How NOT To Get a Freelance Assignment, II

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I got this follow-up email from the guy who wanted me to pass along his "15 page episode" to the producers of MONK.

At great risk to her own life Queen Esther sought an audience with the king. He could have easily had her head chopped off but decided to listen to her. Not only did the king have Mordecai, enemy of the Jews, killed, but in doing so, he probably prevented his own murder. Esther’s actions were not based on her own ego but on the compassion she held for her people, the Jewish nation.

Although I could not hope to touch her majestic slippers, I tried to approach the network towers to suggest a new episodic teleplay, only to be told that I was arogant (sic). It was out of my compassion for my five kids and wife that I would even dare to dream. Not interested in becoming a network writer, I only wanted to make a little money to pay some of my mortgage and groceries. Now, how egotistical is that. As far as distinguishing between reruns and newly aired shows, I was at fault. But shouldn’t they be of the same caliber? I am a consumer. Don’t I have a right to voice my opinion? Not all the episodic teleplays can be stellar.
I just thought mine could be considered. But in order to do that, I would have to be talking with one would needed to be more like the king who was willing to listen.

Getting LOST

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Variety reports that a whole bunch of JJ Abram’s ALIAS scribes are moving over to his show LOST, which may now have one of the largest writing staffs on episodic television. Drew Goddard, Monica Breen, and Alison Schapker have just inked two-year, seven-figure overall deals with Touchstone Television that includes working on LOST and developing new programs. Abrams is clearly loyal to, and appreciative of, the talented people he works with. I wonder if this means the Others will turn out to be members of the ALIAS cast…

A Valentine for BADGE

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I got a very nice review for THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE yesterday from, of all places, Love Romances.com.  I must admit this site was new to me. The review says, in part:

Lee Goldberg is an acclaimed writer of fiction and non-fiction as well as a TV scriptwriter.  His works come across as  funny and thrilling, but THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE may well be his 
best novel ever.  His humor goes from light to rolling on the floor  laughing and may cause the people around you to wonder just what you are  reading. 

Goldberg has created a perfect character in Harvey Mapes.  He is a man who finds himself looking for more in his life, and takes the leap to find it.  When he finds himself in trouble he doesn’t run away, he goes headlong into the abyss to find out the truth behind the past.  The oversexed security guard will make readers smile and cringe before laughing out loud at his antics.

This novel comes from one of the writers of MONK,  if you think the television show is funny, this is the book for you!

What a wonderful and unexpected valentine...      
       

How NOT To Get a Freelance Assignment

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I got this email today:

I know Tom Scarpling wrote the last episode of Monk, Mr. Monk and the Kid, which aired on Friday last. I was well dissapointed in it. It failed to show any real cleverness on Mr. Monk’s part. I don’t mean to be critical. I don’t watch the show all that much, only when I can come home from working 69 hours a week!
The acting was great, the human experience intriguing and endearing. But the sagacity and creativity was wanting.

I still have the 15 page episode which might shed  new light on Monk’s abilities. I have written two novels already. I am not a  professional but I can’t believe that true talent and creativity are relegated  only to the experienced.

I’ll alert the MONK writing staff to stop whatever they are doing until your "15 page episode" arrives. I’m sure there’s a lot they can learn from it.

"True talent and creativity" are not relegated only to the experienced — but experience, and a smidgen of knowledge, might have taught you that there’s no such thing as a "15 page episode." Hour-long, episodic teleplays are roughly 58 pages. Experience might also have taught you that telling the creators, producers, and writers of a show that you,  whose only connection to the program is infrequent viewing, can "shed new light" on their characters is outrageously arrogrant and probably not likely to win their favor.   Oh, one other thing…the episode you saw last Friday was a rerun from last season. A little research  doesn’t hurt, either.

UPDATE:  After I posted this message, something he wrote still nagged at me:  "I still have the 15 page episode," as if it was something I should be familiar with.  So I did a quick scan of the emails I’ve received over the last year to see if I have heard from this man before. Sure enough, I got an email from him last month:

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Mr. Monk and the Fan Letter

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I got the following email about my book MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I have finished reading your book. I was really excited to read it since I enjoy reading mysteries as much as watching them. I was disappointed to discover that despite the number of people who read it for you before you published it, there are still mistakes in the book.  For example, I read this on page two:

"If that’s the price of genius, them I’m glad I’m not one of them."

I winced when I read that. I believe the "them" should be a "then" instead.  Then, on page ninety-two:

"Mr. Monk came out of the kitchen with a glass of milk."

Reality check. Monk would not be with a glass of milk. He’s afraid of milk. One of his top 10 phobias if I remember correctly. What would he be doing with a glass of milk? The milk is never gone into further detail to explain why he would be with a glass of milk and not  freaking out at the same time.

That’s it for technical errors. On page one-eighty-eight Monk starts going through confidential case files for homicide, and lists the  culprits as if reading from a shopping list. Even for Monk, that is just too much. That embarasses the police department. It sounded cheap and tactless. It wasn’t necessary to stick that in there.  Otherwise, I thought your book was good. I’m looking forward to the
next one.  I hope there won’t be any mistakes in it.

