My pilot project for HBO based on THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ALL SIGNS OF DEATH has been greenlit.

The pilot will be shot later this summer, directed by my executive producer Alan Ball, but with no guarantees that there will be a series to follow. Which is normal.

(Hollywood Hint For Beginners #178: There are never ever guarantees.)

I am, obviously, pleased.

Details at Deadline Hollywood.

And then I got very busy.

And that means there’s a lot backed up here.

So I’m just gonna spray it.

My new book, SLEEPLESS, is coming out tomorrow. In the manner typical of significant personal events, this has both taken for-fucking-ever, and totally snuck up on me out or fucking nowhere.

Writing SLEEPLESS was a tough sonofabitch. I am deeply invested in it.

Many of my readers are going to flat out hate this fucking book.

Period.

Fucking period.

Some people who want nothing to do with anything else I have ever written are going to like this book.

Fucking period again.

And that’s a little intimidating and scary. I don’t have a plan to change forever the kind of books I write, but this one is different enough to just not work for some of my regulars.

Sorry.

Anyway, it comes out tomorrow. I’m gonna try and get back here and do some whoring. But I’m still very busy with other stuff. So you may be spared the whore.

Not unrelated to SLEEPLESS, I’m going on a little tour.

Here are the places and dates:

Tuesday, January 12
7:00pm
The Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd. Suite 101
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(with T. Jefferson Parker)

Wednesday, January 20
7:00pm
BookPeople
603 North Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703

Thursday, January 21
7:00pm
Legacy Books
7300 Dallas Pkwy Ste A120
Dallas, TX 75024

Friday, January 22
6:30pm
Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet St.
Houston, TX  77005

Saturday, January 23
2:00 PM
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111

Saturday, January 30
2:00pm
Mysteries to Die For
2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

4:00pm
Mystery Bookstore
1035 Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Sunday, January 31
Dark Delicacies
4213 West Burbank Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91505

Hope to see you.

Oh, and THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH came out in trade paperback last week.

It’s still a book you have to pay for, but it’s cheaper than a hardback.
The library is good, too.

Marilyn Stasio at the NY Times put it on her notable books of 2009 list HERE.
And then it got a little more love from the NY Times Paperback Row feature HERE.

One of the projects that’s been keeping me so busy is the development of a TV show based on MYSTIC ARTS for HBO.
What happened was that I was lucky enough to make an acquaintance with Alan Ball a couple years back and we’d spoken about doing a film or TV project about.
More recently I asked him if he was interested in the idea of a MYSTIC ARTS TV show and he volunteered to executive produce and guru for my first foray into TV.
Hint to the TV newbie: having Alan Ball as your guru helps.
Sometimes, you just get unreasonable lucky.
Anyway, I’m writing the pilot. If it clears the many many hurdles in between script and TV show, the first season will loosely follow the plot of the book.
And then who the fuck knows what.

My DEATHLOK miniseries for Marvel has been running for a couple months now. I think issue three is due this month. It’s pretty wild and over the top. Crazy SF adventure noir. Skull faced cyborg warrior takes on the world.

The last Joe Pitt book, MY DEAD BODY, has seemed to please a few people. And I’d like to thank the people who thought is sucked for not emailing me. It’s nice to keep that bubble unburst.

There is some pending movie news regarding CAUGHT STEALING, but the producers have yet to announce the deal so I need to keep it under my hat for now.

I’m still not working on my next novel, which seems more than weird. There’s this idea that’s still building for me, and it’s nice to have other work that’s kind of subsidizing the development of the idea. But I’m getting antsy. Also, most of my work over the last several months has had at least some socially interactive component, and I’m eager to be a selfish motherfucker again and god of my own world.

For the last few weeks I’ve been neck deep in a second TV project with a writing partner. This is another deal where the powers that by have yet to spill the beans, so I can’t share details as yet. About all I can say is that it’s my partner’s idea, it’s a cop show, and we’ll know soon if the pilot will be made.

I finished all the scripts for my 12 issue run on one of Marvel’s cadillac titles, but (wait for it) they haven’t announced the details yet so…
I do know it should start running in fall of this year.

I’m not sure when the smoke is going to clear so that I can compose some actual thoughts about writing, but it is what it is what it is.
With SLEEPLESS coming out you can be pretty sure that I’ll at least be running news in that quarter.

Speaking of which, here’s the starred review that ran in KIRKUS a few weeks back (A few SPOILERS in here):

“Thirty million Americans are sleepless, and it’s killing them.
What began modestly and unobtrusively is now a pandemic—ten percent of the world’s population can’t sleep. Ever. Zombie-like, the sleepless roam nocturnal streets, desperate to fill endless hours, while their bodies—and minds—disintegrate. This disease is a death sentence, usually within a year. While there’s no known cure, symptoms can be alleviated, but only by an increasingly hard-to-get drug named Dreamer. Parker Haas, a young police officer, seems immune to the disease, but his wife Rose is dying of it. Months ago, she passed the stage where she could care for their child in the loving way she used to. Instead, she spends her diminishing time obsessively immersed in Chasm Tide, a complex doomsday video game. On the street one day, Park learns of a possible source for Dreamer, which has become central to a flourishing black market. Then he discovers a conspiracy to artificially control the Dreamer supply in order to protect an exorbitant profit margin. The world may in fact be coming to an end as so many around him insist, but Park keeps it simple. He has never seen any path but the one straight ahead, and the imperative remains what it always was. If there’s a conspiracy, his job is to investigate it. If a perpetrator, no matter how powerful, can be identified, his job is to jail the guy. A good cop does what a good cop has to do. For Park, the rest is abstraction.
A writer as skilled as Huston (The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, 2009, etc.) can make an apocalyptic story terrifyingly plausible. Readers prone to depression should approach with care.”

