A Writer's Life

NEW CAST ON "MISSING"

Justina Muchado has left our show and Mark Consuelos has stepped in. Production began this week on our second season...and just let me say, Vivica Fox rocks.

Lifetime's 'Missing' finds Fox, Consuelos

FBI skein's new season premieres in July

By DENISE MARTIN

Former sudser star Mark Consuelos is going primetime, joining the cast of the Lifetime drama "Missing."
Casting of Consuelos comes in the wake of news that Vivica A. Fox ("Kill Bill") has also come aboard the skein. Her character replaces that of original star Gloria Reuben in the second season of the show.

"Missing" revolves around FBI investigator Nicole Scott (Fox), who has teamed with a young psychic to help track down missing persons. Consuelos, husband of morning talkshow host Kelly Ripa, will play an FBI agent and former colleague of Fox's character.

New season premieres in July.

Consuelos is a vet of the ABC soap "All My Children," in which he starred opposite Ripa. He next appears in Miramax actioner "The Great Raid" with Benjamin Bratt and Joseph Fiennes. More recently, Consuelos did a multi-episode arc on NBC's "Third Watch."

"Missing" is produced by Lions Gate TV in association with CHUM TV. Glenn Davis, William Laurin and Debra Martin Chase are exec producers.

Edgar Winners

And the Winners Are...
BEST NOVEL

Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel (Soho Press)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Find Me Again by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (Dundurn Group)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson (Bloomsbury)

BEST FACT CRIME

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Random House – Crown Books)

BEST SHORT STORY

“The Maids” – Blood on Their Hands by G. Miki Hayden (Berkley Prime Crime)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Acceleration by Graham McNamee (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House Childrens)

BEST JUVENILE

Bernie Magruder & the Bats in the Belfry by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

The Practice – “Goodbye”, Teleplay by Peter Blake & David E. Kelley

BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY

Dirty Pretty Things by Steve Knight (BBC, Celador Productions, Jonescompany)

A Sweet Kid

In the LA Times, a despondent father (who also happens to be a Orange County Sheriff) laments that his teenage kid, arrested for raping an unconscious woman and penetrating her with a bottle, a pool cue, and a cigarette, is just...

"The most kind, caring, sweet kid you'd ever meet in your life." He says he believes his son is guilty of nothing more than acting thoughtlessly.

"They're all basically good kids who got themselves into a stupid, terrible situation," Haidl said.

Did I mention these good kids also video taped their rape?

The defense has argued that the sex depicted on the video was consensual and that in the days before the gathering the girl had willingly engaged in sexual activities with all three.

I find it amazing that Sheriff Haidl can be so blind about his own son. I wonder if he is as sympathetic to the other rapists his deputies have arrested.

Does he really expect ANYBODY to feel sorry for his "sweet caring son" and his sicko buddies?

UPDATE (MAY 4): More news from the LA Times. Now the sweet kid and his lawyers are alleging the under-age girl was only pretending to be unconscious and wanted to be gang raped... and violated with pool cues, lit cigarettes, and a Snapple bottle. It's not a new strategy to blame the victim for her own rape...but this is reprehensible.

In opening statements, the defense portrayed the girl as a sex fiend whose life had spun out of control, and the prosecutor told jurors that the videotape will reveal the youths as arrogant, selfish assailants. But both sides characterized the incident, in Haidl's Corona del Mar home two years ago, as the culmination of a series of bad choices by the girl.

Both sides agree that on the day before the party, the girl went to Haidl's house, where she smoked marijuana, drank heavily and had sex with at least two young men. The next day, she returned alone.

Each juror was handed a binder with 48 color photos from the videotape. The photos show the defendants — Gregory Scott Haidl, 18; Kyle Joseph Nachreiner, 19; and Keith James Spann, 19 — alternately having sex with the girl and sodomizing her with a Snapple bottle, an empty fruit can and a lighted cigarette.

