Born to Write

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My brother Tod ponders  today whether writing can be taught.

Oh, sure, you can teach someone how to write correctly — how
to format dialog, where to place a comma, how to avoid using adverbs in
dialog tags, he noted furiously, how to present plot in a cogent
fashion, what the 7 basic conflict plots are, all that academic stuff
— but you can’t teach someone how to be creative or compelling in
their fiction.

He shares some particularly scary examples of students who will never be published (at least  not without writing a check to iUniverse).

I tend to agree with him that you can’t teach creativity…or even basic story sense.  I’ve had a few students over the years in our online course who simply couldn’t comprehend what a story is. They couldn’t grasp the concept of "franchise"  and "conflict or why you couldn’t tell a story on MONK in the same way you would on, say, CSI. " Those students could take a thousand classes and it won’t change a thing. They will never be TV writers.

On the other hand, I’ve just finished teaching a course for the UCLA Extension was wowed by how creative, bright, and genuinely talented my students were.  Not because of what I taught them, but because they were born writers. I  just introduced them to a structure and way of thinking about story that they didn’t know before. There were one or two who struggled…but I think they’ll get the  hang of it.

Lori’s Ever-Changing Claims

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Lori Prokop, online huckster and the originator of the Book Millionaire scam, posts this claim on her website:

“I’ve never seen anything like your four hour book signing at Barnes and Noble in Las Vegas. More than 1,174 people gladly stood in line for hours to meet you, buy your book and have them autographed. The line wove through the aisles of the store. Barnes and Noble
removed floor displays to make room for your book buyers. The Las Vegas NBC
affiliate covered the event and said they had never seen anything like it.
That’s amazing in Las Vegas, the city of excitement and entertainment.”
— Tali Mauai, Co-Author of the audio book
From Zero to Hero

I thought it was pretty amazing too. So, in the spirit of fairness
and accuracy, I checked into Lori Prokop’s claim (made through Tali Mauai) with friends in Las Vegas and my book industry sources and, as far I can tell, there was never any such booksigning event for her at a B&N there in the last five years nor the corresponding booksales that she implies she made. Perhaps she would be kind enough to provide the
exact date of the event and specific store where it took place so we can corroborate her claim?

Oddly enough, Lori uses the same claim from Tali, slightly reworded, to push her "Chiropractic Best Seller Book Program," a scheme to convince chiropractors that it would be a good idea to pay her vanity press to publish their articles and books. Note the significant differences (which I’ve boldfaced and italicized) between the two versions of the claim:

"I’ve never seen anything like our four hour book signing at Barnes and Noble in Las Vegas. More than 1,100 people gladly stood in line for hours to meet us, buy our book and have them autographed. The line wove through the aisles of the store. Barnes and Noble removed floor displays to make room for our book buyers. I felt like a local celebrity and my life has never been the same. I love it. The Las Vegas NBC affiliate covered the event and said they had never seen anything like it. That’s amazing in Las Vegas, the city of excitement and entertainment.” Tali Mauai, bestselling co-author, Zero to Hero

There is yet a THIRD version (again, with the differences in italic and bold-face) of the quote, this time pushing her seminars that will allow you to  "discover your powers to heal yourself, achieve abundance and create what you want in your life."

“Lori, I’ve never seen anything like your four-hour
book signing at Barnes & Noble in Las Vegas.
More than 1,100 people stood in line for hours
to meet your authors, buy their books and have
them autographed. Barnes & Noble removed floor
displays to make room for your book buyers.
National media covered the event and said they
had never seen anything like it.” Tari Mauai, Bestselling Author, from Zero to Hero.

I wonder which quote is "the truth."  Again, perhaps Lori would be kind enough to clarify for us exactly when which author, selling what book,  had this mobbed Las Vegas booksigning that made members of the local (or it was it national? Perhaps even GLOBAL) press corps faint with astonishment.

