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.