Charlie Sheen wants to write a gossipy memoir about his experiences at Two and a Half Men. He is asking for the starting bid to be $10 million. The title is to be When the Laughter Stopped, so was that like, season 2?
Posts Tagged ‘memoirs’
Tormented Teens! True Crime! IFC! Kevin Smith!
Posted in Cinemas, Los Angeles Memoir, Seattle Cinemas, writing, writing life, tagged IFC, Independent Film Channel, Kevin Smith, memoirs, Movies, paranormal romances, seattle's neptune theater closing, writing, writing life, young adult novels on February 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Good God. I’m coming into the home stretch with my young adult paranormal romance.
I’ve written 175 pages in the past six weeks. That is lightning-fast for me, because I am not a speedy writer. I really wanted to get to 300 pages and finish by March 1, but sadly it looks like that is not to be. Damn February and its short number of days. It would have been so excellent for me psychologically to be done before I flip the calendar over, but there’s no way.
Oh, but I love my characters and their swooning and their problems and their magic! Good times. I cannot wait to start editing. I haven’t let myself read anything I’ve written so far, so it will all be (sort of) new to me when I read it–the second week of March, I guess.
After the YA PR is written, I will attempt to get on the Stephen King-recommended schedule of writing in the morning and editing in the afternoon.
The next project I want to write will either be the L.A. memoir (which I think I’ve written 200 pages of?) or my self-publishing experiment, which I’m thinking may be part of a true-crime book I wrote from 2008-2010. No one knows what to do with it, including me. I tried to integrate a relationship memoir with this ripped-from-the-headlines story and… it hasn’t worked yet. Although everyone who’s seen it has said it’s an intriguing idea.
Also, I’m getting a lot of love from the independent film community and I’m not quite sure why that is. Big sloppy love right back at ya, though, guys. I’m a great believer in the cosmic flow or whatevs, so there must be a reason that in the past couple months I’ve 1) Broken a news story about a classic Seattle theater closing, 2) Been mentioned by the Independent Film Channel and 3) Been given a pep talk by one of my favorite filmmakers, indie upstart Kevin Smith.
I don’t know what it means, but it means something and I’m gonna figure it out after this teen novel is done.
Until we meet again, I’ll be off surfing the universal waves and typing ’til my arms fall off.
What Happens on Sunset Strip…
Posted in Los Angeles, music, writing, tagged 90s music scene los angeles, l.a. memoirs, los angeles, los angeles bands, los angeles club scene, memoirs, music magazines, music magazines los angeles, sunset strip on November 5, 2010 | 2 Comments »
The first writing job I ever had was for a music magazine in Los Angeles. I reviewed local bands at clubs about three or four nights a week. I cannot wait to get to the part of this current memoir where I revisit those years.
Half the time I bitterly complained about it–I didn’t like the way the music industry worked, I didn’t like the constant hustle, I didn’t like having to work temp jobs to make rent.
Looking back, of course, it was the most fun I’ve had as a writer by about a million. The Dating Amy project was fun in its own way because it was so high profile, but I was basically writing about regular guys in Seattle. Performers in Los Angeles, on the other hand, (and even the other music critics) were bigger than life. Because that’s the way people roll in L.A. The city itself is bigger than life, so it’s flaunt or perish.
This [as-yet unnamed] Los Angeles memoir is the most fun I’ve had with book writing, for sure. I’m working from about 50 journals I kept and even those read like gossipy paperbacks. They’re my bedtime reading and they’re keeping me up until 3 a.m.
I apologize in advance to the many, many musicians, writers and photographers I knew from the mid-to-late 90s.
Just kidding! I love you! Well, some of you!
The New Memoir
Posted in memoirs, personal life, writing, writing life, tagged hollywood, hollywood memoir, los angeles, memoirs, writer's life, writing, writing life on October 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
As anyone who knows me knows, I’ve been working on a memoir “about my neighborhood” for over two years. It’s really much bigger and more intriguing than that, but that’s its code name. It’s like when you’re driving through Los Angeles and you see cardboard signs with arrows that say this way to “Clearasil Commercial Shoot” which is really secret code for the latest Brad Pitt movie.
Anyway. There has been a lot of interest in the Neighborhood Book, but not enough to keep me going, and for now… I am deciding to cut my losses and put it aside.
The truth is, I met another project and I’m crazy about it. I get up at 5 a.m. to work on it and when friends text me to go to lunch at 7 a.m., I think they’re weird, but then I look at the clock and it’s 1 p.m. and it’s just that I’ve been that absorbed in my work for hours.
There is resistance, though. A mini outcry. The old project is like the boyfriend that everyone has gotten used to–actually people really like him and want me to keep seeing him.
I don’t know what to say. It’s not him, it’s me. Maybe someday we will get back together and work things out. I just need space to work on this new book (that I’m really, really excited about). We’re in the throes of ecstasy, but I know I need to act like I at least feel a little bad for leaving that other project. (Clearasil? Neighborhood? I’m already forgetting its name!)
Speaking of misleading cardboard signs, the new memoir takes place in L.A. It may sound like an acne commercial, but it’s totally Brad Pitt.
The Glass Castle, a Memoir
Posted in book reviews, books, memoirs, reading, tagged books, glass castle, glass castle jeannette walls, glass castles, jeannette walls, memoirs, misery memoirs, the glass castle on September 3, 2010 | 4 Comments »
The woman at the used bookstore by my house recommended The Glass Castle as “a book for people who don’t even like to read.”
I flipped through the first few pages and didn’t buy it, but I couldn’t get the first image — a woman in New York looking out of her taxi window and seeing her homeless mom rummaging through a dumpster — out of my head, so the next day I went back and coughed up the $7.
I love this book; it’s one of the best I’ve read this year and I’ve been reading a lot.
It’s about four kids and the extremely capricious, bright, destitute parents who drag them all over the country. Narrated by Jeannette Walls, the middle sister, these plucky little Dickensian kids made me want to live in their dirt-poor reality.
The Glass Castle is also a lesson in how to write a memoir. So often people think that if they write a bunch of horrible things that happened to them, other people will automatically relate.
It’s the resilience in the face of misery that people are relating to, though, not the misery.
