Vincent Zandri's Blog - Posts Tagged "trailer"
Murder By Moonlight Book Trailer Contest Winner - YouTube
The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Voyager:http://vincentzandrinoirauthor.blogsp...
Here's the winning entry for the Murder by Moonlight trailer contest sponsored by Amazon Studios!
Murder By Moonlight Book Trailer Contest Winner - YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi8LX4...
Methinks this entry truly brings out the cinematic possibilities of the Dick Moonlight series.
What are your thoughts?
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Vincent Zandri
Here's the winning entry for the Murder by Moonlight trailer contest sponsored by Amazon Studios!
Murder By Moonlight Book Trailer Contest Winner - YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi8LX4...
Methinks this entry truly brings out the cinematic possibilities of the Dick Moonlight series.
What are your thoughts?
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Vincent Zandri
Screen Shots
The following blog is now appearing at THE VINCENT ZANDRI VOX in slightly different form: http://vincentzandri.wordpress.com/20...
As writers in the digital age, there is more opportunity to obsess than ever before. Writing has always been a game of obsessions and emotional turmoils. Years ago, the obsessions were more about the writing. If the words came too hard (or, ugh, not at all!), we obsessed over the well running dry forever. If they came too easily we obsessed over our built-in-shit detectors being on the fritz. No one likes to be thought of as a hack. Hemingway once said he not only wanted to be thought of as a writer, but he wanted to do it better than anyone ever had before. He admitted to being obsessed with this notion of being the best. It led to an early grave for the master.
Now we have other things that make us obsessive. We have Amazon rankings for instance. Take my newest novel, MURDER BY MOONLIGHTImageSince its publication on January 1, it’s been in the UK Top 200 for overall books and in its Top 10 for Mysteries, and is still enjoying a respectable run there. Just this past week it went to the Number 1 spot in Germany for Mysteries and reached the No. 6 for Overall Bestselling Kindlebooks. It’s still the number 1 Mystery as I write this. In France it also hit the Overall Top 10 and the Number 1 Mystery spot. It’s presently the No. 2 Mystery.
So what’s to obsess about?
Once you hit a number 1 spot and the Overall Top Ten, there’s only one direction to go. You guessed it…I guess it’s fair to say that Amazon rankings not only offer up a real-time glimpse of where our work stands in the retail marketplace, they also serve as a kind of distorted, up-to-the-second, “fun-house” mirror reflection of ourselves and our self worth, not only as writers, but as worthy human beings. They give instant gratification, or the lack thereof, a new and often times, dangerous meaning. And they can be the source of severe obsession. Best to unplug and walk away from them for a while.
When things go well on the retail end of things, I suppose the point is to enjoy the moment, which I most certainly am. I am also mighty grateful to the people all over the world who are giving MBM, which is based on the real life Chris Porco axe murder case, a chance (look for a movie based on the case coming soon on Lifetime).
To commemorate our brief and ever so humble moments at the top of the Amazon lists, we take screenshots. So that every now and then, when the books aren’t moving as well as we want them to, we can look at them and remind ourselves that we are not only writers, but writers who have enjoyed some degree of success. Screenshots are more than glimpses at our past, they are our security blankets when all we’d rather do is obsess and depress.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Vincent Zandri
As writers in the digital age, there is more opportunity to obsess than ever before. Writing has always been a game of obsessions and emotional turmoils. Years ago, the obsessions were more about the writing. If the words came too hard (or, ugh, not at all!), we obsessed over the well running dry forever. If they came too easily we obsessed over our built-in-shit detectors being on the fritz. No one likes to be thought of as a hack. Hemingway once said he not only wanted to be thought of as a writer, but he wanted to do it better than anyone ever had before. He admitted to being obsessed with this notion of being the best. It led to an early grave for the master.
