This is my last night in NY, where I am working with the staff of MONK on an episode that Bill Rabkin and I will write for the upcoming season.
As I’ve said before, the episode is very loosely based on my novel MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE. We pretty much have the beats of the story/mystery nailed. So today, as a group, we fleshed out the emotional through-line, fine-tuned some of the clues, and choreographed the details of the comic "set pieces." Tomorrow morning we’ll polish up the details a bit more and then I’ll hop on a plane back to LA. On the flight, I’ll probably work on MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU, my third MONK novel.
After this trip, I have an even clearer sense of the subtle ways my "literary" Monk differs from the "TV" Monk. Many of those differences have to do with the nature of the two mediums — how stories are told in books vs. television. But the biggest differences was my decision to tell the stories from Natalie’s POV. The Monk we’re seeing in the books is Natalie’s Monk, and is therefore shaped by her character and her view of the world. The Monk we see on TV isn’t from any one character’s perspective…it’s from our individual perspectives as viewers.
Speaking of the MONK novel, I had breakfast today with my editor and publisher, who tell me the book is doing very well. I have a feeling they will be greenlighting more MONK novels very soon… I’ll certainly know, one way or another, before MR. MONK GOES TO HAWAII comes out in June.
I definitely hope the episode gets picked up. And that is VERY Good news from your publisher.
More Monk books. This is a good thing. But I still haven’t finished ironing the wrinkled pages of MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE. If I were a true Monkoholic, I’d just throw the old book away and buy a new one with fresh, crisp, un-dog-eared pages from every trip I took to the bathroom the night I sat up and read it. But, then I’d be constantly thinking about that book with the wrinkled pages in the dumpters.