Monk Finale Breaks Records - But What Sloppy Writing for a Series about an OCD Detective

Even before all the numbers are tallied, the farewell episode of USA's Monk last Friday night has set new records for cable television audiences -- it grabbed the largest numbers for any drama series ever appearing on basic cable with a total already reaching 9.4 million viewers.  So, I guess it's safe to assume that you may have watched the show. 

Now, here's the big question -- did you like it?

This is a blog dealing with fiction writing, and I'm pondering the conclusion of Monk with that in mind.  And while I had warm and fuzzy feelings as the show's final segment ended, as a viewer and Monk-fan, as a writer I thought - wow, there's gonna be some unhappy folk out there.  Maybe I am one of them. 

Good vs Evil - Are You Born This Way?

With thanks to ICanHazCheezburger - how many great novels posit the same thing? East of Eden comes to mind ....

Google Book Search Lives On as Google Revised Settlement with Authors, Publishers

Google has announced a revised book settlement. Google, Inc., the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers collectively filed the revised settlement with the Clerk for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday. Apparently, the filing occurred just minutes before the court-imposed Midnight deadline. Drama, drama, drama ....

What does it do?

It's cut back on the books that Google will distribute electronically over the web via Google Book Search. Now, Google's only going to deal with books that were are (1) registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or (2) published in either Australia, Canada, or Great Britian. As for the "orphans," (where the copyright ownership of a book is unknown), the revenue from these works is protected in the agreement, going so far as to set up a guardian to act as fiduciary for the owners.

More NaNoWriMo Prep - The Pros Come Out

Well, here you go.  S.L. Viehl (one of her many nom de plumes) has announced on her Paperback Writer blog that she is unofficially entering National Novel Writing Month this year -- and she's setting a personal goal of 2000 words/day.

That's right, dear reader.  Two thousand words.  A day.  That's about 400 over the minimum to win NaNoWriMo. 

And what's more, she'll do it.  Oh yes she will. 

If you follow PW, which I do, this woman is a fiend.  She's more than able to hit 4500 words a day, and she does a lot of this via Dragon Naturally Speaking because she's got some hand/wrist issues.

Five Things to Do to Get Ready for NaNoWriMo 2009

NaNoWriMo starts in 26 days.  When the clock strikes 12:00 am on November 1st, participants will have 30 days to write 50,000 words.  That's 1667 words/day if you write every single day. 

What can you do to get ready?  Here are 5 things to do as you're getting ready for the Big Day:

1.  Get your research materials together and organized.  You may not want to trust the web, and some books may be vital to your work.  Things like a dictionary, thesauraus, atlas, near at hand may be valuable time-savers as well as those reference works particular to your genre or plot, e.g., Grey's Anatomy if you're going to be the next Kathy Reichs, or Daily Life in Elizabethan England if you're writing a historical romance.  Buy what you need, gather what you already have, and put everything near to your workspace. 

2.  Warn family and friends that you're not being rude when you totally ignore them the entire month of November.  Maybe a free autoresponder for your emails will help.  And don't feel guilty when they call or text anyway and you don't reply.  You're writing, and it's important. 

Rank a Blog Post Within Top 3 of Google when Google Search Results are in the Millions -- I'm Ranking Here Consistently

Yesterday, I went roaming thru my blog post stats and found some very nice ranking results. Like I'm ranking posts in the top 3 out of millions in Google search results, and with posts that have staying power (they're old and still rank high.)

So, please forgive my intrusion into the usual theme of this blog, but I'm republishing my post from yesterday on my Writer-Lawyer blog here on Rebecca Kennedy (and on Backseat Lawyer and Everyday Simplicity, too) as an experiment - to see what happens, stat-wise ....

What I'm Reading: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

I love the first line of this book, "Charles Monet was a loner."

I love it for many reasons, not the least of which is its incongruence with the subject matter of this work: the spread of the Ebola virus in Africa. Which is horrifying and real.

I usually don't read nonfiction books dealing with things like ... well... germs and stuff. Heck, I don't read fiction books that deal with germs, either. Eww.

Google Book Search Gets Swankier

Over at the Google Books Blog, there is a long post (with pictures! golly) that describes how they've improved Google Book Search in several different ways.

