A sense of place

I've been thinking a lot about "sense of place" lately. When I first started writing urban fiction, I was living in Los Angeles, and it was natural to set my stories and my first novel there. I have a love/hate relationship with the city where I spent decades of my life, and little by little, I incorporated both my favorite elements (the Griffith Park Observatory) and those I disliked (crazy celebrity culture, huge income disparity, ridiculous traffic) into the stories.

Photo: Matthew Field/Wikipedia

The Griffith Observatory is one of my favorite buildings in the world, and I turned it into a headquarters for the vampire family that runs L.A. and used it as the location of several pivotal scenes in Misbegotten, the first L.A. Nocturne novel. (It's currently available free in the collection After Midnight.)

Whatcom Falls photo by Ken Haufle/Wikipedia

When I first moved to the Pacific Northwest, it took me a very long time to get a feel for the place and write about it. I tried a couple of times to write UF set in Bellingham (halfway between Vancouver, BC and Seattle), even sketched an outline for something called Blood in the Rain. It just never quite happened for me. Then one day, when the wind had caused yet another hours-long power outage (a common hazard in Bellingham), I started sketching out a cozy Christmas romance and suddenly I realized I was setting it in an idealized version of the city where I'd been living for two years. And that made me happy.

I moved from Bellingham to another, smaller town nearly two years ago and from the first, I knew I wanted to use it as a setting for my Rezso and Witch War novels. My new hometown is not scenic most months of the year, but in the fall it is spectacular. (That's one reason Witch War is set in the fall.)
I am currently prepping for a move overseas. And I'm already wondering how I will write my very American books if I'm living in Europe. Under my cozy romance pen name (Katherine Moore), I already have ideas for a series of Expat romances, but I don't want to be a tourist...
Only time will tell.

New Cover from Christa at Paper and Sage

My urban fantasy novel Misbegotten will finally be out in late spring and I'm already working on the sequel. I was playing around with names and I saw this cover on the Paper and Sage site. The temp title was completely apt for my book, so I had the designer, Christa Holland, swap out my name for the place holder and voila. the designer also does custom work. I've already bookmarked several other covers. 

I Will Make Wine of Your Blood

The heroine of my upcoming urban fantasy novel (Misbegotten)  is a paranormal crime reporter named Kira Simkins.  In the course of the story, I mention that "Kira" has written two true crime books, one about a syndiate of murderous mer-men (Poseidon's Stepchildren) and one called I Will Make Wine of Your Blood. My friend Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services whipped up covers for the imaginary books and I've always planned on writing novelettes to give away to my so-far nonexistent mailing list. But as I get close to finishing Misbegotten, I find myself more and more intrigued by the premise of this paranormal "true crime" book. I really want to write it now, but that will play havoc with my schedule this year.
I love this cover so much.

Shameless Self-Promotion Saturday

This is the summer I finally get all the bits and pieces of writing up and out there. Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services has created a great new cover for me as I collect all the L.A. Nocturne stories and add them to new ones as a "teaser" for my Misbegotten novel. (Urban Fantasy, set in L.A. There are vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters but no chicks with swords or tramp stamps.)

Friends don't let friends use lame covers...

I showed the cover I created for "Death of a Fairy" to my friend Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services and instead of saying, "Wow, that is one fugly cover," she said, "You know, that palm tree isn't doing it for me. And promptly whipped up a new cover for me. And then she formatted the innards for me. And then she pointed out that since it was a story that fit into my Misbegotten world (collected in the L.A. Nocturne anthologies that I really needed to "stick to my brand" so she changed the byline from mmy 'sudo back to my real name.
I'm lucky in my friends.
So here it is--the new cover. The beautifully formatted insides and all.
Thank you Joy!

Find her at Indie Author Services.

And just to stay with the theme--Here's a Shakespeare quote about friendship courtesy of Shakespeare Online:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
(Hamlet 1.3.62-3), Polonius to Laertes

And p.s. thanks to John Donald Carlucci--artist, writer, and friend who  also offered to save me from my own misguided attempts at making a cover.  Thanks JDC.

"Death of a Fairy" new fiction from the Misbegotten universe

I have been writing "Misbegotten" stories for almost seven years now, urban fantasies set in the City of the Angels where paranormal creatures exist alongside normal citizens. (In L.A., it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.) I decided to test the waters of the short fiction marketplace by putting "Death of a Fairy" up for sale(under my pseudonym Kat Parrish) as a stand-alone story using their beta cover generator to put together a cover. It's an experiment. I'm curious to see how it'll turn out but in the meantime, I am pleased with the story, which begins when a homeless woman mistakes a dead fairy for a discarded Barbie doll in the alley she calls home.

