My Blog

The Day in Fanfic

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Helen Kaye has just discovered slash fanfic and she doesn’t get the appeal.

[The] "writing" tends to be based on existing television show characters where the
male actors are not gay on the show but where the slash writing puts them in
homoerotic relationships.  Yes, this appears to be a violation of, well,
everything.  Using other people’s characters?  That certainly doesn’t seem right
to me.  Putting these well known characters in situations that, at best, can be
described as out of context?  Well, that’s just wrong in my book. 

Meanwhile,  John Scalzi sees fanfic, even "slash" fanfic, as a barometer of success.

Honestly, though, if I were the creator of a science fiction or fantasy media
property (as opposed to a mere book author) and I didn’t find evidence of fanfic
online, I would be very worried. People don’t write fanfic if they
aren’t already so enthralled by your universe that they can’t handle the fact
you’re not producing it any faster, and are thus compelled to make some of their
own — the methadone, if you will, to your pure, sweet media property heroin… And if they’re writing slash (fanfic with sex!), chances are excellent that
you’re sucking in all of their take home pay that doesn’t go to rent, food and
cat products. It is the Buffy slash writers who paid for Joss Whedon’s boat (or
whatever other particularly silly display of wealth that he’s purchased for
himself).

You know how I feel on this topic, so I’ll refrain from comment. ..but yours are certainly welcome!

(Thanks to Wendy Duren and Jim Winter  for pointing me to these posts)

 

The Ghostly Junk Yard

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My Mom was cleaning out her garage and found a handwritten story I wrote when I was ten, called THE GHOSTLY JUNKYARD. Here it is:

One day John and Juan went to the old house with a chicken coop and old cars. The old house was supposed to be haunted. So while Juan, who was 10, and John, who was 10, were looking around, John exclaimed: "LOOK, a ghost by the house!"

Juan looked back but there was nothing. Again John yelled the same thing but again Juan saw nothing. John said it was white in the shape of a person. Hair was white and shoes and everything.

The next day as they walked by the house they both saw a ghost run behind a tree. John and Juan had a reputation as Mystery Solvers. Last year they apprehended some bank robbers in Shanty Town. So to not attract attention they kept walking.

The next day they went in to the house and found a skeleton on the floor in front of the door! It had a hole in its head. It went right through his head. They quickly took a shovel from the junk and buried him. Later they went in the old house again and went to the haunted tower. When John saw a man laying bleeding from a hole through his head, he quickly ran to get Juan. When they came back it was gone! Later they searched the room and found a trapdoor and voices came out.

It was the bank robbers they arrested last year! Quickly they turned on Juan’s tape recorder and hid it while they got the police. An hour later they came back with the police and a police man said that John and Juan should go down the trapdoor so the police could arrest the robbers.

As they went down, a guy said "It’s those two finks who shot them." But the police came down and arrested them and the tape was solid evidence. So the robbers were sent to jail and Juan and John got rewarded.

What’s interesting to me is how much that reads like the stuff my nine-year-old daughter Madison is writing. Here is one of her latest stories, IN THE DARK MOVIE THEATRE.

  On one rainy day a girl named Jenny and
her dad Andrew were going to the movie theaters. They were going to see
“Because of Winn Dixie.” In the middle of the movie, Jenny’s dad heard a terrifying
sound and he was pretty sure it was not from the movie.

Andrew looked for Jenny…but she wasn’t there.

Suddenly Andrew saw a strange tall man
behind him holding Jenny by the throat!

Andrew got his cell phone out and dialed
911!

  Andrew said to the police, “ Help me my daughter is getting murderd by a
strange tall man. Come to the movie theaters immediately!”

Jenny’s dad knew Tae Kwon Do but he forgot
how to use the moves.

The strange tall man ran away with Jenny.

The strange tall man went in his car, and
took Jenny with him.

The police couldn’t find him.

The strange tall man went inside his house
with Jenny. He gave her a cup of something and said, “Drink this it will make
you feel better.”

Jenny drank it and was hypnotized. The man
ordered Jenny to kill her father!!

The strange tall man said, “Go find your
father and kill him! Do it now!”

Jenny said, “I will find my father and
will kill him with this large pointy knife!”

The strange man said, “Your father is at
your house calling everybody in the neighborhood.”

Jenny said, “How do you know??”

The man said, “ I have a special computer
that tells me where everybody is.”

“OH!” Jenny said.

Jenny went in the man’s car and went to
Jenny’s house. But one bad thing: she lived in a gated community!

