Stacia Kane

I have no idea why the banner image is all messed up, and refuses my attempts to fix it…please bear with me…

And to finalize getting the League up and running for ’08, we have a new weekend interview! Mark Henry interviews Richelle Mead, a great author and person both, at The League of Reluctant Adults blog.

So go check it out!

*or so they want you to think.

Someone over on Absolute Write posted an announcement that Annie Sprinkle’s long-running erotic anthology series, The Best American Erotica, is ending. It seems sales have been dropping, etc. Ms. Sprinkle–whom I respect and admire, just want to get that out of the way–has written a long blog post about her feeling about this, and why she thinks it’s happened.

It’s a good post. But I think it’s wrong. Just like I think those five-times-a-year articles by some AP stringer about how books don’t ever make money anymore and the book industry is collapsing are wrong, and I’m tired of seeing them.

Nobody is denying people might read less now than they once did. And certainly I see things like the recent financial troubles of Borders Bookstores and get nervous. Nobody wants to see bookstores disappear, least of all me.

But I don’t think a lack of reading is necessarily at fault for Borders–I think it’s stores like Sam’s Club or Amazon that create problems for bookstores. I would even go so far as to guess that some people are buying more books now because of the discounts offered by those places.

I have a few problems with Ms. Sprinkle’s post in particular. I certainly don’t appreciate her assertion that modern writers of erotica are simply bandwagon-jumpers with no style. I don’t agree with her that independent bookstores were king in 1993 and it’s their death that has lead to the death of reading, short stories in particular. I’d certainly been to quite a few Barnes & Nobles at that time–in fact, they bought out B. Dalton in 1987 and so went national then. I know that any independent bookstores I went to as a kid were likely used bookstores–we had Waldenbooks and B. Dalton nearby, and that’s where we shopped. Granted I was a kid, but I don’t even remember seeing any independent bookstores anywhere.

I also don’t agree that people no longer discuss books and/or reading. Yes, she’s correct when she says newspapers are shutting down their book review sections, but I think, as I have always thought, that those pages don’t attract attention because they’re not reviewing books people want to read.

All I have to do is look online to see hundreds, if not thousands, of people who care about books and reading. Are we the only ones in the country? Somehow I doubt it. I just think people are buying different books now, and they’re buying them from other places. They’re buying them online. They’re buying ebooks (I absolutely and strongly disagree with her assertion that file-sharing isn’t a threat to authors.)

If anything, I think readers–at least in some genres–have grown more intelligent. Ms. Sprinkle mentions how in the beginning there was a “sense of urgency and movement,of this type of writing being on the edge of social change…” and how that’s missing now.

To which I say, so what? Maybe I don’t want to read erotica With A Message. Maybe I don’t want political or sociological opinions force-fed me when I sit down to read a sexy story. Maybe that’s why collections of erotic romance sell so well–nobody is Making A Statement. Maybe the American public–and the greater world public–is Message Fatigued, and would rather read fun books and enjoy themselves. If we have less leisure time than we used to for reading, is it any wonder we’re choosing lighter books to read?

Yes, the short story seems to be doing the way of the dodobird. But maybe people these days simply like longer works. The assumption that only short stories are truly literary bugs me. Personally, if I’m reading something erotic I like it to be longer. I want to know the characters better. I want a stronger story to go with it. I want to spend some time there. I’m not good at writing short stories and never have been, because to me an erotic short feels a little like a quick anonymous hump in a back alley–over too soon and not as emotionally satisfying as it could have been. I don’t agree that the short story is the foundation of storytelling. That doesn’t mean I never enjoy them or that I think they’re inferior to anything else, it just means I don’t agree they’re the foundation.

Basically, I just don’t agree that the book industry is dying, and I’m tired of being told it is. As long as there are people who read, and pass that on to their children, there will be books.

I agree people are reading less. But maybe they’re enjoying it more. And I absolutely agree that we need to take steps to encourage more people to read. But I’m tired of seeing stories of doom all over the place about how nobody makes a living writing books anymore unless they’re Stephen King, and 99% of books only sell two copies (never mentioning that they’re including textbooks and every self-published book and every academic micropress book about Cow-Tipping in the Eighteenth Century [which I would totally read, btw] in their statistics.)

It may be hard to make a living as a writer, yes–especially depending on your version of “a living”. But I’m tired of reading that it’s impossible so we just shouldn’t try. How many articles do you see about how nobody goes to the doctor anymore, so going to med school is a waste? How nobody goes to see plays so don’t bother acting? Why is it only writers and writing that get picked on with such frequency?

