L.A. Banks Auction

You may not know L.A. Banks' books. If not, you're in for a treat. She writes in a number of different genres, but the novels I love are her urban fantasies. She has a couple of series--vampire huntress, dark avenger--and they are not your cookie cutter UF titles with the tramp-stamped heroines and the dreamy vampires. This lady can write.

If you do know her work, you may have heard that the author (real name Leslie Esdaile) has been diagnosed with late-stage adrenal cancer. Her medical bills are already astronomical and rising. Leslie's friends have organized an eBay auction on her behalf. The auction will begin next Tuesday and run for 10 days. Go here for more information.

Shouldn't Take More Than a Few Hours

I've been a full-time freelance writer for 20 years. In the last four years, I've found a lot of work on Craig's List. A lot of that work is grossly underpaid (there's a surprise) but even the gigs that pay decently often have unrealistic expectations attached.
Mostly those expectations have to do with time-frame. Either the client (who has been sitting on the idea for, oh, a decade or so) wants something done by the weekend; or the client grossly underestimates the amount of time a project will take.
"Should take no more than a few hours" is a phrase that's popping up more and more.
Today it came up in an ad for writing 50 "job descriptions" complete with photos that had to be sourced. Seriously? Even if these job descriptions only take three minutes apiece, that's 150 minutes.
I think the problem is that secretly, most people think they could write if only they had the time. No one ever says, "I could do that heart transplant if I had a couple of extra hours," but people always say, "I'm a pretty good writer."
My feeling? If you can write it yourself, do so. But if you can't, don't devalue my work by telling me it's something I can just toss off.

Step Away From the Netflix

I share a household NetFlix account with someone whose movie tastes are WILDLY divergent from mine. Last night I was in the mood to watch something and all the suggestions that came up were based on his ratings of 800 or so movies. So we finally separated our ratings and queues, which still left me looking for a movie. But first...I needed to input a few ratings to get the ball rolling. That was last night. Less than 24 hours later I have ratings for 1504 movies and counting. Now I'm kind of obsessed with it. And annoyed that a lot of the movies I've seen (bad martial arts movies, for example) are not in Netflix.
Seriously, where is Loren Avedon's King of the Kickboxers? Filmed in Thailand with Billy Blanks of Tai Bo fame, the always reliable Don Stroud and Sherrie Rose?
Where is the terrific Disney adventure The Fighting Prince of Donegal? Ii think I saw the movie on the Sunday Disney show at some point but I remember it being full of derring-do. I like my historical shows a little darker these days--I can't believe tonight is the second-to-last episode of Game of Thrones for the season--but at the time, it was terrific.

So many blogs, so little time

I admire people who can blog day in and day out. Clearly, I don't have that discipline. But I really like browsing the blogs. I found this one, Historical Tapestry, by accident and it's going to be a place I hit up often:
One of my long-time projects is a historical mystery and part of the problem is that I can't bring myself to just ... make stuff up. I have been researching it off and on for several years now, and the section of my bookcase devoted to research is not several shelves deep, with Welsh-English dictionaries, books on weapons, books on food, books on clothing. You get the idea. Reading this excellent blog will be another excellent way to fritter writing time away. Because you know, there can never be too many ways to avoid actually sitting down and writing.

Yes--the return of shameless self-promotion

Mark Satchwill, my partner in crime at NoHo Noir, has been sick for a few weeks so various artists have been filling in for him. Joanne Renaud stepped in for him today, and the illustration is fantastic.
The story's a long one for me, more than 2000 words, mostly because to get to the part I really wanted to tell, I had to explain some things.
And of course there's a place where I switched character names. The CMS we use on the patch.com site is pretty wonky and I don't have administrator privileges so I can't go in and fix things.
This story is a result of a character rebelling against fate. I'd planned to kill Mary off and right up to the last moment when she's discovered, I fully intended to do that. But then, I just couldn't. And now this whole mother/daughter thing is happening.
One last detail. The artwork you see behind the characters? It's real art that's on the walls at the offices of CAA (Creative Artists Agency). Someone put a photo of it up at Flickr, which is where Joanne saw it. Is it not the ugliest piece of corporate art you've ever seen?
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story.

