Stacia Kane

Oooh! Before I forget! The Downside books (all three of them!) are listed as #2 on the B&N Explorations list of the Best Paranormal Fantasies of 2010! Very exciting for me! Especially when I get to be on that list with so many of my awesome friends, like Kat Richardson, Jaye Wells, Kelly Meding, and Nicole Peeler, and my person-I-wish-I-knew-better Skyler White. I totally wanted to meet Skyler at Dragoncon, but I we had one panel together and I was meeting someone right after. Of course I later found out she’d wanted to meet me too, but we missed out, and have exchanged a few emails but as you all know, I am a terrible pen pal, so…my fault. Sorry Skyler! I’m not blowing you off, I swear, I really am that lazy and swamped!

Anyway. Down to how Twitter ruined my fucking day, which it did.

The last few days–ever since the day I logged in and got a nice little reminder from Twitter that I wouldn’t be able to use Old Twitter–much longer, Twitter’s been fucking up. Like it keeps sticking the same tweet in my “What’s Happening” window, or takes me to my DM box instead of taking me to my timeline, or whatever. Obviously–since it’s now giving me the sternly worded reminder at the top of my screen that Old Twitter won’t be available much longer–Twitter is trying to push me into changing.

But here’s the thing. I hate and fear change. It freaks me out. Especially stuff like that. Bigger changes, like moves, don’t bother me that much, but let the grocery store move the soda aisle and I’m upset for days. (Once they redecorated the office where I worked; I literally cried at my desk for weeks, it bothered me so much to have everything rearranged and different.) So I’ve been resisting the Twitter change as much as possible.

But today I got sick of it fucking up, so decided whatever, why not. And made the switch.

Why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because New Twitter sucks gorilla ass, that’s why not. It’s ugly. It’s counterintuitive. It’s harder to use: harder to follow conversations, impossible to @ reply to more than one person at a time (with OT you can just click “Reply” to three or four different people; I can’t figure out how to do it at all in New Twitter, because when you click Reply it brings up this irritating new box and dulls out the rest of the screen. Which makes it harder to repeat stuff, too, but Twitter obviously doesn’t care about us having conversations).

It took me about half an hour to decide it was time to try some apps. First was Seesmic, because I had a few people say they liked it. Seesmic was okay, but the columns were really narrow and it’s frankly rather ugly. It’s not very configurable, either. But really it was the narrow columns and tiny print; my eyes are bad enough without that.

So I headed for Tweetdeck, which my friend Yasmine Galenorn recommended. It looked rather scary, frankly, but I decided to give it a go.

Except I use Google Chrome, and I want to use my Twitter app through it, as a tab, and not as a separate window. Tweetdeck in Google Chrome doesn’t give you the ability to follow conversations (like “in reply to”) or to reply to more than one person. When I mentioned this I was deluged with people insisting it did, all of whom were trying to help, none of whom were using Google Chrome on a Mac, and all of whom basically succeeded in panicking me further to the point of tears. (It was confirmed, btw, that there is no way to follow conversations etc. in Tweetdeck using Google Chrome.)

Also, installing Tweetdeck for Chrome “upgraded” my Chrome, so now my homepage doesn’t give me little pictures of screens but just a row of page names, most of which are abbreviated. It also made my Home, Refresh, and Back-Forward arrow keys invisible. More panic. I had to switch my Chrome theme (I’m using Wes Craven now) to get to see them again.

So screw Tweetdeck. I deleted it from the computer. I was told most people who use a Mac use Tweetie. Tweetie looked a lot like Old Twitter, which was quite soothing. But Tweetie is also a separate window, a little narrow one. Not what I’m looking for. Deleted it as well.

I headed to TWhirl next. Again, TWhirl looked good; I liked that it looked nice and basic and familiar. It seemed easy to use. But to download it would require letting it do something with “Adobe Air,” which I don’t know what that is, and after having my Chrome look all weird I didn’t want to mess with anything that would change anything on my computer again. Also, why should I download stuff? I didn’t download Twitter, it’s just a website. The fact that I had to d/l it made me suspect it was a in-its-own-window thing, and I didn’t want to take the chance.

So I went to Hootsuite. Okay. Hootsuite has a lot of things I really like; I really, really like the “Show conversation” link at the bottom of tweets that are replies to others, and you can, well, see a whole conversation. And it’s nice and clear and easy to read. I kind of like that I have a separate column for my DMs, though it’s not really necessary.

But unless I want to pay for Hootsuite I’m going to get these “promoted tweets,” which are ads. Ads for things I don’t give a damn about either. It’s not a huge deal but still.