Whipping Boy--My Mystery Novella debuts next month

I write short stories.
In fact, I write SHORT short stories.
Up until last month, the longest story I'd ever written was my entry in Paul D. Brazill's Drunk on the Moon compilation of stories set in his Roman Dalton world. I think it topped out at a little ore than 5K. I am in awe of my friends who find it easy to whip out 70 or 80K in a month or two, and think nothing of writing a novel every few months or so.
For me, writing at length is hard. (Well, I suppose if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.)
But Whipping Boy is a story that's been percolating for a long time. The protagonist is an L.A. criminalist named Lark Riordan, whose father Jack is an actor who has recently been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in a "come-back" role. Lark's low-key love interest is a homicide detective named Max Siwek, who is also her stepbrother. Yes, it's complicated, but the book isn't a romance, it's a mystery. It's also a longish novella, coming in around 45K right now as I begin my final edit before handing it over to beta readers. I'm rather pleased with the book, and now that I know I can actually write something that's longer than 1200 words, I am back to working n Misbegotten, my long-in-development novel about paranormal L.A. and the crime reorter who chronicles illegal doings in the city.
i have a few thousand words to go before it's a novel, but it's getting there. the cover is by Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services.

This is an unsolicited testimonial

I used to review books for the review site Bitten by Books, which specializes in paranormal books. I read a lot of great stuff, and found an intensely interactive community of readers. I did not know until recently that Bitten By Books offered advertising rates for authors who want to target those readers directly. I will definitely be talking to their sales people when Misbegotten comes out (in September if all goes well.) Check it out if you write paranormal; the exposure might be useful.  and even if you don't want to take advantage of their author services, you should check the site out. In addition to honest reviews, publishing news, blog tour stops and giveaways and contests, it's just a fun place to hang out.

Tales of the Misbegotten: Star Quality

I am days from finishing Starcaster, the novel I'm writing in a shared world environment with authors Charlotte English, MeiLin Miranda and Joseph Robert Lewis.  I have promised myself that I won't write any more short stories until Starcaster and Misbegotten (due in May!) are finished, but this story came to me while I was perusing a gossip site and it would not go away.  It is set in the paranormal L.A. that is the setting for Misbegotten (and the stories in L.A. Nocturne and L.A. Nocturne II).

Star Quality

When the Star found the Stranger lounging on the $12,000 sofa in his trailer, he wasn't afraid at first, just annoyed.

His first question wasn't "Who are you?" because frankly, he didn't care.

Nor did he ask, "What do you want?" because that was obvious. Like everyone else, he wanted to tear off a little piece of star-shine for himself.

The star, whose name was Denis Flynn, had been a child actor who had had a rocky transition into adult roles, languishing in horror movies with numbers after their titles and doing television guest roles as ex-boyfriends on sitcoms and designated victims on crime shows.

There'd been the obligatory bar fights and rehab stints and everyone assumed he'd be another TMZ headline before he turned 30 but three years ago he'd done a Robert Downey, Jr. and blown everyone away in an indie movie called Slanguage. Since then they'd been offering Ryan Gosling his cast-offs and he'd been balls-deep in quality pussy.

When he saw the Stranger, whose name was Alex Mariana, Flynn was annoyed because Alex was a blip and when you're a star, there are people who are supposed to take care of blips before they cross your radar.

So while he made a mental note to make his personal assistant's life miserable for not dealing with Alex, the question Flynn asked was, "How did you get in here?"

And actually, it was a serious question because after a series of stalker incidents involving a female director working on the lot, security was supposed to be tight.

"Wasn't that hard," Alex said with a grin, and just like that, Denis was looking at a perfect double of the movie's cinematographer.

"Shit," Flynn said as the shape-shifter melted back into his original shape.

"So what do you want?"

Alex grinned wider. "I'm here to talk business," he said.

Alex had to give the Star credit. He'd been pulling one of these jobs once a year for the last decade and almost without exception he'd had to spell things out for the marks. It wasn't that they were stupid; they just couldn't quite wrap their heads around the idea that they were so vulnerable. Flynn, though, he seemed to grasp the situation perfectly right away.

