by Lorie Ham

Here at the Café we are especially thrilled to have with us mystery writer/screenwriter Lee Goldberg whose latest Monk novel was released by Penguin/Putnam/NAL on July 7, 2009. Since Lee does not drink coffee or tea and that’s all we serve here at the Café, I had to run out and get him a Diet Coke before we sat down to chat. So grab a cup of coffee, or in Lee’s honor a Diet Coke, and enjoy.

Café:

Tell us about your latest book.

Lee:

MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP, the 8th novel in the MONK series of original mysteries based on the TV series. They are light-hearted mysteries about an obsessive-compulsive detective.

Café:

How long have you been writing?

Lee:

When I was ten or eleven, I was already pecking novels out on my Mom's old typewriters. The first one was a futuristic tale about a cop born in an underwater sperm bank. I don't know why the bank was underwater, or how deposits were made, but I thought it was very cool. I followed that up with a series of books about gentleman thief Brian Lockwood, aka "The Perfect Sinner,” a thinly disguised rip-off of Simon Templar, aka "The Saint." I sold these stories for a dime to my friends and even managed to make a dollar or two. In fact, I think my royalties per book were better then than they are now.

I continued writing novels all through my teenage years. Some of my other unpublished masterpieces featured a hapless detective named Kevin Dangler. Being a packrat, I still have most of those novels today in boxes in my garage (some were destroyed in flooding a few years back).

By the time I was 17, I was writing articles for The Contra Costa Times and other Bay Area newspapers and applying to colleges. I didn't get a book published, but my detective stories got me into UCLA's School of Communications. My grades weren't wonderful, so I knew I had to kick ass on my application essay. I wrote it first person as a hard-boiled detective story in Kevin Dangler's voice. The committee, at first, had doubts that I actually wrote it myself — until they reviewed articles I'd written for the Times, including one that used the same device as my essay. Once I got into UCLA, I put myself through school as a freelance writer...for American Film, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, UPI, Newsweek. Anybody who would pay me. I had a girlfriend at Playgirl and she got me a gig writing sexually explicit Letters-to-the-Editor at Playgirl for $25 each.

Café:

Wow that is a story in itself. Would love to read some of those old stories. When did your first novel come out? Tell us a little about it?

Lee:

I had a journalism advisor at UCLA who wrote spy novels. We became friends and talked a lot about mysteries, thrillers, plotting, etc. One day in the early 80s his publisher came to him and asked him if he’d write a “men’s action adventure series,” sort of the male equivalent of the Harlequin romance. He said he wasn’t desperate enough, hungry enough, or stupid enough to do it ... but he knew someone who was: Me. So I wrote an outline and some sample chapters and they bought it. The book was called .357 Vigilante I wrote it as “Ian Ludlow” so I'd be on the shelf next to Robert Ludlum and had plenty of Letter-to-the-Editor-of-Playgirl quality sex in it.

The West Coast Review of Books called my literary debut "as stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort," singling the book out as "The Best New Paperback Series" of the year. I ended up writing four books in the series. Naturally, the publisher promptly went bankrupt and I never saw a dime in royalties.

But New World Pictures bought the movie rights to .357 Vigilante and hired me to write the screenplay. I didn’t know anything about writing scripts ... luckily, I had a good friend who did, William Rabkin. We worked together on the UCLA Daily Bruin. So the two of us teamed up. The movie never got made, but we had so much fun that we were writing partners for over 20 years ... and remain best friends to this day. (He writes the novels based on the TV series PSYCH).

Café:

I think your stories about your writing career would make a fun TV show. Have you always written mysteries? If not what else have you written?

Lee:

In TV, I’ve written about everything from werewolves (“She Wolf of London”) and lifeguards (“Baywatch”) to detectives (“Spenser For Hire”) and illegal street racers (“Fast Track”). But in books, I’ve stuck mostly to crime stories (“Man with the Iron-on Badge,” “My Gun Has Bullets,” etc.) and thrillers (“The Walk”). I’ve also done a lot of non-fiction about the TV business (“Successful Television Writing,” “Unsold Television Pilots,” etc.).

I've always loved reading mysteries...starting with "Encyclopedia Brown," "The Hardy Boys," and "Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators." And before I knew it, I graduated to Lew Archer, Travis McGee, Phillip Marlowe, Shell Scott, etc. I didn't know it then, but I think what I liked about mysteries was the strong central conflict and the relentless, forward motion of the stories. There's always a lot at stake for the characters, always something to discover. Then again, I believe all the best stories are mysteries...whether they are called mysteries or not.

Café:

Tell us about the setting of your books?

Lee:

The MONK TV series is set in San Francisco ... so I thought it would be a good idea if the books were set there, too. Actually, I have taken Monk away from home in a few of the books, like MR. MONK GOES TO HAWAII, MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY, and MR. MONK IS MISERABLE (where he went to Paris). This is the first book in some time where he has been back on his home turf. In this book, Stottlemeyer is criticized by fellow cops for relying too much on Monk to solve crimes for him. So when Monk is fired as a consultant to save money, Natalie thinks its personal. But pretty soon Stottlemeyer is accused of murdering a cop and he goes to the one man who can clear him ... Monk.

Café:

What is the main reason that you write?

Lee:

Because it’s who I am and what I love to do. I’m just lucky that people pay me to do it.

Café:

Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to take away from your work?