Now we have other things that make us obsessive. We have Amazon rankings for instance. Take my newest novel, MURDER BY MOONLIGHTImageSince its publication on January 1, it’s been in the UK Top 200 for overall books and in its Top 10 for Mysteries, and is still enjoying a respectable run there. Just this past week it went to the Number 1 spot in Germany for Mysteries and reached the No. 6 for Overall Bestselling Kindlebooks. It’s still the number 1 Mystery as I write this. In France it also hit the Overall Top 10 and the Number 1 Mystery spot. It’s presently the No. 2 Mystery.
So what’s to obsess about?
Once you hit a number 1 spot and the Overall Top Ten, there’s only one direction to go. You guessed it…I guess it’s fair to say that Amazon rankings not only offer up a real-time glimpse of where our work stands in the retail marketplace, they also serve as a kind of distorted, up-to-the-second, “fun-house” mirror reflection of ourselves and our self worth, not only as writers, but as worthy human beings. They give instant gratification, or the lack thereof, a new and often times, dangerous meaning. And they can be the source of severe obsession. Best to unplug and walk away from them for a while.
When things go well on the retail end of things, I suppose the point is to enjoy the moment, which I most certainly am. I am also mighty grateful to the people all over the world who are giving MBM, which is based on the real life Chris Porco axe murder case, a chance (look for a movie based on the case coming soon on Lifetime).
To commemorate our brief and ever so humble moments at the top of the Amazon lists, we take screenshots. So that every now and then, when the books aren’t moving as well as we want them to, we can look at them and remind ourselves that we are not only writers, but writers who have enjoyed some degree of success. Screenshots are more than glimpses at our past, they are our security blankets when all we’d rather do is obsess and depress.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Vincent Zandri
Should I Go to Writing School?
The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.wordpress.com/20...
I get asked this question a lot for obvious reasons. I went to writing school and I’m not afraid to advertise that fact. I’m proud of what I accomplished there back in the mid to late 1990s. The work was hard, but enjoyable since writing and reading were also a hobby at the time, and the students, for the most part, were good, decent people.
Of course, there were some assholes who couldn’t wait to shit on your work as soon as walked through the workshop door. But many of these same people are history now, not having published a word once they were given their diplomas. Most likely they now sell insurance or have drunk themselves to death. One can only hope.
But at the time, writing school was a necessary evil for me. I had no idea I would actually write for a living. I thought I would live the cush life of the writing professor. You know, write a novel every five years or so, publish it with a small publisher, bang the crap out of my pretty young adoring female students. Seemed like a nice life to me. But in order to live that life, I first needed my MFA.
These days, for the most part, MFA programs are a scam and a sham. They have sprung up all over the place simply because of the demand. People feel like writers when they are enrolled in a writing program. Problem is, after dropping 30 or 40K it’s more than likely they will never see their work published commercially. They might venture to self-publish, now that DIYing it is hot shit. But the work will probably be mediocre and not attract an audience the way a work published by a major publisher could (or a hotshot indie publisher/small press).
But writing school was a good time. I drank like crazy, spent days and nights on speed, fucked like a rabbit, and yeah, got some writing done too. It was an escape, but not entirely. I was there to work hard and work hard I did. I was determined to be a success one day. Image
Was the experience worth the cost in the end? For me it was. My creative thesis turned into my first full-length power novel: The Innocent (or, As Catch Can). Mind you, the version I worked on at school was very different. The writing teacher who advised me during my last semester suggested all sorts of cuts and revisions, which I did to please him. But as soon as I got back to New York, I put the cuts back in and reversed the revisions. The book was originally bought by Delacorte Press only a year after graduation in a mid-six figure deal, and went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. It still sells at bestseller levels today now that it’s on its third publisher in 13 years. So much for writing school advice.
So, do you need to go to writing school?
The choice is entirely yours. You will meet some like-minded people who will be your friends for life, and you meet some of the most crappy souled assholes in the world who want nothing more than to crush you and your talent. They are the jealous type. You will meet professors who are old and washed up and who will hit on you. But you will also meet some genuinely great teachers who embrace the fact that teaching writing is as much a spiritual calling as the writing itself.