Don’t sell the public short. They’re still reading. At least that’s what I think.

Top Ten Signs that a book was written by me:

1. Third person. I’m not a fan of first person and don’t write in it. My romances are, of course, written from third omniscient, but my urban fantasy is strictly from the heroine’s POV.

2. Absent Families. Either they’re dead or they’re just a bunch of jerks, but not one heroine I’ve ever written has had a warm family relationship. Fathers often sell their kids out. Mothers are cruel and distant.

3. Everybody drinks like they’re trying to keep up with Dean Martin. And they drink all sorts of things. The heroes might have a preference for Scotch, but basically, if you show a bottle of booze to a character in one of my books they’ll drink it.

4. Twist endings. Not all of my books have them, but the large majority does. Either the villain’s motives aren’t what they seemed, or the guy we thought was the bad guy isn’t. Even if it isn’t a major plot point (it usually is), at some point we’re going to be surprised.

5. Smoking. Yeah, I know. Not everyone smokes, but enough people do that it’s safe to say if you pick up one of my books chances are somebody, some time, is going to smoke a cigarette.

6. Smooth dialogue, everybody is smart. Nobody is stupid (at least nobody we’re supposed to like), not even the characters who never had an education. They may not know algebra but they have agile minds, and their dialogue tends to be quick and clean.

7. Manners/the man pays. Oh, yes. My characters use each others’ last names regularly and often wait to be invited to use firsts. My men open doors, believe in “ladies first”, prepare drinks, and always pay for meals (unless the heroine specifically does the inviting.) They get a little anal about it, too, sometimes. Even my poor uneducated men know how to treat a lady, and that’s how they see them, too–as ladies.

8. Everybody has great sex. Like I said, my heroes believe in ladies first.

9. Heroes are dark/heroines are slim. Both personally and physically. I’m another one who just doesn’t find blond men terribly appealing as a rule, so my heroes have dark hair and dark eyes. Most of them have Deep Secrets too, or if they don’t they’re just plain criminals. Also, my heroines tend not to be curvy. They’re slim, small-breasted, probably not particularly tall, and average pretty.

10. Violence/stuff explodes/car chases/infernos. Oh how I love action. People in my books are always running, away from the crazy guy with the knife or the evil spirit they don’t yet know how to defeat. They’re in the car breaking laws as bad guys shoot at them or hordes or vampires chase them. Fire is everywhere. Houses catch fire, warehouses, corpses, heroes are fire demons who can burn stuff to a crisp just by thinking of it–now that I’m thinking of it, if something isn’t burning yet in one of my books it’s probably at least been foreshadowed. Just give it time. Everything burns.

I have also done a preliminary Stacia Kane website. It’s here. If you have a minute, check it out. I think it’s pretty blah, but as I said on livejournal last night, I really find GoDaddy’s “Web Site Tonight” web builder to be difficult and painful to use. It’s slow, it’s not very customizeable…argh. Just a pain in the butt. So please be kind.

My subject at the League of Reluctant Adults blog today is my Top Ten favorite Elvis songs, in honor of Elvis’ birthday.

My love of Elvis is not ironic. It is not post-modern or post-punk or tongue-in-cheek or any of the above. It comes in part from the same place as my adoration of macho men, from my childhood spent at the racetrack while my Dad ran quarter miles or spending most of my summers playing baseball in the street or travelling extensively throughout the South.

Even the excesses of Elvis love don’t bother me, the glittery pillows or bad embroidery or black velvet paintings. I don’t smirk a superior smirk or laugh at the tackiness (okay, sometimes I do, but I’m laughing at myself too, the little girl who wrote her crush’s name all over her notebooks in lurid glitter inks or Outliner metallic markers and put Duran Duran posters on every available surface of her bedroom).

Because when we see greatness we want to honor it. We know something has walked among us that never will again, and we mourn its passing–worship its absent presence–with the intensity and devotion we reserve for all gods in no matter what arena.

I’m not getting into Elvis as a person, the drug addiction or apparently kinky sexual preferences or the was-he-racist-or-a-product-of-his-upbringing-and-shouldn’t-he-have-overcome-it debate. I’m talking exclusively about the performer, the voice that crashed over our heads and wrenched emotions from the depths of our souls. The man who even at his overweight worst, when he had to read lyrics to songs he’d sung hundreds of times from a sheet of paper, could still make us cry, all of us, together. My adoration for that man comes from my earliest childhood, and is implacable. I will never stop loving that voice, those songs, and I will never stop wishing it had not been silenced so soon.

(Note, this is how I get when I’m homesick. Feel free to make fun of me, but don’t you make fun of the King, lol.)