In the video, after the boys have sex with the apparently unconscious girl on a couch, they are shown moving her to a pool table. Spann affirms with a gesture that the girl has blacked out — and the sexual antics continue, the prosecutor told jurors. Later, the boys mug for the camera, giggle and dance to the blaring rap music. Haidl slaps the girl's stomach in time to the beat.

In the final photo, the girl — still appearing unconscious — is pictured after urinating on the pool table. Lawyers for the three suspects conceded that the events occurred. She pretended to be unconscious, the defense argued, because she knew that if the video were discovered, people would think poorly of her for allowing boys to treat her in such humiliating fashion.

Attorney John Barnett, representing Nachreiner, said jurors must view the tape in context with what he called the girl's sexually free-form lifestyle

Block on Signings

Sarah Weinman clued me in to this terrific article by Lawrence Block on signing and touring...

The whole signed-books issue got accelerated with the 1992 publication of John Dunning's Booked to Die, which noted that books simply signed by the author had more collector value than those inscribed to a specific reader. Almost immediately, I noticed an upsurge of buyers who murmured "Signature only, please." It's much quicker just signing one's name, and not having to write "To Cathy, I'll never forget that heavenly night in Sioux Falls." And was that Cathy with a C or Kathy with a K, and does it end in Y or I?

"Thank you, John Dunning," many of us said under our breath when another signature-only appeared. But there was a downside. If more folks were content with a simple signature, they were also intent on getting their entire collection signed.

Larry is being a bit disingenuous... as much as he questions the value of signed books and the desire readers have to get their books signed, he's certainly taking advantage of the market more deftly and agressively than any author I know. Not only does he tour extensively to support his books (as he should), he also runs a small business through his website and his newsletter -- and literally out of the trunk of his car -- selling signed copies of his backlist and other editions. It's rare to find an UNSIGNED Block book. So while he may question the whole signed-book-mania, he's certainly profiting from it and, no doubt, hoping the craze doesn't wane. Who can blame him? I admire his writing and his salesmanship. But given the way he's embraced the signed book market, I found the tone of his entertaining piece a bit puzzling...

Book Fest

I had a wonderful time at the Los Angeles Festival of Books. In addition to meeting lots of terrific readers and fans, I also got to catch up with some of my favorite writers and friends like Paul Levine (who just finished writing a new novel), Denise Hamilton (favorably compared to Chandler in the LA Times this weekend), Steve Cannell (who told me he's releasing all his old shows on DVD, including the late great COBRA, which I worked on for him), Victor Gischler (visiting LA for the first time and catching a prizefight while he was at it), Barbara Seranella (taking her wicked sense of humor out for a test drive), Roger Simon (playing with his new camera), Gayle & Dennis Lynds (Lit royalty from Santa Barbara), Dick Lochte (with whom I love talking shop), Kent Harrington (his DARK RIDE is a noir classic and he's probably sick of me telling him that all the time), Richard Barre (a great writer and now editor at Capra Press), Gregg Hurwitz (a newlywed), GM Ford (also a newlywed), Scott Phillips (still high from the news his ICE HARVEST is now filming), Tom Nolan (his Ross McDonald biography is a must read), Eric Garcia (just back from the set of the new ANONYMOUS REX TV series), Terry Erdman (Mr. Star Trek), TJ Parker (sharing some of his adventures in television), Mary Yukuri Waters (a wonderful short story writer) Jerrylin Farmer (who always gives me great advice...though this time we shared broken bone horror stories), Nathan Walpow, Gary Phillips, Rhys Bowen, Aimee Bender, Leonard Maltin, Tom Taylor, SL Stebel, and John Morgan Wilson. I also got to meet and chat with Bruce Wagner, Raymond Benson (now writing the Bond books), Sean Doolittle, Leslie Silbert, Joanne Fluke (great cookies!), Rachel Resnick (author of "Go West Young Fucked Up Girl"), Diane Wagman, and John Connolly.