I’ll say it again. The choice is yours. Do you want to be a serious writer who makes his or her living from words? If that’s the case, writing school can teach you a lot. It’s what you make of it. But if you just want a place to escape to in which you can play pretend writer, save your money and sell insurance.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
I get asked this question a lot for obvious reasons. I went to writing school and I’m not afraid to advertise that fact. I’m proud of what I accomplished there back in the mid to late 1990s. The work was hard, but enjoyable since writing and reading were also a hobby at the time, and the students, for the most part, were good, decent people.
Of course, there were some assholes who couldn’t wait to shit on your work as soon as walked through the workshop door. But many of these same people are history now, not having published a word once they were given their diplomas. Most likely they now sell insurance or have drunk themselves to death. One can only hope.
But at the time, writing school was a necessary evil for me. I had no idea I would actually write for a living. I thought I would live the cush life of the writing professor. You know, write a novel every five years or so, publish it with a small publisher, bang the crap out of my pretty young adoring female students. Seemed like a nice life to me. But in order to live that life, I first needed my MFA.
These days, for the most part, MFA programs are a scam and a sham. They have sprung up all over the place simply because of the demand. People feel like writers when they are enrolled in a writing program. Problem is, after dropping 30 or 40K it’s more than likely they will never see their work published commercially. They might venture to self-publish, now that DIYing it is hot shit. But the work will probably be mediocre and not attract an audience the way a work published by a major publisher could (or a hotshot indie publisher/small press).
But writing school was a good time. I drank like crazy, spent days and nights on speed, fucked like a rabbit, and yeah, got some writing done too. It was an escape, but not entirely. I was there to work hard and work hard I did. I was determined to be a success one day. Image
Was the experience worth the cost in the end? For me it was. My creative thesis turned into my first full-length power novel: The Innocent (or, As Catch Can). Mind you, the version I worked on at school was very different. The writing teacher who advised me during my last semester suggested all sorts of cuts and revisions, which I did to please him. But as soon as I got back to New York, I put the cuts back in and reversed the revisions. The book was originally bought by Delacorte Press only a year after graduation in a mid-six figure deal, and went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. It still sells at bestseller levels today now that it’s on its third publisher in 13 years. So much for writing school advice.
So, do you need to go to writing school?
The choice is entirely yours. You will meet some like-minded people who will be your friends for life, and you meet some of the most crappy souled assholes in the world who want nothing more than to crush you and your talent. They are the jealous type. You will meet professors who are old and washed up and who will hit on you. But you will also meet some genuinely great teachers who embrace the fact that teaching writing is as much a spiritual calling as the writing itself.
I’ll say it again. The choice is yours. Do you want to be a serious writer who makes his or her living from words? If that’s the case, writing school can teach you a lot. It’s what you make of it. But if you just want a place to escape to in which you can play pretend writer, save your money and sell insurance.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
I'm a Passenger
The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox in slightly different form: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
What hasn't been written about Peru's great wonder of the world, Machu Picchu that hasn't already been written? The answer is obvious, which is why I'm not about to even remotely attempt to describe the things you can perhaps, already imagine, even if you've never before stepped foot on the 2,430 m high mountain. You see the massive terraces and try to picture what it must have been like for the ancient Incas to carve them out of thick jungle vegetation-covered granite. You picture men literally falling off the mountain while trying to tame it. You see the giant granite boulders on the mountain-top "quarry," some weighing dozens of tons, and you can't help but imagine a man being crushed under its weight during the process of transporting the stones to their final position. Then, you can't help but feel pain for these people who were forced to flee from their sacred home in the night while the Spanish closed in on them, with the promise of death, destruction, and the hording of their precious metals.