Death of a Magazine

I killed my baby today. At least, that's what it felt like. Joy Sillesen and Joanne Renaud and I first conceived the magazine Dark Valentine in a mall somewhere between Joy's house and our apartments. It was the first time I'd met Joy f2f but we bonded instntly.
We hammered out the details over pasties and pear cider in Glendale and a few months later, Dark Valentine was born.
The incredible Sarah Vaughn put together our website, with Joanne Renaud consulting and Joy and I chiming in on the doowahs. (I was the one who suggtested stylized loteria card images for the logo.)
We conceived it as a quarterly but after we began publishing, we realized we could fill an issue a month. That was briefly considered before we all came to our senses.
I knew some of the writers and artists who contributed to the five issues we published but many were new to me. That's one part of the experience I wouldn't trade for the world.
There were others.
Nothing is ever wasted.
Thanks for your support.

Times have changed...

Well, I'm not telling you anything you don't know, or even anything I didn't know before but here's the thing. I'm writing a story for an anthology that's themed around the events of 9/11. The stories have to take place on that day or immediately after. And as I write, I'm realizing that all my references are anachronisms. At one point I had a Lindsay Lohan reference relating to my 12-Step narrator. But of course, ten years ago, Lindsay Lohan was a fresh-faced little kid.
I had also referenced YouTube and realized--YouTube wasn't launched until 2005. What did we do without it?
So now I'm checking everything.
I just know something is going to slip through.

Another Publishing Milestone to Look Forward To!

On June 12, Mark Satchwill and I will have completed 50 NoHo Noir stories. That's around 55K of words, more or less, which is longer than any other work of fiction I've produced.
We were originally hired for a three-month trial period but our editor, Craig Clough, told us he was onboard from story one. I've been given a free hand to go off on whatever fictional side streets I want. I am somewhat restricted in language but that's forced me to be more creative.
We're now doing two stories a week. If you haven't checked out the stories, here are the links:

Happy Endings--Saturday

Wanted--Sunday

A Publishing Milestone!!

Today I received my first royalty payment from Smashwords. Very exciting. I'm about to go spend it. (Yes, it's not exactly six figures. More like four--if you include the cents.) It was really exciting though.
I've become addicted to my checking my stats. L.A. Nocturne is my best seller, followed by Fairy Story. That's true of the kindle editions as well, although Fairy Story, for some reason, is selling better on amazon.uk than the other books.
I've put L.A. Nocturne and Just Another Day in Paradise up for a member giveaway at Library Thing, and that give-away ends next Saturday. I'm thrilled that more people asked for the titles than there are copies available. Now if they'll just do reviews.
My offer to readers still stands. If you want a copy of either L.A. Nocturne or Fairy Story, I'll be happy to furnish the Smashwords coupon code. And if you like it, would love for you to say a few kind words. If you don't like it, well, don't feel you have to spread your opinion around. :-)

It's Spring--time for silly food

Right now there's a big controversy at my local farmer's market because the woman who built it up into a weekly "must visit" has been shoved aside in favor of a new manager who wants to take the market "up market." In particular, the people who put the new manager in place want to make such items as "pumpkin radishes" available.
I've never actually seen or eaten a "pumpkin radish" and when I Googled it, I kept getting references to an organic clothing company.
I'm not sure that the availability of pumpkin radishes is what I look for in a farmer's market, especially since the one where I live is actually pretty pricey already. I grew up eating produce my grandmother and great-uncle grew, so it's really hard for me to pay a lot of money for a decent ear of sweet corn.
What I will pay for is the lemony Fuerte, which is never found in supermarkets. It is the avocado other avocados call boss.
There's a new item that's starting to show up in farmer's markets, usually tagged sea beans but known as "glasswort" to my oceanography class at Duke, where I first tasted the salty, yummy vegetable on a beach foraging expedition.
And of course there are "ramps." This is a member of the onion family that is only available a couple of weeks in the spring. They're native to Appalachia, where my father's people came from and I have eaten them fried up with potatoes and bacon. And they were good.
All of these vegetables are prized because they're rare and strange and weird. Something to think about when you're making a salad out of lettuce and tomatoes.

