I have an essay running on that site today.

More importantly, some folks with names like Lawrence Block, Joe R. Landsdale, Don Winslow and Nick Tosches have original essays and/or interviews on that site.

read on,

-c

PS

Yes, I’ve been quiet.
The HBO pilot based on MYSTIC ARTS is in pre-production, cameras roll tomorrow, and I’m unlikely to have much time to add anything here in the next few weeks while it is shooting.

Go outside and play.

If you’ve emailed me before, that address still works and you’re welcome, as always, to email me again.

If you’re trying to drop me a line for the first time, I apologize.

For the time being I’m keeping below the horizon until I figure out a system for douche bag avoidance. Once I have a system in place I’ll be available for email again.

In the meantime, email you mom, she misses you.

-c

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.

The obvious companion to my previous post, what happens when you come to a new publisher?

I haven’t a fucking clue.

I’ve never done this before.

But my books have a new home. A very new home. They will be residing at Little Brown’s brand new imprint MULHOLLAND BOOKS.

Spearheaded by my new editor John Schoenfelder, Mulholland will specialize in thrillers of all genres. This makes it a natural home for me as I’ll have the freedom to move about and try some new things.

I’m now working on what will be my first Mulholland book, but it won’t see the light of day for over a year. An international espionage thriller (or my version of one), it will have a feel similar to SLEEPLESS, though i do have plans to get hardboiled again as soon as possible.

New publishing home. New people. New book.

And me still trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing.

Go slow,

-c

Life could be miraculously easy if every time you tried to make something happen the way you wanted it to happen it would actually just happen fucking brilliantly.

Could get tedious, but I doubt it.

And, news flash, seems that’s not the way it happens.

For several years now many good people at Ballantine, Random House, and Del Rey have worked very hard to get my books into the hands of more people. They have, time and again, expressed their belief that they were coming up short on the full potential readership for the oddnessess I write. They have invested no end of time and effort and creativity as they have sought new ways to present my books and communicate to readers what was inside them and why they should be opening them up to take a look. None of those efforts have been wasted.

Nonetheless, I am moving to a new publisher.

After eleven books published within the Random House family, I simply feel that I want to find out what happens when I work outside that comfort zone, and how the talents and perceptions of a new team might change the scope of my readership.

It’s awkward to talk about wanting more readers. It seems both greedy and disrespectful. Jesus, it is both those thing, no matter how one colors it.

But it is also true.

Because I came to writing an an alternate career, my first several books were written very much by the seat of my pants. But after your swing around like that for a few years, you start wanting to get your feet on the ground. More time and effort and forethought goes into the work. And, aside from the business considerations involved in growing an audience, you just plain want to know that as many people as possible are reading what you have worked very hard to create.

Yes, I find writing in and of itself satisfying. Yes, the most enjoyable part of being a writer is the actual writing. But books are to be read. The tree will still make sound with now one there to hear it fall, but I do want witnesses. As many as possible.

Greedy boy that I am.

Eleven books, even though published over a short span of time, is a fucking lot. And sometimes, no matter how hard you try and apply yourself to a problem, you just can’t crack the code with the tools at hand.

Random House has excellent tools, excellent people wielding them, but as hard as we all worked together, we have not been able to crack a code that we all feel exists. Telling the people who essentially gave you your first job, who again and again expressed faith in your work and invited you to expand and create what pleases you is a hard thing.

And possible very stupid.

It is entirely possible that there is no greater readership for me. That the work Random House et al have done on my behalf already tapped the full number of folks out there who are interested in my shit.

Time will tell.

These days I’m finding that I need to stay focused on my writing in a manner that does not allow me to spend any time composing random thoughts or essays that I feel are worth the time it would take for me to write them down or for you to read them. I’m also of the opinion that this site, from its name to its esthetic, no longer speak to what I am writing or anything I might have to say here.

It’s also just plain tired and packed with dead links and other suck.

When time allows I will launch a new site.

Not knowing when time will allow, I have not yet dragged this one to the ditch to put a bullet in its head.

If anything interesting is happening with my work, I’ll note it here.

In the meantime, I’ve started up a new story thing on TWITTER. You can follow me and it by clicking right HERE.

I dropped a load of tweets today (totally contrary to the point of Twitter, and profoundly annoying to people who really use the thing, I know) and I will follow up mostly daily until I find the end of the thing.

Thanks for stopping by. Sorry there’s not much action in the joint these days.

Don’t blow up,

-c

Which is a nice thing to look at in the month of March, but also a garish reminder of just how long it has been since I popped over here and wrote something.

Oh, website, cruel mistress, why do you plague me so?

Why have I ignored you so long?

Many reasons.

The updates:

Recently published titles are MY DEAD BODY, the last Joe Pitt Casebook; SLEEPLESS, a crime story set in a speculative immediate future; and DEATHLOK, an SF adventure comic based on the original Rich Buckler and Doug Moench creation.

My TV projects are both in limbo territory.
The action cop show that I’m not at liberty to discuss was passed over for a pilot shoot, but was not killed outright. Which means that my co-creator and I will do some extra work on the script and get a last gasp shot at a pickup in June/July.
The HBO show based on MYSTIC ARTS is currently in third draft. HBO works on an open development schedule, which means that shows get developed until they are either ready or dead. That said, a writer’s contract dictates how many drafts they can be asked to deliver. There’s not much more to be done on this one before a decision will have to be made. But there is also no rush. The script is in a good place, but I’ve no idea which way the axe will fall. Or when.

I have a couple things pending at Marvel. A two shot mini I scripted a while back is just about out of art and should get announced soon. It’s an evergreen villain story about a guy who never misses him mark
The 12 issue run on a major Marvel title that I have hinted at for some time now is close to having an artist. Yeah! This is going to be another one of those things where issue one doesn’t see the light of day until over well over a year after I wrote issue twelve. Last I heard it was slated to start this fall.

There has been some movie action, but nothing too exciting. CAUGHT STEALING has been optioned again, but the production company holding the option is delaying any kind of announcement until they have a more complete package. This option is based on a screenplay I wrote, and is fronted by an actor who plans on playing Henry Thompson.

The option on the Joe Pitt books expired and I’m back in possession or film and TV rights and thinking about whether or not I want to do anything about that. In any case, don’t expect a Joe Pitt movie any time this decade.

And then there are these crazy book things that people keep talking about.
I’m researching and taking notes for my next novel. Sometime quite soon I’ll be getting serious and start writing page one. I’m doing far more prep than I ever have before. Some of it is active prep, and lots of it is just me not writing. Me not writing involves a lot of me working on other projects, or, ideally, me spending time with my family. But the story is wanting to come out, and I don’t think I can stay away from it much longer.
I’m thinking of this next one as something as a companion to SLEEPLESS. Not set in the same world, but on a similar scale, and written in a similar style. After this one I plan on getting back into a lean noir mode. There’s no strategy to it, just me feeling out what the next story is.

And, yes, I’m still debating the future of this site.
Some kind of radical change is going to be required, but I need a little free mental space to decide what that change will be. In the meantime, I’ll continue to be more absent than present.

Thanks for checking in,

-c

These pics are best captioned by my editor Mark Tavani -
Photographer: “Charlie, give me painfully serious. Good, good. Now give me tattooed but still idealistic. Yes! Now, reach out to that audience. Be one with them. Take them into your creative process. Now you’re a scared little boy. Scared little boy! Now make nice nice with the reading public. Oh, you’re a natural.”