I went back to Seesmic and discovered that I can widen the columns, which was good. Both Seesmic and Hootsuite have Refresh buttons right there on the screen, which is cool. Seesmic doesn’t have the “Follow conversation” button but if I clock “In reply to ” it will show me what was said. And it does have a thing where if you click on a DM it expands the whole conversation in cool little bubbles, whereas Hootsuite doesn’t. Neither of them are great at DMs, though; Seesmic doesn’t want to show you incoming ones, Hootsuite doesn’t want to show outgoing. But those are the frontrunners at the moment.

For the moment I’m back to Old Twitter, hoping someone will have a suggestion for me.

The one bright spot in the day was getting a holiday giftie from my darling friend Caitlin, which was awesome, and having a nice chat with my agent, who likes my new idea, and is as puzzled as I on the origins of the word “taint” and why it’s suddenly the hot new body part.

So… Twitter apps? Anyone?

And I’m getting a fairly enthusiastic response to my idea of sending out one last excerpt of Downside 4 for my Downside Army members…so I’m leaning…thoughts on that are welcome too. (Also, in the spirit of the holiday season, it will be an excerpt with kissing. If I send one. See how nice I am?)

The hubs has always wanted a white Christmas tree, and me, being a woman of particular tastes, has always said no. The hubs thinks this is boring. But then, he also moans and whines about the fact that I only like white sheets as if this is some kind of failure of imagination on my part, when in fact it’s simply that I think sheets should be white because it looks nice. And besides, I’ve let him go for very pale blue-grays too. I like colored stripes at the borders just fine. And I bought a white-on-white striped set. I think that’s quite enough excitement for a bed; the point is to sleep, after all. Everything else can be colored. Color is great in other rooms. But sheets should be white, and that is just the way I feel.

(Besides, when all the sheets are white you can interchange them easily, so you don’t have to worry about keeping the sets exactly together. And if one tears you don’t have to throw out the whole set. I like Egyptian cotton sheets–I buy one or two sets a year because I’m picky about sheets–and they’re not cheap, and to have to throw out a whole set because of an issue with one sheet would suck. And you can never be sure you’ll find any color except white. So see, I’m practical and stuff too. Anyway.)

So I’ve always said no to the white tree. This year, though, I decided what the hell, and told him to buy the damned white tree if he wanted. hence, our Tacktastic Xmas.

Here’s the tree, all decorated up in its tacky glory:

The tacky, it burns! In an awesome way.

Is that not the coolest thing ever? It’s like…like a decoration on the “It’s A Small World” ride. Or something they’d use as background in one of those Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. (There are actually lights of all colors, I don’t know why the orange and pink show up so much brighter than the others.)

To add to the theme, we bought two little shiny trees from the grocery store; a pink one and a purple one. Check this shit out:

Pink and purple are SO appropriate for Yule.

I have to say, I actually kind of love the white tree. I’ve always been so against them but…it’s kind of like having a big glowy ice cave right here in my living room, especially with the tinsel on it:

Look! Shiny. Shiny and TACKTASTIC!

So I’m keeping the white tree. Maybe next year we’ll have two of them. Or who knows, maybe we’ll stick with the white and just put regular pine boughs everywhere to bring in the greenery.

But I am not getting crazy colored sheets.

I hope you’re all having a tacktastic holiday so far!

Oh! If you all want to pop over to my friend Richelle Mead’s blog, you can see a picture of us on Monday; her tour brought her into town so we got to have a nice long lunch, which was awesome.

BTW, I did send another DA email out yesterday (I think it was yesterday) to let you all know about the Goodreads awards: CITY OF GHOSTS is nominated for Best Paranormal Fantasy, and I’m nominated for Best Goodreads Author. And I MIGHT be persuaded to send out another short excerpt as a holiday giftie…maybe. If you guys want one.

Lookie! I got nominated for an award! Goodreads is doing its “2010 Goodreads Choice” awards–I guess it’s for best or favorite books of the year, I couldn’t find something that said exactly what, and it doesn’t matter much anyway–and CITY OF GHOSTS is one of the fifteen Paranormal Fantasy nominees!

I think it’s totally obvious I’m going to win, considering what nobodies the other nominees are. I mean, whoever heard of Charlaine Harris, Laurell K. Hamilton, or Jim Butcher? Or any of those other totally unimportant names, like Patricia Briggs and Jeri Smith-Ready. Or Joe Hill. (I’m also quite excited that my darling friend and fellow Reluctant Adult Carolyn Crane is nominated for her excellent DOUBLE CROSS!) (My other darling friend and fellow Reluctant Adult, Richelle Mead, has of course been nominated for everything, including some awards I suspect they made up just for her: Where did the “Best Redheaded Author” and “Name that Sounds Most Like Michelle but Isn’t” categories come from, and why is there only one nominee?)

