My Blog

Warner Brothers Cries UNCLE

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Variety Reports that Warner Brothers is exhuming yet another classic TV series for the big screen… they are mounting a feature film version of THE MAN FROM UNCLE.Manfromuncle

The interesting twist here is that the movie is going to be directed by Matthew Vaughn who, for most of his life, believed he was the biol0gical son of UNCLE star Robert Vaughn.  It turns out that he wasn’t (but is actually the biological son of some minor British aristocrat).

Matthew Vaughn is the long-time producing partner of Guy Ritchie and made his directorial debut with LAYER CAKE, a crime thriller that will be released this spring.

At one time, Quentin Tarantino was rumored to be interested in an UNCLE feature…

Writing Sex Scenes

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Author Laurell Hamilton talks on her blog about the difficulties of writing sex scenes when you just aren’t in the mood.

I’m supposed to do a sex scene today. Usually it’s not a problem, but today was one of those rare days when I’m just not in the mood…

Most of the time the biggest problem with writing a sex scene for me is the fact that with real sex you have the actually sensations, the immediacy of your own bodies reactions. In a book you have only words, black and white, only words to try and convey so many amazing experiences. Words seem so inadequate for it sometimes. But on one of the rare days when I get up and sex just isn’t the first thing on my mind, then a sex scene becomes a different kind of challenge. How do you get in the mood when you aren’t? How do you capture that mind set when what you’re doing in real life is refinacing your house, or walking the dog. How do you stay in the mood when the mundane world is so busy you aren’t even thinking about your own sex life let alone a fictional character’s love life?

When she lived alone with just one small dog she had an unconventional solution to breaking that particular form of writer’s block.

I put on lingere, lit candles around the computer, and tried to treat it almost like a romantic evening with a real person. It actuallly did help. There’s something about slipping on the thigh highs and black satin and lace, with some unhealthy but kick-ass shoes, that just does it for me.

Oddly enough, that’s exactly how I dress when I write DIAGNOSIS MURDER.

I haven’t had to write a sex scene in some time, but when I do, I don’t try to be slick about it, or make an effort to get my readers excited. I try to make it real in the context of everyday life, not RED SHOES DIARY.

In the first draft of my first book, .357 VIGILANTE, my hero was impotent, unable to get it up because of all the violence in his life. When I turned the manuscript in to my editor, he was shocked.

"The hero can’t be impotent," he cried. "This is a men’s action adventure novel. Not only does he have sex, he has GREAT sex!"

So I rewrote the sex scenes. I made them utterly ridiculous. They defied logic. They defied gravity. All the hero had to do was glance at a woman and she’d collapse into multiple orgasms.  A few days after I turned the manuscript in, I got a call from my editor.

"I read the sex scenes," he said.

I figured what he was going to say next was that the book was rejected and my contract for two more was canceled. I was wrong.

"Not only were they hot," he said, " they were real."

I was relieved…and deeply depressed. If those scenes were real, than my love life was pathetic. Or, at least, more pathetic than I already thought it was.

The last time I wrote a sex scene for a book was for my novel THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which is coming out next fall. The sex is urgent, sloppy, awkward, and funny. Not the least bit erotic but, I hope, real.  Here’s a snippet from it:

I’m afraid the surprise and excitement were too much, because I came in about three minutes. But I don’t think Carol minded, it calmed me down and allowed me to concentrate real hard on getting her off. And believe me, it took my complete attention. Pleasing a woman, especially Carol, isn’t easy and with me, at least, there’s a lot of potential for embarrassment and humiliation…

If you’re a writer, what is your approach to writing sex scenes… and if you’re a reader, how do you feel about reading them?

Reading the Proofs

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I always look forward to reading & correcting the page proofs/galleys — the final, typeset version of  my books.  I haven’t out-grown the thrill yet. To me, that’s when a book truly feels real. And reading it isn’t a chore, except for the time it takes away from my other work.  But author Sandra Scoppettone doesn’t feel the same way about her galleys.

Having to read it again is hideous.  I don’t feel like reading it.
It’s interrupted my writing schedule.  In fact, it feels like torture
having to read it.  But this will be the last time.  Once a book is
published I never read it again.

It’s usually been such a long time since I finished writing the book that it feels as if what I am reading was written by someone else.  I enjoy it. That said, I don’t go back and read my books again, not that it’s any kind of hard-and-fast rule with me. It has just worked out that way. There are a lot more things out there that I’m interested in reading than my own work.

How do you other authors out there feel about reading your galleys?

More of the Same

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Publisher’s Weekly has given Adrian McKinty’s new novel HIDDEN RIVER a starred, rave review, describing it as:

… an
outstanding and complex crime novel that should appeal to fans of hard-boiled
Celtic scribes such as Ken Bruen and Ian Rankin.

No wonder, since the hero, Alexander Lawson, shares so many similiarities to Bruen’s Jack Taylor and Rankin’s John Rebus.  Two guesses what Lawson’s story is. He’s  "a
down-and-out ex-cop with a heroin habit,"  booted from the Belfast homicide squad for stealing heroin from an evidence locker.  I bet the police Captain is still out-to-get-him,  and that his personal relationships are a mess… and yet women still are inexplicably drawn to him. Of course, there’s more to this novel than just that…

This is not only an expertly crafted suspense novel but also a revealing
study of addiction.

Of course it is. I haven’t read the book, but I feel like I have already. Many, many times…

Who Was the Best TV Doctor?

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I received this email today:

I read your blog frequently and am always interested in the TV/movie production insights you provide.  I was also interested in your comments on TV private eyes.  Now since you write a show that includes a doctor, perhaps you’d give us your thoughts on your fave TV doctor.

They run the gamut from Dr. Kildare to Marcus Welby to Dr. Carter on ER with side shoots going off to Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John, MD and the entire cast of "Scrubs".