Instead of launching into a lot of hand-wringing and macho posturing, Flynn just went over to the full-size fridge his assistant kept stocked with gluten-free snacks and artisanal glacier water, and pulled out a one-ounce bag of organic kale chips.

He sat down in a chair that matched the sofa, kicked back and started snarfing his chips.

"Do me," he said. "I want to see your me."

Alex obliged. "We're the same height," Alex said, so that makes it easier. I'm pretty flexible, so I can go up or down an inch or two. But if you were really six one like it says on IMDB, we wouldn't be a perfect match.

Alex could tell the star didn't like that but he just shrugged. "Fair enough," he said.

Flynn seemed mesmerized by Alex's counterfeit of himself.

"Change back," he finally ordered. "Looking at you is too much like being in a dream and seeing myself dead."

It was quiet in the trailer for a bit, quiet enough Alex could hear each individual crunch as Flynn ate his chips. Finally Flynn screwed up the bag and looked around as if waiting for someone to take it from him and dispose of it properly.

When no one materialized, he set his trash on the birdseye maple coffee table that drew the trailer's décor together with its golden hues.

"How much?" he asked.

"A hundred thousand," Alex replied.

Flynn lifted his eyebrows. "You think small," he said.

"I'm not greedy," Alex replied.

"And if I don't pay?"

"There are so many options," Alex said. "Couch jumping on a talk show; melting down in a racist rant; propositioning a male masseuse."

"The couch jumping was a good one," Flynn said.

"Thank you."

"So how does this work? You want me to write you a check?"

"Money orders. In thousand dollar increments. Have your assistant buy them at separate Western Union branches all over the city. Don't fill out the buyer's section, I'll take care of that."

"And how do I get you the money?"

"Put it in a Fred Siegel bag and give it to that hot girlfriend of yours."

For the first time Flynn looked angry.

"Leave Danica out of this."

"She'll never even see me," Alex promised. "Get the money together," he said. "I'll let you know where and when Danica can make the drop."

It turned out that within three miles of the studio in either direction there were more than a hundred PayDay Plus and Paycheck Advance and Western Union franchises and it only took Flynn's assistant three hours to buy100 money orders.

He didn't bother to ask Flynn what the money orders were for because he never questioned his boss, and Flynn wouldn't have told him anyway.

He did, however, make a discreet phone call to the National Enquirer to tell them Flynn might be falling back into his old drug-buying ways. It wouldn't be the first time he'd scored some cash for a hot tip.

When characters take on a life of their own...

I have been speaking to an agent (squee) about my WIP Misbegotten and he strongly suggested I put together a biography of my main character--paracrimes journalist Kira Simkins. I had bits and pieces of her in folders and files and notebooks and sticky pads, but when I started pulling it all together, I realized that she had taken on a life of her own. I invented two true crime books for her and Joy Sillensen, my go-to-gal for covers, whipped up a couple of dummy covers for me.
I like the covers so much that at some point, I might actually write the books that go along with the covers. 
I never actually intended for my paranormal Los Angeles to be the setting of so much of my fiction. Kira was just a character I conjured up for a story I wrote for John Donald Carlucci's Astonishing Adventures Magazine.
There's a comfort zone there, though. I've lived in Los Angeles longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life--though for an Army brat who moved every year as a child, that's not much of a boast. My first job here was working at Los Angeles Magazine at the same time I was a cityside reporter for the now-defunct L.A. Weekly.  I know my adopted city and am inspired by it every time I leave the apartment. Putting the magical overlay on top of the city amuses me, and the settings I use the most often--Griffith Observatory, Hollywood, Malibu Creek Park--have a magic of their own even in their mundane state. 
When Patricia Cornwell first started writing her Kay Scarpetta stories, she disguised details of the Richmond, Virginia setting. (They were thinly disguised and it was easy to pick out the neighborhoods where the crimes were taking place.) By her second book, Cornwall's depiction of the city was so accurate a reader who found herself stranded in the city would not have needed a road map to get to downtown, where the Medical College of Virginia (location of the morgue) is located.
I can think of other writers who have picked a city and made it their own--from Matthew Funk's New Orleans stories to the adventures of Janet Evanovich's quintessential Jersey Girl Stephanie Plum.
I'm curious--how often do other writers return to a favorite city? Is it their own city or a place they consider their spiritual home town?  Do they ever set a story in a particular city but leave it anonymous?

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.