Stacia Kane

Not a lot, but not none at all.

I had a lovely post planned for today about art, and writing as, and whether it is, and what it is, and the difference between creative and reactive art.

But I have suddenly been slammed with edits on three different projects at once, so I am going to have to work, because not only do I like to get edits OUT and away from me as soon as possible, this is putting me well behind on Unholy Ghosts.

So. Here’s some random stuff instead.

This is the new, Cerridwen Press cover for Black Dragon. Isn’t it so much better than that other thing? I’m pretty pleased with it, all together. It’s not exactly what I had in mind but I think it’s very nice, I love the dragon in the background, I love that they at least made an attempt with Gruffydd’s scars, I like that the setting looks natural and not forced. So yeah, I am pretty happy.

As I dropped Princess off at her school this morning, I saw the following posted outside her classroom: This year’s Nativity is about a disgruntled snowman. It made me smile.

Karl Lagerfeld apparently has a sign over his toilet that reads: Pissing everywhere isn’t very Chanel. Which is the awesomest.

And that’s basically it.

And that’s my day at the League of Reluctant Adults blog. We’re talking about critiques this week!

Unholy Ghosts

New Words: 3,239
Total wordcount: 45,676
The Good: Aaaw…those little glimpses
The Bad: Bad, bad magic man, all evil and shit.
The Gross: The book! You feed it pain and it bleeds and the blood forms words and symbols…
The rampant drug use: Speed
Location: Muscle car, cave-like house on the beach
Downspeech: “Just we don’t know the man. You don’t know him, and I don’t know him, and he maybe knows too much himself about some shit nobody want to be involved in if they got their sanity working right.”
I Hate My Work: Is that showing or telling? Are you being lazy?

Ugh.

There are a few things–a few phrases–I really hate. General stuff, like “We can’t afford that” or “We don’t carry half sizes” (stupid English shoe stores, what the fuck is your problem with half sizes? Do all English women have perfect-size feet?). More specialized phrases, like “Don’t go there.”

But the one that really gets on my nerves these days is “The book of [my, her, his, their, our] heart.”
Why? Because it sounds sappy. Because it’s redundant. All my books come from my heart (and I just gagged, even having to type that, but I had to make the point). And because…it just…it reeks of the Harriet Carter catalog, the home decorated entirely in calico fabric stuffed cats and potpourri, the appliqued sweater and bejeweled eyeglasses. Of women who think Beanie Babies are just darlin’ and wear a lot of Black Hills gold.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with those things (well, except the Black Hills gold, but then I don’t like gold in general). But neither are they really professional.

And therein lies the problem. When I see someone online talking about “the book of their heart” I immediately assume two things: One, that the person is a bit pretentious, because frankly I don’t think what’s in my heart (hate, lust, rage, the occasional urge for some fries) is all that special that people would be lining up to examine it; and two, that the person is a beginner. Because all of our books come from inside us. If you think there’s something special about yours coming from there, you’re not really familiar with this process.

Worse, denying that your book came from your heart then makes you sound cold and clinical. Like those “book of the heart” people are artistes; you’re just some hack spitting out words in a calculated attempt to make some money. It’s kind of like how in ’97 everybody loved Titanic, and if you said you didn’t even bother to see the film they eyed you with suspicion. (Yes, I speak from experience. Never saw it, never will.) It was as though I’d admitted I liked to slaughter babies on my off-hours, rather than simply choosing not to see a schmaltzy tragedy film with a soundtrack that registered just above Bryan Adams on the Irritating Scale, when I could have been watching Hard Boiled instead.

Even more bothersome is the idea that because a book came “from the heart” that automatically gives it more merit than other books. Hey, Mein Kampf came from the heart too. That doesn’t mean it’s a worthy book. (It’s not. I’ve read parts of it, don’t ask why it’s a long story. It sucked. Obviously.) (Okay this is going to bug me. I had a rommate for a while, and one day her boyfriend “found” [so he claimed] a copy of the book, and he brought it to our place and left it there, and I was curious, and then I threw it away.)

