Stacia Kane

Here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

OK – 8 Random Facts/Habits About Me:

1. I cut and dye my own hair. Haven’t had it professionally done in like 4 years.

2. I desperately want to go home.

3. I secretly want to write horror and mysteries, but no matter how hard I try romance keeps sneaking in there. And how do you write a book without a sex scene?

4. I’m rather vain about my hands and my pretty nails.

5. I only use two or three fingers when I type. I type about 50 wpm on average (I’ve never tested myself, but I can do 2-3k words an hour easy if the story is really flowing.)

6. If I could afford it I would totally have plastic surgery. So it’s vain; so what?

7. I ended up with a GED and didn’t actually graduate high school, because I was half a credit short in math. My GED scores were enough to get me into any college I wanted, though. If I could do it all again, I would drop out at 16, get my GED, and get an AA degree before turning 18.

8. One of these days I’m going to take fencing.

Okay, and I have to tag people now. So I tag Robyn, Scary Monster, Arin Rhys, Rashenbo, Rebecca, Writtenwyrdd, Bernard, and Michele (trying to tag people I haven’t tagged before, have I tagged you guys before?)

The hubs and I finished out X-Files marathon yesterday. We watched all the way through Season 5 and then the movie. Which, not that great. It was bad enough after watching the episodes all in a row night after night. I can’t imagine what my fury would have been if, after watching the show faithfully for five years, I’d gone to see a movie that promised a Mulder/Scully kiss and got no freaking kiss. I remember the press. I remember them saying there would be a kiss. Screw you people!

So now we are on to the next level of geekitude, and have started watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Or, as we refer to it, Star Trek for ladies.

Which is a good thing. DS9 is my favorite, and I think is a lot of womens’ favorite, simply because it is rather more soap-opera-y than the others. There’s more romance. There’s a war, which kicks ass. There’s interpersonal relationships and everyone hangs out in a bar and there’s all sorts of sexual innuendo (or as The Todd would say on Scrubs, “in-her-endo”) all over the place.

It’s actually enough to make me want to write a futuristic/sci-fi romance, which is something that just doesn’t interest me (sorry, my sci-fi friends.) I especially like the evil Kardassians, because they’re cruel and selfish and the greedy Ferenghi, because avaricious men are sexy. They’re ugly as sin, both of them, but if they weren’t I’d be drooling (actually, I drool a little anyway.)

Funny, for me it’s the vices of the heroes, as much as the virtues, that make them appealing. I like heroes who are a little arrogant, or rude, or who drink a little too much, or are selfish and greedy. I think that’s one reason I like writing vampires and demons et al so much.

Just as it’s the insecurities of a heroine that make her appealing just as much as the strengths. One of my books–the one I’m editing now (unsubbed yet)–needed some serious work, and still does. Because I did my job a little too well, you see. The heroine was supposed to come off as fairly shallow and unlikeable. But I made her loathesome. So irritating neither of my betas could finish the book, in fact. So irritating that the hero, a perfectly good hero (sexy and handsome and all that) seems like a moron for liking her. It was hard for me not to have him realize that, too. Once or twice I had to stop him from just getting up and leaving, because she really was mean to him.

So I’m going back and softening her up. This leads me into the post I will probably do tomorrow, about what’s good for the hero and not for the heroine, and then this week I will also have a New Year’s resolution book to write about (I’ve been too broke to buy books lately, which is why I haven’t done any in a bit) and the post Bernard inspired about romance and friendship.

So hopefully we’ll have lots goin on here this week!

What vices and virtues do you particularly like your characters to have? Which ones make you throw the book across the room?

And everybody here knows the rest, right?

Thassright. Because “Staying Alive” is one of the greatest songs ever written.

“But it’s disco!” you cry. (Or okay, maybe you don’t, but for my purposes you do.) “And December, you’re into stuff like the Stones and the Devil Dogs! How can you think a Bee Gees song is so great!”

It doesn’t matter how or why. It just is, baby. It just is. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I know who The Seeds and The Sonics are, and I own a copy of The Great Twenty-Eight, which if you don’t have one you’re missing out on some of the best rock n roll ever created.

Who can honestly listen to Staying Alive–with lyrics like “Well now, I get low and I get high/And if I can’t get either I really try”, or “Life goin’ nowhere/Somebody help me/Somebody help me, yeah” and not be totally overwhelmed with a sense of emotions and thoughts beneath the surface? The way the beat and that guitar line drives the whole thing and makes your blood race?

That’s what a song should do. It should make you feel connected to it. It should make you feel less alone.

I firmly believe “Staying Alive” is one of those litmus tests. If you’re on my side and think it’s a great song (or at least that there’s something special about it), we can relate. If not…well, I just don’t know. (It’s like asking a woman if she’s ever wanted to fuck Mick Jagger. Which, for the record, HELL yeah. I don’t care how old he is, he’s Mick fucking Jagger. I’d be up for Keith, too. Just sayin’.)

I think we all have certain songs or movies or of course books that we see that way, although I do think songs tend to be more visceral for us. I’m friends with people who didn’t think Free Enterprise was a hysterical movie. I’m friends with people who preferred “Catch-22″ to The Caine Mutiny, which is my favorite book. And yes, I can be friends with people who don’t like Staying Alive. My husband doesn’t agree with me that it’s one of the greatest songs ever written (although he does like it, and we both firmly believe that there is at least some god out there who looks like Barry Gibb did in 1977. Because if you were god, wouldn’t you?)

But c’mon…you have to admit, the song has style.

What are your litmus tests?

A few end notes: One, the website is in the process of switching over. The url should work but there may be some glitches in the next week or so. FYI. The link in the sidebar should always work.

Two, the Smart Bitches are doing an onomatopoeiac cover contest. I can’t decide if I want to vote for #7 or #10, because they both make me giggle like a fiend. Seriously, go check them out.