New story at NoHo Noir

Today's story at NoHo Noir features a grieving Lem, who is spending Passover alone with his dead wife's cat. Although he and Clancy have reached an "understanding," they are still antagonists. The illustration is by Mark Satchwill. You can find the story here.

Building a new vocabulary

Writing my urban fantasy stories has required putting together word lists of paranormal slang and names of objects that don't currently exist in the real world. Because the Misbegotten stories are set in Los Angeles, the epithets for para-creatures are often taken from the Spanish. (I use the Spanish word for "leech," which literally means "blood sucker." to describe vampires, for instance.)
New word of the day: faeblin. That's a mixed race character who has one goblin parent and one fairy parent.
The idea is that the fae blood counteracts the goblin genes in terms of physical appearance, so what you get is a creature with the size of a goblin and the physical beauty of a fairy. Think...Dwayne Johnson. (It's my world, I can cast the parts.)
I'm going to have to get something like Liquid Story Binder, the software John Donald Carlucci has been championing to keep all my notes in one place, though, because I've got scribbled notebook pages, post-it notes and all sorts of disorganized thoughts that need to be in one place.

Falling in love with characters

Artist Mark Satchwill and I had to hit the ground running when we first started doing NoHo Noir. We were hired on a Monday and the first story and illustration--along with Mark's logo for the series--were due on Thursday and they went up on Sunday, one week to the day from the Craig's List ad we answered.
We started out with one story a week and now we're doing two. The core characters are still the same as they were in October, when we started, but we have been adding new characters on an almost weekly basis. This week we introduced an ex-husband (actor Garibaldi Fox) and a secret boyfriend (Dale Robitaille).
Some characters are a lot of fun to write. Self-involved, wannabe screenwriter Christopher (who calls himself Christo) is always a hoot. Ditto for the self-righteous Helen Parrish, who is secretly holding another character's daughter prisoner.
It's like creating a soap opera and playing with these characters is a lot of fun. I've plotted out where the various arcs are going to go but sometimes, the characters surprise me. And sometimes I realize...the fates I had planned for them are just too cruel. For example, I was going to have Christo kill himself after one too many disappointments. But after someone commented on the character, I realized it was much more fun to keep him around.
I am going to kill someone off soon though and I hope it will be a shock.
Thanks for your support of NoHo Noir. I hope you enjoy this week's stories.

Saturday's story: Beware the Ides of April

Sunday's story: Visiting Hours

P.S. The web series is coming soon and it will be animated. A collection of the short stories with connective stories is also in the works.

Happy Birthday Cormac Brown!!

This blog would not exist if Cormac hadn't dragged me kicking and screaming into the blogosphere and then guided me through the setup. I made every newbie mistake possible and he patiently (he has the patience of a saint) told me what I was doing wrong.

He is an extraordinarily generous man, a writer of passion and purpose (and pulp) and a good friend. Send him some love here.

Strawberry Shortcake Recipe...

It's April 12 and if this were the old days, it would be about six weeks before strawberries would be available in the Supermarket. My grandmother Tomlinson (Kate--I'm named for her) used to pride herself on having ripe strawberries in her garden before Memorial Day.

She would pick those berries and serve them up on a tender sweet biscuit slathered with whipped cream. And it was heaven on a plate. It was not until I got older that I found out there were these pre-made cake things you could buy at the grocery store to use as a base for a "shortcake." I tasted one once. I was only slightly tastier than a sponge.

Now you can get strawberries year 'round if you want them and you don't mind paying an arm and a leg. If you just want to eat them out of hand (maybe rolled in a little sour cream and brown sugar), go for it. But if you want a shortcake, make your own. You will not believe what a difference it makes.

Diana Rattray, who is the About.com Southern Food editor knows this and today she's offering a mouth-watering recipe for strawberry shortcake on cream scones. Find the recipe here. (And sign up for her newsletter--once a week she'll send you the directions for making the tastiest food you've ever eaten. It will change your life!)

And don't use that whipped topping either!! You owe it to yourself to serve these berry-licious delights with real whipped cream, not a froth of chemicals.

