Making a movie

Faria, of Val­ley Stream, NY, writes, “I real­ly like your book called The Fight­ing Ground. I think you should make a movie of it.”

I get lots of let­ters from my read­ers telling me that they think I should make one of my books (one that they have read and enjoyed) into a movie.  I take this as a com­pli­ment, and like to think that have I pro­vid­ed enough vivid descrip­tions so that the book some­times feels like a movie. But of course I can’t make a movie of one my books, let alone any oth­er book. I don’t know how to do it. Film-mak­ing, and book-mak­ing, I think, require very dif­fer­ent skills and tal­ents. Then too, look at the cred­its at the end of a movie and count the num­ber of peo­ple involved. You can see that the mak­ing of a movie is a vast­ly more com­plex project than the mak­ing of a book. It also requires a great deal of mon­ey, a lot more than I could imag­ine hav­ing. Yes, from time to time I am approached by film-mak­ers. Projects start, and then stop. There are a few in process even now. I stay as far away as pos­si­ble. To be sure, I enjoy going to the movies. But from what I have seen, it’s the rare film that is as good as, much less bet­ter than, the book. So tru­ly, I enjoy read­ing much more. Besides, the pic­tures in my head stay longer.