I’m actually planning a careful smack-talk Twitter campaign against Mr. Hill, so he better watch out. Did you hear that he likes to spit at kittens? Seriously. What kind of man does that? Not the sort who should be winning an award, that’s for sure! I’ve got your number, Hill.

I showed the hubs–I actually saw on Twitter other people mentioning nominations, and said to him, “Let’s look at the nominations list I won’t be on,” before I clicked the link–and while he’s very happy and all of that even he acknowledged there is a bit of a “One of these things is not like the others,” sort of vibe. Which there totally is. Which makes it even more amazing. I’m really really stunned.

See, “Best of” lists and award nominations are fun and exciting, and everyone wants one. We do. I’m sorry, but if a writer tells you they don’t want to be nominated for an award, they’re lying. They may not be when it comes to a *specific* award, but any award? No. Think of your work. You might not want Elvira the office hypocrite to tell you she loves your whatever, but you’d like *somebody* to love your whatever, right?

Not to mention how happy it makes our publishers and what a difference it could conceivably make for us. I’m not saying it does or that all contests are equal in that regard, but it’s entirely possible that, much like the Emmys did for Arrested Development, an award nomination and/or win could be really helpful career-wise.

But anyway. Here’s the thing. While awards are all well and good, they are, like everything else, subjective. One reviewer may not have liked your book, so they’re not going to nominate it for anything. A group of reviewers may not agree about your book, so they don’t nominate it. Or maybe they just think you look funny or smell of elderberries. Subjective.

But the Goodreads awards are reader-picked, essentially, and that’s why this is so awesome and special and makes me all smiley and emotive in a very uncool way. It’s like I’m a Real Author or something now; look, I got nominated for an award on this huge international reader site! My mind will never stop boggling, seriously.

OMG! I just went to see if I could figure out how the nominations were put together, and saw that I’m nominated for Favorite Goodreads Author too!

(And, in a totally fucking bizarre OMG, Alice Clayton is also nominated for Favorite Goodreads Author. Why is this totally fucking bizarre? Because Alice and I went to high school together and were good friends. And used to write ridiculously purple-prosed porn stories together. No shit.)

Anyway. This is a huge deal for me, that actual readers actually liked my book enough to get it nominated. That’s amazing, and I’m totally stunned and grateful and all of that. Thank you, each and every one of you.

I could swear there was some other stuff I wanted to tell you all about. But I don’t recall it at the moment, and I do need to get to work; it’s just after midnight at the moment, but I’ll be posting this in the morning. So you’re reading this now, which means the morning is gone and it’s already been posted, which makes this whole thing very meta, doesn’t it?

ETA: To add to the meta, now it *is* Friday and I’m adding to this before I post it! Creeeepy. Anyway, I woke up to two emails from Goodreads informing me I’ve been nominated for awards (look at that!) and telling me that the “Goodreads Choice Awards reflect what readers like. There were no secret committees. We did not defer to experts or look at book sales or previous awards. Goodreads nominated 15 books in 23 categories by analyzing statistics about books read by our members from the 47 million books added, rated, and reviewed on the site in 2010. Official nominees were selected based on a book’s popularity and average rating among Goodreads members,” so this really is doubly triply exciting. It wasn’t even a write-in campaign or anything, it was just site statistics or whatever. Again, thank you all so much.

So that’s it for now. Oh, and be afraid, Joe Hill. Be very afraid.

Okay, I have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and WAITING to get to tell you guys this, because it makes me really happy and it was all done and agreed in, geez, June, I think? But there was this and that and blah blah blah and the ultimate outcome is that I finally have signed contracts and can finally tell you all that there will be three more Downside books coming from HarperVoyager for all you fantastic UK/IRE/AUS readers!

*collapses exhausted* It has been killing me not to say anything, especially when you guys ask (which you have).

So that’s what I’ve been doing today. Signing contracts and ordering gifts, and of course today my Faerie turned six and she is very excited about it and how it took her six whole years to get to this point.

I really am exhausted, actually. I just realized I’ve only been getting five hours of sleep or so a night for the last few weeks; I can handle that when I’m actively working because working is very, um, adrenalizing? It’s not really like doing speed at all, it just wakes me the fuck up, basically, so when I finally force myself to go to bed–which for the last couple of weeks has been edging ever closer to six am–I lie there awake in the dark (and luckily it is dark in the bedroom, although I also do own sleepshades which come in very handy sometimes) for a couple of hours trying to come down. And then I get up at–for the last few weeks–about one-thirty in the afternoon. So it would be enough sleep if I actually slept when I got into bed, which I didn’t, so there you go.

