My Blog

The Statue of Liberty is Cracking Up

by

I’ve complained a bit about the cover of my book BEYOND THE BEYOND… a whine that earned me a place in Sarah Weinman’s Mystery Scene story on writers who blog…

But while visiting my Mom this weekend down in Palm Springs, I was reminded of a book cover I really liked… the cover of her first book, “The Statue of Liberty is Cracking Up.” Statueoflibery
It was the publication of her non-fiction book that made me realize that my own dreams of becoming a writer could come true, too. She proved to me it was possible to sell a book… if you believed in yourself and were willing to work hard at achieving your goals.

Nets Turn to Books

by

The networks are looking to their bookshelves this development season…

Variety reports that JUDGING AMY producer Hart Hanson is writing a pilot for Fox based on Kathy Reich’s series of Temperance Brennan novels about a female forensic anthropologist in Montreal (Reichs is also a forensic anthropologist).

But it sounds like they are making a few changes for TV…

Lead character, named Marjorie Miles, will have a team of experts to help her solve the mysteries of the bones, including a reconstructive artist and bug experts who can uncover clues about a case by analyzing the creatures surrounding a corpse.

As with Reichs, Miles also will be a writer, though that won’t be a key part of each episode. “It’ll be more of a pain-in-the-ass obstacle that she’s written this book,” which includes characters like the people she works with, Hanson said.

CBS, meanwhile, is developing a pilot based on Elisabeth Cosin’s novel “Zen and the Art of Murder,” about a PI named Zen who toiled in LA. Cosin is wriiting the script… in addition to being a novelist, she’s also a TV vet with writing credits that include BUDDY FARO and LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.

How Do I Write a Treatment?

by

I received this email today:

I am trying to pitch a movie. My question: Is there a specific format for an outline or treatment? Is there someplace I could get a sample of either or both?

Unless you are an established screenwriter, or are teamed up with a well-connected movie producer, there is no point in writing up an outline or a treatment. No one will ever read it or meet with you. You are better off writing the script…or the book… and trying to sell that to the movies.

On the other hand, if you are an established screenwriter or aligned with a hot producer, you still don’t need an outline… a simple, punchy, two-page  "leave-behind" after your verbal pitch will do.

If they want an outline or a treatment, they can pay you for one.

That’s my advice, any way. Then again, most of my experience is in television, not feature film. You might visit screenwriter John August’s blog and pose the same question to him.

UPDATE: For details on how to write a series treatment, click here.

Remainder Convention

by

Bookseller Robert Gray reports on his blog from the convention floor at C.I.R.O.B.E…. the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition, which is being held this weekend. This is where booksellers go to buy bargain books (aka remaindered books, aka all the stuff that didn’t sell when it was released) by the pallet.

Unlike BookExpo in the spring, this show makes no pretense about what it is. CIROBE is about moving product. It’s not quite so garish as “garbage in, garbage out,” but it’s close.

In an industry where profit margins are, to be polite, slender, bargain books offer booksellers the opportunity to make a little extra money while still giving their customers excellent value. Everybody’s happy except the authors, who do not really profit from this exchange; who, in fact, can only view the prospect of their books being offered for sale at a fraction of their original retail price as a slap in the face.

It’s a fascinating and entertaining report, well worth checking out if you’re interested in the inner-workings of the book biz…and don’t subscribe to Publishers Weekly.

Parker’s Pooch Passion

by

By now, readers don’t give a second thought to Sunny Randall’s creepy relationship with her dog. She kisses the mutt 10 times a day, eats meals at the same table and worries herself into a depression that the doggie may love Sunny’s ex-husband’s new wife more deeply than she adores Sunny. But nobody among us readers wastes a second thought on such odd behavior. That’s just Sunny.

That’s also Spenser.

The quote is from Toronto Star reviewer Jack Batten’s take on MELANCHOLY BABY, Robert B. Parker’s fourth “Sunny Randall” PI novel. Sunny is a virtual carbon copy of Spenser, only far less appealing. And, as Batten notes,

Both of them spend almost as much time in making up to their pooches as in tracking down the killers.

All of this is told in crisp Parker style, with the usual compliment of wisecracks and psychological insights of the Dr. Phil sort, ending on the last page in a scene which finds Sunny in bed with the dog.