See you out there.

-c

I find most efforts to critically examine pop culture more than a little tedious, by in the process of anatomizing the current batch of super hero movies and the future of the genre, the NY Times A.O. Scott provides an excellent breakdown for the most basic, and constricting, rules that govern action movie franchises in general:

“But to paraphrase something the Joker says to Batman, “The Dark Knight” has rules, and they are the conventions that no movie of this kind can escape. The climax must be a fight with the villain, during which the symbiosis of good guy and bad guy, implicit throughout, must be articulated. The end must point forward to a sequel, and an aura of moral consequence must be sustained even as the killings, explosions and chases multiply. The allegorical stakes in a superhero are raised — it’s not just good guys fighting bad guys, but Righteousness against Evil, Order against Chaos — precisely to authorize a more intense level of violence. Of course every movie genre is governed by conventions, and every decent genre movie explores the zones of freedom within those iron parameters.”

He also takes a moment to zero in on what I think is the greatest flaw of the current batman movie “The Dark Knight”:

“Instead the disappointment comes from the way the picture spells out lofty, serious themes and then … spells them out again. What kind of hero do we need? Where is the line between justice and vengeance? How much autonomy should we sacrifice in the name of security? Is the taking of innocent life ever justified? These are all fascinating, even urgent questions, but stating them, as nearly every character in “The Dark Knight” does, sooner of later, is not the same as exploring them.”

LINK

Someone went and made a microshort film out of my microshort story “Twitch and Spray”.  I like it.

LINK

Truth, I like them almost as much as I like books. At the finish line it will always be books, but I’d be bummed to have to make the call.

I also like money. I don’t like liking money. It’s bad love. Money is the chick you should have forgotten a long time ago, the one you should have dropped before you gave her a chance to break you for the fifth time. A money jones is a bad jones. I don’t got it as bad as many, but a little worse than some.

Movies and money. Yeah, they go together.

Write a book, especially a thriller, and you can’t help but think about a movie. And money. I got lucky out the gate and sold an option on the Caught Stealing film rights long before it was ever sold to a publisher. Cool, selling an option is cool. As long as you think of it like this, movie=$$$, it’s cool. I got lucky that way, too.

See, I could give a crap about the end product. If the movie ever gets made, and trust me, that is always a very long shot, I want it to be good, but that’s really just because I want my name and my book associated with a good product so I can sell more options and make more money. Really, I don’t even care that much about it being good, I just want it to be successful. At one point, very early in the process, it looked like I might get a crack at writing the screenplay. At the time I was still doing the grind and I loved the idea of working on the screenplay. Thought it would be good for my head. When that didn’t work out, I was bummed. In retrospect, I couldn’t be happier.

I got to meet the people at Crossroads who first tried to turn my book into a movie, and I don’t know how they put up with that business. These are smart, funny, good-hearted people. Where they get the patience to deal with folks like me, I don’t know. Because all of us, every single person involved in the “creative” process, has an agent/manager/lawyer, and they’re all looking to cut each other’s heart out. Fuck sake, how do they get anything done? It takes a long fucking time.

CAUGHT STEALING

The option on CAUGHT STEALING was held for several years by Crossroads Films. Through the vagaries of the movie making business, their best efforts and $$$ failed to bear fruit and they were never able to get financing for their vision. The option is currently being shopped around. If you have questions about the CAUGHT STEALING option, they can be directed to my film and TV agent, Maura Teitelbaum. Her contact info is on the representation page.

ALREADY DEAD

The option on ALREADY DEAD is currently held by Phoenix Pictures in association with Michael DeLuca. This is a deal that was a looooong fucking time in the making. For reasons beyond the ken of anyone who isn’t a lawyer, getting from a verble agreement to an actual signed contract took…well, this is how long it took; one of the principles in the negotiations had time to get married, buy a new house, get pregnant, and have a beautiful daughter. Do the math.

I’m not involved with the writing of the screenplay, or any other aspect of the production. This is cool by me. I don’t have visions of my books that need to be protected or any shit like that. My vision, such as it is, is on the page. If a movie is ever made, good or bad, it won’t change what I’ve written. In the meantime, I’ve met the screenwriter, and he’s a great guy and I think he has great ideas that are much better than I would have come up with. I’m hoping I get to see his vision some day.

LOS ANGELES, February 4 – There is nothing cool about it.

Sepia tint it how you will, there is nothing cool about a pack of teenagers running around in an acid yellow Ford Fiesta.

I know, I tried it.

Uncool.

Despite what the cinema would have us believe, not everyone spent the late seventies and early eighties cruising around in primered ‘68 Nova Super Sports or glossy black Trans Ams. The overwhelming bulk of us had to make due with late model station wagons, beat down pickups, the rusty VW Bug the neighbor sold cheap to get it out of his driveway, or, in extremis, acid yellow Ford Fiestas.

Worst part of the story?

It wasn’t even my ride.

Passenger in the Fiesta.

Guilty as charged.