The point is that I’m very, very tired at the moment. But! I am also re-reading the enormous doorstop I just wrote and am actually kind of enjoying it; I think I have some ideas where to tighten it up and yeah, there will be a nice selection of deleted scenes for the website after this book comes out. (Which no, I do not have a date yet, sorry, I’ll tell you as soon as I do.) (Same with the title.)

So. News! There you go! More books!

Look, here I am! It’s been a few weeks, sorry. But I have some news, so I feel good about that.

I’ve finished the first draft of Downside 4; finished it at 5:30 this morning in fact, and it came in at 130,419 words. That’s a lot. Again, to give some perspective, the final version of CITY OF GHOSTS was just over 110k, and that was with epigrams included in the word count (I don’t do those until the end). So this is a lot longer. It won’t end up this long, I don’t think; there’s a lot of editing to be done. But yeah, it’s long.

Am I happy with it? I’m very happy with some of it. I’m not as happy with some of it. That’s what edits are for. What always matters the most to me is the writing itself, and I’m generally pleased with that, so I feel confident the rest can be fixed.

And then I get to start the fifth one! Which I’m really excited about. The fourth book brings some big changes, and it’s going to be a blast seeing how they shake out in the fifth book, not to mention the story I have planned which is something I’ve wanted to write for a long time. So yay!

I also have some other news. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about this, questions I haven’t been able to answer because of a contractual obligation and some other stuff like that. But I did want to let everyone know that as of a few days ago the Downside Market is no longer being handled by Southern Promo. They’re a great company and they didn’t do anything wrong, it just became obvious that the way they do things and the way I do things were not truly compatible. I’m currently working on getting a new store set up on Spreadshirt–which had the lowest prices I could find of the CafePress/Zazzle-type place, and I’ve ordered stuff from them in the past and found the quality quite good. I’m hoping that will be up and running in the next few days, and it’ll have lots more variety and options than the old store. I’m excited about that, and I hope you all like it.

And we’re all deep into the shopping thing here. Deep deep deep indeed. Especially since we’ve been broke the last few months; an unexpected check arrived on Friday, which means we now will have a good holiday. And my Faerie, who turns six on Wednesday, will have a great birthday. Which actually reminds me of something irritating.
Read the rest of this entry »

Thanksgiving. I know it’s fashionable to hate Thanksgiving, but I actually don’t. I like cooking, especially the kind of big elaborate meal that I don’t bother with most of the time. I particularly enjoy any sort of dessert made with pumpkin, so the holidays are right up my alley; last weekend I made a pumpkin pie and a pumpkin bread pudding with toffee sauce, which was seriously amazing.

And usually it’s just me, the hubs, and the girls for Thanksgiving, which is nice. We eat–I don’t actually like turkey, but I’ll eat it on Thanksgiving–and we watch our two annual Thanksgiving movies, JAWS and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. The last few years we’ve also watched the Saturday Night Live Christmas special.

And I admit, one of the most enjoyable things about Thanksgiving–about the holidays in general, really–is that no one thinks it’s odd if you start drinking at noon, and you can spend the entire day in a tipsy haze, which is most pleasant.

This year we won’t be doing a big dinner, for a number of reasons, chief among them we just don’t have the space to cook all that food. But you know, that’s okay too. One of my favorite Thanksgivings was the year Princess was a baby; she was about three months old, and neither of us felt up to a big celebration. So we had our typical Christmas Eve meal, which is cold cuts and cheeses and crackers and bread, maybe some scalloped potatoes or cocktail meatballs for something hot. I spent the day reading Stephen King’s INSOMNIA and eating corned beef on Ritz crackers, drinking Riesling and sherry (something about this particular holiday lends itself to girly drinks). It was a lovely day.

This year I’ll be working. We’re well over 100k on the fourth Downside book, and the end is in sight, finally. As I said on Twitter yesterday, I think my first draft will end up around 125-130k, and I know I’ll be cutting at least 15 out of that. CITY OF GHOSTS was 110k, so this one will probably end up right around there, maybe a bit longer. I am fairly pleased with it, I am, and wrote a scene I absolutely love the other day, in addition to, I think, one of my favorite lines I’ve ever written, and one of my favorite lines of dialogue I’ve ever written (which came, surprisingly, from Lex, but then he’s surprised me a few times in this one). So I’m chugging along, and I’m nervous about whether you’ll all like it but I’m feeling fairly confident that at the very least you’ll enjoy one particular scene.