They not only obsess about their pets, they both have a loyal sociopathic sidekicks named like dogs (Sunny’s “Spike” to Spenser’s “Hawk”). All of which got me thinking…

Perhaps Parker should write his next book from the point of view of Sunny & Spenser’s crime solving dogs!

Think of the possibilities.

Pixar could buy the movie rights, turn it into one of their family-friendly CGI tales, add a few songs and, woof… before you know it, Parker is sitting on a new entertainment franchise worth BILLIONS.

You read it here first, friends.

Gischler Joins the Web

by

Author Victor Gischler informs me that he’s finally launched his own website…

“Because we need more feeble websites thrown together by people who don’t know how to use a computer…”

So I clicked over there immediately. I enjoyed learning the blood-soaked backstory behind the writing of his novel THE PISTOL POETS.

I wrote it while I was on ludes and cheap gin. That was when I was living in Mexico with a band of Marxist outlaws. They didn’t pay any taxes at all and had really neat hats. I miss my friend Pepe, but I still have the scar. Oh, yes. Pepe Liked to play with knives. But I fixed his little red wagon

You can also click to his blog and learn how to deal with book critics.

10-30-2004 Shot another lemur. It came thru a hole in the screen door.

This is Why Producers Like Shooting TV Shows in Canada

by

The Drake Hotel in Toronto will start offering sex toys on the room service menu, according to USA Today. Vibrators, massage oils, condoms, velvet restraints and how-to videos can be sent up the guests. The “pleasure kits” start at $35.

The 19 room Drake is a boutique hotel that attracts artists and actors. The aim is service that complements the hotel’s artsy image.

“We see ourselves as a bit of a trailblazer,” owner Jeff Stober says. The racy room service menu, which arrives next month, is “in keeping with the theme of sex that has always played a role in artistic works. We are embracing that artistic spirit.”

Actual embraces will cost extra.

They aren’t the only Toronto hotel that’s added sex-centives. The Grand Hotel, where our MISSING directors like to stay, provides two channels of free, 24-hour porn, for their guests (for the record, I stay at the Cambridge Suites, which offers no such goodies).

If Governor Arnold wants to keep movie production in California, he can forget about tax incentives and renegotiating with unions. Free vibrators for every member of the film crew! Sexual surrogates sent to the door of every screenwriter faced with a production rewrite!

World’s Best Michael Silverblatt Impersonation

by

A little known fact: my brother Tod does an incredible impersonation of Michael Silverblatt, host of NPR’s “Bookworm.” It’s better in person, but he recently replicated it on the blog Elegant Variations in a mock interview with himself on Bookworm:

Michael: Tod, in your transcendent novel “Living Dead Girl,” you stretch the boundaries of fiction in such a way that the world seems to lack…order…and love, like that poem by Rilke, becomes something like an infection of the soul, a commentary on the socio-economic role we all play in that God and money and danger and the all-encompassing nature of what I like to call “the bukakke” becomes almost a parable from the Bible; or a tone poem; or perhaps it’s like a song you hear on the day your dog dies and that song become synonymous with the death of your dog, until dog, becomes…God. Is that what you were trying to do?

Tod: Uh. Yes.

Chemo-sabe

by

I’m going to be in Palm Springs for the next couple of days… perhaps longer… giving my brother Tod a much-deserved break and taking care of my Mom during her next chemo treatment. I’ll also be working hard to finish “Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense” before I go in for surgery on my right arm… and so I can meet the book’s delivery deadline of Nov. 30th. So don’t be surprised if I don’t post as much, or as frequently, on my blog for a little while…

“Lost” Rumors

by

The rumor around the TV biz today is that there’s been a big shake-up behind-the-scenes on ABC’s LOST… and that “Nash Bridges” creator/showrunner Carlton Cuse has been brought in to run the writing staff under exec-producer JJ Abrams.

Keep in mind, it’s just a rumor at this point…but if it’s true, it raises lots of questions about the surprise hit of the new season. What were the problems at LOST? Was Abrams unhappy with the creative direction of the show… or was it the network? What will the new creative direction be? And why bring pick Cuse, whose background is primarily cop shows?