But even a Fiesta has a tape deck. Cassette, with auto-change. Deluxe. And the man riding shotgun was usually in charge of the tunes.

Not that there was much question about what you were going to listen to.

Just stop digging in the glove box and throw in the towel, man, just stop complaining that you’ve listened to it too many fucking times, just snap the damn thing in the deck and get it over with.

CLICK

And you know, once it starts playing, it doesn’t really matter how many times you’ve listened to it this week, it always has something to offer.

The “Heavy Metal” soundtrack.

1. “Heavy Metal” (Sammy Hagar)
2. “Heartbeat” (Riggs)
3. “Working in the Coal Mine” (Devo)
4. “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” (Blue Öyster Cult)
5. “Reach Out” (Cheap Trick)
6. “Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride)” (Don Felder)
7. “True Companion” (Donald Fagen)
8. “Crazy (A Suitable Case for Treatment)” (Nazareth)
9. “Radar Rider” (Riggs)
10. “Open Arms” (Journey)
11. “Queen Bee” (Grand Funk Railroad)
12. “I Must Be Dreamin’” (Cheap Trick)
13. “The Mob Rules” (Black Sabbath)
14. “All of You” (Don Felder)
15. “Prefabricated” (Trust)
16. “Blue Lamp” (Stevie Nicks)

Now look, I’m not gonna get in some pointless argument about “Open Arms”. Every soundtrack has it’s weak point. That’s what the fucking fast forward button is for, jack. And my basic response to any complaint about this compilation is the same:

“THE MOB RULES”

Sabbath.

Sabbath on a fucking movie soundtrack.

So fuck you and your fucking problems, I need to turn up the volume because the DJ just played some fucking Sabbath on the fucking FM fucking radio.

Now, those of you who have grown up with Sabbath as the background music to TV commercials, and Ozzy as the punch line in his own crapulous reality show, may not understand that little tirade.

See, there was a time when Black Sabbath was THE MOST FEARED BAND IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

Simply identifying yourself as a fan of Sabbath qualified you for instant status as someone seriously not to be fucked with.

Admittedly, this sheen of terror had faded somewhat by the time Ronnie James Dio was fronting the band, but they still got no play on radio other than the occasion blast of “Iron Man” at 2am when the DJ thought no one would notice and call the station manager to report him.

Until “Mob Rules”.

Sabbath on a movie soundtrack. Unthinkable.

It could only happen with a movie of such undeniable badassness as “Heavy Metal”.

Sci-Fi, fantasy, rock-n-roll, and an overabundance of animated female nudity.

Finally someone got it all right.

The music didn’t make the Fiesta any cooler, but it made us rock.

Imagine, then, my reaction over a year ago when I got a call from someone asking if I’d like to talk about doing some writing for a new “Heavy Metal” movie.

Did ten pounds of shit spontaneously drop from my bowels?

Yes. Yes, sirs and madams, yes it did. And it felt good.

The upshot at that time was that Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and owner/editor of Heavy Metal Magazine, was putting together a sequel.

There had been one sequel already, but it is not spoken of.

This sequel, to be named “Heavy Metal: Unloaded” would have the same format as the first: a trunk story, off which a variety of other animated shorts would sprout. The project was still being developed, and they wanted to know if I’d be interested in scripting a promotional demo video they’d be showing their prospective backers.

I declined.

Not for lack of interest.

Please.

Not interested in working on a new HM movie?

Fuck you.

Rather, I knew I was not the writer for the job.

‘nuff said.

Time passes. As it is now. As it does. And I got a call.

The movie was on. Funded. Set up as a low budget deal that would go direct to video.

Would I like to write the trunk story?

Fuck me, would I?

Yes, I would. Please and thank you very much.

Kevin and his producing partner Robert Mandel had conceived a live action trunk story involving a detective in an SF setting. Her investigation would lead her through the various animations that would make up the bulk of the movie.

Do you know what work-for-hire means?

It means take the money and do your job and don’t fuck shit up.

In the nicest way.

But seriously, if you don’t want to do what other people tell you they want you to do, don’t take work-for-hire gigs.

I like work-for-hire. Yes, it means I have no ownership over something I’m writing, but that’s fine with me. I like trying to take other people’s creations and make them work in a new way they haven’t thought of. I like having my ideas bounced around and trying to adapt to an employer’s ideas. It’s good exercise. And it’s also pretty fucking low stress.

It helps to work with people who are not assholes.

Kevin and Robert are not assholes. There are whatever the opposite of an asshole may be. And I’m not talking about what you find on the flip side of the human body.

Moving on.

So I’m waiting one night, waiting to hear if my agent and the HM team will make a deal so I can take this job and all will be cool.

What am I doing as I’m waiting?

By twist of fate, I have been invited last minute, by men who I have known for most of my life, to join them at a rock concert.

Who’s playing?

Do I need to tell you?

Suffice to say, the opening number brought back instant memories of an acid yellow Ford Fiesta.

No shit, they came out the gate with “Mob Rules”.

Next day I got the call and started the gig.

Since then, things have changed for Kevin and Robert. Their direct-to-video project had blossomed and mutated in magnificent ways.

I’m shy on details, but from what I gather, the mutation began when director David Fincher took an interest in the movie. Direct to video is now dead, as Heavy Metal Inc., Fincher and Blur Animation are now developing a feature version with studio backing. The names Guillermo del Toro and Gore Verbinski have been whispered as directors of some of the animated segments. My trunk script is not a part of this project, but daddy did his job and got his check and you remember what I said about taking work-for-hire.