By far, though, the highlight of the weekend for me was the hour or so I spent after the book awards chatting with Donald Westlake (first with Dick Lochte, who introduced us, then later with my brother Tod and Denise Hamilton). We talked about writing styles and techniques, the book business, screenwriting, and the movie adaptations of his work. We also talked about some of our favorite authors and he shared some marvelous anecdotes about Rex Stout, Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, Evan Hunter and my buddy Richard S. Prather. I was wowed. He's a living legend and a hell of a nice guy, too.

For pictures from the Fest, check out Roger Simon's blog or Aldo Calcagno's site.

It's a Mystery

I was reading the Publishers Weekly close-up on mysteries, which reminded me of a pitch meeting we had a few years ago at a basic cable network, before MONK burst on the scene. I pitched a mystery series, a blend of reality and scripted tv, to the new development exec. He interrupted me in middle of the pitch.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “You want to do a mystery every week?”

“Uh, yes,” I said.

“It can’t be done,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“I mean, you can’t tell a new mystery every week,” he said. “It’s just not possible.”

“Of course it is,” I replied. “I’ve done it. Diagnosis Murder was a mystery.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was,” I argued.

“Nobody can do a mystery every week,” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”

“Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, CSI, those are all mysteries,” I said.

“No, they aren’t.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is your idea of a mystery?”

“Scooby-Doo,” he replied.

“That’s an animated Saturday morning cartoon,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

One Arm Free

I got the cast on my left arm off today -- I feel like a new man. I got a new cast on my right arm and an x-ray peek at the new titanium elbow. It's not a very elegant device -- kind of barbaric looking with the long, pointed, screws and the "ball" imbedded in my bone. Buy hey, if it works, who cares what it looks like underneath the skin. On the surface, I have a hell of a scar. It will make me look rugged. The cast on my right arm comes off in 15 days and then the real fun begins, figuring out just how much motion/use I will get back. But at least I know I can type and sign my name.

Subservient Chicken

Ever dreamed of making a man dressed as a chicken do your bidding? (It's up there with imagining DM slash possibilities I suppose). Mary offers this link

Slash Fanfic

It's as old as fanfic -- slash fic. That's when Kirk and Spock do The Nasty...and so do McCoy/Scotty, Josh/President Bartlett... you get the stomach churning picture. Gotta love fanfic. Anyway, there's even Diagnosis Murder slash fic. Can you imagine? Why would you? Why would anyone? One particularly upset fan rails on a blog against a new DM slash story.

Temp Parenting

My brother Tod has written a very funny column for the Las Vegas Mercury about what he learned about parenting while he took care of my daughter last week during my hospital stay.

The Reality-Challenged

So I'm sitting here with my two broken arms, recovering from surgery, and someone emails me a posting from the Pax TV discussion board. There's a Diagnosis Murder fan who apparently is upset by a link in a posting here to her fanfic website, the one hosting the story in which Steve (the character played by Barry Van Dyke) narrowly avoids anal rape while undercover in prison. She believes the link harms her reputation in some way. So she posted this thoughtful note:
I just went back to check out the status on http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/
According to Valerie, Lee broke both his arms, I hope he gets well soon (and I mean that! I don't kid about other folks' misery.)
Given those facts I'm willing to give him a few days to remove the link.
I'm sure that he will find a way to show some fair action, that is AFTER he's had surgery on the one arm. Fair is fair!
Griddy
"The Barry Bunch" UNITED WE STAND - DIVIDED WE FALL
N.S.D.!!! - Nie pleuje!
Astonishing, isn't it?
Naturally, since I heard about this, it's become my top priority. Nothing matters more to me in life. Which is why I intend to do absolutely nothing about it.
If you were me, how would you deal with people like this?

Apology

A reminder -- Because of my two broken arms, I'm still dictating these entries on my blog, so please forgive the typos and awkward sentences.