The "Summer Strawberry" photo is courtesy of D. Sharon Pruitt.

Tangerine (jelly bean) dreams

I don't eat a lot of sweets and when I do crave something sugary, I tend to go for chocolate. But I am a sucker for POP (point of purchase) displays and when I saw this silly, seasonal treat from Jelly Belly jelly beans, I just had to have it. It's four ounces of bright orange tangerine-flavored jelly beans in a cone with a shredded green paper carrot "top." I actually bought it for a friend but when I forgot to give it to him, I popped the carrot top myself.

Who knew tangerine jelly beans could be so addictive? A lot of jelly beans are just hardened sugar goo with coloring but Jelly Belly jelly beans have true flavor. I sucked down that "carrot" in less time than it takes to write about it. I will NOT be getting more. They're that good.

New story, new character for NoHo Noir

For the last several months I've been writing two stories a week for NoHo Noir, which gives me a lot more latitude to follow the ever-growing cast of characters. I haven't really done much with Rouzan, the character who has chosen to opt out of the luxurious lifestyle provided by her Armenian gangster father and find her own way. She's a character I really like and this weekend, I introduce a new storyline that will feature her. As always, the story is illustrated by Mark Satchwill.

Here's the link. I hope you enjoy it.

The scene I will never write

When you write crime fiction, there are certain conventions and expectations that come with the genre,along with a whole series of scenes that different authors play with according to their needs. There are some scenes, though, that just don't work, yet we see them over and over and over again.

The scene I'm thinking of in particular is the one where a person (usually a woman) is grabbed and thrown into a car trunk--feet bound, hands cuffed, mouth gagged. Okay, so far, so good. It looks bad for that character and there's clearly something nasty waiting at the end of the journey. The character in the trunk knows that and is struggling to free him or herself. But when the car comes to a stop and the trunk is popped, there s/he is, feet bound, mouth gagged, and hands cuffed IN THE FRONT.

What? I have never found myself in this situation but I don't understand how a desperate character wouldn't manage to tear off the tape, or pull out the scarf. It'd be another thing if your hands were secured behind your back but all cuffing them in front does is limit your range of motion. You can reach up and remove a gag; you can reach down and untie your feet.

If one of my characters ever gets tossed in a trunk, he or she is going to come out of that trunk kicking and screaming.

A short rant about Castle

I don't watch a lot of television but for the last few seasons, I've made it a point to watch Castle. Yes, I like Castle and Beckett but I really like Ryan and Esposito. This year, though, the scripts have taken a slide. So here's my question. Am I the only one who thinks they should write Alexis out of the series until someone, anyone, figures out how to write her character.

Even in the best episodes she was written WAY too young and in an episode that ran a week ago, the writers had her hanging out with kids who were shoplifting stuff for kicks. Seriously? The character they created would just not do that. The actress playing Alexis is a lovely young woman and talented too, but half the time she's reduced to staring at Nathan Fillion with her big blue eyes.

It's a shame...The series has been renewed for another season and it would really be great if they could get their first season mojo back.

When Good Candy Goes Bad

I'm from the South where the prevailing notion is that anything good will be even better if it's deep-fried. And mostly, I get it. But a few years ago, deep-fried Oreo cookies started showing up at the county fair. I bought some for a friend who was totally intrigued and even though they were cold by the time he ate them, he pronounced them scrumptious. (Well, he probably said something more like, "These are frickin' amazing," but you get the idea.)

I like Oreo cookies more than is good for me, but I thought they looked disgusting.

And now come deep-fried candy bars. A heart attack wrapped in a diabetic coma. If you want to make some at home, here's a recipe.

Festival de Cannes--2011 Poster

More Sunday self-promotion than usual!

Like everyone else who has a stash of stories moldering on their hard drives, I have been intrigued by the opportunities of "indie publishing." (Who knew that "vanity publishing" would morph into something so respectable?)
Thanks to the encouragement of horror novelist G. Wells Taylor, I dipped into the waters last fall with my fiction collection Just Another Day in Paradise. (Available in kindle edition and in all epub formats.)