A Vacation in the Badlands

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I took a vacation — a day-trip, if you will. It’s 1:30 in the morning and I  just finished reading Richard S. Wheeler’s western novel BADLANDS, the story of a group of naive paleontologists researching fossils in the heart of the Sioux nation. It’s not nearly as dry a story as that description sounds… though I’m choking on the dust kicked up by Wheeler’s remarkably vivid, and yet keenly economical, prose. I couldn’t go to bed without getting to the end. Yes, I know it’s a cliche, but it’s the truth. He’s taken a surprisingly fresh and unique approach to a time-worn and familiar set-up, the foolhardy easterners led into the untamed west by a wizened, half-Indian guide. But there’s a good reason why Richard S. Wheeler is considered a legend in western literature. He takes the seemingly familiar and makes it brand new by leading you to what appears to be a cliche or stereotype — and deftly playing on your expectations, twists them and takes you instead to a realization of character or place that you didn’t see coming. Don’t let the traditional, western cover fool you.  BADLANDS is more about science, religion, and culture than it is about horses, injuns and shootouts and I loved every minute of it…and found the relaxation and escape I craved to recharge myself creatively for the tasks that lay ahead (it was far more satisfying than Larry McMurtry’s TELEGRAPH DAYS, which I read a couple of months back).  Now I have to tackle Richard’s beloved Skye series from book one onward…and considering how many there are, that alone could end up being a lifetime pursuit.

Another Reason to Love Hard Case Crime

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The folks over at Hard Case Crime have unearthed an unpublished novel by David Dodge (TO CATCH A THIEF) entitled THE LAST MATCH, which he wrote shortly before his death in 1974. The manuscript was lost among his papers… until now. Hard Case has announced that they will publish the book in October:

THE LAST
MATCH opens
with echoes of TO CATCH A THIEF, as a handsome criminal spars with a
beautiful heiress on the beaches of the south of France. From there, though, Dodge takes readers
on a sprawling international adventure, from cigarette smuggling in Tangier to a
deadly trip by steamship up the Amazon River.

THE LAST MATCH is a grand romantic adventure of the sort you just don’t see anymore," said [Hard Case publisher] Charles Ardai. "It’s the story of an incorrigible crook racing around the globe to escape the woman who is out to reform him. Bullets fly, machetes slash through the jungle, suckers get fleeced, men win and lose fortunes, and maybe – just maybe – true love triumphs before the final curtain is rung down. But what sort of woman does it take to best the world’s slipperiest con man? All I can say is.just you wait and see."

There’s No Excuse

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Stories like this almost make me ashamed to be an American.  The Bush Administration has done so much damage to our country — and caused so much pain, suffering, and death (between the incompentent handling of Hurricane Katrina, the pointless war in Iraq, the torture of prisoners, the massacre of innocent people, etc.) in the process — that they might as well be terrorists themselves.  They are doing Osama’s job for him.

There Are Only 500 Copies of BEYOND THE BEYOND Left! Hurry Before Supplies Run Out!

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As I mentioned here before,
I’ve got hundreds of copies of my book BEYOND THE BEYOND clogging up space in my garage (reminder to self:  never buy more than 100 copies of my own remaindered book).

My mistake is your gain. I’ll be glad to send you a signed copy BEYOND THE BEYOND for $9.99, which includes media mail postage to anywhere in the United States. 

BEYOND THE BEYOND is about ex-cop Charlie Willis, who handles
“special security” for Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the
studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to the
keep the peace in the land of make-believe. How he does it is up to
him. In this book, a sequel to “My Gun Has Bullets,” he has to protect
the president of a fledgling TV network from an assassin, an A-list
screenwriter from his homicidal agent, and the cast of a cult TV series
from its legion of rabid,
homicidal fans.

Here’s a sampling of the critical praise for the book:

“Goldberg uses just about everything he can think of to
send up the studio system, fandom, Star Trek, Trekkies, agents, actors…
you name it, he’ll make you laugh about it.” Analog

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary
showbiz,"Kirkus Reviews

“Mr. Goldberg has an observant eye and a wicked pen!” Washington  Times

“Beyond the Beyond reads like a modern-day Alice in
Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It’s
wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate,” Vancouver Sun

"Stingingly funny! B+" Entertainment Weekly

"Some of the easily recognizable actors, agents and producers who
are mercilessly ribbed may find
it hard to crack a smile at the author’s gag-strewn prose. Likewise
those seekers after politically correct entertainment. But the rest of
us should have no trouble….the novel’s satiric slant is strong enough
to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star
Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

And yet, there were still 600 copies that didn’t sell. Even with a
giant penis on the cover. Can you imagine that? If you’d like to buy
one of them for $9.99,  just click on the button below:




More on Woodrell

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As you probably know by now, I am a big fan of Daniel Woodrell. Sarah Weinman pointed me to this interesting interview with Woodrell, who makes the surprising announcement that he plans to take a few years off to concentrate on writing short stories.

For now, Woodrell plans another novel, and then a shift of formats:

"I promised my wife I’m going to take two years or three years
and just write short stories. I really like it when I do find an
occasion to do one. But I respect the form enough to realize to really
get any good at it you’re going to have to focus on it consistently for
a little while. Part of it is I don’t put the same level of expectation
on myself with short stories so I relax and they might could be just as
good. But I’m not pressuring myself. Whereas with novels, I really feel
required…I’m one of these types, I’d hate to publish one that I
thought wasn’t in the league with the one before, that’s all."