Besides, a new HM movie is in the works.

Time to check the market on old Fiestas.

Rockin’,

Charlie

Sunday Bloody

So, while not watching the Pats get kicked off their pedestal on Sunday, I flipped through the New York Times. Two good essays regarding writing and publishing:

About the length of the publishing cycle and why it is HERE

About the genre ghetto and why it is HERE

LOS ANGELES, September 2 – And for my next trick I will…

Well, what is the next trick?

It’s a question that comes up again and again when you’re writing. Microcosmically, it’s the next word that you need to pull out of your hat and send hopping across the page. Moving up in scale, it’s the straight jacket you have to wrestle from, the tangle of plot problems that have you bound at the center point of your story and which must be unraveled before you can burst free. Going macro, it’s the sealed water tank filled with piranha you’ve been dropped into with chain weighing your wrists and ankles, the big show stopper, the idea for the next book that has to be cracked wide before you can start writing it.

Ooh, listen, you can hear the creaks and groans of a weak metaphor strained to its limits.

What do you write next?

Word. Sentence. Paragraph. Page. Chapter. Book.

What do you write next.

A luxury of a problem when you get down to it. But a problem nonetheless.

Well, duh, you write what’s next. If you’re lucky enough to be in a position where you can actually sell what you write, you write the next story. The one that’s most important to you. The one you have to write. Numbnuts.

True, true, that’s one approach. You could also choose to write the story you think has the best chance of selling to a new publisher. Or the one you think has the best shot at being turned into a movie. Or the one that includes Da Vinci in the title.

But when the window opens, when the time comes available, or the previous assignment has been completed, or the kids are away at camp, or you’ve saved the scratch to go away for a month and live in a cabin without distractions, you better have a plan.

The publishing cycle for a novel is about one year. That means the book you buy today was likely accepted in final draft form by a publisher about 12 months ago. That means, as you read that new book, the writer is probably working on his or her next book already.

Mind you, I’m talking commercial fiction here. There’s no time table I know of for literary writers. No one expects Tom Wolfe to drop a novel a year. But it’s pretty standard in the genre game. And that means having a plan.

The plan may or may not include plotting out stories in advance. But it certainly includes knowing when the window will open to start the next story. When it will slam closed and you will have missed your deadline. And when, over the course of the next 12 months or so, that you can expect to have some checks hit your account.

Assuming writing is something you do that helps to put meat and potatoes on the table, you have to have a sense of what’s coming in. There’s no paycheck dropping at the end of the month. Advances generally payout when you sign new contracts, when a final draft is accepted by the publisher, and on the date of publication. Those dates fall pretty far from one another.

Remember, the publishing cycle is one year.

Sign a contract, get a cut of the advance. Write the book (call it 6 month to a year) get another cut. And wait a year from publication before you see the next check.

This kind of thing has a way of influencing the schedule.

And it requires that plan.

A year in advance.

What will I write? When can I expect to finish it? Can I afford to do something a bit more ambitions, knowing it may extend the time it takes to edit to an accepted draft? Where will checks fall over the course of the next year? Once I fulfill my contractual obligations, will there be any time left to work on side projects? How much time? Which of there might I be best served by pursuing? Is it realistic to try and write that story I know my publisher doesn’t want to see, but that I really want to write?

All of which are great problems to be puzzled with. Like all good tricks.

Done with a new book and puzzling,

Charlie

Suck on This

The world needs another fucking vampire movie like I need another beer. Well, actually, a beer sounds pretty good. And so does another vampire movie. So why shouldn’t that vampire movie be based on ALREADY DEAD?
The movie rights to ALREADY DEAD have been optioned by Phoenix Pictures in association with Michael DeLuca.
I’m not involved with the writing of the script, but the folks at Phoenix and in Mr. DeLuca’s office have been very good about keeping my up to date with what they’re doing. I like them.
As noted before, the movie business moves at a glacial pace. If I have any news to report, I’ll throw it up here.

LOS ANGELES, August 22 – The movie thing, it’s designed to make people mad.

I mean mad in the anglophile Britishy way of nutty, as opposed to the stalwart American way of just pissed off. Although both senses of the term apply.

Personally, I don’t feel mad about the movie thing at all just now. Either kind of mad. I feel rather peaceful and at ease. I, after all, have no reason to feel mad. My interactions within the realm of the movie thing have been passing, brief and, for the most part pleasant.

Not so for others.

I know some folks who have ample reason to feel greatly mad. Though I’ve seen no indication that they actually do. The folks in question are the kind people at Crossroads Films.

To wit:
After several years of diligent effort, and the expenditure of significant sums of $$$, they have been forced to give up their film option on CAUGHT STEALING. This is disappointing. But no so much for the obvious reasons.

Well, not for me anyway.

I’m disappointed because these folks had been putting their back into it for a few years now, come close on several occasions to having their financing in place, and never been able to get that boulder quite to the top of the mountain before it rolled back down on them. In the meantime, in order to continue this reenactment of Sisyphus, they had to dole out periodic checks to me and a few other people as well. I can only imagine the frustration of working literally for years on a project, investing some real capital in it, and seeing it come to nothing in the end. I can only imagine this because I have been, for all intents and purposes, a well paid spectator at the event.