Best Regards,

XYZ

P.S. My mother also read your book. She thought it could do without Natalie going on and on about Firefighter Joe as if it were a tacky romance paperback novel. In addition, Julie was a real brat.

I’m assuming the author of the note is a kid, so I went easy on her. I wrote back that the milk error escaped both me and MONK creator Andy Breckman and that occasionally some typographical errors slip by even the sharpest of authors and copyeditors. I didn’t comment on her other objections. I warned her that since I am human and so are my editors, there will probably be some mistakes in the next book, too, but that I’m hoping she will remain vigilant and catch them for us.

Graham Masterton Lives

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When I was a kid, I devoured the horror novels by Graham Masterton…who is probably best known for THE MANITOU, which became a silly Tony Curtis movie about a woman in a San Francisco hospital with a reincarnated Indian medicine man growing in her back.  I loved it. I always wondered what happened to Masterton… so I was thrilled when I found a Q&A with him on Ed Gorman’s site.  It turns out that Masterton is still writing…and has four books coming out soon, including another sequel to THE MANITOU, his first novel.

I was writing very successful sex "how-to" books in the mid-1970s
(remember that I was executive editor of Penthouse at that time). But
the bottom fell out of the sex book market quite abruptly and Andy
Ettinger at Pinnacle decided he didn’t want to honor my latest
contract. So I sent him THE MANITOU as a substitute. He called me when
I was sunning myself in the garden and said he’d take it, so long as I
changed the ending. Which I naturally did. Wouldn’t you?

POD: Prey On Dimwits?

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I got this email today. I have deleted the name of the book and the author:

I read something you
wrote about AuthorHouse and its too-good-to-be-true (because it is) package and
stuff, ending with “whoever signs up for this ‘publishing package’
is a dimwit who deserves to be taken for every last cent he has”.

Guess what….You’re
looking at one. Wish I’d read this missive before dealing with
AuthorHouse. POD means “Preys On Dimwits”. If that fits, pass it
around. Just don’t tell AH I said that. (groan)

My long-awaited (by me and my friends anyway)book XYZ went live in October 2004.
Blood, sweat and tears went into that damn thing. I was placing my “baby”
in the hands of people I trusted. (BTW, my contract with AH runs out in Oct.
2006) Really a shot in the arm to get my 30 free books (which I mostly GAVE
AWAY, thinking nobody would actually pay the $11.95 AH wanted for it. I get
like 80 cents per book). I went through the finished product and proofread it
after the fact….why? Because I couldn’t afford the proofreading
services like everything else they tacked onto the bill. Typos fixed at $10 a
word (or close to it). A typo on the back cover took $30 to fix. Punctuation
problems blamed on me. Because they print, word for word, everything you give
them, typos or not. If that is not a red flag my friend, it should be on fire. I’ve
made a whopping $17.98 or so. They sent me my W-2 form for the tax returns. Oh,
break out the bubbly!

I sunk more than $1000 into the PRINTING, not publication, of my book (a trade-sized
paperback) that is in the middle of being rewritten (typos removed, new characters, new crises and fleshing out of the story; it’s called “author’s remorse”  [you could’ve done better before it went to print]. I want to send this to a REAL publisher…. “Traditional” means nothing nowadays).

Long story short, I like what you write about this POD stuff. Just sorry I didn’t read it
sooner. Think I have any hope?

You’ve learned an important and  expensive lesson. Now, if I were you, I’d focus less on getting published and more on just writing a good book. Because in addition to going to Authorhouse, you made another serious error — you sent in a deeply flawed manuscript. The punctuation problems are your fault.  And by your own admission, the manuscript still needed work. So here’s another lesson you can glean from this experience — don’t submit a manuscript to agents or editors that’s riddled with typos, punctuation errors and has a lackluster story that needs new characters, new crises, and fleshing out.   

Out of Options?

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I got this email while I was away. The subject heading was "What to do after you’ve exhausted every resource in writing?"

Greetings.  First off, I am a potential author.  I say potential cause I’ve yet to get anything published.  Have about four finished manuscripts under my belt and I’ve exhausted
agents, publishers, some even overseas.  I’ve found nobody willing to take a chance on rookies (and I’ve got so many rejections that I’m thinking about wallpapering the bathroom).

You discourage the use of POD’s, but what’s a person to do when no other options are available?  Self publishing, perhaps, but cost of DIY is astronomical for some of us.

Could you give some insight that would light the darkness?  Any help will be appreciated.

I have some insight, but I don’t think you’re going to like it. You haven’t "exhausted every resource in writing," you’ve received some rejections. Big deal.  If you can’t handle rejection, you aren’t cut out to be a writer. It’s part of the job and certainly doesn’t end once you are published or produced.

The painful truth is that your rejections probably have nothing to do with people being unwilling to take a chance on a rookie. More likely, your novels aren’t marketable, they weren’t right for that publisher or agent, or they simply suck. What do you do? If you have confidence in the manuscripts, keep sending them out and start writing something new. POD self-publishing isn’t really an option, it’s just a way to spend hundreds of dollars printing your rejected manuscript in book form for your relatives to buy (if you nag them hard enough).  But if you have the money to waste and your goal is only to see your manuscript in something resembling a book, then go for it. You won’t have to work so hard and you certainly won’t get any more rejection letters.