Link to my new site

Blogger has some issues that don't work out so good for me (and for a few of you guys out there) so I'm going to continue this blog at:   http://thehuntingtonbeachnovel.wordpress.com/

It All Starts Here...

They say that everyone has one great story in them (of course my bank says that their customer service is better than ever) so what do "they" know anyway.   Today I begin my trip onto the printed page.

My name is Michael Ryan and I have been a freelance writer (read: I have a real, non-writing job) for almost 20 years.  I have written articles for filmmaking magazines (published and actually received cash money for them) and have written several  scripts for  network television (not accepted and no cash money for them).

The Huntington Beach Novel.  I will assume that this title has brought you here and perhaps, for reasons that you or I don't fully realize yet.  I'm writing about my passion and my passion is Huntington Beach, California.  

In 1962 I was six years old.  My parents (dad was from Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia and my mom was from Highland Creek, Ontario, Canada) had just purchased a brand new home on Standish Lane in Huntington Beach.  It was here that I would learn every great thing about life, love, joy, sadness and a real passion for the mystery and the magic that surrounds us.  And, dear reader, if I could bottle that experience it would keep a warm and loving smile on your face until the end of all time.  

When I was 14 we moved far away from Huntington Beach, but Huntington Beach never left me.  Sometimes in the evening after a long day at work I'll sit down and get comfortable and I'll remember those Huntington Beach days.  The way Main Street felt on a hot summer day. Going to the beach with white zinc oxide on our noses so they wouldn't burn.  93 KHJ on the car radio and getting black tar on the bottom of our feet when we walked to the beach.

The novel is going to take place in Huntington Beach during the summer of 1959.  This was an important moment because the sleepy little beach community still had its innocence, but it was about to say good-bye to everything it had been and become one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.  Surf culture was about to explode and the little beach city was going to be ground zero.

My novel is going to use Huntington Beach as a backdrop for a character driven story about a mystery.  The main character thinks he is on a mission to discover some important information for his wealthy and powerful employer.  As in life, our main character finds out that things don't always go the way you expect and with the help of a surfer he actually finds himself instead.  It's a story that will leave you feeling good about yourself and your place in this world.

I started this blog because I need your help.  I need you to remember the people, places and events of the summer of 1959 in Huntington Beach, California.  Your memory of a great place that has long since faded away can live once again.  That one, special moment that only you remember can live once again and even if it doesn't make it into the novel it can live on here in this blog.

If nothing else you can share your memories of a wonderful time and place and for a brief moment we can all go back in time like some internet time machine.  

I'm living proof that you can love a place and love it with all that you are.  As I type this I'm looking at a large, rusty metal highway sign that reads, "Huntington Beach City Limits population 11, 495  elevation 40".   Some surfer way back there in the '60s didn't know that when he took it down from its post along Pacific Coast Highway that he was actually giving me a gift that keeps on giving every time I look at it.  And if that wasn't enough my son's middle name is Huntington.

As time goes on I may print excerpts of the novel in this blog.  I've never done this before so we will see what happens.  It all starts here.