Lucky me. Again.

The sick part, the really sick part, is that, having already made a nice piece of change off this effort, the option right to CAUGHT STEALING will now return to me. And I can sell them again. And again. And again. This can, and does, go on for a very long time.

Silly, yes?

Of course, as blasé as I may be able to play this, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see a movie get made from one of my books, or all of them for that matter. There’s gold in them there hills after all. But it’s nice solace knowing (should I be lucky enough to have this continue) that folks will have to pay for the pleasure of trying to crack that nut whether they are successful or not.

Pity them.

Something is driving them. And clichés of Hollywood greed aside (and those are plenty real themselves), most of the people driven in this particular way seem to have as their greatest aspiration, the desire to make good movies. Go figure.

So, good folks at Crossroads, folks with a real desire to make a good movie, run into a self serving, money grubbing novelist like me and end up spending sweat and treasure on a fruitless venture while I happily whistle down the street with a slightly fatter wallet.

Right bastard that I am.

And I’m gonna try to do it again!

I’m gonna hang CAUGHT STEALING at the end of a line of piano wire and drag it through the heavy water, dumping chum all the while, and hope for a big motherfucker to come along and swallow the bait. Should this happen, it will be followed, inevitably, with a long and frustrating period of negotiation that will make me wish I’d simply thrown some dynamite in the water, but should I land the beast, I can cut it’s belly open and scrape out the roe.

Not to batter a metaphor or anything.

Tying a fly,
Charlie

Cap and the Falcon Hit the Road!

Tomorrow, Wednesday, August 23rd is the scheduled release date for The Ultimates 2 Annual #2.

How do I know? I wrote it.

Fuck you, Huston, you fucking hack! Who drew the damn thing?

Well, since you asked nicely, pencil duties were shared by Mike Deodato and Ryan Sook.

For the uninitiated, that being the folks who have better things to do than read books with lots of pictures in them, the Ultimates are an updated version of Marvel Comics’ Avengers. For those of you who don’t know who the Avengers are, I have no time to explain the concept of The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!

The story told may require the slightest bit of setup: America was conquered by a force of foreign super villains. The Ultimates kicked their asses. Stuff got broken. Stuff is being put back together.

Go buy the bastard and read it. Pretty pretty pictures.

SANTA MONICA, July 15 – They make movies out here.

Lots of them.

And yet.

Based on the number of people expressing sheer desperation to produce a movie, be in a movie, direct a movie, get their movie off the ground, and, yes, write a movie, you’d think they made one fucking flick a year.

They don’t.

They make ten.

Really, they make a lot more than that. I can’t remember how many, but I do recall being told, by someone who was trying to get their movie made, that the motion picture business is one of America’s two great export industries. Right up there with airliners. Or maybe it was guns.

Anyway, it’s a big business. As if you didn’t know.

You see the box office numbers. We all see the box office numbers. We all know the relative quality of a movies means shit compared to the simple fact of whether it won or lost.

Winning meaning that it made money.
Losing meaning that it, well, lost money.
The one being rewarded by fetes and gift baskets full of corporate swag for all involved.
The other by being dragged to the ditch out back where a bullet can more easily be injected into the back of your head.

Not that I know. I’m not in the movies business. I am in the business of writing novels and comic books. I have, indeed, sold an option to the film right for one of my books. I have, indeed, an expectation that I will soonish be able to say the same of another of my books. This does not comprise being in the movie business. To be in the movie business one must either have a passion for the cinema, a craving for fame and or power, or be really really greedy.

Getting into the movie business because you’re greedy? That’s a stupid fucking idea.

Why?

Because they make ten fucking movies a year.

You will never make a movie. You will never be in a single movie, let alone enough movies to make you rich. You will never get your project off the ground. You will never write a movie that will ever get purchased. Too many other people want the same thing.

And they’re all trying to kill you.

Well, they’re not.

In fact, the movie people I’ve met, they people who actually make livings getting movies produced, they’re all rather nice. Very nice even. Want nothing more than to find a good idea, director, actor, writer, whatever. Want nothing more than to have a good movie to make. Or a profitable one, anyway. Not trying to kill you at all.

But it feels that way.

There’s blood in the air out here. Its smell blends with the scents of money and desperation, two more great American exports; thick on the breeze. Barbarians are at the gate. They want in. They want their share. What’s coming to them. What the movies themselves have told them is theirs by right.

It’s fucking terrifying.

Your bartender is an actor (natch’, I was once your bartending actor).
Your waiter is a cinematographer.
Your landlady is a producer.
Your cabbie (they have ‘em) is a professional stand in.
Your barber is a director.

And everyone is a fucking writer.

It’s true. Not a soul on planet earth doesn’t think they have a great movie idea. The homeless guy with the shopping cart piled high with crap? There’s a screenplay in there. Guarantee it. God bless him. I hope it gets made.

So, yes, they’re making movies out here. And sure, I have a pinkie toe in that absurd ocean of sacrificial blood.

But I’m only in it for the money.

My car dealer, he’s a geologist. No shit.

Getting wet,

Charlie

Geekolypse Now!

San Diego Comic Con looms! There it is on the horizon! Run!

Here’s where I’ll be:
Thursday, July 20th: 1-2pm at the Marvel Comics booth.
Friday, July 21st: 3-4pm at the Del Rey booth. 4:30-5:30pm in panel room 8, followed by a signing.
Saturday, July 22nd: 3-4pm at the Del Rey booth.