Now I've added two more books to the mix--L.A. Nocturne and Fairy Story. Both are urban fantasies--Nocturne is a collection of five stories; Fairy Story is a long tale taken from my upcoming novel Misbegotten. L.A. Nocturne is available in kindle and all formats here.

Fairy Story is awaiting approval on kindle but is available in all formats here.

I've also just learned that my zombie story "Z Cruise" made the cut at Hesham Horror Books. It will be included in the anthology Alt-Dead, to be published in print and in kindle this September. Edited by writer/publisher Peter Mark May, the themed anthology includes 16 stories.

And finally, there's a double shot of NoHo Noir this week. Check out Forgiveness and Wedding Party. If you tweet, consider following NoHo Noir at @nohonoir.

Apostle Rising by Richard Godwin

I am reading Apostle Rising by Richard Godwin. Why aren't you? His book appeared on the cover of Bookseller Magazine today (no April Fool's Day joke that). I'll be reviewing the book for Dark Valentine soon.

Shiny new author website!!

Here it is. Let me know what you think.

L.A. Nocture has been published!

Sample and buy it here.

I am unclear on the concept...

I love food blogs newsletters and subscribe to a zillion of them. I am particularly fond of Diana Rattray's about.com Southern food newsletter. Today she sent out a recipe for a strawberry cake that sounds yummy and suggested you make it for a "morning get-together."

Morning get-together? I'm one generation too young for the morning get-together, which sounds really nice. It reminds me of watching Rear Window. There's a scene where New Yorkers bed down on the fire escapes because it's so hot. Can you imagine doing that now? I am nostalgic for that even though it happened a decade before I was born. I want to sleep on a fire escape.

Anyway--enjoy the strawberry cake.

L.A. Nocturne--coming soon

I have been working on my urban fantasy novel Misbegotten for what seems my whole life. I have discovered that I work best in 1500-word bites. While theoretically it should be easy to string enough of those bites together to create the meal that is a novel, it isn't. At least not for me.

Having said that, though, I have created a whole world in which these stories take place, a Los Angeles that's just slightly different from the Los Angeles I live in. I've been writing stories in that world for awhile, and now I'm gathering five of them into a book that'll be out next month. The cover design is by Joy Sillesen of Stony Hill Productions and I am very pleased with it. Not only is she talented, but she is also really affordable, so if you need a cover for a book, or editorial design or just editing, she's available.

Chicken Cooking Contest

I am a sucker for cooking contests. I always enter. I've never won, but there's always a first time, right? Here's a chicken cooking contest that offers a $10,000 grand prize and a year's supply of Foster Farm's chicken. Deadline is May 31.

At least I'm getting something done...

Sleep is my super-power. Unlike others in my life and household, I can sleep anywhere at any time on any surface. Since the earthquake in Japan last week, though, I find myself sleepless more often than not.

And so, I while away the hours writing. It's going well. Last night I finished a story I started some time ago. It's set in the world of the novel I'm writing (and writing and writing). It's posted up at Dark Valentine today. Check it out here.

Sunday Self Promotion

Yes--it's another episode of NoHo Noir. This week features one of my favorite characters, Erika Garrett, the high-maintenance ex-wife of good guy James Garrett. If you're following the series, you may recall that she's completely paranoid about other women hitting on her new sweetie, an obnoxious dentist. She is also mother to Ty, a sweet kid who is about to have some problems. But that's getting ahead of the story.
As always, the story has been illustrated by Mark Satchwill. I LOVE the disapproving look on the saleswoman's face. Yes, you pretty much see the whole dynamic of the story in just the one picture... Enjoy it here.

Aid for the Apocalypse

They're saying the quake in Japan was a 9.1 instead of an 8.9. You've seen the pictures. You want to help. Here are a couple of quick ways.

Text REDCROSS (no space) to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross via your phone bill.

Test JAPAN or QUAKE to 80888 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army via your phone bill.

Broken Dreams is Up at Dark Valentine

Written under my pseudonym "Kat Parrish," the story "Broken Dreams" originally appeared in Astonishing Adventures Magazine.
I've always been fond of the story, which you can read here.
The story also appears in my fiction collection Just Another Day in Paradise, which is available on kindle.

