Blog Spam

The kid who emailed me for career advice the other day sent the identical email to lots of other TV & film writers who’ve got blogs.  And we all responded. On our blogs.

Here’s another one.

We all gave him more or less the same advice. And, in doing so, taught him a couple of other valuable lessons:

1) All writers procrastinate.
2) One of the best ways to procrastinate is to run a blog.
3)
The best way to avoid writing when you have a blog is to answer
questions about being a writer when you are in the midst of avoiding
being one.

All The Flowers Are Dying

Lawrence Block is at the top of his game.  Then again, he’s written fifty or a hundred books (I’ve lost count) and as far as I know, he’s never been anything but at the top of his game. ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING is prime "Matt Scudder" and Block at his best.  The writing is lean and assured, the story fast-moving, the character strokes deft and memorable.  Some of the scenes are vividly violent and disturbing, but they never feel gratuitous, or ugly for  shock value. The plotting is tight, the  pace ratcheting up the suspense with skilled ease.  Block  isn’t called the Grandmaster at this stuff for nothing, folks.

The prose isn’t the least bit self-conscious or arty and yet stunningly effective. Once again, he reminds us that sometimes the old pros at crime writing do it a whole lot better than the new wave of writers who think they’ve reinvented the form.  I doubt there are many writers out there who consistently deliver the way Block does. The book is a lesson in writing…from a guy who wrote the book on how to write books (actually, he’s written three excellent how-to books, but who’s counting?).

ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING is crime writing at its best. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s number 107 or something in the Scudder series — you don’t have to have read a single Scudder tale get the wallop this one delivers (though the punch is stronger if you have).  You’ll be seeing this one talked about again come Edgar time next year…

It Isn’t Easy Being Dan Brown

For one thing, there’s the $50 million you’re earned over the last two years to be counted, invested, tax-sheltered, and spent. Then there’s Lewis Perdue nipping at your heels.

As if that wasn’t enough, according to today’s New York Times, Dan can no longer travel on airplanes, because the aisles get
clogged with people lining up for autographs.  (And my favorite anecdote, he was in line at
airport security and realized he left his ID at home — so he borrowed a copy of
DaVinci Code from the guy in line behind him and used the author photo to get
on.  Of course, that does raise the question, what kind of moron goes to the airport, intending to leave town, and leaves their ID at home?) .  All of this is having a big impact on his work… a sequel to the DAVINCI CODE.

There are hints that the pressure to repeat his success might be wearing on
Mr. Brown. Long an author who worked in private, Mr. Brown now talks with his
editor, Jason Kaufman, often once a day, sometimes twice – far more often, Mr.
Kaufman said, than when the pair worked together on Mr. Brown’s three most
recent novels, including "Deception Point" and "Angels & Demons."

"We go over every plot point and twist," Mr. Kaufman said. "I function as a
sounding board for him."

Thrilling Thriller Writers

The newborn International Thriller Writers Association has sealed a big-money deal with Mira books to release THRILLER, an anthology of thrilling short stories edited by the thrillicious James Patterson. The thrillful contributors include Ted Bell, Steve Berry, Lee Child, Lincoln Child, David Dun, Joe Finder,
Greg Iles, Alex Kava, John Lescroart, David Liss, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, Katherine Neville, Michael Palmer, Douglas Preston, Eric Van Lustbader, Christopher Reich, Christopher Rice, James Rollins, M.J. Rose, Jimmy Siegel, Brad Thor, and F. Paul Wilson. The book will be out in hardcover in June 2006 to coincide with ThrillerFest, the  first convention for thriller writers and fans, in Phoenix. All proceeds from THRILLER will go the ITW to help get the organization up-and-running, though they seem be to up-and-running pretty thrillingly already.

Proving that TV Series Bibles are Pointless

The NY Times reports that the producers of 24, LOST,  THE OC, and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES have no clue how their seasons will end.  As if you didn’t know. We know they don’t know. The presidents of the networks seem to know it, too (if you believe what they say in the article). The only people who don’t seem in-the-loop on this are development executives, who often want to know before the pilot is written every detail of the hero’s life…who all his relatives are and what they do… and who is best friend was in preschool. But the fact is…none of that matters. And even if the writers tell you, it’s bullshit. They’re gonna toss the bible as soon as they get the series order.

After the
network ordered the first full season of "24," the writers presented a
huge map of the entire first season. The blueprint, however, didn’t
endure. "We used to obsess over that in Year 1," Mr. Cochran said. "You
know, Oh, God, let’s story out as many episodes as we can. We always
got in a lot of trouble with that because if you try it, you end up
locking yourselves into things that don’t really work and it gets
really contrived."

After his four seasons of "24," Mr. Cochran endorses the same approach:
save big decisions till the end of the season. The writers and the
audience, he insists, will then enjoy the benefits of a looser process.
"At the beginning of the season, we certainly don’t know," he said.
"Halfway through, we certainly don’t know. As we’re writing episode 16
or 17, we start thinking in a very general sort of way, where we’d like
to end the season."