And lingering about several bars, no doubt. Come see me and say hi. I promise not to pretend like I don’t recognize you.

NEW YORK, February 2 – I take it back, proofing is a joy.

Compared, that is, to putting together a links page for your fucking website.

Tedious?

There must be a better word. Let me just whip out my thesaurus.

Um.

“annoying, arid, banal, bor-ring, boring, bromidic, deadsville, drab, dragging, draggy, dreary, drippy, drudging, dry, dusty, enervating, exhausting, fatiguing, ho hum, humdrum, insipid, irksome, laborious, lifeless, long-drawn-out, monotonous, mortal, noplace, pablum, poky, prosaic, prosy, slow, snooze, soporific, tiresome, tiring, unexciting, uninteresting, vapid, weariful, wearisome”

Yep.

That covers it.

And bromidic is my new favorite word. I shall now begin to use it in conversation. People will love it when I tell them they’re being bromidic. They’ll laugh and laugh and think I’m so fucking clever they could just shit.

Me and Oscar Wilde.

Aaaaaanyway, the links page it up. That’s what I did today. So I’m not going to do much more.

Lazy bones.

Please play with said links. If you find some that don’t work, please let me know. If you’re someone I should have linked to, no offence. Make sure and tell me I’m being a dick. I hate being a dick.

Most of the time.

But not always.

Not a dick today,
Charlie

They Did What?

The Mystery Writers of America have made SIX BAD THINGS a finalist for this year’s Best Paperback Original Edgar Award. This is a very cool thing. You can get a complete list of nominees and learn about the MWA here.

Does He Never Shut Up?

More Fucking Interviews:

Podcast of Comics Geekspeak interview. Haaaardcore Moon Knight.

Talking Moon Knight with Dave Richards at CBR. Includes more art previews.

Talking shit with Jon Jordan of Crimespree Magazine.

Talking Joe Pitt and Moon Knight with Rob Bedford at SF World

More Moon Knight with Roger Ask of Westfield Comics.

I’ll try to be quiet. I promise.

Casting Call

One of my actor buddies in L.A. found this casting breakdown. This is not a joke.

“Bad Things
Film & TV, SAG
Posted:Â 1/26/2006

Category Student Film

Union Status SAG
Union Contract SAG Waiver
Contract Status SAG Waiver

 Rate Credit/Copy/Food

 Audition Dates 1/30, possibly 1/31
Audition Location USC

 Shoot/Performance DatesÂ

2/1 & 1 add’l day between 2/3 & 2/17

 Project NotesÂ
USC Graduate Student Film / DV / <5 Minutes

Description:
The film is an adapted segment from the book Six Bad Things. Hank Thompson, late thirties, is a man in hiding. Several years ago he fled to Mexico with 4 million dollars, leaving behind his loving parents and a trail of dead bodies. He doesn’t socialize much, but tonight is different. A young woman, visiting from Mexico City is interested and she’s not going to let him off easy. Then again, he’s not putting up much resistance. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t had attention like this in a long time. Unfortunately, like everything else in his life, it ends badly.
Â
Roles

HANK THOMPSON / Lead / Male / Caucasian / 30-45 / Role ID: A Medium build. Physically, he’s not perfect, but he isn’t overweight. Tatoos, tanned a plus. Easy going, slightly paranoid, surfer, weathered, beach bum. Hank Thompson is a former minor league baseball player who barely escaped the Russian mafia with his life and 4 million dollars. For several years now he’s lived in a run down hut on a beach in Mexico, spending his days swimming in the ocean and watching football. He’s a beach bum who doesn’t socialize much, since most of the people he cared about are dead now all because of him. Fortunately, his parents are still alive and he wants it to stay that way.
Wardrobe:Â Button down, tropical, surfer, casual shirt. Worn jeans and flip flops.
Â
DAMITA / Lead / Female / Hispanic / 18-23 / Role ID: B A young, attractive woman who may seem innocent, but actually has a much wilder, sexy side. She’s on her first college break from Mexico City and plans to release some steam partying with friends and flirting with an older man. Maybe it’s low self-esteem or maybe she’s just looking for something dangerous. She should be careful. Need hispanic accent. Speaking Spanish a plus.

Wardrobe:Â mini-t and jeans”

The mind, again, boggles.

NEW YORK, December 1 – Every now and then I like to remind myself of just how stupid I really am.

Not that I lack for reminders. It’s just that I occasionally like to do it in a big way. An act of humility, call it. And my chosen instrument for delivering this lesson is always the same.

Ulysses

Yes, that Ulysses. James Joyce’s masterpiece. Of course, I wouldn’t know if that it’s his masterpiece without someone telling me.

Why?

Because I can’t finish the fucking thing.

I don’t mean I can’t finish it in the usual My God this book sucks and I must be freed of it or go insane kind of way. I mean I can’t finish the fucking thing because I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

Because I’m too fucking stupid.

I first encountered this fact some fifteen or so years back. That’s when I first picked up a copy of Ulysses in a book store, glanced and the first few pages, and thought to myself, I don’t know what all the hoo-ha is about, I know exactly what’s going on here. People have trouble following this? Boy are people stupid.

Bought the book. Took it home. Made it to about page ten before I lost all conception of the narrative thread and gave up.

Surrendered.

Added my name to the list of people too stupid to read Ulysses. It’s a long list. What’s one more name more or less?

