Trading marks to become illegal for writers

In my new novel, your character drinks a Coke, has some Doritos and then uses his Xerox machine to copy some documents. Sounds fine, right? Authors mention trademarked goods all the time. But according the the Authors Guild, that may be a thing of the past if a new bill is passed by Congress. The bill would drop express protection for "noncommercial use" of a trademark and would weaken the protections for those who use trademarks in news commentary. The bill has already passed the House and went to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.

What? You have got to be kidding me. These companies typically pay big bucks just to get movies, TV, books, comic books, even online comic strips for "product placement". It's so wide spread that there are groups who are lobbying to get tougher restrictions on in-content based advertising.

I don't see how on earth this can be enforced, especially when you include daily news broadcasts, newspapers, web sites and blogs. Fiction would be the easiest to police, obviously. The real issue is when the trademarks are used in a way that either hurts or dilutes the trademark. Some marks that have suffered from this are thinks like Coke which people use to mean all soda's or Kleenex when people are talking about tissues and Walkman when people mean "portable tape recorder". These are all marks that have lost almost all of their original branding because they've been used so much in generic terms. I don't have a clue how to solve that little problem but I don't think banning writers from including them would hurt anything.

San Diego PD has a new detective

T. Jefferson Parker's "The Fallen" is a solid mystery novel featuring a San Diego-based homicide detective, who is essentially a human lie-detector. Reviewers say the novel has the potential for tedium, but Parker avoids that pitfall with lively, well-paced writing. The resolution of the crime is neatly tied up, even a bit surprising when the killer's identity is revealed.

As I've mentioned, I am from Louisiana, but my wife is a native of the San Diego area. We'll be watching this new attempt by a former award-winning author. It will be exciting to see where this unique series goes.

Organizing the clutter in my mind

If you are an aspiring writer of any sort, I cannot recommend enough WriteItNow software from Ravenshead Services. It assists you in organizing the clutter in your mind, saving you loads of time and money. I wouldn't even start to research a story without it.

PD James promotes her new mystery

P. D. James flew to New York from her home in Britain to promote herlatest mystery, "The Lighthouse." Set on a remote, treeless island,"The Lighthouse" features the author's Scotland Yard detective,Commander Adam Dalgleish. 
The jazz-loving detective, who also writespoetry, and his team are sent to Combe Island, an uber resort off theCornwall coast for government officials who need a break from theirvery public lives, but a gruesome murder takes place. The story of her visit and the plot of her book both seem to be old news to me. What I didn't realize was that P. D. was a woman! I've got to take a poll, but I think women, both authors and readers, have taken over the mystery genre. I'm considering spreading rumors that "H. L." stands for "Heidi Lynn" just to increase book sales.

Ruth Rendell still killing at age 75

I just read a rather interesting feature on Mystery Writer Ruth Rendell. She says she began her literary careerwith some "very bad" unpublished novels. Then, "for fun," she wrote amystery centered on Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford, a liberal,literary small-town detective. From there, she never looked back. She has been in the business over 40 years. I love her work, but I think it's time she retired, and let some new blood in the limelight.

Author mug shots big deal to publishers

The Chicago Tribune has an interesting article on picking the proper dust-jacket photographer for your book. Silly me, wasting time worrying about writing and selling novels. Now, I understand the serious problems the more professional among must deal with. The article says that potential readers decide what kind of writer you are based on your photo. I guess there could be some merit to that. Stephen King certainly looks scary enough in his photos.

Hollywood Noir Festival opens in Frisco

This year's Noir City Film Festival, like Humphrey Bogart preparing to escape from San Quentin in "Dark Passage," threatens to crash out of its confines and flee into unexplored night. Here's the scheme: 10 days at the Palace of Fine Arts, beginning Friday, followed by four at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco. A total of 32 films (only one of them made in recent years) and several special events, plus six in-person guests, Sean Penn among them. In founder Eddie Muller's eyes, by moving the festival from Los Angeles to San Francisco, he's taking the festival to the top. As in Jimmy Cagney's Cody Jarrett screaming at the end of "White Heat": "Made it, Ma, top of the world!"

Five questions for Sue Grafton

Novelist Sue Grafton's latest in her "Alphabet Mysteries" series -- "S Is for Silence" (Putnam, $26.95, 374 pages) -- is atop the New York Times best-seller list for fiction. Grafton's protagonist, private investigator Kinsey Millhone, has been on a long roll since her introduction in "A Is for Alibi" in 1983. Here are excerpts from a recent interview.

Why are you adamant about never allowing a Kinsey Millhone novel to be made into a movie? Or a TV series. It's not bitterness, it's hostility -- a much cleaner emotion. I was happy and wide-eyed in Hollywood for a while. But after a while I realized I didn't like them tampering with my work.

I've heard you created the series during a six-year divorce and custody battle with your second husband, when you would fantasize about ways to murder him. Yes, and I came up with some lulus, including one that I knew would actually work. But I knew I'd get caught because I'm really very intimidated by authority. I have my devious side -- I can cook up these schemes -- but when it comes to acting out, I knew I would blow it. So I decided to just put it in a book and get paid for it.

The mystery-thriller genre keeps growing. Why? Because it's the one form in which the reader and the writer are pitted against each other. My job is to be a magician and perform sleight of hand. I give you all the information but divert your attention so I can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Though you've said that Kinsey is you, only younger, smarter and thinner, there are also oceans of differences. She is my unlived life and my sassy inner nature. There are many things I observe in the world (about which) I have learned to keep my mouth shut. But in Kinsey, I have the perfect channel for my dark side. She is defiant of authority, she is willing to break and enter, she lies at the drop of a hat and is very proud of it. Now, I too have some reputation for lying. I write fiction, after all. But really, I think of our (relationship) as one soul in two bodies -- and she got the good one.

In real time, Kinsey would be 55 years old. She's 37 (in fiction time). When I finish the series with "Z Is for Zero," it will be the narrative year 1990 and she will turn 40. Then it will be "Over and out, folks."

Ventura snubs Perry Mason creator

One of my favorite pastimes is walking in the footsteps of America's all-time best-selling mystery writer. Oddly enough, his hometown of Ventura, CA barely remembers him, but Temecula, CA (where he died) treats him like a saint. Their ESG Mystery Week each November is a real blast, and the ESG wing of the local museum is a great inspiration to writers everywhere.

JK Rowling is coming after me

Although fans have a two or three year wait for Book Seven, the last in the Harry Potter Series, speculations are already flying about what J. K. Rowling will write next. Many believe that she will move to the mystery and thriller genres. Great. Just what I needed: more competition. This one just happens to be a best-selling author already.

Fans may remember the interview with Rowling two years ago for BBC Newsnight where she stated she had been working on a non Harry related novel between books four and five. And just last week on jkrowling.com, she joked about having several unpublished works "languishing in drawers".

According to close friend, writer Ian Rankin, Rowling has a strong interest in crime fiction and would be a successful writer of detective novels. The creator of the Inspector Rebus books said: "I know she is a crime fiction fan, so I would love it if she went on and wrote a crime novel. I think the Harry Potter novels are whodunits anyway. There are lots of red herrings and mystery. As long as she doesn't set it in Edinburgh I'll be quite happy."

A spokesperson for Rowling has stated that it is simply "far too early for Rowling to comment in any detail about what she will write next." What can I do to get her interested in horror? Now, that Anne Rice is writing Christian novels, I know there's a opening there.