Anyway. This is the time, because it’s a Thanksgiving post, when we’re supposed to share what makes us thankful and all that shit. But that’s so cliched, isn’t it? And really, we all say the same thing whether we mean it or not: our families, our health, blah blah blah. Those are all good things to be thankful for, sure, but really, it’s not very personal.

I do have something to be thankful for this year. I have books on the shelves, and I have readers who actually liked them and took the time to let me know, and that’s amazing. You guys have truly made this year one of the best in my entire life, despite the fact that some genuinely lousy things happened to go along with that, sigh, but that’s life. Anyone who expects to have good things happen without paying for them somehow is, well, they’re not living my life, that’s for damn sure.

Still, let’s not tempt fate. Rather than share what we’re thankful for this year, let’s talk about what we’re not thankful for; what we hate about the upcoming holidays, what irritates and annoys us. As always anonymous comments are welcome, if you’re afraid the friend you want to complain about will read where you say you want to smack her if she invites you “shopping” one more time and spends the whole afternoon in one store trying on things for herself.

One thing, though. Let’s keep it light-hearted and apolitical, okay? This is supposed to be fun.

Here’s mine:

1. I hate the insane crowds everywhere. I can’t even go get groceries without fighting my way through gaggles of people standing around staring at displays of green cookies.

2. I hate the fucking spam emails. I get enough email without getting constant offers from every online store I’ve ever shopped at, and every “customer loyalty” points group I’ve ever joined is offering me quadruple points if I will just please give them some money, any money, they don’t care how much, just please give them something and they will shower me with points like some kind of festive points raincloud.

3. I hate the pressure to do family things. Sorry, but I do. All those people around me all the time make me itch.

4. As I mentioned above, I don’t like turkey. I cook and eat it because it’s traditional, and I am obviously such a very traditional sort of girl that I can’t help it. No, seriously, I’m not, but in Thanksgiving dinner I am. It’s the only holiday meal I do according to popular consensus; like I said, our Christmas Eve meal is cold meats, cheese, etc. before we open presents, and Christmas day the last few years I’ve done beef bourgoignonne (or however the hell that’s spelled, I’m too lazy to go check). I do a Yule dinner, roast pork and vegetables, which is also traditional to large degree, but still. Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving, and everyone wants turkey, especially my husband and the Princess who like turkey and never get it because I do the cooking, so too bad for them.

5. I hate the preachy “heart-warming” homilies and shit we’re all supposed to smile and tear up over. Sorry, but suddenly acting like a human being from mid-November to January 1st doesn’t excuse the fact that you’re a completely heartless piece of shit the rest of the year.

How are those? What are yours? Specific ones, general ones? Go ahead and let it out. Let’s screw those holidays together!

I’m supposed to blog about copyright today, because I promised my wonderful friend Jane from How Publishing Really Works that I would. Of course, I ended up oversleeping (even for me; hey, I was up writing until five this morning) and getting sidetracked by a million different things, so it’s perhaps too late now for my post to do any good, but here it is anyway.

(This reminds me; I don’t suppose any of you out there reading this happen to be car salesmen in South Florida? Anything like that? BFF Cori needs to buy a new car, and I’d love to be able to send her to someone trustworthy, by which I mean one of my readers since of course nobody rocks harder than my readers. So if you’re in a position to help, contact me through the site, and maybe you’ll get special signed books or Seekrit Inside Info or something too.)

So. Copyright. This is one of those topics that’s so big and so important I almost don’t even know where to start. The simple fact is, copyright is what enables me to do what I do. Copyright is the reason I’m sitting here with my laptop–my laptop that copyright bought (used, because it’s a Mac and they’re fricking expensive new, but still). Copyright is the reason there are Downside stories; it’s the reason they exist, the reason those characters and that world exist.

I’ve touched on the subject of piracy before, notably in my post about trusting readers and not treating them like shit. And honestly, I don’t know that I can really say it any differently or any more clearly than I did then; piracy is a financial bite, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Yes, I was lucky, and I got offers for more Downside books. I know quite a few people whose series aren’t continuing because of low sales, but funnily enough, free copies of their books have been downloaded thousands of times. It’s all well and good for huge bestsellers to be blase about piracy; the rest of us need every sale to keep our careers going, and it frankly makes me angry to see them being cavalier like that instead of thinking back to the beginnings of their careers, or thinking how much of a difference their voice could make to those who are struggling.