I'm not going to describe standing on the mountain as the the sun brakes through the clouds, revealing the massive peaks that surround me, their presence looking almost fake. Like a brilliant projection flashed up onto a gigantic screen. You must fight the urge to reach out and touch these peaks, as if that were possible, only to feel yourself losing your balance. Should that happen, and you go over the side, the only thing that awaits you is a one way ticket to the Gods.
I'm a passenger these days. An observer. A mover. I don't rest. I don't sit down. I stand. I walk. I run. I'm never still, even at home. The itch to explore is sometimes so great, I think it will never be scratched. The itch is located in a spot along my spine that is impossible to reach. Or perhaps it's located in my brain. So the only cure is to keep on moving. I'm coming down from Machu Picchu after one of the most breathtaking hikes I've ever experienced. My body and clothing are soaked in sweat that's mixed with the mist from the clouds that move in and out of these Andes Mountains like foamy waves constantly and never-endingly lapping a seashore. Soon I'm seated on a bus that transports forty passengers too rapidly for the narrow mountain roads that hug cliff-sides thousands of feet high. One false move on this rain-soaked gravel road and we're done for.
You can't take in a life-experience like this one all at once. It has to upload, like a computer program. One day you can be doing the most mundane thing, like the laundry for instance. And it will hit you. I've hiked Machu Picchu...I've entered into the Third Pyramid in Giza all alone...I've jogged Tienanmen Square just a few years after a young man defied bullets and held back a tank with his frail body...I've visited a healer in the Austrian Alps and seen the sun come up on the basin in Venice...I've ridden a Ferris wheel with the one woman I truly loved in Paris...I've been stranded in the African bush and been accused of killing many men by a voodoo Beniois...I've ridden the metro in Moscow and somehow found my way around...I've touched the Parthenon and walked over the Mammar Bridge in Turkey...I've touched the English Channel with my bare toes on the sandy beaches of D-Day's Normandy...I've four-wheeled in the Tuscan mountains with a best friend who's always yelling at me to learn the Italian language...And on and on and on...But that's not enough.
I'm a passenger on a journey that is not only never ending, it's speeding up. In my mind, I'm planning the next stop. India. I haven't yet been to India. I need to see India. So many of you have been there and I am as envious as I am curious.
On the way back into Cusco, the driver of my van tries to negotiate the relentless traffic. After a day on a magic mountain, we're stuck in traffic. Then comes the near deafening and horribly heart wrenching squeal of a dog as a tourist bus runs over one its legs, crushing it. I don't want to look but I have to look. When I see the small brown, furry dog limping away on three legs, my heart sinks into my stomach. Tears cloud my eyes. No one in the van speaks a word about it. Not the driver. Not my guide. No one. But you feel the pain like the mist that still soaks your clothing.
I'm a passenger.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Murder By Moonlight
What hasn't been written about Peru's great wonder of the world, Machu Picchu that hasn't already been written? The answer is obvious, which is why I'm not about to even remotely attempt to describe the things you can perhaps, already imagine, even if you've never before stepped foot on the 2,430 m high mountain. You see the massive terraces and try to picture what it must have been like for the ancient Incas to carve them out of thick jungle vegetation-covered granite. You picture men literally falling off the mountain while trying to tame it. You see the giant granite boulders on the mountain-top "quarry," some weighing dozens of tons, and you can't help but imagine a man being crushed under its weight during the process of transporting the stones to their final position. Then, you can't help but feel pain for these people who were forced to flee from their sacred home in the night while the Spanish closed in on them, with the promise of death, destruction, and the hording of their precious metals.
I'm not going to describe standing on the mountain as the the sun brakes through the clouds, revealing the massive peaks that surround me, their presence looking almost fake. Like a brilliant projection flashed up onto a gigantic screen. You must fight the urge to reach out and touch these peaks, as if that were possible, only to feel yourself losing your balance. Should that happen, and you go over the side, the only thing that awaits you is a one way ticket to the Gods.