Turn Off Your Tv Week

I was unaware this was national turn off your TV week until Bob Sassone told me. They need a better publicist. Or maybe a good TV commercial. Anyway, the idea is you should stop watching TV and spend more time with your family and read more books. I'm all for those things naturally, but I think both are overrated. The last conversation I had with my wife and daughter involved my daughter musing about what colors the uniforms might be on her soccer team. And my daughter isn't even on a soccer team yet. The last book I read was a mystery, that shall go nameless, and that was no better than an average TV show. So was I really better off having that conversation and reading that book than watching the latest episode of "law and order?" I don't think it's an either or question really. Turn off your TV week is just stupid. I'm not just saying that as someone who makes his living in TV and writes a lot of TV. The fact is television viewing is at an all-time low -- at least among the major networks. I wonder if people are really watching as much TV is the anti-TV people think they are. And even if they are so what? Is TV worse for you than a bad book? Is TV worse for you than a video game, computer game, playing with your PDA, your blackberry, or your cell phone? There are a thousand things keeping us from wonderful wholesome family conversations and classic novels. Why single 0ut tv? I say let's have a no Game Boy week, a no cell phone week, or no Internet week. Let's see how that would fly!

ABC

I was reading about the exec shakeup at ABC this morning...

One of the sad things about the ABC situation is that they actually put some good shows on the air that probably would have been hits on other networks -- like LINE OF FIRE, DRAGNET (SEASON 1) and KAREN SISCO. If any of these three shows had been on NBC, they might still be on the air now. Though, to be fair, the last three episodes of SISCO felt like the fifth year of a very tired show (they did the heros-are-hostages in bank heist episode for God's sake). Still, there is a good reason ABC is mired at #4. Their dramas sucked. I dont think anybody is going to miss KINGDOM HOSPITAL, THREAT MATRIX, THE DA, or 10-8. Remember VERITAS, MDs, THIEVES, Push Nevada, miracles, that was then, the court, snoops, the beast, Dinotopia anyone? Plus, they never aired my special THE BEST TV SHOWS THAT NEVER WERE, making the show an ironic joke in and of itself. If they'd aired my show, they'd probably be at least #3 now.

Joys of Pitching 2

Before starting a pitch, I like to ask the execs what they are looking for. At a recent meeting at a network, the exec said:

“We’re wide open,” she said. “The only things we don’t want to hear are cop shows, science fiction shows, anything set in the past, military shows, buddy detectives or stuff with monsters.”

I could think of only one genre she left out. “What about a medical show?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “We don’t want those, either.”

Joys of Pitching

I was in middle of pitching three TV series ideas when the newly minted network exec – formerly a lawyer, rock musician, accountant and personal trainer—interrupted me.

“You have no clue what makes a good TV series concept,” the exec said. “And your pitches suck.”

I smiled. “But does the rest work for you?”

“You want to hear a pitch? This is the perfect pitch, I just bought it.” the exec continued. “There’s a cop. He’s a rebel. He’s a rogue. He doesn’t play by the rules. He’s also an incredible slob. He’s teamed up with a new partner who’s a stickler for the rules, a team player, and a neat freak. His new partner is…a dog.”

I stared at him. “A dog?”

“A dog,” he said proudly.

“Does the dog talk?” I asked.

The exec’s eyes lighted up. “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

Tonight's Sopranos

A good friend of mine, Terry Winter, writes for the Sopranos. He's a very funny writer, and not surprisingly, writes the funniest episodes of the show. Despite best-known for running the Pines Barrens episode last season. Anyway tonight he wrote episode that was pure Terry. Besides being damn funny, it was full of TV references. Including nods to that's life, which was written and produced by former Sopranos writer Frank Renzuli, as well as Nash Bridges, which was written by John Wirth, who Terry also worked with. There were also some sly references to law and order, Dick Wolf, and Rene Balcer. There was also a clip on the TV in one of the flashbacks to episode of Cannon -- and it wouldn't surprise me if David Chase worked on it at one point in his early career. In an episode a season or two ago, Terry had junior watching diagnosis murder. I still can't figure out why Terry didn't use a clip from the episode he wrote for us!