Just because the book is “from your heart” doesn’t mean the rest of us have to give a shit, and ultimately, I feel like that’s what people are trying to force me to do when they say “This is the book of my heart.” It feels like I’m being manipulated. It feels like someone plucking at my sleeve and demanding I care about them, then following me around with big mournful Keane painting eyes until I want to murder them with an axe.

So please, let’s just avoid it from now on, okay?

Oh, and one other quick thing, just for my own benefit: a publisher that sends you edits when they do not have your signed contract or even the promise that they will get your signed contract is probably not a publisher who has their shit together enough to be worth your time. Thank you; I had to get it out, it was killing me.

Unholy Ghosts

New Words: 2,430
Total wordcount: 42,437
The Good: Yeah! Violence and sexiness!
The Bad: Oooh, bad guys breaking and entering and threatening…
The Gross: Well, injecting someone with WD-40 is pretty gross I guess.
The rampant drug use: Lines, pills.
Location: Chess’s apartment, Lex’s place
Downspeech: “Chess? Damn, baby, where you at? Terrible ripping this town apart looking for you, said your door open and your place all scraped? You alive?”
I Hate My Work: Oh, why do you suck so bad? This isn’t good. This is taking forever, because you are a hack.

(St. Audries Bay, North Somerset. I’m not sure if you can see it, but the white blur on the horizon is the very south coast of Wales.)

An Anonymous commenter on a previous post said the following the other day, which I believe is one of the nicest compliments I have ever been given:

Your ability to maintain a website, blog and discussion about erotic romance without sliding into the licentious or sensationalistic is one of the main reasons I read here.

So now I’m going to tramp all over it. Well, hopefully not. But I’ve been thinking a lot about that comment since I read it, because it is something I try to do: keep it clean.

Odd as it sounds.

I do use all sorts of c-words in my work (don’t know if y’all remember, but last year I wrote an entire essay on the word “cunt” and why we shouldn’t be afraid to use it in erotic romance, and what a useful word it is and how its origins are attractive.) So, not afraid to get a little dirty.

But I walk a fine line. I read a lot. I read a lot of erotic romance. And I have to be honest. Notwithstanding how talented my fellow authors are, there are a lot of things I read that just turn me off.

I want to make it clear this is MY problem, me me me. It’s not that what they’re writing isn’t sexy or appealing. It’s not that I think they write disgusting lowbrow crap. That is not it at all, nononono. It’s my own strange interior line, one I actually think makes ME an outsider.

Take dialogue as an example. My characters don’t tend to talk a lot in sex scenes. Because dialogue at that particular time usually feels to me like a mood killer. I put myself in the heroine’s place and think, “Are you gonna do it, or are you gonna just talk about it all day?” Some dialogue is fine, but let’s not go overboard. As Miranda said on Sex and the City, sex is the one time in life it’s okay to not talk. This isn’t to say they don’t talk at all, or even that they don’t ever talk dirty. But I do keep it minimal, and I try to keep it down to stuff that wouldn’t make me laugh or squick if someone said it to me. Grown men should not, for example, refer to their Manbits as “him”. If you consider that part of you to be an entirely separate person, doesn’t that indicate (aside from a certain silliness) that you are unwilling then to take responsibility for “his” actions?

(BTW, this very subject led to a particularly amusing conversation this morning between the hubs and myself, based on the scary sci-fi idea that “he” might actually develop a mind of “his” own, and control the rest of the body, and how would you explain that to your wife? What if it decided to up and leave the rest of the body and strike out on its own? Hilarity ensues.)

Anyway. The point is, some things just squick me out, so I try not to go there.

What squicks you out? What in a book, specifically in a sex or love scene, turns you off? Comment anon if you want, but let’s see if we can have some fun on this bleak Friday!

PS

If you are on Livejournal, you must go join the community What was that book. SO awesome the awesomeness cannot be quantified.

Unholy Ghosts

New Words: 3,384
Total wordcount: 40,007
The Good: Hoo hoo, guess who sees somebody’s death wish?
The Bad: Big Bad follows us around, scaaaary!
The Gross: None, I guess. Hmm. A spilled milkshake?
The rampant drug use: Lines, pills, a joint
Location: Smelly alley, safe warehouse for street kids, diner, Chess’s bathroom
Research: WWI aviation uniforms
Downspeech: “Some of us needs an edge on things make us feel right, else we don’t like feeling at all, aye?”
I Hate My Work: You are so boring and obvious and dumb, and you suck like a starving leech.