Jenny had a great idea. Jenny said to the
guard, “You can let us in because I live here.”

The guard said, “Go in.”

Jenny and the strange man went to the
house, and got out of the car. The strange man hid behind a bush. Jenny hugged
Andrew and put the knife in her father’s back!

The strange man said, “Jenny we have to go
before your mother comes!”

Jenny saw her mother and said, “Hi Mom!”
Jenny’s Mom said, “What happened to
your father??”

Jenny said, “I have no clue what
happened!”

“What are you holding behind your back?” Jenny’s Mom took the knife out of Jenny’s hand.  “Did you kill your father?”

Jenny started running to the car in got in.
Jenny’s Mom called the guard and said, “Don’t open the gate my daughter just
killed my husband!”

The guard said, “Okay.”

When Jenny’s Father was dead, Jenny’s
Mother invited many neighbors and many relatives to attend the funeral. Many
people were very sad, especially Jenny’s Mother.

The police found Jenny and the strange man. The man went to prison and
Jenny was normal again.

Jenny’s Mother got married and had a baby and everyone was happy. Very
happy! 

The Reality Impaired

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The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a new generation of hearing-impaired children are getting cochlear implants, which offers them the opportunity to hear and speak almost as naturally as people
without hearing problems. As a result, many schools for the deaf are adding seperate programs for children with the implants to teach them how to hear and speak English rather than teaching them  sign-language.

Supporters of the venerable culture built up by deaf people believe deaf chilren should get a strong grounding in American Sign Language so they can participate fully in the culture when they grow up…
…they don’t see themselves as handicapped and view implants as an attempt to fix something that isn’t broken. They especially oppose hearing parents deciding to get implants for their deaf children, believing
kids should make the decision themselves when they get older. Research shows, however, that implants work best when given to very young children, who develop language more quickly than adults.

According to the article, some in the deaf community don’t see themselves as disabled…but as an ethnic group with a unique culture and language that should be celebrated and preserved.  Cochler implants are a threat to their way of life.  The Lompoc Record reports:

Some deaf individuals
feel that technology such as cochlear implants reinforces the belief that
deafness is merely a pathology to be cured, rather than a rich culture to be
celebrated and embraced.

This just goes against common sense. Deafness is not a way of life. It’s a significant disability. Sign language is something that was created to work around the problem.
The outrage against cochler implants, and against schools  for the deaf creating separate classes geared to children who have them, strikes me as absolute insanity. I can’t believe they want to deny children the
opportunity to hear, to more easily function in the world, simply to preserve sign language…and the illusion that being deaf is like being African-America or Italian.
The deaf community should be pleased that there are finally medical advances that will allow deaf children to more easily function in the world…and that someday the technology could improve even more, someday making sign language (and the need for it) obsolete.

But some members of the deaf community aren’t the only ones with disabilities who are letting their justifiable need to promote a positive self-image cloud their common sense.
Pride is a positive thing…unless you let it blind you to reality. Some wheel-chair bound people (for lack of a better term) are outraged that "Ms Wheelchair America" was photographed standing up.
The Philadelphia Daily News reports:

Ms. Wheelchair Wisconsin has been stripped of her title because pageant
officials say she can stand – and point to a newspaper picture as proof. Janeal Lee, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a scooter, was snapped by the
Post-Crescent newspaper standing among her high school math students.

"I’ve been made to feel as if I can’t represent the disabled citizens of
Wisconsin because I’m not disabled enough," Lee said.

ABC News further reported:

The announcement of the new winner Tuesday came amid a storm of protest over
pageant officials’ decision last week to take the crown away from Janeal Lee, a
high school teacher and muscular dystrophy sufferer who uses a scooter as her
main way to get around but says she can walk up to 50 feet on a good day and
stand while teaching.

During the furor, the runner-up refused to accept the crown out of protest.
Lee’s sister, who also has muscular dystrophy and was named Ms. Wheelchair
Minnesota, dropped out of the competition in that state. And the coordinator for
the organization’s Minnesota program stepped down from her job to "stand up for
Janeal Lee."

"I no longer feel comfortable supporting an organization that instead of
working towards creating a positive change, chooses to perpetuate stereotypes
and requests its participants to hide their abilities while in public," said the
sister, 26-year-old Sharon Spring of Rochester, Minn.

The organization said candidates for the crown have to "mostly be seen in the
public using their wheelchairs or scooters."

