Writers Tricks of the Trade ISSUE 1, VOLUME 9 | Page 7

the movie industry which led to my first publication in the prestigious Designer’s West Magazine, a slick publication consid- ered one of the top interior design maga- zines of its time. We were approached to do a story about a unique floor made from packing crates. One would assume that would be something funky with stampings, but not in this case. Our custom floor fabricator was contracted to hand mill every piece, sand the wood to take of any marks and expose the unique grains of multiple types of woods. It turned out that some were so ex- otic they could not be identified. He applied a beautiful multi-step stain and sealer. The result was elegant and distinctive enough to capture the interest of the editor. We were elated. Publication in this magazine with a mention of our biog- raphies and location of our design studio would be priceless for our credibility. Pho- tographers were sent out to photograph us sitting on crates on the expanse of floor. Time passed and we counted the days to publication. Then the awful realization hit! We weren’t writers, and therefore had no manuscript to submit. We were going to be a laughing stock in the industry. Pariahs to Designers West Magazine when we missed the deadline. My partner Carol and I sat in my living room one evening close to the submission deadline commiserating and drinking wine. The more wine we drank, the more misera- ble we were, until suddenly a genius idea struck. We wouldn’t do a “techie” article. Ours would be done like a noir mystery, called “The Case of the Disappearing Crates.” W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE We’d had just enough wine to have fun with it. We assumed the editor would reject it, but the article would fulfill what we agreed to do. We finished it that night and submitted the next morning, then waited for the inevitable rejection. Instead, the editor Carol King, called and said, “We’ve never had an article like yours. I love it.” It ran in the August 1978 issue, and there was no greater thrill than seeing our article in a magazine on news- stands. I wrote under Elaine Pransky (my first name and married name) until 1983. I the one with black hair sitting on the floor. When I held the first copy in my hands, I knew was a writer. I wrote several more articles for that magazine and even had and inside story and the cover of the September 1978 issue. M ULTIPLE C AREERS P AGE 2 S PRING 2019