Stacia Kane

Tomorrow I’ll do the nail post. I had an idea for them this week that didn’t work out, which I tried to cover with another idea which just looked silly, so I’m in basic dark silver mode at the moment.

But I’d meant to post last week just a quick little update, so here it is:

1. SACRIFICIAL MAGIC=February 2012. No exact date yet, but Feb it is.

2. Working on some really fun extra stuff, too.

3. Am finishing Book 5, while editing SACRIFICIAL MAGIC and working when I can on New Project and whatever else I can fit in there. Book 5 and SM’s edits are due at the end of this month(!) Plus, we are moving this summer. Barring something unforeseen we will be moving back to England, probably either mid-May or mid-June. So as you can imagine, things are crazy crazy crazy here. Forgive me if I’m not around much.

4. I will be at Frolicon this weekend, talking about writing, so if anyone is going, look for me and say hi!

This is just a quick one, everyone, a few little tidbits of tidbittiness.

1. I turned in my story for the MAMMOTH BOOK OF GHOST ROMANCE. I’m fairly pleased with it, although writing romance really isn’t my forte, necessarily, and you all know sorts definitely aren’t. Plus, it’s a Downside story–or more accurately, a Chess/Terrible Triumph City story–so writing a happy ending was a bit weird, ha. But I think it’s a fairly sweet little tale, and I think there’s enough this-love-thing-kinda-sucks in there to make it work. Plus, kinky hippies.

2. Working on edits for Book 4, and plan to start Book 5 tonight. At some point these books need titles, although I admit the idea of simply titling them “4″ and “5″ has its own ascetic appeal.

3. Working on New Project too. Still pleased with it 3,000 words in, which is nice, since usually the “This sucks” sets in after the first few pages.

4. I will be doing the “Write What You Know” post soon.

5. Also…it occurred to me last week, I think, that I never did get around to doing my Editing posts, and the editor interviews. So look for those in the next month or so, I think, because I totally don’t have enough on my plate and need to pile more work onto myself.

6. My good friend Yasmine Galenorn had a book release yesterday! BLOOD WYNE, the latest in her Otherworld series.

7. Oh, shit! I forgot to mention, I got my Dragon*con Guest Agreement letter the other night, so failing a major problem, I will once again be a guest this year.

Valentine’s Day is coming up; I went to the grocery store a few minutes ago (I know! Can you believe I left the house? Crazy!) and they have all of their heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and pink-wrapped Hershey’s Kisses and stuff out. Which is all very cute, but I hate Valentine’s Day. I always tell the hubs to ignore it, and he always says he will then feels guilty at the last minute and gets me something, and it’s usually something I get annoyed by because if he was going to spend the money why couldn’t it be on something I actually wanted (I’m a big proponent of “Stick to the list!”) and we end up, if not fighting, then at least grumpy.

Oh, and one year he got us these Valentine’s Day crackers, like Christmas crackers? Where you pull the ends and there’s a little paper hat etc. inside? Anyway. These had little shiny red hearts inside them. I swear we found hearts in the couch/on the floor for the next year and a half. It’s like glitter, where one person uses glitter in the house and for the next ten years odd bits of glitter keep sticking themselves to you for no reason at all. It’s like it gets in the air shafts.

Anyway. Valentine’s Day sucks, so let me be the first to go one record with my “It Sucks” post. (Although some of you might be very interested to know that the rooftop scene in UNHOLY MAGIC took place on that day. No, it’s never mentioned outright–and the holiday no longer exists in that world, of course–but in my head, given the timeline, I realized early on that it was the early-middle of February in dramatic time, so it fit very well.)

I can’t remember the last time I had a really good Valentine’s Day, actually. I think it was in early elementary school? For a long time, like all through high school, I was sick on Valentine’s Day. I used to get respiratory infections every year in October and February.

Oh, and the really fun one? In junior high our school did a fundraiser where you could send your friends flowers–carnations–in their classrooms. Because that’s a really good idea when you’re dealing with junior-high-age kids: give them another chance to openly measure and compare at a glance how many friends everyone has, and a perfect excuse for them to be even nastier to one another.