What's so funny?

The last time my family was together, we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant at the beach in Santa Monica. At some point in the meal, my sister-in-law was talking and apropos of nothing, my sister announced that people often mistook her for Cindy Crawford. It was such an odd comment that my sister-in-law just kept talking.

It was not the first time my sister had said such things. Once, in the middle of a conversation about something else, she'd announced that she could be a super model. I'd laughed, thinking she was making a joke. She wasn't. Not only was she not joking, she was really annoyed at me for dismissing the idea so casually and, well, so dismissively.

And here's the thing. Back in her twenties, when she was healthy and happy, my sister was a pretty girl. She had fabulous hair and was six feet tall and had green-blue eyes that sparkled.

By the time she was talking about being a supermodel, her looks had been wrecked by years of illness and bad food and worse decisions. I was with her once when she stopped a passerby to ask for directions and he mistook her for a homeless person. She had lost more than several teeth and her hair had been chopped off haphazardly because she couldn't keep it from knotting.

She had friends who thought she was just fine and that her other friends (who by now were rapidly de-friending her) and her family members who were concerned about her were just being party-poopers. There were shrinks. ("My psychiatrist thinks you're the one with the problem.") There was rehab (and a refill of a vicodin script the same day she got out). There was a methadone program. Her three counselors came to her funeral.

A lot of people think Charlie Sheen is hilarious. And damn if the guy hasn't got a way with a catchphrase. But I'm not laughing.

"Maternal Instinct" on NoHo Noir

Yes, it's Sunday self-promotion day as another episode of NoHo Noir appears on patch.com.

This episode ties together characters from three separate storylines in an incendiary way. The artwork is by Mark Satchwill and features the mother of the missing girl from "Good Samaritan" and "Mother Love."

You can read "Maternal Instinct" here.

Bouchercon-Bound

I went to a book-signing for Kelli Stanley yesterday at Book Em' mystery bookstore in S. Pasadena (a wonderful place to drop a dollar or two). Had a great time and came away energized and inspired. I went to a Sisters in Crime event a couple of years ago that left me feeling the same way. I had wanted to go to Bouchercon last years when it was in San Francisco but that didn't happen. Now I have my sights set on Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis. I've been to St. Louis in the summer. it's sticky. but that's why they made air conditioning.

New episode of NoHo Noir

"Love the One You're With" updates the story begun on Valentine's Day when Erik's proposal went so badly awry. Read it here.

R.I.P. Reynolds Price

I didn't get the memo. I never read my Duke alumni magazines any more unless the cover story intrigues me so I hadn't heard the news that Reynolds Price died in January after more than 20 years fighting the cancer that put him in a wheelchair and inspired his 1994 memoir A Whole New Life.

Price was a novelist, a poet, a Rhodes Scholar. (At commencement every year, he would wear the Oxford colors, a practice other professors mocked.) He was a James B. Duke professor at Duke University (his alma mater) where, among other things, he taught a semi-annual seminar on Milton. You couldn't take it your freshman year, so I had to wait until I was a junior to enroll. It was worth the wait.

In fact, taking that class was pretty much my whole reason for applying to Duke. Even at 17 I was already word-struck and his brand of grandiloquent Southern writing appealed to me. (Another professor I adored used to mock Price's penchant for somewhat heavy-handed allegory, as when he named a character in his most famous novel Pomeroy--as in King of the Apples, as in ... the devil.)

If you don't know Price's work, here's his Wikipedia entry, which says that he was one of Bill Clinton's favorite authors.

To this day I can quote huge chunks of Paradise Lost. There were other lessons I learned in the class but that was my take-away.

Reynolds Price is dead. Somehow I should have known.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

I'll never make this myself because Trader Joe's carries an outstanding frozen sticky toffee pudding, but when Kate Middleton's recipe for the sticky toffee treat showed up, well, I had to make a note. If you've never had it, the dessert is an incredibly decadent confection of moist cake (filled with dates) and buttery toffee sauce. Here's the link to the recipe.

P.S. Sticky Toffee Pudding is said to be Johnny Depp's favorite dessert. Just so you know...