Peter Tietjen

I like Dr. McCoy (Star Trek), Dr. Adams (Gunsmoke), Rafferty (Patrick McGoohan from the short-lived series "Rafferty"), and Dr. Greene on ER.  I also like Hugh Laurie as Dr. House in the new Fox series.

What about the rest of you?

Outrage at Blanco

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I picked up Bill Crider’s western OUTRAGE AT BLANCO to read in Hawaii later this month. The first line is certainly a grabber:

Jink Howard sat in the shade of a tree and ate tomatoes out of a can while Ben Atticks raped the woman in the wagon bed.

I’m also bringing with me another western, Elmer Kelton’s THE DAY THE COWBOYS QUIT and Dan J. Marlowe’s VENGEANCE MAN. I’m thinking of bringing the paperback edition of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. MORRELL that I bought in Toronto…but it must weight five pounds.

Larry McMurtry’s Loop Group

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I’m a HUGE Larry McMurtry fan.  I have been for most of my life.  His early "contemporary" novels (LAST PICTURE SHOW, MOVING ON, ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO BE STRANGERS, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT etc.) and his  classic westerns (LONESOME DOVE,  STREETS OF LAREDO) are fantastic. He also wrote the screenplay for the terrific miniseries version of Frederick Manfred’s western RIDERS OF JUDGEMENT last season for TNT. 

McMurtry has a natural, amiable writing style that is as comforting, and difficult to leave, as a warm bed.  I was sad when MOVIN’ ON and LONESOME DOVE, books that clock in around 600 pages, had to end (I’ve re-read LONESOME DOVE twice). All his characters, even the ugliest, meanest ones, have a natural sense of humor.  But that doesn’t mean he’s soft… his novels are full of physical and emotional violence, cruelty and death…but with equal measures of humanity and hope. I love the guy and I drop everything to read his books the moment they come out.   

That said, his "contemporary" novels over the last ten years or so have been increasingly disappointing and repetitive, while his westerns continue to soar. His four BERRYBENDER westerns, the last of which came out a few months ago, were a pure joy…more comedic and sillier than his other work, but surprisingly violent as well.

His non-westerns lately (DUANE’S DEPRESSED, THE LATE CHILD, EVENING STAR, etc.) have all seemed to focus on depressed, dreary, aimless characters trying to jar themselves out of a deep funk… usually by abandoning their loved ones, behaving irrationally and self-destructively,  and taking some kind of road trip. His latest book, LOOP GROUP, is yet another take on the same theme and his weakest book in decades.

For the first time, his characters feel like caricatures of previous characters in his earlier, better novels… and his writing has lost it’s snap.  His prose  is sloppy and unfocused,  littered with cliches as well as cliche images (haven’t we seen the reference to `Japanese tourists running around with their cameras, taking pictures of everything’ enough now?). He also appears to make many factual errors.  For example, he talks about people driving east on Cahuenga in LA, and couple of haracters walking into a California Wal-Mart, buying a gun, and walking out with it, and a box of shells the same day (Isn’t there a waiting period?)

But I doubt the factual bumps and cliches would have bothered me so much if the characters, the plot, and the writing were up to McMurtry’s usual level of excellence.  THE LOOP GROUP is a McMurtry book even devoted McMurtry fans should skip.

(The last time I felt this disappointed by a favorite author was a year or two back when John Irving came out with THE FOURTH HAND, an uninspired novel that read as if it had been dashed off half-heartedly using reheated Irving leftovers from other, better books). 

Ken Bruen

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One more note on the Ken Bruen discussion.. I’ve ordered THE WHITE TRILOGY as well as HER LAST CALL TO LOUIS MACNEICE. I’ve been told by many of my author friends, several of whom (much to my surprise) shared my opinion of THE GUARDS,  that I will be blown away by the books. I look forward to reading them!

Dan Neil

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I’m not a big car guy… by that I mean, I love cars, but I don’t know the first thing about engines or horsepower or even how to change my oil. I’m barely capable of checking how much air is in my tires.Montegoext

But I love reading Dan Neil’s car reviews & features in The Los Angeles Times. He recently won a Pulitizer Prize for his funny, clever, incredibly entertaining writing.  His  review today  of the new Mercury Montego started my day off with some laughs. Here are some excerpts.

A car whose lack of charisma is so dense no light can escape its surface…

The faux wood-grain interior trim looks like it came off a prison lunch tray.
I’ve felt better leather upholstery on footballs…

Overall, the car has a profoundly
geriatric feeling about it, like it was built with a swollen prostate. To drive
this car is to feel the icy hand of death upon you…Montegointerior

There is no soul to this car, and it’s about as sexy as going through your
mother’s underwear drawer…

This torpor has a soundtrack. When you mash the gas the powertrain moans as if
you were raising dear departed Uncle Sal at a séance…

Who Was The Best TV PI?

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Someone asked me this question in an email today and I thought I’d share my answers with you.

For me, it’s a toss-up between Jim Rockford (THE ROCKFORD FILES) and Harry Orwell (HARRY O).  The runner-ups would be Joe Mannix (MANNIX),  Thomas Magnum (MAGNUM PI) and Spenser, though he’s not truly a TV character, since the series was based on the Parker novels.

HarryoI also have fond memories of Darren McGavin as PI David Ross  in the short-lived series THE OUTSIDER, sort of a no-nonsense precursor of THE ROCKFORD FILES. McGavin also starred in one of the worst PI shows ever, as a detective who’s partner can shrink to microscopic size (SMALL AND FRYE).  While we’re at it, Tony Franciosa starred in two of the worst PI shows ever made — MATT HELM (yeah, he was a PI!) and FINDER OF LOST LOVES.   

What are your picks for best and worst TV PIs ever?