Let the Year of the Rabbit Begin

1/1/11--2011 is here. An not a minute too soon, I might add. I can't really complain about the year just passed, it was great creatively: the launch of Dark Valentine Magazine with my friends and colleagues Joy Sillesen and Joanne Renaud; the launch of the NoHo Noir series with Mark Satchwill; the publication of my collection of fiction, Just Another Day in Paradise; a personal best in the number of short stories written and published. Still, like the mother in the Prince song, I'm never satisfied.

I don't make resolutions but I do set goals and this year is going to be my year of saying "no" to projects that don't advance those goals. I have been unfocused. Last year I was fortunate enough to sustain a full-time freelance career. As you know, freelancers can't always be choosy but I took on some projects I really shouldn't have. I'm not going to do that any more. And to solidify my commitment to that goal, I sent off an email to a potential client and turned a lucrative job down. The client was lovely, the money was great but I just wasn't seeing a good outcome. And I couldn't help but think that the hours I would spend trying to wrestle the project into shape could be better spent working on one of the two novels I nearly finished this year, or the two screenplays languishing in their neglected files on my computer.

I'm making lists. I'm getting motivated. And next year at this time...I'm going to have something to show for it.

Thanks for all your support throughout the year. Happy New Year and Happy Writing to you all.

Do You Know This Woman?

I am not a true crime buff. There are crimes that intrigue me--who really killed Jon-Benet Ramsey for instance--but I am not one to purchase thick books by reporters with theories. (For the record, I think Patsy Ramsey took the secret of her daughter's murder to the grave with her.)

I was mugged once, in the city of Brotherly Love. My assailant was a very tall man with a very large knife. His attack took place in full view of an escalator full of people, many of whom watched with avid interest, none of whom notified security.

The guy wanted me to open my purse and hand over just my wallet. I had on bulky gloves--it was January in Philadelphia, it was cold. My fingers kept slipping off the catch on my purse and I remember, distinctly, thinking, "I am going to die because I can't get my purse open." I didn't die, of course, and was fortunate enough to walk away from the encounter with just a bruised knee from where he pushed me to the train station floor.

But I had two friends who were not so lucky. One worked at a nearby mall the summer between high school and college. One night, a man followed her home and stabbed her 27 times. He was later picked up and hanged himself in his cell.

Ten years later, I was living in Richmond, Virginia taking care of my mother when a serial killer who'd done some carpentry at a magazine I worked for tracked down the receptionist and murdered her. It was a notorious crime at the time (It formed the basis for Patricia Cornwell's first Kay Scarpetta novel), and the killer was only caught by accident. The case was the first in Virginia to use DNA evidence.

All to say, I am not fascinated by murder, I don't batten on true stories of pain and death and grief. Which is why I really can't explain the impulse that led me to look through the 180 photos LAPD has released from a stash they found in the possession of the alleged serial killer they have dubbed "the Grim Sleeper."

The owner of these photographs stands accused of the murders of 10 women but the police suspect he is "responsible for" other deaths. They've released the pictures (and they all appear to be live women, although there are two photographs that are a little iffy) in hopes that someone out there knows one of these women.

I do not. But I could. The women range in age from gray-haired to very young. Almost all are African-American. Some are beautiful,some not, but all are vital. Most of the pictures seem to have been taken with the consent of the woman, even the ones where their expressions are wary or hostile or skeptical. In most of the pictures the women are smiling.

It's not completely clear that the accused took the photographs but they were found in his home. How did these women cross paths with this man? Why are so many smiling? How many were lucky enough to walk away with their lives, as I did?

A Publishing Success Story

Yes, there are some out there. Read this interview over at Galley Cat.

Do a Friend a Favor

My friend Sam Park is part of a brand-new comics venture called Comics from the Monsterverse Their very first anthology, Bela Lugosi's Tales From the Grave has been nominated for Best Horror Anthology 2010 over at ComicMonsters.com.
This is part of the Horror News Network site, which is a great place to check out horror games, horror toys and, well, their motto says it all--"Coverage of All Things Horror."

So hie yourself hence and register (you know the drill and it doesn't take long) to vote for Bela Lugosi's Tales From the Grave.