The Walk

This is a true story...

I was in the offices of a major movie producer who had just read a manuscript version of my new novel The Walk (Five Star, January 2004) and wanted to talk about a possible screen version. The story is about a TV producer who is stuck in downtown Los Angeles when a major earthquake decimates the city and has to walk back home to the suburbs.

The executive loved the book, the human drama, and the action-adventure elements. He only had a few thoughts and concerns.

“Does the guy have to be a TV producer?” he asked.

I was prepared for that question. I knew the character might be “too inside,” meaning too much a part of the entertainment industry, to connect with a wider audience.

“No,” I said, “Of course not. We can give him a different profession.”

“How about if the TV producer was a team of cheerleaders instead?” the executive asked.

I laughed, thinking he was joking. He wasn’t. But he wasn’t done with me yet.

“And what if the earthquake was a tidal wave?”

The book remains unfilmed.

Westerns

An article in Variety about westerns got me thinking about this sadly overlooked genre.

Let's face it westerns are basicly dead. They don't command anywhere near the audience they used to at the box office, in bookstores or on television. I've only recently come to enjoy and appreciate westerns. It was Larry Mcmurtry's "lonesome dove" that got me hooked -- then I discovered Elmer kelton, Frederick Manfred, AB Guthrie, Edwin Shrake, Tom Eidson, Robert Randisi, Loren Estelman and fell in love with the genre. I even joined the Western Writers of America to learn more about it and discover more authors. I thought "the missing" an "open range" were terrific, and was sad to see them tank at the box office. During my recovery in the hospital, TNT or some other network reran a couple of Tom Selleck's TV westerns -- and I thought they were well-made, well-written. well-acted, and very entertaining (or maybe I was just high on painkillers). Selleck is very convincing as a western hero, and clearly loves the genre. I guess he's the TV equivalent of Kevin Costner in that regard. I've even come to appreciate Gunsmoke -- I never realized what an intelligent and adult series it was. Of course, it also had a period when it was awful - in the late 60s -- but I'm enjoyimg rediscovering the show. It's actually possible now, if you have tivo, to watch the black-and-white half-hour episodes on the Hallmark channel from the fifties, the the black-and-white hourlong episodes from the sixties on the Western channel, and the hourlong color episodes from the late sixties occur seventies on TV. I've even come to enjoy some classic radio westerns on my morning and evening commutes -- particularly James Stewart as the six shooter. Westerns deserve a comeback -- in the same way cop shows and mysteries are today. Perhaps hbo's deadwood will reignite interest in the genre.

Rebus Axed

From the Evening Post

Rebus show killed off by ITV bosses

EDINBURGH’S most famous fictional crime fighter, Inspector Rebus, has been axed by television bosses after just four episodes.

The show - starring Scottish actor John Hannah - has been dumped by ITV despite proving a hit with viewers. But producers hope the show will get a new lease of life in the United States after being snapped up by BBC America.

Four books about the fictional detective, who was created by award-winning city-based author Ian Rankin, were adapted for television by Clerkenwell Films, Hannah’s own production company, and Scottish TV.

Feature-length film Black and Blue pulled in nine million viewers when it was aired in 2000.

A spokeswoman for ITV said: "Four episodes were commissioned and they did very well. But we are not obliged to make any more."

In other words, she's saying the show sucked. I don't disagree. I'm a huge rebus fan and I was really looking forward to the series. But John Hannah was miscast, the direction was flat and the scripts didn't capture the feel of Ian Rankin's wonderful books at all (it reminded me of the lousy Blood Work adaptation...it, too, sounded so good on paper and was so bad in execution). It wasn't the Inspector Morse/Nero Wolfe sort of adaptation all of us rebus fans were waiting for. I hope they try again -- with new writers and a new star .

He's back...better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster...