To celebrate the launch of our redesigned website (done by our own Sierra Dafoe, and the upcoming holidays, and, um, some other stuff I think, we Deliciously Naughty Writers have teamed up with the ladies of Six Degrees of Sexy to do a big old contest, with lots of prizes! That’s right, FREE STUFF.

To read the rules and how to enter click here.

To read an interview the Sexy ladies did with us, in which I come across as a sort of unimaginative, monosyllabic nerd (thanks, lack of sleep), click here.

I will be checking in at the Sexy blog all day, so if you want to make fun of me you can go ahead and do it there.

Have fun!

You know, I might have titled a post this already, some time ago? This is how dull I’ve become. I’m copying myself.

I’m writing about magic. The new WIP is largely about magic, and ghosts, and all that good stuff. And drugs and drug dealers, but for the purposes of this post, we’re talking about magic.

Now, I’m happy to suspend disbelief. I’m happy–nay, thrilled–to read books where characters can levitate, shoot lightning bolts, make fire materialize from nowhere (uh, duh, since I have characters in Personal Demons who can do some of the above), etc.

But what I hate is when they’re lazy about it. Or obvious. Or just plain irritating.

I read a paranormal romance not long ago that was…eh, okay. Not great, not terrible, although the “they fell onto the bed and he made her feel like woman, then the next morning” one-line sex scenes irritated me (I know, big surprise, right?) But what really bugged me, more than anything else, was that not one of the characters in the damned book ever used a fucking match. They lived almost exclusively by candlelight, but magically starting a flame wasn’t a reflex; they had to “mutter an incantation” in order to light one.

Which meant they were constantly wandering around talking to themselves.

Now, okay, I do understand part of this. If I could make a candle flare just by talking under my breath, you bet I’d do it. Several characters in PD can start fires with a wave of the hand, and they do it. But seriously. Is it necessary every time? If I had to physically hold the candle to light the fire, I’d be tempted to just use a lighter at some point. Wouldn’t you get used to it at some point, so it was no longer a cool trick and more just a “Hell, I’ll just flick my thumb and light this thing, save my breath.” I don’t want to talk all the time, me.

Not to mention, the author had to clarify for us, every single time, that her characters were PARANORMAL FOLK by telling us they muttered said incantation. Phrased just that way. Every time. Dozens of times. They couldn’t just light the candle, oh no. They had to mutter an incantation to do so. You know, we get it. They are Teh Magikal, okay? Why else would they even use all those candles all the time? I love candles and light them whever I can, but let’s face it, my vision is shit. If I’m reading a book, I ain’t doing it by candlelight, not if I don’t want to go completely blind. Which I don’t. Hence the bright electric lights in my home.

It’s just something I’m getting sick of, just like I grew tired of historical heroines who spent every free moment making poultices and administering to sick children. I still love paranormals, but I do wish we could stop with all the mutterings. Wouldn’t it be fun if magic had to be loud? Like, the louder you spoke, the more powerful it was? Hee.

Unholy Ghosts

New Words: 2,602
Total wordcount: 36,623
The Good: Hey, you’re ugly but HOT!
The Bad: Baddie cleverly misleading Chess
The Gross: Ha! A character being artistically scarred, complete with gunpowder lit in the wound
The rampant drug use: None
Location: Tattoo parlor, warehouse
Research: WWI aviation insignia, unforms
Downspeech:“Goan, take it. I ain’t hurt you. Lookin all starved.Hunchback, you start feeding them kids, hear me?”
I Hate My Work: Ugh, any fool can figure out these clues. Lame, lame loser.

Okay, Blogger is being all wierd (is anyone else having trouble?) so I can’t post my little picture AND it took several hours for my League blog post to show up.

We’re blogging about helping your writing career here.

(We went for a long drive on Saturday through Exmoor Forest. This is just a pretty picture from it. Don’t say I never gave you anything.)

Wow. This feels so odd to write, and I’m not even sure I should because something could very well change…

But I’m not sure there will be a sex scene in Unholy Ghosts.