And while you're at it, follow them on facebook. Find them at Comics From the Monsterverse.

More Free Fiction

This week's episode of NoHo Noir is a round-up of the characters we've met so far. If you haven't been following the series--now is a good time to catch up. Check out "Blockbuster" here.

Over at Dark Valentine Magazine, the Twelve Days of Christmas fiction series has begun with tales from Andrew Douglas and Kat Parrish. There are more tales to come from Paul David Brazill, Cormac Brown, Nigel Bird, John Donald Carlucci, Christine Pope, Kaye George and more...(and me). Catch up with the stories here.

The 600-700 word challenge continues over at A Twist of Noir. The excitement is building. I have number 668, which will appear some time in mid-January. Monday is going to be a bonanza day for readers so check it out.

Do Some Damage will be running Christmas Noir through the first week in January. The stories will cut through the Christmas calories. Go here.

A Christmas Story

I originally wrote this for the Do Some Damage Christmas Noir Fiction Challenge but it didn't make the cut. (Sniff.) I still like the story though, in a creepy Christmas kind of way. Merry Christmas y'all. See you next year.

Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice…

Eddie always gets better stuff than I do because our parents love him best. Last year I really, really, really wanted a Bakugan Brawlers Battle Pack and instead I got a Crayola wonder color light brush with a card saying I should explore my inner artist with it. I guess it was a step up from all the “My Little Pony” crap I’ve been getting for the last four years.

Hello, I’m 11, not five.

Eddie always makes lists of what he wants and then types it up on the computer with links to where mom and dad can get the stuff he requested. They think it’s cute. He’s nine and they think he’s a genius because he can navigate Google.

Please. I hacked into mom’s eBay account when I was nine and messed up all her auctions.

She lost out on a vintage 60s dress she really, really, really wanted even though it was a size six and the only size six she wears are her shoes.

Eddie even gets better stuff from grandma than I do because he sucks up to her when she comes over and I don’t. He doesn’t wrinkle his nose when she kisses him and he pretends that he doesn’t mind her old lady smell.

Excuse me, but if I smelled like pee and dead roses, I wouldn’t go around kissing on people.

Mom says I’m an ungrateful brat and don’t deserve presents at all if I’m going to complain about what I get. Dad, whose idea of a really great present is a book, doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t really like kissing grandma either.

Mom picks out books for us to give him; he gives us new copies of books he read and loved as a kid which was like a million years ago. They always have little messages in them.

Robert Francis Weatherbee, the Boy Who Would Not Go to School. Guess what that one’s about.

Eddie’s been making his Christmas list since Halloween, adding to it and subtracting from it. This year he’s drawing pictures of the things he wants, just in case Mom and Dad haven’t seen the ads on television.

A lot of the things he’s asking for sound like totally good things, things that will help him do better in school. Mom and Dad love that. Remember, they think he’s a genius. They don’t know that he used the chemistry set they got him last year to poison the neighbor’s dog.

No, their little genius wouldn’t do something like that.

They don’t know that the Lincoln Logs Red River Express Building Set they paid $60 for got turned into a log prison for a kitten he found. It was too little and weak to break out, so it starved to death. And then he buried it in our mom’s garden.

I told mom about the kitten but she didn’t believe me, not even when I showed her the tiny grave in her garden. When she finally dug it up and found the dead kitten, she called me a jealous little trouble maker and a liar and she slapped me. I heard her tell Dad later that she thought I was sick and probably needed some help.

Eddie thought that was funny. Eddie thinks a lot of things are funny.

One of the things on Eddie’s Christmas list this year is a set of big cooking knives. Our parents think that’s adorable and probably figure he just wants to be like the Iron Chefs Mom watches on the food channel.

Seriously. They’re that clueless.

They might just buy him that set of cooking knives.

Best Books of 2010

You've got some reading to do!
This is the time of year when critics and magazines and ordinary readers make their lists. If you're looking for a good book to take your mind off the weather, here are some places to start:

California Literary Review.

January Magazine

Publisher's Weekly

ThirdAge.com has a roundup of other peoples' picks here.