Is Fanfic Legal?

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Author John Scalzi has irked fanficcers by <gasp> saying that he believes fanfiction is illegal which, of course, it clearly is.

it’s clear that some portion of fanficcers actually seems to believe
that writing fanfic isn’t actually copyright infringement, and that
therefore it "exists in a gray area" or is actually not illegal
via some interpretation of fair use. Some of this belief stems from the
contention that there has not been (to the common knowledge) a
copyright suit specifically dealing with fanfic, probably because a
"Cease & Desist" letter is usually enough to cause the fanficcer to
take down his/her fanfic so no court case is necessary. The thinking
here seems to be that if a suit does not specifically address fanfic, then the legal status of fanfic is in fact indeterminate.

I can’t help but think this is a bit of magical thinking, based on
the idea that fanfic is in itself a legally special class of writing
(possibly under the "we’re doing this for fun" idea), which as far as I
can see it’s not. It’s bound to the same injunctions and restrictions
as any other piece of creative writing. Certainly US copyright law
carves out protections for fair use, parody and criticism, and equally
certainly some fanfic qualifies under a realistic reading of
these protections. But I hazard to guess the vast majority of fanfic
could not be shoehorned into these protections even under the most
liberal of terms.

He backs up his assertion with a lengthy post that quotes an intellectual property attorney and the Chilling Effects Clearing House (a joint project of the Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San
Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington Schools of Law) on the subject.  What I found especially interesting was a letter sent by JK Rowling’s attorneys to some fanficcers who were writing porno Harry Potter stories.

As you are aware, Ms. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books. Ms. Rowling therefore owns the copyright in the Harry Potter books. The sexually explicit content of the fan fiction available at www.restrictedsection.org, which is plainly based on characters and other elements of the fictional world
created by Ms. Rowling in the Harry Potter books, is a matter of
serious concern to our client. In addition, our client Warner Bros,
which owns the film and merchandising rights to
the children’s series of Harry Potter books, is concerned to protect
the integrity of its Harry Potter properties. For the avoidance of
doubt, our clients make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans.

She’s okay with fanfic but is ready to go after people who write sexually explicit material using her characters. That should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that writing about Harry and Ron exploring the magical delights of anal sex is "fair use."

When Will Mystery Writers Get Some Guts?

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I write hard-boiled mysteries and I write cozies. I read hard-boiled mysteries and I read cozies. There’s a lot to like and dislike in both genres. That said, the more I think about Otto’s latest tirade, the angrier I get. Not so much at him, but at my fellow mystery writers, who are so afraid of speaking out against Otto Penzler that he feels empowered to keep embarrassing mystery writers everywhere with his ignorance.  Here are just some of the incredibly stupid things Otto Penzler has said about cozies and those who write them:

"They may be fun, they may have their charm, but they are not
serious literature and don’t deserve an Edgar." 

"[Malice Domestic] honors books written in the mode of Agatha Christie,
loosely defined as those that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore,
or gratuitous violence. Unstated, but clearly of equal importance, is
that they must contain not a scintilla of style, originality, or depth.
They must have the texture and nuance of an infomercial, lacking only
its philosophical power."

"Cozies are not serious
literature. They don’t deserve to win. Men take [writing] more
seriously as art. Men labor over a book to make it literature. "

"I think noir writers are writing the very best books they know how to write.  I don’t
think [cozy writers] are writers who are stretching. I don’t think they’re
trying to write anything of enduring quality. I think they’re writing
to sell books, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t have
to take it seriously as literature, and I don’t."

This guy is the mystery equivalent of a drunken Mel Gibson, spewing his hateful and ignorant shit, and yet, inexplicably, he’s still treated like some kind of royalty in our field.  Nobody but cozy writers have dared to criticize him.  Why? Cowardice.

It’s time mystery writers stopped bowing and cowering in front of him simply because he established the Mysterious Bookshop and the Mysterious Press.  Face facts, people. He’s a sexist, narrowminded neanderthal…who embarrasses himself and, even worse, our profession every time he spews his offensive, sexist crap. With our silence, we imply that we and the Mystery Writers of America endorse his sexism and hatred.   

How far does this guy have to go before mystery writers finally get the guts to say, loudly and publicly, that Otto Penzler doesn’t speak for mystery writers, the MWA, or the mainstream of our profession. We do not share his sexism or his absurdly narrow view of what constitutes mystery writing.