Patti Abbott's Flash Fiction Challenge

Patti Abbott hosts some terrific flash fiction challenges and this one was irresistible. Choose any work by American artist Reginald Marsh and write a 1000-word story inspired by it.  II spent an excellent hour clicking through decades of Marsh's work. All of it was extremely evocative and lively. (See Sandra Seamans' blog about choosing her picture for the challenge.)  Here's a link to some of his work to give you an idea.  (The painting across the top of the page  reminds me a bit of my friend Joanne Renaud's work.)
The painting I finally chose, "Red Buttons," was painted in 1936 in egg tempera on board.  Coincidentally, it's now in the Huntington Library's collection, so one day soon, I can visit the original.

My story is called "A Friend in Need" and it's 992 words long.  If you go to Patti's site, you'll find links to the other stories participating in the challenge.

A FRIEND IN NEED

Nancy met Bea at Child’s Cafeteria when they both reached for the last piece of lemon meringue pie. “Let’s share it,” Bea suggested, and simple as that they were sitting at a table, talking like old friends.

Bea told Nancy she worked for an insurance company as a comptometer operator, making $28 a week, which sounded like a fortune to Nancy.

Nancy’s father ran a general store back in Ohio and delivered mail as a rural route carrier too. Gas was only ten cents a gallon but there were times when scraping together enough to fill the tank was hard because he let so many people run tabs at his store.

Nancy knew her parents were worried about her living in New York City, even though she was sharing a place with her cousin and her husband.

Nancy’s parents were one generation away from farm folk and had a deep suspicion of the big city.

Still, they knew the only work available to her in Ohio was back-breaking farm labor and they didn’t want that for their only child. Nancy had skills. She could type-write and she knew Gregg shorthand.

They were sure she’d be able to find employment in New York, so they sent her off with their blessing and $48 they’d saved up.

Her father had also sent her off with the admonition to stay away from Harlem—“No good can come of associating with colored people,” he’d told her—and her mother had added her own, vague warnings to avoid “mashers” and “men who only want one thing.”

Bea had laughed when Nancy imitated her mother’s warning about men, and taken another bite of the pie.

“How fast can you type?” Bea asked.

“Seventy words a minute,” Nancy replied proudly. She could actually type a lot faster but if she did, the keys started jamming.

Turn the Page

Volume I of NoHo Noir comes to an end.

Illustration by Mark Satchwill

A year ago, late on a Sunday night, I answered a Craig's List ad posted by Craig Clough, the newly hired editor of the North Hollywood/Toluca Lake micro-news site patch.com.
The site, owned by AOL, was one of several hundred hyper-local sites springing up across the country.  (I think there were 300 when we launched and in the last year more of them have appeared.  I live in Valley Village, which is right between North Hollywood and Studio City, which has its own patch.com site.)
Craig had a vision--to publish fiction that featured the area--and I was lucky enough to see the ad before anyone else did. (This was, I think, at one in the morning.)  He hired me on Monday and my first story was due Thursday. And I was off.
We started so fast that there wasn't really a chance to plan ahead and I was writing to deadline pretty much the whole year. I had so many characters that weeks would sometimes go by before I got back to them.  (And there were at least two times when I spelled a character's name wrong and a couple of "continuity" errors on backstory. There was also one storyline where I painted myself into a corner and resorted to a soap opera gimmick to extricate myself.
Generally speaking, though, I'm pretty proud of what Mark Satchwill and I did on Volume I. We're hoping to publish the stories as a novel sometime soon, with the illustrations. Working with Craig is delightful and collaborating with Mark has been a dream. Going forward, he's going to experiment with a more comic book style, and I can't wait to see how that turns out.
The new stories will have a more focused cast of characters--at least initially--and as I mentioned in an earlier post, they'll be more crime centric. (The column is not called "NoHo Nice.")  I want to get more deeply into social issues because frankly, the City of the Angels is falling apart.  The center is not holding. One of the most-read stories on the North Hollywood patch site right now is about a man who used to own a flower shop and is now homeless. (Read the story here.)
But there will be love and there will be hope and there will be some fun too.
Hope to see you there. Would love to know what you think about the new direction and the new characters.
The illustration here is from Sunday's story, which won't be posted until later. But here's the link to the site. By breakfast time "Elephant Walk" should be available.

Food For Thought

Thanksgiving is still more than a month away, but I've already got deadlines related to the holiday so feasting is on my mind. Over the years I've refined my Thanksgiving dinner menu--simplifying it from the Southern extravaganza it was in my mother and grandmother's day.  (Ham AND turkey, mashed potatoes and candied yams AND sweet potato pudding AND corn pudding...I could go on.) but what I put on the table still costs a pretty penny, even with coupons. (I could go without the gingered yam souffle, especially since I'm the only one in the house who eats it but since I'm the one masterminding the meal, it stays in.)