It’s the same on shows with a far-less restrictive franchise.

"Lost" and "The O.C.," along with "24" and "Desperate Housewives,"
are high-profile serials with substantial, devoted audiences, but no
one – not writers, not network executives and not viewers – knows
exactly how they will end their seasons. Their writers, like others in
Hollywood, are trying to devise the perfect season finale – with little
time to spare.  According to interviews with writers from all four shows, their finales are unshot, and mostly unwritten.

So forget about "bibles." They’re pointless. What counts is a strong pilot script and a showrunner with a vision.

SeaQuest Meets Baywatch?

I worked on SeaQuest, with an enormously phallic submarine, Roy Scheider, and a talking dolphin. I also worked on Baywatch, with an enormous collection of fake boobs, Monte Markham, and a talking David Hasselhoff.  So you can understand my miss-givings when I read in the NY Post that,  in a union spawned in hell, the two are coming together.  Steven Spielberg, exec producer of  SeaQuest, is bringing Baywatch to the big screen.  Save yourself while there is still time.

House as Dr. Sloan’s Son

The folks over at  Toobworld are pondering who should play the father of  Dr. Greg House (Hugh Laurie) on Fox’s hit  HOUSE M.D.  They’ve settled on Dick Van Dyke… as Dr. Mark Sloan.  Here’s their thinking:

From a production viewpoint, [the] obstacles could be smoothed over.  It’s from the inner reality of the plotline that we might face a few arguments.  Most of all, it’s the fact that there was never any mention of a second son for Dr. Mark Sloan in all the years ‘Diagnosis Murder’ was on the air.
He had two children – Steve Sloan, a Los Angeles police detective who often worked with his dad in solving cases;  and a daughter who was tragically murdered.  Added to this is the obvious difference in their last names – Sloan and House.

I’m not the only one who can see the obvious answer, right? Greg House is the illegitimate son of Mark Sloan.

The days when our TV heroes were cast as exemplars of virtue are long gone. Nowadays they have flaws, and foibles, and failings – they are the F-Troop. They make mistakes in Life, but eventually they admit to them and they rise above them. (Unless of course we’re talking about Detective Vic Mackey of ‘The Shield’.) That’s what makes them human, what makes them real. And what makes them interesting to watch week after week. Having been the bastard son of a noted crime-solving doctor on the West Coast might be a great explanation for some of Dr. House’s acerbic attitude towards the rest of the world at large. And a chance to rectify that situation with a renewed relationship with the father he never knew might provide for as many episodes as they wanted to run with it; perhaps a once-a-year type of reunion.  And nothing says they HAVE to iron out all their differences. After all, we don’t want House becoming all sweetness and light – that’s not why he’s
become such an interesting character for the audience.

There’s only one excuse for someone giving this idea so much thought.  Procrastination. The same reason I am posting this instead of plotting my next (the seventh!) DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel.  How’s that for irony, eh?

Editing Your Life

I’m always amused by the way some actors and writers edit their credits, trying to pretend that some of their work never existed (you don’t hear Michael Mann talking about his days on VEGA$ much). Jessica Alba has been doing a lot of that credit-editing lately as she promotes FANTASTIC FOUR and SIN CITY. In her GQ interview, for instance, she charts the course of her career like this:

At 13 she decided to give acting a try and immediately found herself cast in an episode of the TV series Chicago Hope, playing a teenage girl who contracts gonorrhea of the throat from her 30-year-old boyfriend. Imagine explaining that
to your pastor. Next, at 16, she joined the Atlantic Theater Company
Acting School in Vermont, founded by David Mamet and William H. Macy,
where she was drilled in contrapositive Pygmalion fashion, on the intonation of lines like, “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!

She forgets to mention that, between her gigs with David E. Kelley and David Mamet,  she spent three years in Australia as a regular cast member acting opposite a zany dolphin on THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER  (you don’t see Emmy & WGA Award winning writer Terrence Winter hiding from his producing gig on that show… he even mentioned it in his Emmy acceptance speech. That’s being a man. That’s integrity, bucko. In fact, I’ll admit here and now I worked on FLIPPER, too… and, even worse, THE HIGHWAYMAN).

Alba wants you to think she just burst onto the scene with DARK ANGEL. Speaking of bursting, let’s talk about Dave Gardetta, the horny reporter who was interviewing Alba and aching to go more, much more, in-depth :

Alba made an off-color joke about lawyers, and she glowed: Her skin
glowed, her hair glowed, her lips glowed. Where once her carnal
features—lips, breasts, posterior—seemed preternaturally swollen, as if
in a dead-heat race to burst from her skinny, teenage frame, now Alba
and her twenty-three-year-old body have settled into delicacy and grace
and balance while still drawing chat-room catcalls like “Damn! Shortie
got back!”

Down, boy. And later he writes:

And then one day her body rebelled against God. Her teenage breasts bloomed; her buttocks began straining against her dungarees.