This is probably not work safe, as it requires audio and repeatedly uses the word “fuck”.

And while I’m at it, this one is specially for Mark Henry, and I need to add a disclaimer, which is that this video is in no way a political statement or a commentary about anything political. I just thought it was funny, and I would think it was funny no matter what politician was being spoofed, I promise (and those of you who know me well KNOW how true that is):

I have some things to say. Some things which I would normally shy away from saying but I’m seriously reaching a breaking point here.

Okay, first. I am so incredibly sick and tired of hearing any sort of sentence which begins with “Americans are so…” and ends with any of the following: “hung up about sex/Puritanical/repressed.”

First of all, I really genuinely have to wonder where the people who say such things get that idea, considering how thriving the pornography industry in the US is. Considering how raunchy the humor in US TV shows and movies can get. Look at our magazines or newspapers, listen to our radio shows. You’ll find sex, I promise. Hell, look at me and what I write for EC.

Second, will someone please explain to me what exactly is so wrong with believing that maybe, just maybe, we should keep our genital urges private? That perhaps it isn’t a good idea for young children to be exposed to explicit sexual images? That, to use the most common example of American’s Terrible Puritanism, some people don’t want their kids seeing, in the middle of a sporting match, a white man tearing off a black woman’s clothing and exposing her nudity in a humiliating and aggressive fashion before thousands of people? Did anyone else wonder why the racial issue wasn’t discussed, why the uncomfortable allusion to slavery implicit in that little moment was never an issue? Why wasn’t Janet Jackson allowed to be the aggressor? Why wasn’t she allowed to rip off JT’s shirt and make him her bitch? Why was the power in that moment placed explicitly in the white man’s hands? (Perhaps I’m wrong for seeing the racial side of this. Perhaps I’m way off base. And I do see the other side of that coin, where it’s a good thing nobody discussed it because it means the idea of interracial sex wasn’t even an issue, which is great. But I always found that interesting and wondered why more people didn’t discuss that as another reason people had issues, even subconsciously, with that moment. Hell, even if they’d both been white or both been black I would have had an issue with the way the woman in question was forced to be the sexual submissive while the man stayed calm and fully clothed. I find that hot in books, but in public I think it might be better not to have our impressionable children think The Way It’s Done is the man tears at the woman’s clothing apropos of nothing.)

But honestly, (and I can’t believe I’m digressing into this incident so far when it’s years old) I believe the biggest problem with that wasn’t the Wardrobe Malfunction. Heck, Lucy Lawless fell out of her top one night singing the National Anthem and treated everyone in attendance to a view of her own Ramparts, and nobody said a word.

I think the difference is, the intense sexualizaton our children are exposed to and the pressure we put on our daughters, girls as young as ten, to be “sexy”. And this is why I get angry when the US is derided as being Puritanical or Hung Up or Prudish.

What’s wrong with wondering, and debating, whether or not it’s a good thing for kids to be exposed to such things? What’s wrong with questioning our direction? With talking about what we do and do not value, and what sorts of values we want to pass on to our children?

Isn’t it better that we do that, instead of just saying, “Ah, they’ll be okay,” while we show them pornography at age seven (or whatever)? Isn’t it better to examine our changing values and our society as a whole than to just shrug and say “Whatever”? Isn’t that sort of debate what a responsible society does?

Here’s a prime example (this is where the whole rant comes from). Britney Spears. A sixteen-year-old girl paraded around by her own mother in tiny halter tops and mini-skirts behaving in an overtly sexual manner (yes, I realize I’m skating dangerously close to sounding like the Church Lady here). A GIRL. A GIRL who could barely drive a car, being told over and over again that the most interesting and valuable thing about her was her (admittedly fabulous) body and to what degree she flaunted it. A GIRL thrown into an adult world at an age when most girls are still confused about just about everything, when the slightest bit of criticism is incredibly painful.

Is it any wonder the poor thing is having a nervous breakdown, stage by stage? Is it any wonder she was so desperate to really feel like the grown-up everyone kept pushing her to be that she jumped into two ill-advised marriages at age twenty (does anyone else wonder if she got pregnant so quickly and consecutively in an attempt to finally NOT have to be sexy all the time)? That when her parents should have been guiding her into real womanhood they instead urged her into tighter and shorter outfits and left her to fend for herself? That being young, beautiful, and wealthy, and thus able to do whatever she wanted, was too much for a girl barely out of her teens? That her own parenting skills are appalling? Are we surprised by any of this?