I'm a passenger these days. An observer. A mover. I don't rest. I don't sit down. I stand. I walk. I run. I'm never still, even at home. The itch to explore is sometimes so great, I think it will never be scratched. The itch is located in a spot along my spine that is impossible to reach. Or perhaps it's located in my brain. So the only cure is to keep on moving. I'm coming down from Machu Picchu after one of the most breathtaking hikes I've ever experienced. My body and clothing are soaked in sweat that's mixed with the mist from the clouds that move in and out of these Andes Mountains like foamy waves constantly and never-endingly lapping a seashore. Soon I'm seated on a bus that transports forty passengers too rapidly for the narrow mountain roads that hug cliff-sides thousands of feet high. One false move on this rain-soaked gravel road and we're done for.
You can't take in a life-experience like this one all at once. It has to upload, like a computer program. One day you can be doing the most mundane thing, like the laundry for instance. And it will hit you. I've hiked Machu Picchu...I've entered into the Third Pyramid in Giza all alone...I've jogged Tienanmen Square just a few years after a young man defied bullets and held back a tank with his frail body...I've visited a healer in the Austrian Alps and seen the sun come up on the basin in Venice...I've ridden a Ferris wheel with the one woman I truly loved in Paris...I've been stranded in the African bush and been accused of killing many men by a voodoo Beniois...I've ridden the metro in Moscow and somehow found my way around...I've touched the Parthenon and walked over the Mammar Bridge in Turkey...I've touched the English Channel with my bare toes on the sandy beaches of D-Day's Normandy...I've four-wheeled in the Tuscan mountains with a best friend who's always yelling at me to learn the Italian language...And on and on and on...But that's not enough.
I'm a passenger on a journey that is not only never ending, it's speeding up. In my mind, I'm planning the next stop. India. I haven't yet been to India. I need to see India. So many of you have been there and I am as envious as I am curious.
On the way back into Cusco, the driver of my van tries to negotiate the relentless traffic. After a day on a magic mountain, we're stuck in traffic. Then comes the near deafening and horribly heart wrenching squeal of a dog as a tourist bus runs over one its legs, crushing it. I don't want to look but I have to look. When I see the small brown, furry dog limping away on three legs, my heart sinks into my stomach. Tears cloud my eyes. No one in the van speaks a word about it. Not the driver. Not my guide. No one. But you feel the pain like the mist that still soaks your clothing.
I'm a passenger.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Murder By Moonlight
Best Writing Advice Ever: SEX
The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox in slightly different form: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
Every now and then a veteran of the publishing wars will come out with some brilliant advice. So brilliant, its like an exposed million watt light bulb no-brainer that burns the retinas when you look directly into it. Joyce Carrol Oates is one of those writers. Her new Op-Ed in The Onion, "If You Wish To Be A Writer, Have Sex With Someone Who Works In Publishing," states the obvious. Sleep your way to the top.
Oates proves her worth not only as a writer who's been publishing professionally since before I was born, but also as a woman who knows how to treat her editor, especially when she drops off a manuscript to him and then proceeds to gift him with a long, slow blowjob.
I can relate to Ms. Oates. Most of my success has also come from sleeping my way to the top. When I was starting out in writing school back in the mid 90's, I slept with all my professors (minus the guys of course, although I'm sure a couple of them would have loved it). I played it smart and made sure I signed on only with women writing teachers for my course work. If they were married with kids, all the better. That would pretty much guarantee that they'd be lonely and feeling under appreciated by their husbands. Most of the time, they wouldn't even bother to read my work. They were more interested in what I was packing underneath my Levis 501 button-fly jeans. We'd have sex for hours in my dorm room and then, at the end of the semester, they'd give me an A. Easy peasy.