But this isn’t about piracy, either. I know what all of the excuses are, the “They wouldn’t have bought it anyway,” as if that makes it okay for them to steal, or the “it actually increases sales,” or whatever. I don’t care. Yes, that’s right. I don’t actually care. To me it’s very simple: those stories and characters belong to me. You’re using them without paying (or going through a legal channel like a library or borrowing from a friend or whatever). Therefore you are stealing from me. Period.

See, at its base, that’s what copyright is. Copyright is a way to mark ownership of something intangible. Ideas can’t be copyrighted, no, but a written story can be. A film can be. A drawing can be. Copyright enables artists to live off of their skills.

I can’t draw to save my life, seriously. It’s not a talent I have. I’m lucky if I manage to make my stick figures look human. Most people I know aren’t great artists. I think people who are deserve some sort of recognition for that; they deserve our appreciation, our recognition. Visual artists beautify our world, quite simply. Every time you see a logo, a design, a pattern; every painting or drawing, every piece of public sculpture, you are seeing something made possible by copyright, and you are seeing something that adds something special to our society, something that reflects who and what we are.

Seriously, think for a minute about a world with no visual art. All buildings are just plain flat squares. Billboards are just black words on white backgrounds, all in Times New Roman or something. There are no textiles in this world; there’s very little color. No attempt has been made to make anything look attractive or inviting.

Yeah, I know, I’m stretching the point. But still. Think about how depressing that world would be, and as you do, think about how much artists add to our lives every single day. Not a day goes by that art doesn’t enrich our lives and our world.

And all those people ask in return is credit for the work they do, for the efforts they make. Just like you expect credit for the work you do; and really, with some exceptions, is your work really any less ephemeral? I know lots of people who would kill to have your job; does that mean I can decide you should be willing to do it for free, and withhold payment from you?

But I believe this is a slippery slope. I believe copyright is something fundamental, that it is in large part what makes our society work, what makes our world work. Yes, there are flaws, of course; I would never even try to imply our society and/or world is perfect, or even that it works particularly well. But copyright is part of the good stuff; it’s one of the positive forces, one of the better elements.

Why? For all of the reasons above. Copyright gives artists time to create and hone their skills. I’m sorry, but contrary to popular belief not everyone can draw, not everyone can write, not everyone can sculpt. I might have the brains to be a surgeon if I applied myself and studied hard, but my hands are simply not steady enough and my vision is terrible. That vision keeps me from being a commercial pilot as well. My height keeps me from being a model or a professional basketball player (yeah, I know, it’s not just my height that keeps me from being a model, but let’s focus on the point, shall we?).

I believe that if we continue to allow our copyright laws to be stepped on, if we continue to act as if they don’t matter, and we continue to buy into this bullshit copyright-is-evil line that’s just an excuse to benefit from other peoples’ work without lifting a finger, we will eventually find there’s nothing left worth stealing. There would be no impetus to create it, frankly.

Because a world without copyright, a world which doesn’t enforce copyright, is a world which doesn’t value art, and doesn’t value artists. Far from commoditizing art, copyright protects art from becoming just a commodity. Copyright recognizes that art is special, that it deserves its own set of protections and rules; that because of the way it enriches our society and changes lives it should be and is separate from other things, and gets special treatment. Copyright recognizes that society has a special responsibility to protect its art, and that society in general benefits from it in immeasurable ways.

A world which doesn’t value art, which doesn’t value artists, which believes copyright is ridiculous, is a world where people are seen as soulless, where individuality doesn’t matter. These people claiming to be rogue rebels, bravely thumbing their noses at copyright laws because art should be for everyone, are in fact trying to stamp on art, devalue it; they are in fact refusing to accept that anyone has anything special inside them, something that’s theirs and their alone, and that there’s any value in expressing that. They’re insisting that everyone is exactly the same, basically, and that there’s no difference between a Renoir and my stick figures. It’s not democratization and it’s not sticking it to The Man. It’s claiming that there’s nothing special or unique or worthwhile in the human soul, it’s claiming that people are worth nothing, and only tangible items have real value.

You’re not being a rebel because you devalue ideas and the expression of them. You’re not being a rebel because you deny artists the chance to make a living. You’re certainly not being a rebel because your response to their need to make a living is to tell them to get a real job, which is exactly what you’re doing when you say things like “You should be willing to do it for free.” Wow, maybe next you’ll tell them to turn down that music and get a decent haircut, huh? You crazy maverick.