I’ve had a couple of kisses happen already, and I have one big makeout scene planned for later that I’m very excited about. But I’m not sure any relationships will actually be consummated in this book.

Here’s my problem. I like writing sex scenes. I have fun writing them. I like writing sexy books.

So, because I know there will be sex at some point in the series (assuming it becomes a series pleasepleaseplease) I hesitate to put no sex in the first book, because I don’t want to mislead people.

Don’t get me wrong. The books will never become a pure sex-fest. But I have a very inricate relationship set-up happening, and I fully expect a lot more actual sex as it continues.

At the same time, I’m not going to put any old sex scene in this book if it isn’t going to flow organically, just a scene stuck in there so it’s there.

I’m only just about to hit 35k words, so there’s plenty of time. I’ll see what happens. But it feels very odd.

What do you think? If there’s no sex in Book 1, do you get irritated if sex starts appearing in later books? Or are you glad, if the relationships grow to that point?

Also, my terrible dry skin problem from last year has returned with a vengeance. My cheeks and over my eyebrows are all pink and scratchy. Ech!

Also, editing The Demon Inside. The first few chapters are SUCK. Seriously. I hate them.

Unholy Ghosts

New Words: 3,275
Total wordcount: 34,397
The Good: A hot kiss from an Asian drug lord
The Bad: Evil accomplice shows up
The rampant drug use: Giving beer to a thirteen-year-old boy
Location: Street at dawn, Chess’s apartment
Downspeech:“Ain’t suppose you got some eats? Only my belly getting tight. Can’t remember last food I put in.”
I Hate My Work: Blah blah blah planting clues in conversations. BORING! Why do you write boring shit like this?

Sigh.

As I have now hit the 30k mark (slightly over it!) in the new book, I am reaching that terrible Second Guess point. The point where everything I’ve written feels like crap, where I’m convinced I’ve blown my wad early and given too much info on some thing, but not enough on others (I still haven’t explained why a particular entity is in charge in this world, because I thought it made sense to wait, but now I’m wondering if people won’t have given up at this point, but it’s not like it’s really important to the story, blah blah blah), and my characters are dull, and why would anyone want to read this shit, and since I don’t have any guarantee the book will even sell or go anywhere why am I wasting my time, etc.

I honestly believe this is where people give up.

I’m not giving up. Because I know myself and my insecurities. I know that when the book is done I’ll be pleased with it. My cp says it’s awesome and that’s enough for me. I want to finish it.

But if I didn’t know this about myself…if this was my first real attempt…I could see giving up, and deciding to try something else. And falling into that trap. Because the 30k curse will hit with the next book too, and the next, and the next. Until all I have is a huge stack of unfinished ms and nothing else.

I see the second guessing a lot online, too. People constantly asking for advice on what their people should do next. How should they kiss? Is it okay if they do this or that? What about if they do that? Would that be good? And I just want to bury my head in my hands because if you are trying to write a book based on what other people tell you to do, it’s not going to work. I mean, okay, in my opinion it won’t work. I suppose it’s possible half the books out there were written by people who constantly called their friends to ask what should happen next or if Scene X would be okay here or there.

This is my story. I know what it is. I know most of what happens (this is actually one of the only, if not the only, books I’ve written where so much of it is in my head. I don’t know exactly how it ends but I have a good idea, and I know almost everything that leads up to it, which is very rare for me as I’m a pantser.) And it’s because I know what happens later ad who these people are that I’m the one who can write it and make those kinds of decisions. The sooner you learn to stop replying on others, the better your work will be.

I’m trying something new, inspired by Caitlin Kittredge: metrics, a little chart for my books. Hopefully it will be fun.

Unholy Ghosts

New Words: 2,620
Total wordcount: 31,122
The Good: A faintly sweet “getting to know you” moment
The Bad: Evil ghost stalking Chess in a dark house while a family sleeps
The Gross: Mutilated corpse’s heart beats
The rampant drug use: Snorting crushed amphetamine pills off a hairpin in a church stairway
Location: Abandoned haunted airport
Downspeech:“What you see, ladybird? You think witchy?”
I Hate My Work: I don’t think the scary scene is as scary as it should be. I think it’s stupid and pointless.