Years pass.

As they will.

The book stays on my shelf. Why? I’m not getting any smarter. Well, it looks good up there. Not that I ever claim to have read the beast. I’m not that shallow. Not quite. But it does look good up there. And I am determined to take another crack at it some time.

And I do.

Years later, feeling my oats, I pluck it from the shelf and begin to read.

Shock and amazement!

Whereas last time I had to puzzle at the structure a bit, this time it reads quite cleanly. Keeping track of who is talking when is quite easy. It reads freely and smoothly.

For about twenty pages.

In the passing of several years, I’d grown ten pages smarter.

Brain hurts too much.

Book goes back on shelf.

Years pass.

But I have learned something. Joyce makes so many casual allusions to other writers, to poetry and mythology and song and the Bible, that what is clearly required to read the thing is a body of reading broad and long and varied. This will take time to accumulate. One must be patient. I will read Ulysses someday.

When I am ready.

Years pass.

In the meantime I happen to write CAUGHT STEALING.

One of the odder asides in the history of that book’s publishing was an email from an LA based manager in the film business. This gentleman, name unknown to me, had received my manuscript from an agent who did not think he could sell the book, but did allow that “They make movies out of things like this.” Kindly (and I don’t mean that sarcastically, it was a kindness) he sent the manuscript to his friend The Manager. Upon receiving a response, he forwarded it to me.

While The Manager didn’t think he could sell an option on an unpublished book by an unpublished writer, he did think there might be a movie in it. He indicated I might want to write a screenplay version. On spec.

On spec, by the way, means for free.

Don’t get me wrong, with nothing better to do, the barest inkling of interest from anyone made the idea of writing anything on spec eminently appealing. I’m only sarcastic in hindsight, having learned over the years that “on spec” is also hollywoodese for “we’ll only pay a writer as a last fucking resort”.

I digress.

He went on to make a few suggestions regarding length for such a screenplay, who may or may not get killed, cat torture in film and the merits of having your protagonist shit himself.

I believe his words were, “Try explaining the artistic value of that to George Clooney.”

And he also had a few words regarding the manuscript as a novel. He strongly suggested the inclusion of quotation marks in my dialogue.

Writing, as I recall, “Who does he think he is, Joyce?”

To which I replied, mentally, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You’ve never read Joyce anymore than I have, you Hollywood poseur.”

Bear with me, this will bear fruit soon.

Years pass.

Years pass until we get to, oh, about a week and a half just past. At which time I decide I need a good stiff reminder of my mental shortcomings.

Down comes Mr. Joyce from the shelf.

And it’s a fucking breeze.

No lie. I fly through the pages with ease. All of it making crystal sense.

How was I ever at a loss to read this? How intimidated? It is graceful and smooth and full of wit and wisdom. They were right! Everyone was right! Ulysses is a masterpiece! And I am reading it! I am now smart enough to read it!

I rule!

I rule right up to about page forty.

Then I suck.

Once the opening scenes with all the dialogue are over, once we’re deep into the prose?

Lost. Up Joyce creek without a paddle.

The happy news being that I am now twenty pages smarter than the last attempt. And doubling my output each time around. At this rate I’ll get to page eighty on the next go.

But what about The Manager? He of the Joycian pretense?

Well, those of you who have read my books or kept up with this journal are aware of how I write my dialogue.

Thusly:

-So, where’d you get the convention of using the dash instead of quotation marks?

-Kind of laziness really. I was writing CAUGHT STEALING with no expectation of showing it to anyone, and I got tired of hitting the quote key. Also, I liked rolling the dialogue down the page. Also, I was reading a lot of Cormack McCarthy and he doesn’t use quotes and I liked the way it read. But I did find it easy to lose track of the dialogue sometimes, lose it in the prose. So I thought I’d put a little indicator in there. A dash to set off a line of dialogue.

-Huh, and you kept it that way when you sold the book?

-I thought for sure they’d ask me to change it, but people seemed to like it. Now it’s habit.

-And you never made the connection that that’s the way Joyce wrote his dialogue in Ulysses and that’s what The Manager (who clearly had read some Joyce) was alluding to?

-Nope. I never realized that I was copping Joyce’s thing. Nor did I realize that The Manager wasn’t just being a dick and throwing out Joyce’s name. That he was in fact making a specific and educated literary comparison and criticism. Know why I didn’t?

-Nope. Why?

-Because I’m that stupid. As I have been recently reminded.

Trying, really trying, to get smarter some day,
charlie

Calling All
Still resurrecting the lost and corrupted address book I lost when my hard drive went splat. If you want on the mailing list, simply email me at charlie@pulpnoir.com and put mailing list in the subject line.

If you are a friend, family member or business associate, please send me all your contact info.
Thanks.

Book Lovers Report
The folks at bookloversreport.com have some nice things to say about pulpnoir.com. I thank them and encourage you to go rummage around their site.

Turds: Floating and Otherwise
Following my November 16th entry, a few kind people have taken a moment to express concern or sympathy regarding the relative success of CAUGHT STEALING, and the fact that SIX BAD THINGS was put out as a TPB. My thanks. And, please, turn your generous feeling to those who are worthy. I am not.

Things are great and I never meant to imply otherwise. I hoped to tell one story of how a writer’s work can sometimes be changed from one format to another.

No bitterness or tears in my house. Just turds and laughter.