When it came time to publish in the big leagues, I signed with sexy female agents who worked in New York City and who would have sex with me in cabs, trains, buses, restaurant bathrooms, hotel rooms, offices, on bar stools, you name it. I once even had sex on the Circle Line with a prospective agent, but in the end it didn't work out. But soon I was hooking up with major editors at the major houses. The woman who eventually bought my first big novel, The Innocent, (As Catch Can) had sex with me on the rooftop of the Bertlesmann Building on a glass table. Several weeks later I signed a contract worth a quarter of a million dollars. It was the best sex I've ever had.
But then, I decided to go legit. I wanted to publish based on the merits of my writing and not the girth and length of my dick. I stopped having sex with my professional publishing associates. My market dried up. I couldn't get a contract if I put a gun to someone's head. In the end I could see that it was either put out or shut up. So I went back to fucking my way to top. In no time at all, I was enjoying not just a new contract, but new contract(s). I was selling hundreds of thousands of books and having so much sex I had to increase my vitamin intake.
I'm glad Ms. Oates came out and revealed the sure path of success in the writing business. It's time someone had the guts to stand up and admit the nasty truth. If you want to make it in this industry, make certain to fuck your way to success. Because when it comes to signing big book contracts, it's likely your going to get fucked real hard, one way or the other.
Grab a copy of the No. 1 Amazon Bestselling Hard-Boiled Mystery: MURDER BY MOONLIGHT
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
Every now and then a veteran of the publishing wars will come out with some brilliant advice. So brilliant, its like an exposed million watt light bulb no-brainer that burns the retinas when you look directly into it. Joyce Carrol Oates is one of those writers. Her new Op-Ed in The Onion, "If You Wish To Be A Writer, Have Sex With Someone Who Works In Publishing," states the obvious. Sleep your way to the top.
Oates proves her worth not only as a writer who's been publishing professionally since before I was born, but also as a woman who knows how to treat her editor, especially when she drops off a manuscript to him and then proceeds to gift him with a long, slow blowjob.
I can relate to Ms. Oates. Most of my success has also come from sleeping my way to the top. When I was starting out in writing school back in the mid 90's, I slept with all my professors (minus the guys of course, although I'm sure a couple of them would have loved it). I played it smart and made sure I signed on only with women writing teachers for my course work. If they were married with kids, all the better. That would pretty much guarantee that they'd be lonely and feeling under appreciated by their husbands. Most of the time, they wouldn't even bother to read my work. They were more interested in what I was packing underneath my Levis 501 button-fly jeans. We'd have sex for hours in my dorm room and then, at the end of the semester, they'd give me an A. Easy peasy.
When it came time to publish in the big leagues, I signed with sexy female agents who worked in New York City and who would have sex with me in cabs, trains, buses, restaurant bathrooms, hotel rooms, offices, on bar stools, you name it. I once even had sex on the Circle Line with a prospective agent, but in the end it didn't work out. But soon I was hooking up with major editors at the major houses. The woman who eventually bought my first big novel, The Innocent, (As Catch Can) had sex with me on the rooftop of the Bertlesmann Building on a glass table. Several weeks later I signed a contract worth a quarter of a million dollars. It was the best sex I've ever had.
But then, I decided to go legit. I wanted to publish based on the merits of my writing and not the girth and length of my dick. I stopped having sex with my professional publishing associates. My market dried up. I couldn't get a contract if I put a gun to someone's head. In the end I could see that it was either put out or shut up. So I went back to fucking my way to top. In no time at all, I was enjoying not just a new contract, but new contract(s). I was selling hundreds of thousands of books and having so much sex I had to increase my vitamin intake.
I'm glad Ms. Oates came out and revealed the sure path of success in the writing business. It's time someone had the guts to stand up and admit the nasty truth. If you want to make it in this industry, make certain to fuck your way to success. Because when it comes to signing big book contracts, it's likely your going to get fucked real hard, one way or the other.
Grab a copy of the No. 1 Amazon Bestselling Hard-Boiled Mystery: MURDER BY MOONLIGHT
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By Moonlight
