the mother of most of his behavior and his genitalia the father of the rest in Yummee’s opinion. Remember that his was a behavior that almost everyone exposed to it considered entirely predictable and you may appreciate how shrewd she was.

Here’s another example:

She looked like she would hit him again, but she was satisfied with Annie’s flinch and redirected her violence into words. They came squirting out of that angelic mouth, their brakes shot to shit and screeching in protest, flecks of pearly saliva speckling his face like sulphurous dew.

The words squirted out of her angel’s mouth like a car with bad brakes and landed like dew on his face?  Yeah, I can see that.

He took the opportunity now to ooze past her  — his belly caressing her bounteous breasts — into the room, the familiar room.

Why is it in bad novels, breasts are always bounteous or pendulous or hefty? 

A large, languorous finger landed like a butterfly on the peachy thigh in the cleft of her cheongsam.

"Keep yo dirty hands off me," she whispered.

"My little Princess." The fingers, scrupulously scrubbed for the occasion, each nail honed and polished, did their dirty work.

"My little Yummee. I missed you. I missed you a lot. I missed the way you smell. Y’know, I never met a girl that smelled as nice as you. When I was down there in Java, I looked all over for that perfume. I couldn’t find it. I realized it wasn’t perfume. It was just you. Yummee, tell me something nice. I just sailed two thousand miles to hear it and I’m a tired man."

(Pause here: the heavy butterflies grown heavier but still softer, the
plump little woman standing motionless with his hand invisible, buried
to the elbow’s crotch in the cheongsam’s cleft, expressly invented in
H0ng Kong for these purposes)

Pause here: If the heavy butterflies of Brando’s languorous fingers weren’t all over this manuscript, it would never have been published except, perhaps, by PublishAmerica, expressly invented in hell for these purposes.

Hallmark Mysteries Are a Crime

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TV Columnist Diane Werts tuned into Hallmark’s Mystery Movie wheel and wasn’t wowed by McBRIDE, JANE DOE and MYSTERY WOMAN:

Suspending disbelief and sometimes logic is required to get through either this
or a "McBride" case without throwing things at the
TV set.

Hallmark’s mysteries try hard, but feel perfunctory. Instead of tight plotting,
we get sluggish implausibilities. You can sense the writers shrugging their
shoulders and saying "close enough." There’s just a basic-cable minor-league
feel.

Even the key characterizations fall flat, which is itself a crime
when it comes to John Larroquette. This Emmy collector has proven from "Night
Court" to "The Practice" that he’s got high-test fuel in the tank. "McBride"
gives him a dog and sports trivia expertise, and that’s pretty much the
personality picture. Is it the genre that’s tired or just these cut-rate
interpretations? I’d hope the latter. But it’s still a mystery to me.

I felt the same frustration when I tuned into the shows. They are so flat, they make MATLOCK seem cutting-edge. There’s no reason the mysteries can’t be better. A lot better. It’s not the genre that’s tired, it’s the writers.