Is it so prudish and narrow-minded to say, I’d rather my daughter be valued for something other than their breasts and flat stomachs when they hit their early teens, and to that end maybe we could step back on the intense emphasis on sex and sexuality that seems to be everywhere? Is it so prudish and narrow minded just to say, hey, maybe this isn’t good for our kids, and maybe we should think about how our actions affect them?

I’ll say one thing about those Chastity Balls everyone was discussing a while ago–at least the girls attending those parties knew their fathers cared how they comported themselves, and valued them as people and not as sexual objects, and most importantly wanted the girls to value themselves as more than that. I’m not saying the Balls didn’t squick me out or that I didn’t find it creepily vagocentric. But how many girls out there might be glad to know that at least somebody wants them to value their bodies as more than some hormonal teenage boy’s sex toy? That someone will think they’re good and honorable for saying no to sex, instead of an idiot, because sex is No Big Deal? Sex is a Big Deal, it’s a big huge deal, as any girl who’s waited in vain by the phone after letting some guy into her body can attest, and I don’t see what’s wrong with acknowledging that and trying to teach our kids that.

I don’t want to sound like some “Turn back the clock to 1955!” incendiary. And I don’t want to imply that such incendiaries don’t exist, or that there aren’t people out there who hold dangerously backward views on a lot of issues.

But I don’t think the majority of Americans are like that. And I don’t believe that simply wanting to make sure that our progress is positive and not precipitous is a dangerous and reactionary thing, but a good and responsible thing. I’m tired of hearing Americans described as stupid, homophobic, puritanical, racist, etc. Some of them are, sure, and it’s a terrible shame, but no more than I’ve seen in any other place.

I am certainly not for censorship, or outlawing porn, or anything of that nature. I like my adult things and want to keep them, and I don’t want children to think sex is dirty or bad or anything either. I just like the idea of balance. I think they should know about birth control and protecting themselves but would also prefer to teach my own daughters to wait (at least until they’re in a long-term relationship, and by long-term I mean more than a few months), rather than have them be told “Everybody’s doing it, it’s great!” and pushed into the world of adult sexuality before they’re ready. I think adults should be able to do whatever adults want to do with each other but would prefer they do it where I don’t have to watch, and find it interesting that while we refuse to allow people to smoke in public because a child might be in the vicinity it’s considered horribly backward to worry at all about children when, say, people are having oral sex in a park. Isn’t that a bit odd?

So there you go. I guess I’m all fired up politically because of the primaries happening. I used to love politics, especially election years. I used to stay up late to watch returns, I’d take the day off to watch the Inauguration, have parties, all kinds of things. So much hate has crept into politics over the last eight years I’ve been weary of the whole thing. But the primaries so far have been fun, the debates have been fun, and I’m hoping it stays that way. I’ll even go so far as to say there is one candidate in each party who I’d vote for in a minute, and if they both end up on the ticket, as pundits are predicting they will, I will have a very hard time making a decision (this based on what I’ve seen so far, of course.) It feels good to think, “Boy, that would be a hard choice.” It’s been a long time since I’ve thought that.

And that is the last political post you’ll see here, btw.

Blood Will Tell has been nominated for Preditors & Editors “Best Romance 2007″. (Scroll down to the Bs.)

WOW!! Thank you, whoever nominated me!

Of course I don’t stand a snowball’s chance of winning. But that’s pretty cool.

We-re ba-ack!

The League is up and running again, blogging for your delight and edification five days a week (and posting interviews at weekends!)

And I’m back too.

I was thinking earlier about cookbooks and such, and cooking in general. I love cookbooks. I read them like literature, and they’re the only books whose pages I dog-ear (so if I’m looking for something to cook one night I don’t have to page through recipes that don’t interest me.)

But I tend to dislike modern cookbooks (with one exception, which I’ll get to later.) Most modern cookbooks are for hobbyists; people who have money to spend on exotic ingredients and cook once a week, or do a special brunch sometimes, or whatever. All attractive and often looks great, but not very practical for someone who has to get dinner on the table at least six nights a week (assuming the hubs takes pity and we go to McD’s or something once.)

(Actually, “takes pity” sounds bad, because I genuinely enjoy cooking. I just don’t always want to do it by the end of the week.)

I simply don’t have the time or the inclination to faff about the kitchen for hours julienning vegetables or infusing things (unless it’s a special occasion, in which case I am happy to faff), and we certainly can’t afford to buy a whole shelf full of exotic foods.

That’s why I like old cookbooks.