I'm writing this using Dragon naturally speaking dictation software. isn't technology grand? I just got home from three days in the hospital where my shattered right elbow was replaced with a brand-new titanium one.  I asked the surgeon to install a laser cannon and a tivo remote while they were at it, but they wouldn't do it. It's no fun  having two broken arms. You can't do anything for yourself.  You can't eat.  You can't pee. You can't button your shirt. You can't scratch your...well, you get the point. I find myself being far more intimate with my wife than I ever imagined. I'm sure shes as thrilled about it as i am. my daughter is getting a big kick out of feeding me, though. I just wish she'd stop speaking to me in baby talk.

I will try to keep this blog up-and-running...I'll share with you my efforts to continue writing and producing "Missing"....and making the july1 deadline on my next Diagnosis Murder book... while dealing with my two broken arms.  And I might even find a few Other Things to Rant about. So stick around... and forgive the typos!

UPDATE: I will be attending the LA Times festival of books this weekend. I don't know if I'll actually be signing my books -- but I will be showing up at all of my scheduled panels and signings.

update

Lee is doing fine -- he'll be having surgery to reconstruct his right elbow on Thursday. He's in very good spirits and wants to start writing as soon as possible. I'm gettinghim dictation software tomorrow. Thank you for all your good wishes and kind words! Valerie

Lee will be off-line for a while

Hi, this is Valerie Goldberg. Lee has broken both his arms and won't be able to answer e-mails for awhile. He'll be fine. One of the cast is coming off in three weeks. The other arm will require surgery. The D.M. book was half way done and Lee hopes to be resuming work on it (and his scripts) next week using dictating software.

Fanfic Rant II

Karabair defends fanfic on her blog

I think some of these real TV writers need to breathe. Lee Goldberg writes for "Diagnosis Murder," so I'm not sure exactly what kind of artistic or professional integrity he's protecting. On the other hand, anyone who writes fanfic about "Diagnosis: Murder" worries me much more than someone who writes it for money.

 

I have to admit, that made me laugh out loud. It's mean, but it's FUNNY. No one will ever mistake "Diagnosis Murder" for great literature or even exceptional television. For what it was, a humble little whodunit, I believe it was done well. Whether you agree with that or not, "Diagnosis Murder" represents an expression of someone's (or a group of people's) creativity. Those characters belong to somebody. You don't have to like "Diagnosis Murder", or appreciate it, to respect the author's right not to have his or her characters ripped off by someone else.

She later writes:

I mean, for most people it's not a choice of publishing in the real world for money and publishing fanfic among their friends

Huh? I don't get her reasoning at all. 

Writers write. It's part of who they are. Most can't help themselves. If they are lucky, they are able to sell their work and make a living at it. If they can't, there's nothing preventing them from making copies of their stories for their friends to enjoy. Who says if your work isn't published you have to write fanfic??

Why is it a choice between "publishing in the real world" and "fanfic?" 

Because, um, it isn't. It's a bizarre rationalization.

I think it's far more likely that writers turn to fanfic because it's a hell of a lot easier than coming up with something original. It's creative laziness.

This, of course, is coming from a guy who writes "Diagnosis Murder" novels, based on a TV series created by Joyce Burditt, who obviously isn't me.

Ironic, huh?

The difference is I wrote & produced the TV series for years...I have a certain pride of ownership (if not actual ownership) of those characters. For a long time, they were were my characters... I was responsible for them, and "controlled them," for nearly 100 episodes (with my writing partner, William Rabkin, of course, assisted by a terrific staff of writers and freelancers).

But even if you don't buy that argument, I'm now getting paid by the copyright-holders to write authorized novels. They have, in essense, given me the characters and their blessing to do with them as I creatively see fit. Big difference from fanfic.

She then argues:

I don't see fanfic as an attempt to replace the show's writers or tell them how to do their job. It's a way to tell stories that don't fit within the format of a series. Cutting away from Buffy & Spike in the basement in "Chosen" is absolute-fucking-lutely brilliant story telling.