So every time she’s in public she must be in a wheelchair or scooter? She’s supposed to hide the fact she can occasionally stand? My God, what stupidity.

There’s no doubt this woman has muscular dystrophy… or that she needs to use a wheelchair.  She hasn’t perpetuated a fraud. She stood up. Instead of castigating her, they should be applauding.  They should be thrilled that she’s able to stand…but they undoubtably see it as an attack on their way of life, their ethnicity, if a wheelchair-bound woman takes a few steps. Would they also rail against a surgery that would allow more muscular dystrophy sufferers to stand and take steps as a threat to their way of life? 

To chastise a wheel-chair bound woman for using her full range-of-motion, or parents for giving their deaf children the ability to hear, is simply wrong.

Ghost-Writing…or whoring?

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I heard a minute of an interview with Jennie Erdal, the author of GHOSTING: A DOUBLE LIFE, on NPR today. Interviewer Scott Simon called ghost-writing "as old as literature and sometimes just about as reputable as the world’s oldest profession." Is ghost-writing really comparable to being a prostitute?

A Terrific Book

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While Victor Gischler and my brother Tod squabble over who
came up with The World’s Worst Interview feature, and who, indeed, does it the worst, I’m going to buck the trend by offering a serious Q&A.

Chris AbbottTf_pitch is a veteran TV writer/producer ("Magnum PI," "BL Stryker," etc.) and followed Bill & I as executive producer of DIAGNOSIS MURDER. She’s written a wonderful and entertaining new book called TEN MINUTES TO THE PITCH that’s full of great advice and memorable
anecdotes.  If that wasn’t reason enough to buy it, all the proceeds benefit the Writers Guild Foundation for its literacy library programs.

I’ll be posting a Q&A with her here in a few days. In the mean time, she will be signing her book at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove on April 13th at 7:30pm.  Joining her will be fellow writers Charlie Hauck (Frasier) and Eric Tuchman (Early Edition). During the signing, several lucky attendees will have the opportunity to pitch and re-pitch their  own ideas to the trio of writers/producers.

A Writer’s Process

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Prolific author Lynn Viehl talks, in a series of interesting entries on her blog, about her novel writing process.

While I’m writing the book I do not back-track to read and mess
with what I’ve written, edit or rewrite the new material as it lands on
the page, change my mind about the story, hate myself, hate the work,
avoid the work, wait for the planets to align correctly before I write,
let my inner rabid bitch off her leash, wonder how what I write will
affect the reader, worry about the state of my soul, chakrahs or ego,
or otherwise railroad myself.

My apologies in advance to the
writers who do any/all of the above. My methods are a professional
necessity, because honestly I could not handle what you do in order to
write a novel.

She also mentions that she gets an advance of about $21,000 a book which, because she mentions it so often on her blog, comes across more like boasting than informative candor.

In  another post, she discusses how she pitches her book projects to editors. Once she has a deal, it’s time to…

… move into the construction phase of the novel
process. I’ve already done the imagining, researching, and outlining for the novel, and I probably have at least a hundred pages of it written as part of the pitch, so everything is ready to go.

A hundred pages? No wonder she can just write without angst… she’s already gone through all her angst, and made all the tough decisions, in her massive (way too massive, in my opinion) sales and outlining process.

I "sell" my DIAGNOSIS MURDER novels (and now my MONK books) on the basis of a punchy page that reads more like book-jacket copy… and then I write a beat sheet for myself that oulines the rest of the plot. By beat sheet, I mean a crude version of the outlines we write in the episodic television business (you can see samples on my website or in my book SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING).  All together, it might amount to ten pages, mostly in bullet-point form. A hundred pages? Good God.

Unlike Lynn, I also rewrite my books as I go, usually starting my work each day by editing whatever I’ve written the night before. Then again, I also go through almost all of the whining and self-doubt that Lynn manages to avoid…but in the end, I think it helps my work. It forces me to concentrate on plot and character… and to go back and rewrite/refine/hone my writing.

But everyone has their own method. Mystery novelist  Sandra Scoppettone, for instance, doesn’t outline at all, discovering her plot,  her characters, and her murderer, as she goes. Now that is unimagineable to me…

The Name is Carsone, Johnny Carsone

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Update: 4/18/2005

I received a very polite and good-natured email from John Carsone asking me to please remove the correspondence from him that I posted here, since he sent it to me privately.  Just so there’s no confusion in the future, you should all know that any emails I get are fair game for my blog!