In Ft. Lauderdale there was a used bookshop that had a whole section of old cookbooks, mostly from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and I used to clean that place out when I went. They usually only cost a couple of dollars each at the most, and are great. Fun to read (I have recipes for sweetebreads and whole roast suckling pig, y’all, right at my fingertips). They have a lot of basic information that’s useful–a lot of these books assume you’re a SAHM looking to branch out or looking for new ideas, so it’s all non-fussy and with detailed instructions. Lots of casseroles. Lots of stuff you can freeze (I hardly ever do, but you get the point). I have a pasta cookbook from the mid-70s that is one of my favorites of all time, though it’s missing two pages which irks me. Best of all for someone with a sensitive stomach like mine, there is very little emphasis placed on “International” (which usually means spicy) cuisine.

I have an “Antoinette Pope School” cookbook that uses MSG in almost every recipe (I omit it) and explains how to can foods and make jelly (I have never tried it, nor will I. Are you kidding? Me, with my pathological fear of food-borne bacteria?) I have an entire cookbook of fish recipes–good ones, with fish you can get at any supermarket instead of exotic ones you have to find a fishmonger for. I believe I literally have recipes for just about anything. Steak tartare? Got it. Tripe? Got it. Brains? Head cheese? Oh, yeah.

I also adore those cheap pamphlet-y cookbooks you can buy at the checkout lane in grocery stores. “Cooking With Beer” is my favorite (like I wouldn’t buy a cookbook titled that) but I have some fun Halloween ones and local cuisine-type ones too.

I use those all the time. My modern books? Not so much. Except Nigella Lawson’s “How to Eat”, although I usually have to adapt her recipes because she’s overly fond of peppers (to which I am violently allergic) and spices like cumin which I just plain don’t like.

I actually started writing a cookbook once. It’s got about thirty recipes in it but I never finished–I keep telling myself I need to keep going, so I can offer it as a free download or something. That’s one of the reasons I post recipes at the Overflow blog, too, just in case someone cares. Nobody seems to, but that doesn’t stop me! Oh no!

What do you cook from, if you cook? Do you like to cook? Got any recipes to share? How do you feel about modern cookbooks? Have any cooking tips? Bring ‘em on!

I was supposed to do a better NY post, but I just can’t think of anything to say. Resolutions? Yes, blah blah, I want an agent and a multi-book deal, blah blah blah. What else is new? I’m going to try to be better at doing the vacuuming. I’m going to try to do more promo. Have more fun. Go places and do things instead of sitting around all weekend every weekend (of course, my lack of adventure in the past year wasn’t entirely my fault, seeing as how it rained, um, almost every fucking day). Sticking to my diet isn’t really a resolution, it’s just something I’m going to keep doing. Maybe I’ll try to get more sleep, too. That would be good.
I want to write at least three full-length novels, which shouldn’t be a problem. Four would be better.

Tagged by my sweet friend yeyo_x:

* 8 Things I’m passionate about
1. My family
2. Writing
3. My friends
4. History
5. Booze
6. Movies
7. Shoes
8. The need to keep non-cigarette trash out of ashtrays, particularly food items

* 8 Things I want to do before I die
1. Agent/contract/blah blah
2. Become fluent in a foreign language
3. Go to Vegas
4. Own a nice home with more than two bedrooms
5. Own a convertible
6. Climb a mountain
7. Road trip across the US (again)
8. Top of the Empire State Building

* 8 Things I often say
1. Fuck
2. Like I said
3. Girls, be quiet!
4. Blah blah blah
5. I said be quiet!
6. Clean up in here
7. Because I said so
8. Girls, please be quiet!

* 8 Books I’ve recently or currently reading
1. The Hell-Fire Clubs: Sex, Rakes, and Libertines by Geoffrey Ashe
2. English Society in the 18th Century by Roy Porter
3. Flood by Andrew Vachss
4. Hard Candy by Andrew Vachss
5. Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry
6. The Word Museum by Jeffrey Kacirk
7. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
8. Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan

* 8 Songs I could listen to over and over
1. Ruby Baby by Dion
2. Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin
3. NYC Tonight by GG Allin
4. Let It Be by the Beatles
5. Born With A Tail by the Supersuckers
6. Baby I’m a King by the Devil Dogs
7. Sound System by Operation Ivy
8. Drift Away by Dobie Gray (the original one, not that wierdo cover whoever-it-was did a little while ago)
(and a bonus: Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. Because everybody needs more cowbell.)

* 8 Things that attract me to my best friends
1. Sense of humor
2. Brains
3. Similar outlook to mine
4. Understanding
5. People who just “click” with me
6. Common interests
7. Kind to me, cruel to others (that’s sort of a joke but not entirely, but my friendship-seeking process really doesn’t include this many steps))
8. See? Can’t think of any others.