That's like saying somebody adding lyrics to somebody else's hit song is engaging in "abso-fucking-lutely brilliant song writing." The logic is faulty, to say the least. 

Offending the Morons

This is a true story:

I was working on Murphy’s Law, a light-hearted detective series starring George Segal as an insurance investigator when I got this call from the network censor with notes on our script:

“You’ve got one of your characters calling another character a moron,” the censor said.

“Yeah, so?”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “We’ve approved ‘dolt,’‘dummy’ or ‘dink,’ as acceptable alternatives.”

“What’s wrong with calling somebody a moron?”

“You’ll offend all the morons in the audience,” he said.

I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

So I said, “Don’t worry, all the morons in the audience are watching Hunter.”

Three months later, Murphy’s Law was cancelled… and I got a job on Hunter.

CSIfication of America

I got this note in response to my "Fiction is Reality on Television" post:

I was amused by your post on CSI, because I work in a forensics lab [name and location omitted] and CSI has affected our business, too, albeit in different ways than it's affected yours. One problem we have is that with CSI and NEW DETECTIVES and the like, everybody's an expert (as Briscoe
wise-cracked on one episode of LAW & ORDER). Except, of course, they're not.

Example: this week, a cop brings in a case. Some landscapers were doing work in a yard when they unearthed a tin labeled with an engraved plate bearing a name, birth date, and death date. Inside
were burned bone fragments. The cop gives us his theory: he thinks it's a young kid, but the remains are very small for the three-year lifespan on the cover, so the kid was clearly malnourished. The cremation was done by the parents, in some improvised way, before they got rid of the kid. He had a very strange, lurid scenario worked out.

So we open the tin up, dump it into the screens to sift, and what do we find? A buckle. From a collar.

This wasn't a kid. It was somebody's pet cat.

The good news: CSI's success means a) funding and b) jobs. The bad news: people actually *believe* what they see on the show, down to the bizarre plots.

I'm sure people on jurys now consider themselves forensic experts, too. I wonder what impact the show is having in America's courtrooms.

Fanfic Rant

Jim Winter writes:

"I agree with a lot of your points even though I am a recovering fanficcer.  I say this because I went in to that particularly literary ghetto with my eyes wide open.  I never wrote "slash" or hurt/comfort, and anything resmebling a Mary Sue got personality and depth hammered onto it.

But Lee, you haven't dealt with the worst of the fanfic community --  the Trekkies.  Yes, that was the world I inhabited.  My approach was to invent an entirely new cast whose adventures took place in a time not likely to be hit upon by any of the series.  Until Enterprise (which convinced me I'd overstayed my welcome in fanfic), I pretty much was able to adapt to anything the writing staff threw out there.  Others were less accomodating.

To which I, Lee Goldberg, say: no offense intended, but why bother? If you are creating a "new cast," why not just write an original novel that takes place in space? Using other people's characters seems like a collosal waste of time and talent. Jim writes:

I cannot believe the sheer numbers of people who really believed that Kirk and Spock were so gay that they made the Queer Eye guys look like cousins to The Rock.  The worst case was one group, who like me did an original cast of characters, that threw a very public temper tantrum when Deep Space Nine changed writers and upset the intricate little universe they created.

I, on the other hand, and a few others knew we were just having fun with our favorite show (though I'd come to really hate it by the end of Voyager's first season), that we were "playing in someone else's sandbox," and that none of us would make a dime off of this.  (Hell, I lost money on a fanzine and still give the evil eye to anyone who says, "Hey, Jim, you should try editing.")  Several of us had to post reminders on a few Usenet groups that what we wrote was subject to the whims of someone else, and no one in Hollywood was bound by anything "established in fanfic."

By 2000, though, it occurred to me that, if I was as good as my friends were telling me (and every fanfic writer who gets a following hears this), I was wasting my time on copyright infringement that would make no one any money.  I also realized I never really liked reading science fiction much.  So I switched to crime fiction.  I went from being an obscure fanfic writer to an obscure crime fiction writer, dropping fanfic altogether when I wrote my first novel.