Lee:

Mostly to entertain. I don’t pretend that I am changing the world with my books.

Café:

Do you have a schedule for your writing or just write whenever you can?

Lee:

Whenever I can ... but I do my best writing at night.

Café:

At last, another night person lol Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Lee:

I’m definitely an outline person ... though my outline evolves, because I deviate from it all the time and have to revise it to take into account the changes I am making or the new ideas that come to me. I think of my outlines as "living outlines," since I am constantly revising them as I write. I usually finish writing my outline about a week or so before i finish my book.

Café:

If you had your ideal, what time of day would you prefer to write?

Lee:

I’d love to be able to get up at 5 am and write until noon, but I am just not wired that way. My best writing time is between 8 pm and 2 a.m.

Café:

What kind of promotion do you find most affective?

Lee:

Word of mouth. I believe the best advertising you can do is to buy 50 copies of your book and send them, with a personal cover letter, to key reviewers, bloggers, fans, booksellers and other opinion-makers to get them talking. A successful author once told me that the biggest mistake she ever made was hiring a publicist — that she should have spent that money on books and postage.

Café:

With my next book coming out later this year I’m going to have to remember that. Most interesting book signing story-in a bookstore or other venue?

Lee:

I have hundreds of them. Here are three of my favorites, all of which happened a few years back at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference.

1. A woman asked me: "Did you have to sleep with a lot of people to get into TV?"

   "Just my wife," I said.

   "You were lucky it wasn't someone else," she said and walked away.

2. "I have a great idea for a movie," a woman said to me. "What's the market like for true stories about black lesbians in the 1880s?"

   "I don't think studios are looking for scripts to fill that particular niche," I said, "but there's always a market for good stories that are told well."

   "Oh," she said. "That's going to make it a lot harder to sell."

3. "Mysteries are hard work," a man said to me. "Could I write an episode of a mystery show but leave out the mystery for someone else to do?"

   "No," I said.

   "But my talent is character and I'm brilliant with dialogue," he said. "I really don't know how to plot a mystery."

   "Then don't write a mystery," I said.

   "But that's what's selling," he said.

   "Don't try to write what's selling," I said. "Write what you enjoy. Write the story you want to tell."

   "The thing is, I don't know how to tell stories," he said. "But I write killer dialogue. Is a story really necessary?"

   "Yes," I said.

   "You people in Hollywood don't make it easy, do you? That's the problem with the Industry. They are constantly creating obstacles so people can't get in."

Café:

Future writing goals?

Lee:

Write some good books and TV shows.

Café:

Good goals! We look forward to reading and watching them. Heroes?

Lee:

James Bond. Bret Maverick. Dirty Harry Callahan. Simon Templar. Alexander Mundy. Marshal Matt Dillon. James T. Kirk, James West. John Steed. Oh, wait, you meant real people, didn’t you? Well, I’m pretty impressed with President Obama. There are worse guys you could emulate.

Café:

Agreed. Person you would most like to meet dead or alive?

Lee:

Again, I’ve been very lucky. I’ve been able to interview or meet most of my TV and fiction writing idols.

Café:

How awesome. You have been lucky indeed. What do you read?

Lee:

All kinds of things. I love mysteries, thrillers, general fiction, westerns ... some of my favorite authors are Larry McMurtry, John Irving, Daniel Woodrell, Elmer Kelton, Frederick Manfred, A.B. Guthrie, Charles Willeford, Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, Harry Whittington, Dan Marlowe, Richard S. Prather, Ed McBain.

Café:

What are your hobbies?

Lee:

Reading. Traveling. Murder.

Café:

Lol. I’m assuming you mean fictional murder-if not ... lol Favorite TV or movies?

Lee:

Again, there are so many, going back to when I was a kid. Maverick. The Wild Wild West. I Spy. Rockford Files. Gunsmoke. Star Trek. The Avengers. The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Inspector Morse. Columbo. Remington Steele. Dick Van Dyke Show. It Takes a Thief. The Saint. Man from UNCLE. Hill Street Blues. Bob Newhart Show. Mannix. All in the Family. Banacek. Recent favorites include Dexter, Deadwood, Sopranos, Rebus, Wallander, Inspector Lewis, Hell’s Kitchen, True Blood, The Fixer (a great show in the UK), Battlestar Galactica ...

Café:

Yay Star Trek! You may not remember but we met when you spoke on a panel at Left Coast Crime in San Diego about Star Trek and mysteries. Pets?

Lee:

One dog. A Jack Russell Terrier/Shitzu mix named Oreo.

Café:

Family?

Lee:

My wife Valerie and my 14-year-old daughter Madison. My brother Tod Goldberg and my sisters Karen Dinino and Linda Woods are published authors as well.

Café:

So it runs in the family. What part of the country/world do you live in?

Lee:

Los Angeles, CA.

Café:

Any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

Lee:

For novelists, write a lot. Read a lot. Don't EVER pay to be published. Don't EVER pay an agent to read your work. As for my advice on breaking into television ... you can find it all in my book Successful Television Writing, which I wrote with William Rabkin.

Café:

I believe I have that book. Website?

Lee:

www.leegoldberg.com

Café:
Thanks so much for joining us here at the Café. This is probably the funnest, and funniest, interview we’ve ever done here! And there’s more. Look for part 2 in the near future. Happy Reading and Good Coffee!

©2009 Lorie Ham. All rights reserved.