CBS Announcement: INTELLIGENCE to Debut February 24th!

I'd known the show was set for Monday nights at 10, and CBS had said it would start in February, but it's really cool to have an actual start date. Intelligence will hit the small screen in all its big-screen-esque glory on February 24th, the day after my brother's birthday, in case any of you were wondering.

The CBS announcement came yesterday, ahead of expectations. As I've mentioned before, TV moves at breakneck speed compared to publishing, where one might wait six months after a deal to receive the signing bonus and a full year and a half for the book to hit the shelves. Different beasts.

For those of you who've asked for the Phoenix Island release date, thanks -- but I still don't have one. Sources suggest March, but I'm still hoping for earlier. Releasing the book after the show's premier makes no sense to me. We'll see...

Here's an eonline.com article that includes CBS's lineup. I love the interest suggested by the specific mention of Josh Holloway.

Wise Words from Calvin & Hobbes

Elmore Leonard and His Ten Rules of Writing

The two writers who've taught me the most are Stephen King and Elmore Leonard. Mostly, I learned from reading their fiction, but both men have shared their views on the craft. King wrote an excellent book on the subject. Leonard's ten rules fit more easily here.

I borrowed this image from Austin Kleon, who also blogged about Elmore Leonard's rules, doing a much finer job, even including audio of the great man.

CBS Releases New, Extended, Very Cool Trailer for INTELLIGENCE!

Not long ago, I posted the CBS trailer for Intelligence, the upcoming series based on my (also upcoming) thriller, Phoenix Island. I love that first preview / trailer / behind-the-scenes thing, but this new one is even better... and, at four minutes, much longer!

Check out the trailer.

Meatpunk Zippo!

The 2013 Tomato Travesty

They lay tangled in a mass grave, their uprooted tags reading like candy-colored highlights from a carnival barker’s pitch: Pink Girl, Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple. So much variety, so much color, so much promise, reduced to fifteen corpses of a single breed: Brown Wilt.

Monday night, temperatures in Southeast PA dropped all the way to freezing, chilling and killing all fifteen of my beloved tomato plants… not to mention the beans, basil, half the zucchinis, and most of the hot peppers.

Brutal.

Yesterday, however, with temps soaring into the eighties, I reacted with dauntless courage and replaced my fallen friends, restoring hope to this frost-blasted region. The 2013 garden forges ahead bravely.

The tomatoes: 1 Supersweet 100, 1 Better Boy, 2 Goliaths, 1 “grafted” tomato (if you aren’t familiar with grafted tomatoes, check them out. They’re cool… like Franken-tomatoes. This one combines a wild tomato with a Fabulous hybrid), 1 German Striped, 1 Green Zebra, 1 Black Krim, 2 Japanese Black Trifeles, 2 Brandywines, and 4 of my favorite slicer, the Cherokee Purple.

The peppers: 1 Cayenne, several Jalapenos, 1 Fresno, 2 Serrano, 1 Ghost / Bhut Jolokia, 1 Wild Brazil, 2 Seven Pots, and 1 Moruga Scorpion, the hottest pepper in the world.

I was too stupid to cover the first tomatoes and peppers of the season and will forevermore wonder how they would have tasted, but I have learned two lessons from the 2013 Tomato Travesty.

First: from here on out, if temps drop – even if it’s July – I’m covering my little, green friends.


Second: A dog with a frisbee at his feet will not appreciate the magnitude of the catastrophe.

Do you garden? If so, what troubles have plagued you? Frost? Varmints? Pests? Disease? Please share your horror stories…

First Look: CBS Releases Preview Trailer for INTELLIGENCE!

Can't tell you how cool it was to watch this -- and how nice it is to finally be able to give people more information about Intelligence, which will play on CBS, Monday nights at 10, starting in February 2014.

It was also fun to see Michael Seitzman, Rene Echevarria, and Tripp Vinson interviewed. These guys might never achieve the household name status of the cast, but they are frigging wizards! It was Tripp who first reached out to me and got the ball rolling. A year ago, we sat down together and talked ideas and possibilities and all the hurdles we would have to cross to get a show on television. He encouraged me to celebrate every milestone and to never pin my happiness on future hurdles. Great advice. Last Friday, when he called with the amazing news that CBS had ordered the show, he said, "Remember when we talked about all those hurdles we had to get over? Well, we got over them."

There's only one hurdle left: putting out a show that people will watch and love. As a consultant, I'm excited to have a small hand in this, and I am completely confident in the cast and crew. Now, seeing the preview trailer for the first time, I feel like I'm flying over that final hurdle...

You can view the trailer here: http://www.cbs.com/shows/intelligence