Photo by as012a2569/StockXchange

I was doing research on fluctuating food prices when I came across this site. It's a breakdown of what food cost in 1961 and an ad for a three-course restaurant Thanksgiving dinner.  Yes, I realize wages weren't that great back in the Mad Man era but still--cranberry sauce was 25 cents for TWO 16-ounce cans? A 20-pound turkey was ... 29 cents a pound.  Is there anything in a grocery store you can even buy for 25 cents now?  Even the candy bars cost a dollar.

Book Giveaway

 Too Much of a Good Thing is Never a Bad Thing.

Photo by Julia Freeman-Woolpert

I live in an apartment with a lot of books. The bookcase that came from my grfandfather's law office is in the living room, along with another bookcase I bought from an ex-roommate.  Both are crammed full and double-shelved. My office has four bookcases, two are birdseye maple, and come from a client who gave them me when he moved (the wood is beautiful), one from Ikea and one salvaged from the trash room when a neighbor moved out.  (Yes, I am not too proud to take advantage of freebies.  Alas, not everyone in my household shares  my gypsy gene.)
The point (and I do have a point in here somewhere) is that I have a lot of books. And more coming in every day. so I've decided to give a bunch of my books away.  I took bags full over to my library yesterday but I've put together some packages of books I'd  like to give away.  Yes, two different batches of books free for the asking.  And all I ask is that you follow the blog.  If you're already a follower, all I ask is that you comment. Because really, I want these books to have a good home.  (A lot of them are brand new because people sent them to me after I'd read them in galleys or ARCS.)  Just let me know which package suits you (you can pick both if you like) and next Saturday (October 22), I'll pick winners at random. 

Halloween Silliness

I was researching cheap Halloween costumes for this year's NoHo Noir Halloween story (Volume II begins next week) and ran across this collection of ideas from CBS/Los Angeles blogger Suzanne Marques.  Ranging from the clever (Royal Couple) to the questionable (Amy Winehouse), they have a distinctly LA bent.

I also found this website where you can order all kinds of Halloween props to complete your decorating schemes.  My neighborhood looks like the Halloween blimp exploded overheard and rained down tacky decor. It's fun but frightening in a way that has nothing to do with ghouls and ghosts.

All the stores are full of big bags of Halloween candy.  It's a minefield. I'd get some but it would only mean I was getting it for myself. In the six years we've lived in this apartment building, we've never had a single trick or treater.  I miss trick or treaters.  My all-time favorite was a little kid who came dressed as Ozzy with his mom dressed as Sharon.

I am so never going to do this but just in case you want to make your own candy corn, Elizabeth LaBau (about.com's Candy editor) has a recipe here.

NoHo Noir gets a facelift

Photo by Thomas Hawk

"NoHo Noir," the illustrated serial novel that Mark Satchwill and I created, will be a year old next week. We're closing out volume one with two more stories, then introducing a whole new cast of characters for volume two. Mark has created a new (and I think creepier) version of our logo which will debut with our first story. We also hope to use it on the cover of the collected stories when AOL gives us the go-ahead to go forth and publish.
The clown logo for the series is a version of the real-life Circus Liquor clown sign, a North Hollywood landmark for years.  The real clown (see photo on the left) is pretty creepy. It looms over the street right across from a bus stop.  Mark put the logo together overnight because we were hired the same week the first story posted.
We found a lot of people loved the clown (shudder), so Mark put the logo up in his online shop. Yes, you can get NoHo Noir swag here. I am very fond of his original logo. (See right)
Now, though, as we move into the second year of stories, Mark has come up with a more surreal version, a Bozo-gone-bad image that suits the darker tone the new stories will take. There will be a more crime-centric vibe for the new stories, and the volume will start off with the murder of a homeless man that may or may not have been at the hands of a couple of junior high kids.  (That's right, NoHo is not fooling around this year.)
The new logo is below.  What do you think?

Baby Boomer Nostalgia Gone Wild

Yes, the movie/TV reboots and remakes and re-imaginings continue. I can't really make fun of some of the sillier projects coming down the pike because the studios responsible pay my bills but seriously. Mr. Ed?  Seriously? Here's the skinny from JoBlo.com.
For every one of these recycled/retro/resurrected projects there are a dozen that were commissioned and paid for that died a horrible death. (And trust me on this--they deserved it.)   So every time someone goes off on how "young people" are in charge of the movie-making process, I think, "Please God let it be true."  Because you know, it's not the 20- or 30-somethings who are green-lighting big screen versions of television shows from the 60s.
Mr. Ed?  Really?