What's Google Book Search? Well, it's where Google is scanning book after book and then putting the contents on the web. You know, the service that's got lots of folk in a tizzy because of copyright infringement, pirating, things like that.

Time past, it was called Google Print - but after a couple of big lawsuits, things have changed.

Pictured: Han Christen Andersen's The Little Mermaid. His collection of fairy tales has been scanned and is available for free at Google Book Search.

Writer's Digest 2009 List of 101 Best Sites for Writers is Out

Writer's Digest has released its annual list of the 101 best websites for writers.

For 2009, the list is broken down into 8 categories:

Agent Blogs
Writing Communities
Publishing Resources
Jobs and Markets
Creativity and Challenges
Genres/Niches
General Resources
Fun for Writers.

And, yes, Twitter made the cut. Don't know that I agree with that one.

Validation. Worth Your 16 Minutes. Really.

Word Choice Dilemma - This Should Make U Laugh. Avoid tinny.

Reading Robert B. Parker Now ...

I don't know why I've never read any Robert B. Parker before now.

Stupid.

And, truth be told, I owe it all to Tom Selleck, because those Jesse Stone movies he's been producing and starring in -- they're specials on CBS -- made me wonder about the novels. Then, I was in line at the store and someone had stuffed one of the Jesse Stone paperbacks (Stranger in Paradise) in between the beef jerky and the King Size Snickers bars and of course, I took it as a sign.

And, sure enough it was. I love and adore Robert B. Parker.

Fast read, clean read. A true master here -- especially enjoying his dialogue. Wow. So well done, and he appears to be a member of the "use 'said' or don't use anything at all school."

Dialogue. Wow.

You know -- he said, she said. Not he cried, she exclaimed, he snarled. Dean Koontz, another one with this as a writing rule ....

I'm going through the Sunny Randall series now. From the debut forward, in publication order. And, I'm also doing this with the Jesse Stone series.

Spencer? I'm waiting on him -- that's a big buncha books, plus I dunno. I feel less connected somehow to Spencer, although I do remember the TV series from years ago, and I do remember liking the characters there. Hawk. Cool.

And, fine. I have to be honest. One of the reasons that I'm really enjoying Parker's work has nothing to do with plots or settings or character development or series construction or mysteries or thrillers or anything like that.

I love Rosie the bull terrier.

I just really like Rosie, the miniature bull terrier that splits her time between Sunny Randall and her ex-husband. Rosie is just endearing and fabulous, and well ... dog lovers are a special kind of folk, and it's nice to know that Robert B. Parker is one of us. (And, sure, I'm waiting for Jesse Stone to get his dog ... he better get one, the TV Jesse has that great golden in every story that I've seen.)

Wish Rosie had a blog, though. I mean, Martha Stewart's pugs (Francesca and Sharky) just got one, and heck. Dean Koontz's dog Trixie Koontz, has a blog AND is still writing books from the other side of Rainbow Bridge.

YouTube Interview - Lisa Scottoline

Blagojevich Gets Million Dollar Book Deal - Will YOU buy that book?

In today's news former Illinois governor Blagojevich failed to get federal prosecutors thrown off his corruption case -- the prosecutor has described Balgojevich's activities as a "white collar crime spree" that would make Abe Lincoln "roll over in his grave."

And yet, he's just made over a million bucks (all we know is "six figures") with his agreement to write a purported expose of the dark side of politics (there's another side?) for Phoenix Books. The tome is scheduled to hit the shelves in October.

I just gotta wonder two things:

1. what juice can he possibly put in this story, when you know his lawyers aren't going to let him write anything that pertains to the pending charges?

2. who cares? I'm not planning on even borrowing this one from the library, much less spend cash on the darn thing. Six-figures? Right. Sure. Stinks like a three-day old fish.

PBW Made Me Laugh - Maybe You Will Too

Great post today by Lynn Viehl over at Paperback Writer. Maybe her best post ever. Go read it, you'll laugh.

And, for backstory before you do ... read this post, which explains the whole shiny pink cover horror.

Esquire's 7 Greatest Stories - Full Text and Free

Over at Esquire magazine's website, you can read the seven works which the editors of Esquire have collected as the "7 Greatest Stories in the History of Esquire Magazine," with Gay Talese's essay on Frank Sinatra ("Frank Sinatra Has a Cold") considered to be the best of the best.