Nervy Sex

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Nerve Magazine is asking readers to vote on the best literary sex scene of the month, culled from novelists like Sam Lipsyte, Meg Wolitzer, AL Kennedy, and Darcy Steinke, among others. Here’s a sampling from AL Kennedy’s PARADISE:

I hold his head as he bows it and then
kisses, suckles the way a son would, then teases, bites, because he is
a man and, either way, draws out my heart from me like a thorn. I’m
hauled out beyond myself, beneath myself, outside myself, inside his
mouth.

   I love his tongue. No other word will do it. I love his tongue.

   And the sweet scalp underneath his hair and the drive of his breath,
the fierce push of his cheek and the howl, our howl, the one we make
out of our skin.

   Which is very well, but it isn’t filth.

   What I was after was filth.

The Proper, and Only, Acceptable Use of the term “Pre-Published”

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Cornelia Reed, who is subbing on Sarah Weinman’s blog, has a new novel coming out soon from Mysterious Press and talks about it in a post:

So mostly I’m in that pre-published bliss state, where everything about
the book itself is still all potential I haven’t screwed up, and I
think of my editor Kristen Weber as this shining distant goddess, like
how Winston Churchill thought of his mother when he was little.

This is the first time in ages that I’ve seen the term "pre-published" used in a way that doesn’t make me cringe all over.  In my mind, this is an example of the proper, and only, acceptable use of  "pre-published" — i.e. your book has been bought by a publisher and is about to be imminently published. It is not a term that describes an aspiring novelist who dreams of selling his or her book some day.

Sex Ed

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Tonight,  my daughter’s elementary school screened for parents the sex education films that they are planning to show fourth graders later this month.  The films were so dated,  so circumspect, and so careful not to say (or illustrate) anything that might possibly offend anybody, that my child is probably better off not seeing them at all. 

She’ll see them…but the information they convey (and I’m being generous here) is so muddled and watered-down by the terrified educators who made them twenty years ago that all the movies will succeed in doing is confusing my daughter instead of informing her.

Did you know that babies "come out of the same special opening that the father used to deliver his semen to the mother?" Where is this special opening? Is it in her arm pit? Perhaps it’s between one of her toes. The movie doesn’t dare say. But they do tell you how important it is to successful reproduction that you have a healthy diet, get plenty of sleep, take frequent showers, and behave responsibly. You also shouldn’t smoke or take drugs.  I’m surprised they forgot to mention the importance of pledging allegiance to the flag.

There were three other movies and, to be fair, the second one mentions the vagina and the penis, but never says the man inserts his penis into the woman’s vagina. Exactly how the sperm gets from the man’s penis to the woman’s uterus is a mystery the films dare not not explore for fear some neanderthal parent might scream "pornography!"

We had one such parent in the audience today. She didn’t scream pornography, but she couldn’t understand why her fourth grader had to "be subjected to all of  this."  To what? I’ve seen anti-persperant commercials that were more explicit about human mating than these so-called educational flms. (That said, it was made clear to the parent, many times, that her child didn’t have to see the movies or take part in the sex education classes).

To be honest, I think these dated,  boring, vague, uninformative films do more harm than good. We want to engage our children, not numb them. If we are going educate our kids, let’s actually educate them instead of intentionally confusing them… let’s give them the facts they need to understand sex and ask their parents the questions that will help them make important decisions in later years.

I know it’s possible for an educational film to do those things… because we saw one tonight. It was a short, animated film about the immune system (we saw it, I suppose, because it touches on AIDS).  Not only was it clear and concise, it  treated the subject with cleverness and humor. It  didn’t pull punches and treated its audience…the kids… with intelligence and respect.  It did all those things because whoever made it wasn’t worried about offending anyone.  How the immune system works isn’t something that gets parents riled up. The subject of AID was dealt with simply and clearly — it’s what happens to the body when the immune system fails. It didn’t discuss unsafe sex or sharing needles or any of that…

Why can’t they make a sex education film that tells children that a baby is concieved through sexual intercourse… when a man puts his penis into a woman and delivers his semen, which is full of sperm and fertilizes the egg?

I know what you’re thinking… "the same reason you had such trouble telling your daughter about sex the first time, dunderhead." Ah yes, but a film can illustrate it so much better than I can explain it… and if my daughter saw a film like that,  it would remove much of her confusion and make it much easier for the two of us to discuss what intercourse means biologically, emotionally, and morally.

In his case, I think  the schools aren’t doing us any favors with their antiquated, and vague, "educational" films.