Do you honestly think it’s rebellious to treat only things you can hold or taste as if they’re worth anything? Do you honestly think you’re somehow smashing the state by refusing to support artistic expression, by acting as though you’re entitled to the sweat of others’ brows and the fruits of their labor without giving anything in exchange? Do you really believe you’re somehow scoring one for the little guy by devaluing humanity to the point where not only are the souls, thoughts, ideas, and expressions of others are worthless, but where there isn’t even any legal protection in place for those souls, thoughts, ideas, and expressions? Yes, wow, how very subversive of you, treating art as worthless and acting as if other people exist solely to entertain you.

If you want to pirate, go ahead. If you want to steal, go ahead. If you want to devalue art, act as if the world owes you whatever you want, treat other people like commodities, you go ahead.

But don’t fucking pretend it has anything to do with freedom or rebellion, because it doesn’t. It has to do with your own selfishness and sense of entitlement, and in that you’re no different from any of those corporate heads you claim to be so disgusted by. You’re not hurting them. You’re hurting people just like you, and you don’t care as long as you get to fiddle while Rome burns. Good for you.

In work work work, oh yes. I plan to have Downside 4 finished by the beginning of next week, hopefully sooner. I’d actually expected to have it done already, but a plot twist came out of nowhere and necessitated some more words and some changes. This is a really twisty one, which is fun; I’m hoping everyone thinks it’s fun, at least. BFF Cori is enjoying it, so I’m trying to reassure myself with that, because she wouldn’t like it if it was awful.

I got an email this morning letting me know that A GLIMPSE OF DARKNESS, the story-in-the-round from the Suvudu blog (me, Lara Adrian, Harry Connolly, Kelly Meding, Lucy Snyder) is up for Kindle pre-order on Amazon now.

Which reminds me, BE A SEX-WRITING STRUMPET has been out on Kindle for a while now and still has zero reviews, even though it’s been selling. Won’t someone please give it a little love? *whine whine*

And one other little link, to an interview with me done by Apex Magazine. The interview is here. I was given the questions a couple of months ago, and was frankly rather stunned by that first one, but after some discussion, myself, my editor, and my publicist decided it must have just been badly worded, because the interviewer seemed so nice and friendly, and had been quite enthusiastic about the series when speaking to my publicist. Fool me once, shame on me; I’ve certainly learned my lesson in that. I’ve never before had an experience like that, where I take considerable time away from my writing to do what I think is a nice thing, and have it turned on me so roundly; I haven’t been set up like that, and I don’t care to have it happen again.

This isn’t about the review, of course; you all know how strongly I feel everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and to the expression of that opinion. I’m not remotely bothered by hers. I am, however, bothered by the fact that I was blindsided like that, and that I answered those questions with a view towards helping someone out, being nice to them, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, only to find out that there was an agenda there. This has happened to me once before, you may remember; I did a podcast interview with several other people (including my friend Jackie Kessler; this is also how I met Simon Wood, who is a really cool guy) about the Harlequin Horizons thing, and found out after it aired that the host’s questions weren’t as innocent as they seemed, and that he turned around and reamed Jackie, Simon, and I because we were “elitists.”

But again. A lesson learned is a lesson learned. Next time I get an interview that starts with a question that makes me feel slapped, I’ll cancel the interview instead of assuming the interviewer didn’t mean to be so harsh; clearly she did mean to be just that harsh, and clearly there is a degree of amusement there in being that way to my face and making it appear as if I don’t understand what’s happening.

The only reason I’m mentioning this at all is because I often get interview requests through the site, and I try to accommodate them; in fact, I’ve never turned down an interview request, or a guest blog request, I don’t think. Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to be so open with them anymore, especially if I don’t know you.

So from now on, if you want an interview with me, please submit your questions along with the request, and let me know what if anything will be appearing along side it (a review, a discussion, whatever). If you have submitted such a request in the last couple of months and haven’t yet gotten a reply, please re-submit. I’m trying to catch up on emails but with the book in the final stretch I’ve barely had time for anything else; I’ve been doing around 5k per day, plus edits etc.

The good news is I’m pretty pleased with how it’s shaping up, and I’m hoping you all will be too, since your opinions are the important ones.

And here’s a snippet! A snippet which will hopefully make you smile, in which Chess and Terrible are about to do some nocturnal investigating for her latest case. Remember it’s just a tiny snippet!:

Her car rattled and bumped its way over every little rock and patch of uneven ground, banging Terrible’s head on the ceiling once. “Shoulda brung my car.”

“No we shouldn’t have, and you know why we didn’t.”

He sighed. Heavily. “’Stoo small.”

“Every car is too small for you.” Her smile this time was genuine.

“Mine ain’t.”

Instead of answering, she slid the car up to the door and shoved it into Park. “Come on.”