You can almost hear him panting as he beats the keys on his computer…or something further south.

At The Movies

Victor Gischler posted a list on his blog of 25 movies that have most influence his writing… and my brother Tod quickly followed up with a list of his own. I would have a much easier time listing the TV shows that have influenced me but, off the top of my head, here’s my list, in no order whatsoever, with lots of films left out that I will regret that I forgot to include:

  1. Jaws
  2. About  Schmidt
  3. Harper
  4. Get   Shorty
  5. Fiddler on the Roof
  6. Terms of Endearment
  7. Lost  in America (actually, any Albert Brooks movie except Defending Your Life)
  8. Alien
  9. Tao of Steve
  10. The  Terminator
  11. Goldfinger   (all the Bond films, even the bad ones)
  12. Return  of the Pink Panther (all the Pink Panther movies, even the bad ones)
  13. La  Femme Nikita
  14. Funny Girl
  15. Cider  House Rules
  16. Wizard of Oz
  17. Broadcast News (particularly one line in one scene)
  18. Fistful of Dollars (the whole Man with No Name Trilogy)
  19. Dirty Harry (all the Dirty Harry movies, even the bad ones)
  20. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  21. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  22. Chinatown
  23. The Incredibles
  24. Patton
  25. Jackie Brown

Gee, looking at that list, you can really get a keen sense of  my astonishing lack of depth. Now imagine what my writing must be like…

Spur Awards Announced

The Western Writers of America announced the winners of the coveted Spur Awards,  the Oscars of western-writing. The winners will get their statues at the WWA convention in Spokane in June.Vengeancevalley

Best First Novel: FIELD OF HONOR by  D.L. Birchfield (University of Oklahoma Press).
Best Original  Paperback:  VENGEANCE VALLEY by Richard S. Wheeler (Pinnacle) [his fifth win!]
Best Western Juvenile Non-FictionRATTLESNAKE MESA…STORIES FROM A NATIVE
AMERICAN CHILDHOOD By
Ednah New
Rider Weber
(Lee & Low Books)
Best
Western Novel
: BUY THE CHIEF A CADILLAC by Rick Steber (Bonanza Publishing)

Best Novel of the West:  PEOPLE OF THE RAVEN (Forge) By Kathleen
O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear
[Best Western Novel is for books under
90,000 words; Novel of the West goes to longer works
].

Nonfiction-Biography: BLACK KETTLE: THE CHEYENNE CHIEF WHO SOUGHT PEACE BUT FOUND WAR
by Thom Hatch of Calhan, Colo. (John Wiley & Sons).

Nonfiction-Contemporary: THE TEXAS RANGERS AND THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION by Charles H.
Harris III and Louis R. Sadler of Las Cruces, N.M. (University of New Mexico
Press).

Nonfiction-Historical: BEASTS OF THE FIELD Richard Steven Street of San Anselmo,
Calif. (Stanford University Press).

Short Nonfiction: BLOOD FOR OIL by Jim Doherty of Chicago
from the collection JUST THE FACTS (Deadly Serious Press).

Short
Fiction
: THE
PROMOTION by Larry D. Sweazy of Noblesville, Ind., from the anthology TEXAS
RANGERS (Berkley).

Juvenile Fiction: FIRE IN THE HOLE! by Mary Cronk Farrell of Spokane,
Wash. (Clarion Books).

Drama Script: HIDALGO by John Fusco of Burbank, Calif. (Touchstone Pictures/  Disney).
Documentary Script: WILD WEST TECH: DEADWOOD TECH by Laura Verklan of North
Hollywood, Calif. (executive producer Dolores Gavin, The History Channel).

Poetry: A
THOUSAND MILES OF STARS by Walt McDonald of Lubbock, Texas (Texas Tech
University Press).

Storyteller (illustrated children’s book): APPLES TO OREGON by Deborah
Hopkinson of Corvallis, Ore. and illustrator Nancy Carpenter of Brooklyn, N.Y.
(Simon and Schuster Children’s Books).

Congratulations to all the winners! Richard Wheeler offers this amusing anecdote about his Spur-Award winning novel VENGEANCE VALLEY:

This one has a cowboy brandishing a gun on its cover, even if there are no cowboys with guns in the novel. That’s part of the paperback mystique. Almost all western pocketbooks have cowboys with guns on the covers. That’s done so that readers of westerns, who are usually ancient bald males will big and gaseous bellies, can identify them. Vengeance Valley  was the title of a famous Zane Grey novel so the publishers probably thought to get a free ride by giving this story the same moniker. The author had named it Yancey’s Jackpot  but in the world of
mass-market paperbacks, authors’ titles are summarily executed.
This cover is especially egregious because the story takes place on a mountain ridge instead of a valley, and there is no  vengeance in it, and no cowboys with guns in it.

I wonder if Richard has considered putting Dick Van Dyke on the cover of his next book. It has certainly helped my sales.