Money and copyright aside, what an incredible waste of creativity. Why toil on characters you don't own in a world that's not your own? It's not even literary masturbation. It's more like the literary equivalent of having sex with an inflatable woman who looks like Halle Berry. I honestly don't get it.

Sixteen years ago, my then-girlfriend (and now justifiably acclaimed novelist) Karen E. Bender was trying to break in to publishing. I got her a job working as an editorial assistant at Starlog magazine, where one of the editors gave her this sage advice:

"You want to break in to writing, the best place to start is with a Saavik story. Writing for the secondary characters is where the literary giants of tomorrow get their experience. If you make a mistake with them, it's a lot easier to fix in later fanfic. But blow it with Kirk or Spock, and your reputation as a serious writer is ruined." (I later used that quote in my book "Beyond the Beyond").

He also said writing sequels to movies, like his own to "Planet of the Apes" and "Superman," were good ways to hone her craft. The poor schlub didn't see any difference between the fanfic world and the literature. 

Last I heard, he was still living with his mother. Jim writes:

So, Lee, I really do sympathize.  I hope to God I never come across any Nick Kepler fanfic.  I understand the motivation and the appeal of it, but really, 95% of it proves that Shatner was right during his SNL skit.  Or, at least, the evil Captain Kirk from...  um...  10?  "The Enemy Within". 

Or was he really saying just pay attention to the movies?"

UPDATE: Jim expanded on his thoughts about fanfic in a lively rant on his own blog.

 

Whodunits Done?

Used to be you could watch a TV mystery and have a shot at figuring out whodunit. Not anymore. Not unless you have a crimelab in your family room. Eric Deggans wrote an interesting article about the murder of the whodunit.

The Mail I Get...

Because I am a "TV producer," I get all kinds of weird solicitations... mostly people asking me to read their script, buy their script, or give their script to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, or Martin Scorcese (like they hang out with the guy who wrote "She Wolf of London.") The following letter is real, it was emailed to me through my website last month:

"Dear Lee

I have just read your very interesting observations regarding the choice of actors for “James Bond” and I agree with you completely. I have read all the books over many years and had a picture in my “minds eye” of what he looked like.

Now comes the ‘crunch’……he looks exactly how my son looks!!! – Please don’t stop reading at this point and call me a doting Mother!! – I have other children who do not have “IT” but James most certainly does.

Everyone who meets my son is ‘captured’ by some factor I cannot really define, other than to repeat he has “IT” – Wherever he goes people (especially females) stare at him and want to talk to him or even just touch him!! – He is 6’ 2” and the proverbial tall dark and handsome guy. He also has great style and is very cool..i.e.nothing phases him!!

As a child he did some acting and I made him give it up and concentrate on his education, perhaps |I was wrong to do that! – He recently went to install some new computer equipment at a private hospital, a t.v. unit where there to film its opening and decided on the sput of the moment to ask James to appear on the film!!!..The camera loves him…it is impossible to take a bad picture of him.

Having said all that I wonder could you please point us in the right direction…i.e. who could we contact with regard to getting him into films? Preferably the next Bond movie or something else perhaps?

If you can help at all or indeed telll us who to contact we would be most grateful.

Very Best Regards"

Fanfic Sequel

From my brother Tod's latest column in the Las Vegas Mercury:

"The Single Best Piece of Fan Fiction I've Read This Year: A few months ago, I wrote a column about people writing fan fiction; subsequently, I've been on a nonstop search for the most bizarre entry into this sordid world. I've read "Diagnosis Murder" fan fiction that includes a near-anal rape of a main character. I've even read "Star Trek" slash fiction, which illuminates a dimension to Sulu's sometimes contemptuous relationship with Capt. Kirk in a rather, uh, prickly fashion. But it wasn't until I happened upon Lance Bass fan fiction that I truly understood what it means to love."