Two Noirs for the Price of One

This past week marked the debut of twice a week NoHo Noir stories. From now on Mark Satchwill and I will be bringing you a double-tap of noir for your reading pleasure.

This week's episodes are all about sin and secrets.

Read Fools Rush In here.

Read Curb Appeal here.

Patti Abbott's "Scarry Night" Fiction Challenge

Here's my entry into the fiction challenge posted here.

SCARIFICATION

Ned knew she was sensitive about her appearance. The fire had barely touched her face but it had left her right hand nothing but a fingerless knob, sheathed in taut shiny skin. She still had the nubs of three fingers on her left hand, enough to hold a pen, enough to pull a zipper, enough to handle a fork. She was clumsy with them, though, because she had been right-handed.

Ned admired her for using her hand in public, for defying the stares and the curiosity of strangers. He knew she was self-conscious and applauded her courage. It was just one of the things he loved about her. When he took her to bed, he kissed the fingers of her left hand tenderly and then kissed what remained of her right hand.

As he stroked her from shoulder to hip, she trembled at his touch. She quivered and moaned, making noises in her throat in her rising excitement. Ned liked that. He liked a vocal woman.

He undressed her gently, delicately, peeling back the layers of clothes like the rind of a succulent fruit. The scarred skin on her torso was so textured and tortured it seemed like an alien substance, like the melted remains of some plasticized machine.

He traced his finger down the worst of the wounds, a thick, calloused ribbon of flesh that marked the edge of a graft where some dead stranger’s skin had been used to cover the raw redness left when her epidermis burned away.

“I really don’t mind the scars,” he said as she turned her head away from him as if ashamed. “They mark you as special,” he added, twining his hand into her hair to turn her face back towards him. “They are why I chose you.”

She began to cry then, her tears leaking silently down her cheeks and soaking into the duct tape that gagged her. He had stuffed her underpants into her mouth before sealing it with the tape and so the only sound she could make sounded like a baby mewling. It excited him even more than the scars.

He hadn’t been lying when he told her it was her scars had attracted him to her. Scarification was his thing.

By the time he finished with her, she would be beautiful.

NoHo Noir #18

The plot thickens...Remember the street kid Helen Parrish kidnapped awhile ago? Her mother has come to town looking for her. And guess who isn't too happy about that?

Read the story here.

You can read all of the stories here.

As always, the artwork is by Mark Satchwill. Swag with his NoHo Noir artwork is now available in Mark's Zazzle store; and you can also buy prints of his illustrations on Etsy and RedBubble. Show him some love. (And seriously, don't you need some NoHo Noir coffee mugs?) Fans of Dark Valentine Magazine will recognize some of his pieces for sale as well.

Good enough to Tweet

I have recently opened a Twitter account to promote NoHo Noir and in the process of looking for twitter-folk who might be interested in random thoughts of a noir nature, I have run across foodie tweets. Yes, bite-size bits of info about food and eating requiring less commitment than watching an episode of Iron Chef America (one of my guilty pleasures).

Here are the ones I like best (bonus points for clever names):

@beyondthepeel (a foodie in Vancouver)

@goddessofbaking (all about the bake)

@myfoodthoughts (philosophy of food)

@lifesafeast (foodie in France)

If you see something, say something

Here's a link to a letter you might want to sign if you agree that calling out the National Guard is the wrong reaction when working people protest.

Workers of the World Unite

There's a class war brewing in America. It's been steeping for awhile and now it's a dark and potent and bitter brew. What has finally caused the pot to boil over is the furor over unions and the virulent, illogical and seemingly personal attacks on working people by the people elected by those working people to represent them.

Cue the chorus of the Black Keys' song, "I got mine."

In Los Angeles, it's easy to see the human carnage that has been left in the wake of the disastrous financial storms of the past decade. People who used to be comfortable are now scraping by. People who used to be scraping by are now in bad shape. I know two people who have been unemployed for more than two years--with college degrees and excellent resumes. I know one woman who lived in an apartment without electricity for a month because an ex- roommate left her with a huge bill she couldn't pay on her income. I know one person who lives in her van. These are not lazy people.

