This is a quick note to tell everyone that I have a movie option for The House of the Scorpion. This is how an option works: A company pays for the right to market the book to a film company. If they are successful, the film company takes over and raises money, picks a director, screen writer and actors. It's a very complicated process involving many people, as you can see by looking at the credits at the end of a movie. Most of the time the option fails.

My book, The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, failed because no one believed that people would watch a movie about African children. I had the same trouble when I sold the book. A very highly placed editor in New York turned it down because she didn't think white kids would read about African kids. And she was convinced that African American children didn't read books. Nuts to her.

The chances for a House of the Scorpion movie seem very good to me. First, because the company really understands the book, and second because they made a beautiful presentation. The contract was far better than I expected, too. Keep your fingers crossed. It's about time Hollywood did something beside rerun old comic books and 1960's TV shows.