Mario Puzo Godfather Lessons: Comparing the Book to the Screenplay

I love the Godfather movies, even III, even The Saga (you know, the one where they cut and pasted I and II together, chronologically), and sure, of course, the Director's Cut.

But I'd never read Mario Puzo's original work, The Godfather, thinking it would make me like the movies less or that I wouldn't like the book, having seen the movie. Hey, I already knew that Sonny had dark hair in the book -- and James Caan is Sonny to me. I didn't want my head messed with, if you know what I mean.

Then, last weekend, I was at the library roaming thru the AudioBooks, and there was a brand new green box, filled with the unabridged version of Puzo's The Godfather. I'm not sure why I picked it up.

But, boy howdy, am I glad I did. Before I had finished the first CD, I was at the bookstore buying a copy. I could only find paperback, and I'm still not satisfied: I gotta have the hardback. I need it! The highlighting soaks thru the paperback version.

And, for a writer, there is so much to learn here. Plot, character, voice, setting. Amazing stuff.

Like what, you ask?

Well, first ... the book gets you hooked right off the bat, but it doesn't start off like the film. On paper, you're down at the NYC Criminal Courts, with Bonasera the undertaker. Remember him? Next, you're over in Hollywood with Johnny Fontane and his second wife, a beautiful movie star with violet eyes. (I'm still thinking she's an homage to Ava Gardner even if she does have Liz Taylor eyes.) Enzo the baker shows up, another locale, another thread drawing you in. Bang, bang, bang.

So different from the movie. But Mario Puzo wrote both the book and the screenplay and there is master storytelling here. Puzo Lessons begin on the first page: he's got Bonasera's story down in less than 1000 words and then he flips coasts to take us into drunk Johnny Fontane's Beverly Hills mansion. Puzo Lesson on get-er-done: edit down that word count.

I understand the characters more - and I'm barely into the book. I get Tom Hagen more than I ever did, same thing for Kay. Heck, same for Enzo. Puzo Lesson on people: have them all fully dimensional, no matter how secondary they may ultimately be to the plot. Don't skimp on your prep.

Puzo also takes the time to insert wisdom in these pages. Nice little zingers are scattered here, things that are in the Quotation books now. Puzo Lesson: good writing involves a level of wisdom, as well as that old adage "write what you know." Puzo knew NYC because he was from NYC. And, Puzo had learned a number of life lessons during his career as a reporter before this book ever came to fruition. This all shows.

Puzo built a world that so many loved to enter - and still do. How that was built, how those characters were developed, what he thought was important and why, reveal themselves in a fascinating way through this process.

The Puzo Lessons

Maybe part of all this is listening to his words, and then reading them. That does give nuance.

But another part of it is comparing what Puzo built in the book and how he revisited it for the movie. Especially for the first film.

Another nugget: Puzo's interview by Larry King. (He saw The Godfather as a family story, not a crime story. Interesting, right?)

Lisa Scottoline Has A Column - And You Should Read It

Lisa Scottoline has a weekly column in the Philidelphia Inquirer, which appears every Sunday under the title "Chick Wit."

You should read it. It's hilarious. And, of course, it's well written.

Janet Evanovich is Working Right Now

I discovered a short post over at Janet Evanovich's website, where she describes her average workday. It made me feel better, and I thought I'd post it here (it's the next to last FAQ), for all of us to remember as we're procrastinating or distracting ourselves or eating more chips, making more coffee:

Janet Evanovich is working right now. And she has been since 6 this morning.

Cowboy up, my friends.

This gets to me so much, that I've changed my screensaver: "Janet Evanovich is WORKING right now!" Really helps keep me on track and away from standing, staring into an open fridge.

I may lose weight this way, too, right?

Image: Fearless Fourteen was the Most Borrowed Book of 2008 in Dayton, Ohio, among other places. Check out my post today over at Writer-Lawyer for more on such things....

RIP Donald E. Westlake

Four books a year. Books worth reading. Plus screenplays, like The Grifters. Wow.

Donald E. Westlake died of a heart attack on his way to dinner with his wife, on a nice, warm night while vacationing in Mexico. He was 75.

Read his obit by the New York Times for details: Donald E. Westlake, Mystery Writer, Is Dead at 75