These are not crazy people. These are people who have worked all their lives and worked hard and now find themselves all alone and naked as howling winds scour their flesh. They are terrified. But it should be the politicians quaking in fear.

"If they have no bread, let them eat cake." Those words led to a revolution. It's time for a political reality check before the chant of the crowds in American cities becomes, "Eat the rich." The contempt of elected officials for the people they are supposed to serve is unacceptable. It's time to let them know that.

Rachel Maddow nailed it in her phrase "the people who write the paychecks" not caring about the "people who cash the paychecks."

If you haven't seen the segment where Rachel talks about the GOP war on workers, click here.

Here's a thoughtful piece on the matter from David Simkins' McKinley-Whitehall blog.

I am an American. I work for a living. And I vote.

Unavailable Witness

"Unavailable Witness" is an evocative phrase, isn't it? I've been reading the latest news stories in the murder case against ex-cop Drew Peterson, who is accused of killing one wife and making another disappear. At the heart of the prosecution's case is testimony from several people Peterson's third wife talked to before she ended up dead in the bathtub. Normally, testimony of people about what people said to them (hearsay) is inadmissable, but in this case, lawyers are arguing that the dead woman is "an unavailable witness" and the hearsay should be admitted. It's an interesting point of law and what the witnesses say is chilling. Here's the story from CNN.com.

I find myself wanting to write a story...

Dissecting the Sword of Doom

I have a friend who has a theory that samurai movies were the precursors of slasher movies. He LOVED Sword of Doom. He's clearly not the only one. Watch this video dissecting the movie.

New NoHo Noir for Valentine's Day

Celebrate Valentine's Day with the characters of NoHo Noir. This is a pivotal episode--expect revelations about Ethan (the homophobic cop), James and Amanda Gold (movie mogul and his trophy wife), backstory on Clarence Garrett, Lem Majewski and Shari the bubbly receptionist at Economou, Deeter & Bailey.

Here's the story.

As always, the artwork is by Mark Satchwill. You can see more of his work here.

One True Sentence

Murder and Paris...what could be more perfect? Craig McDonald's fourth mystery featuring a young Ernest Hemingway and his fictitious pal Hector "Lasso" Lassiter is out and it's a lot of fun.

The plot involves "Lost Generation" writers who are being murdered and the survivors's attempts to figure out who the killer is before one of them becomes the next victim. The plot, though, is almost beside the point. If you enjoy period mysteries (this one is set in 1924), then pick up One True Sentence. It will make you glad you were an English major because you'll "get" all the references.

NoHo Noir Swag--Available Now

Create personalized gifts at Zazzle.


Now you can have Mark Satchwill's amazing NoHo Noir art on t-shirts, coffee mugs, badges, and mouse pads. Not only is the creepy series logo available, but you can also get his most requested illustrations--Cosmos, Molecules, and Blockbuster--too.

Go here to browse. Seriously, what kitchen would be complete without a set of NoHo Noir coffee mugs?

It's a 24-hour world

So...I was up last night working, as I often am, when a tweet catches my eye as it goes by on the right side of my monitor. It's from the editor of the Studio City patch site, and he's up at 1:30 in the morning working. And I think, damn, Mike works hard. I know he begins his days early because I see his posts on the site and here he is 19 hours later, still up. And then it hits me that of course, I have been up since 6 after a four-hour night and I'm still working too...And I don't even think it's ... odd.

When did that happen? When I was a kid, I remember reading autobiographies of great men who worked 12-hour days and I thought that sounded hard. Nowadays, a 12-hour day sounds like a vacation. It goes with the territory if you're a freelancer. But have you noticed? Even people with "day jobs" are working really long days too. Used to be you had your job and your family obligations and then, there was time left over just to breathe. Every single person I know works really, really hard. There's the job. There's family. And then there's the second job, whether outside the home or in. Everyone's writing, publishing, trying to get a little traction. Then there's volunteer work. Because things are broken. But mostly it's just work to stay ahead of the bills, or to stay even or to stay not too far behind. My parents would be appalled at the hours my brother and I put in at work. But it's the new normal.

And at least I have a job.