By the way, one of spellcheck’s suggestions for turds is surds. This was new on me. The Shorter OED tells me that surd means: “…dull, indistinct…”. It may also refer to a number or quantity “…not expressible by an ordinary (finite) fraction…”. It can also mean to deaden a sound, “as with a mute.” So one can surd a horn.

And here’s where it gets relevant to this weeks entry: “Irrational, stupid.”

As in, Charlie, you are such a surd.

NEW YORK, September 21 – I’m in Chicago (which, it turns out, really is my kind of town) hanging on a bench by a river that runs through town, having a conversation about life with a new friend. He’s telling me about some of his adventures in the screen trade as a script doctor and gun for hire.

Mostly I’m laughing.

Mostly he’s laughing.

Mostly these stories are in the past and the sad and pathetic and enraging aspects of them have become merely amusing.

The story of how he wrote a “Thor” treatment, steeped in actual Norse mythology and culminating with Ragnarok, the battle at the end of all things, and how he was told it wasn’t what they really had in mind, they were more thinking that Thor gets frozen in ice and pops up in a small Midwest town and some teenagers find him, that story’s pretty much hysterical.

We laugh.

He lights another cigarette.

-The thing you have to remember is…

He blows smoke at the sky, looks at me.

-They hate writers out there.

I laugh.

He doesn’t.

-The directors hate writers because they want to think the story is all theirs. The actors hate writers because they want to believe the lines are all theirs. And the producers hate writers because they want to believe all the best ideas are theirs. And they all think they can write better than you anyway. If they wanted to.

He smokes.

I think about asking for one, but I smoked a couple last night and I don’t usually smoke and I’d rather not be getting back into the habit.

But him, he smokes.

-This producer had this project he wanted me to write. He told me, I’m really a great writer. I just don’t know how to start. Give me a script and I can rewrite the hell out of it. Fix the hell out of it. I just don’t know how to start. I’m afraid of the empty page.

He looks at me, nods his head, smokes.

-Fucker’s afraid of the empty page.

He groans.

-He doesn’t realize that’s what a fucking writer is, he’s the guy who’s not afraid of the empty page.

He flicks his butt away.

-Afraid of the empty page. Fucking moron.

He leans back, stretches his arms along the bench, tilts his face to the sun.

-So I don’t do that anymore.

Closes his eyes.

-It was killing me.

A writer is the guy who’s not afraid of the empty page. I liked it when he said it, I still like
it. Makes me feel like I’m a badass.

Sitting down every morning, pulling up the electronic empty page on my box, staring it down, and marking it up.

Putting shit all over it.

Putting it in it’s fucking place.

Yeah. Badass.

Except for the days when I’m not. The days when I understand the producer entirely, the days when another hand of computer solitaire is just what the doctor ordered.

How many times can a writer check his email on a given day? A fucking lot if it’s one of those days when the empty page has the upper hand.

Days like that, they make me long to be working on a typewriter. I could yank that page out of the carriage, maybe tearing a corner in the process, crunch it slowly between my fingers, ball it tight, and slam it into the wastebasket with the other piece of shit empty pages that didn’t know their place and got out of line.

Take that, motherfucker!

Somehow, hitting delete just doesn’t do it.

Computer’s got an advantage over sheets of paper that way. I take it out on my computer, raise it over my head and pound it into the floor, and it pretty much takes me out. Thinks it’s sooo fucking smart.

But one of these days, it’s gonna be obsolete.

One of these days, gonna have me a new computer.

My old computer gets out of line after that, nothings gonna stop me. Empty pages not happy getting filled with what I have to offer, they’re all gonna have a bad day.

All those potential empty pages sitting inside the hard drive, waiting for some worthwhile call to action, they’re all gonna go the way of the buffalo.

What’s it all about?

Yeah, I’m working on a new book.

Yeah, I’m putting words on the empty page every day.

But, yeah, some days, the empty page still sends a chill up my spine.

Wish that guy was here to talk to about it. Wish we were sitting on that bench outside in the sun.

No empty pages around at all. I could ask him what he does.

I could ask him for a cigarette.

Slapping another one into shape,
Charlie

On The Road

I’ll be heading out of town again next week. No new entry until the first week of October.

The Kind of Fool I Am

Joe Quesada is a nice guy. He’s the Editor in Chief at Marvel Comics and I’ve done some work for him and he’s really a nice guy. I say this with full knowledge that he’s a Jets fan. Me, I hate the Jets. Comes with being a Dolphins fan. This natural enmity aside, we managed to have a nice lunch together the other week, managed to talk sports without either of us reaching across the table and slapping the other one with a velvet glove secretly containing a brick. We did this despite the fact that out teams were to square off the following Sunday. Felt pretty proud of myself, slipping out of that diner without offending a guy I like, on the first occasion we get to hang out together a little.

So I go home, write him an email of thanks, and tell him his team sucks and mine’s gonna beat the shit out of his and offer to lay down a little bet.

No cash, just a little memorabilia. One of my books against one of his. A gentlemen’s wager. And he accepts.

What kind of fool am I? The kind that needs to learn time and again not to bet on his own team. And for God sake, certainly don’t offer to bet on your own team. The minute I did it, I knew I’d doomed the Fins to a humiliating loss.

And so it was.

Dolphins fans everywhere, my bad. I’ll try not to do it again.

Mr. Quesada, the Jets still suck.