Hand Me My Y-Chromosome
Apparently I write like a girl. Someone from the
Internet Writing
Workshop sent me a link to the
Gender Genie,
where you paste in a section of text and it uses an algorithm to detect
whether the author is male or female. Or, if you’re an author, you can
tell whether you’re really nailing your opposite-sex
characters. I mean, nailing their dialog. Portraying it accurately.
Okay. Better.
I was up for the challenge, so I pasted in a bunch of lines that belonged to 6, my main female character from Syrup. Bing! Female it was! So at this point I was feeling pretty clever. Then I tried a collection of Scat’s lines. Female. I tried that A Shade Less Perfect short story. Female. More short pieces: female, female, female.
But maybe that was just my fiction voice. Surely, I thought, my blogs would positively drip with manly essence. By which I mean machismo. But no: female, female—wait! Talking about basketball, the business of film options, and Mary-Kate Olsen’s stomach scored me my first “male”. My drive-by Todd Bunker blogging: also male. So too were finding interesting things to do while standing in the shower and comparing Linux to Microsoft Windows.
That was a relief. I’m at least partly in touch with my masculine side. I can live with that.
Ah, crap. I just tested this blog. Female.
28 commentsSyrup & the Rise of the Belly
So I’m almost finished writing the first draft of the Syrup
screenplay. I did mention I was working on that, right? No? Oh. That’s
weird. I thought I did. Maybe you just forgot I told you. Yeah, I bet
that’s it.
Actually what happened is I was waiting until there was a signed deal before I announced it—since until there’s a bit of paper, there’s always the chance that an agreement will fall apart. But that took so long to get finalized that I just started writing. Now I have 90% of a first draft, and the bit of paper is on its way from Fortress to me.
Working on the script has been an amazing experience. I wrote Syrup (the novel) in 1997, and eight years later I get to go back and fix the parts I wish I’d done differently. I still feel very close to the two main characters, Scat and 6, and I love being able to play with them again. Then there’s the challenge of deciding which parts of the story should make it to the screen and which should be left on paper. I’ve never had to confront that before, and it’s been fascinating.
I also have a hard deadline, in the shape of Jen’s ballooning belly. Once those contractions hit I don’t expect to touch a keyboard for a couple of weeks, so my draft had better be finished by then. I’ve been working pretty intensely for a while now, which is probably why these blogs have been a little less frequent than usual. (You noticed, right? Come on.)
I wish I could post some of my script here, because, well, I’m damn excited about it. But I’m not allowed to. So I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it: it’s going really well, and I’m loving it.
Six months until Company
There’s a
new Company cover!
And it’s… remarkably similar to
the old one.
In fact, all Doubleday did is go down to the
staff cafeteria, buy a donut, photograph it, and whack it
on the cover in place of the stock photo. Unless you look
closely, it’s the same cover. If you do look closely,
you might notice that Doubleday’s donut is a little soggier,
but that’s about it.
I am not quite clear on why changing one donut for another, near-identical donut, helps anybody, but apparently it’s something to do with image rights. Although that begs the question why in the first place… no, no, that way lies madness.
I also have an on-sale date, at least for the US and Canada: January 17, 2006! It’ll be a hardcover with a RRP of US$22.95, although I see Amazon.com will already let you pre-order for US$15.61. What nice people.
Talk to me, baby
My
last blog
gave some people the idea that my life is all L.A. movie
premieres, shooting hoops with Adam Brody, and doing coke lines off
Mary-Kate Olsen’s bare stomach, but sadly it’s not. From
an author’s point of view, selling
film rights tends to be like this:
Agent: We’ve got a great offer from Legendary Director X!
Author: Oh, cool!
One Week Later.
Agent: Yeah, that didn’t come off.
Author: Oh, damn.
One Week Later.
Agent: We’ve got a great offer from Excellent Production
Company Y! Want to take it?
Author: Sure, okay!
Toni writes:
so did you sell all of the rights to Company over to Doubleday or do you get all of the rights? I’m curious about how this whole process works…..do you get a cut of the film profits?
While Nathan, more succinctly, says:
Paramount. Nice. You must be loaded now.
First I should point out that there is no Company movie deal yet; there’s just people talking. That may or may not lead to a deal, but even if it does, it’s unlikely I will be rolling around naked in hundred-dollar bills. Well, I might be, but there wouldn’t be that many of them. Movie rights deals are structured so that they have a front end and a back end. The front end is the money the film studio pays now, which buys them an exclusive period (usually a year or two) in which to develop the film. This is called an option, and the amount paid is relatively small. Exactly how relatively small depends on whether you are, say, Dan Brown, or, say, me.
The back end is the juicy part. This can include a percentage of profits, but mainly it’s just a great big wad of cash, about an order of magnitude larger than the front end, and payable when the film goes into production—that is, when the cameras start rolling. Many, many novels are optioned but never go into production, in which case the option lapses and the author is never paid the back end. (I haven’t seen one yet.) Some authors are more than happy with this, because they get to sell the film rights all over again. (Which has happened to me once.) But this is pretty anti-climactic. I want to snuggle into a soft red movie seat and chew popcorn while a story I once dreamed up is projected in 35mm. Then I’ll shoot some hoops with Adam Brody and go see Mary-Kate about that coke.
It ain’t a book until it’s a movie
Yesterday I got a mention in Publishers Weekly, because of the
possibility of a Company film deal. Here’s the snippet—although,
because this is a trade mag, they give away far too much of the plot.
So I’m blanking bits.
Satire may have a pretty dismal record at the box office, but at least one studio won’t be dissuaded. Paramount has made an offer for Company (Doubleday, Jan. 2006) the latest corporate satire from former ad man Max Barry (ne Maxx Barry). In the novel, a new employee at a faceless conglomerate can’t figure out what the company actually produces. Since he has very little to do all day, he makes it his mission to find out. He discovers that he and his co-workers are ___ ___ ____ in an __________ _____ run by _______ company ______ human behavior __ _ corporate environment—___ ______ ____ set in __ ______ park. Perhaps Paramount is mindful of another send-up of cubicle culture, 1999’s Office Space. That cult favorite by Beavis and Butt-head creator Mike Judge flopped in its initial theatrical release, but went on to become a huge earner in its DVD afterlife. It still ranks as one of Fox’s bestselling DVD titles of all time. Luke Janklow of Janklow & Nesbit and CAA’s Brian Siberell represent Barry.
Jason Anthony, Publishers Weekly, July 11, 2005
And now a gratuitous plug
Now I don’t do this very often, do I? That should count for something.
The thing is, the excellent Aussie comedian
Wil Anderson
is performing in New York (July
12 &
14) and
Montreal (July
21-23,
25),
and if at all possible you should go see him. Then you should hang around
afterward and say, “Hey, Wil, I’m here because Max sent me, and boy am I
glad he did,” because you will be.
Wil’s a big name in Australia. He’s also one of the people I trust with my early drafts, which is why you’ll see his name in the Jennifer Government acknowledgments. If you like my stuff, you’ll like Wil.
Wil’s tour dates: Here.