We all know I’m pretty tech-stupid. We also know I bought a netbook a while ago. We may also know that I’ve been having problems with Safari (which I use on my Mac) for months and months; it freezes whenever someone even says the word “Flash” in its presence, for example. Or it’ll halt and stick when people have animations in their sig lines on forums. Stuff like that. But of course being tech-stupid–in addition to being someone with a semi-pathological hatred and fear of change–the idea of switching to a new browser made me Very Nervous.

Anyway. Last night I took a little break from working to mess around online. I’ve been using the netbook to write lately; I bought a portable hard drive to use for memory for it (it’s gotten lousy reviews, I see. Personally it works great for me, but again, all I’m using it for is extra memory for the netbook). I find the keyboard on that easier to work on; the keys aren’t as stiff as on the Mac so it’s less painful on my fingers. And–although this may change now–it wasn’t as easy to browse online on the netbook, which meant I focused more on work.

So I decided to do something bold, and download Google Chrome instead of continuing to use IE on the netbook. Yes, it was a crazy move, but I’m just wild that way. I also uninstalled Norton antivirus, because I’m sick to death of being constantly interrupted by it, and installed the Microsoft Malware/Virus tool thingie instead. If I could figure out how to uninstall IE and Netflix I would, because I like uninstalling things and making room.

Anyway. I played with Google Chrome for several hours last night, discussed it a bit on Twitter and io9, and today I decided I like it so much I wanted it on the Mac. So I’m not using it exclusively on the Mac and the netbook, and I’ve installed some nifty extensions (that I had no idea what they were until a Twitter pal and then my io9 pals told me about them and where to go) that make me all happy. It really is MUCH faster than Safari or IE were, and it’s pretty (you can customize the background & colors and stuff) and fun. So I’m recommending it, at least for now, assuming it doesn’t fall apart on me in the weeks to come. It imported all of my bookmarks and saves all of my passwords and does all kinds of nifty things. So I’m happy.

And, I’m about to get back to work. This is a pretty dull little post, I know, but what the heck. I’m in the final stretch of Downside 4–it’s never taken me this long to write a novel before, but hopefully it’ll end up worth it–and can’t really think of much else. All hell is breaking loose, and we have death threats and decayed bodies and nasty witchcraft and ghosts and bloodshed and the requisite personal intrigue and all of that. (And yes, I have used the name of my Name-A-Character-Contest winner.) So I’m at the point now where I’m having tons of fun and I’m about to have a LOT more. Heh heh heh.

And I’ll hopefully have a title to share soon as well; I just sent my editor a big long list of possibilities.

I’ve got a couple of longer ranty posts to go up, but those will have to wait until after the book is finished.

This is just a short one–I’ve had quite a crazy couple of days, not really very good ones, to be honest–but I did want to announce this because I’m so excited about it! And I think it might make you guys happy.

I’m sure you guys are all familiar with the UF anthologies Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner have done in the past, like DEATH’S EXCELLENT VACATION and MANY BLOODY RETURNS. And if you’re not you should be, because they’re hugely fun, and Charlaine and Toni are wonderful writers and very cool ladies; it’s an honor just to know them a little bit.

But it’s an especial, especially, special honor to say that there will be a new Downside story in their next anthology, HOME IMPROVEMENT: UNDEAD EDITION, which will be released August 2, 2011 (at least so Amazon says; I just knew it was August).

I was invited to submit back in April, I think, and submitted in July, but of course I didn’t want to say anything and jinx it. So I can finally say something today, and there it is. A new Downside story for everyone!

It’s a fun little story, I think. I did something a bit different with it; I didn’t want to give spoilers, since I knew the fourth book wouldn’t be out yet, but I didn’t want to do something set in the past or anything either, so…well, you’ll just have to see. But I’m quite pleased with it, which is especially exciting since I have kind of a hard time writing shorts, and I’m just really thrilled about the whole thing.

Which comes in quite handy today, to be honest. I’ve had a pretty lousy couple of days; yesterday was especially bad, at least until I woke up this morning and got more horrible news. The news isn’t directly related to me, it’s just dealing with people I know, but it isn’t good and it isn’t fun, and I may talk more about that another time.

But for now I want to focus on the good stuff. There’s going to be a new Downside story next summer, and it’s not a story in continuity, meaning if you don’t read it you won’t miss anything important series-wise, nor will you be completely lost if you haven’t read the series, at least I hope not (I had a few people read it who hadn’t read the books and they all understood it, so that’s good). I just think it’s fun and kind of exciting, and I had a good time writing it, and I’m very pleased it’s going to be out there and available, especially in such great company.

Yay, such fun to have something positive to post!

Cover under the cut… Read the rest of this entry »