Anyway. In seventh grade I was sick the whole week before, and so no one sent me any flowers (of course, they might not have had I been there, either; I didn’t have a lot of friends, and the few I had didn’t have a lot of money, and neither did I). So I got to walk around the whole day with bitchy little soc girls asking me where my flowers were, and hadn’t anyone sent me any? with extremely pleased grins on their faces. I was twelve. That shit matters when you’re twelve. It was pretty awful.

Ah, glorious childhood memories. So anyway, yeah. I’m happy to buy the candy, because I love candy (I’ve managed to cut back on my peanut-butter cup dependency, btw. I’m down to four a night), but the rest of it? Meh.

Got any bad Valentine’s Day memories to share?

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.

(I don’t know why I bother capitalizing my titles, since the website blog puts them in all caps anyway. But then. livejournal doesn’t. Anyway.)

I spent like 4 hours last night going through all of the shirt designs and picking which items and in what colors to offer them. Most stuff is going to be black, white, red, gray, or pink, with a few baby blues thrown in there. There are a few items that are Girls only (I seriously doubt a man is going to walk around in a few of these) but most stuff is unisex. Everything will be available in babydolls and ringer babydolls, and almost all of those will come in plus sizes up to 2XL; I tried to do the widest range I could, but some clothing items just aren’t offered in as wide a range as I would like. There will be tank tops and spaghetti-strap tanks too; they offered a tank with a shelf bra but I figure my readers are the type who like to show a little strap, heh heh heh. (I certainly do.) And hoodies, since people asked for them.

We’re still on track to get things going by the end of the week. So I’ll be mentioning this again, but let me just say it now first: if you have a logo idea you don’t see, let me know. If something isn’t available on an item you would like, let me know. As I’ve said, I went with Southern Promo rather than a place like Zazzle because I have more control, and I want it to have stuff people will like and want, and I want it to be available at a price people can afford, or so you can even maybe afford more than one thing. That’s worth paying a small monthly fee for it to me.

Also, and this is important. The stuff in the store isn’t the only stuff there will be! I’m working on stuff like bowling shirts and jackets and stuff too, and there will be more designs, and if you’ve done a design and want to see it on a shirt get in touch with me. So please, any thoughts or ideas, anything you’d like to see, let me know. Yes, I’m doing this because it’s fun and everything, but the main reason I’m doing it is because you guys asked for it.

Also, I’m thinking of cutting my hair. While internet shopping last night–without buying, which sucks, I hate shopping when I can’t get anything–I saw a girl with the most adorable hair ever. It’s short, which is different for me (my hair hasn’t been short since my early twenties), but I think I’m going to give it a go. So look for pictures soonish.

Also last night, while I was making the huge long list of products and colors, I was watching the “ID” channel. Does anyone know this channel? “Investigation Discovery.” Really interesting; they most air shows on forensics, or 48 HOURS specials on murders and stuff like that. Shows like that fascinate me, they do. But yesterday I had the ID channel on all day in the background, and right around two am I suddenly realized that I was just creeping myself the fuck out. I went outside for a cigarette and heard a noise; it was probably a bird landing on the porch but in my mind it was a crazed serial killer trying to jump the fence to slaughter me, probably after raping and beating me for good measure. I practically jumped out of my skin; I threw down my smoke and ran back into the house, where I locked both locks.

That’s when I decided maybe it was time to stop watching the ID channel for a little while. Twelve straight hours of murders–usually murders of women–was a little much even for me. So I put in Goodfellas instead, because Goodfellas is fucking awesome. (I worked in a movie theater in high school–one of the best jobs I ever had, seriously, at Wehrenberg Des Peres 4 “Cine’” [which is apparently now some sort of monstrous 24-screen place, but back then it was 4, and I loved it]–and we got Goodfellas when it was released. One day I went in to check the theater for loudnicks–we used to throw them out, the way theater management is supposed to do–and got totally engrossed in it. So I came in on my next day off to watch it. And ended up watching it twice. I’d go up after school to hang out with friends–we all hung out together all the time–and decide to go sit in Goodfellas for a while. I think I must have watched it thirty or forty times before we finally lost it. So, yeah, you could say I like Goodfellas a lot.)

I should play another round of Review Roundup, but I’m not in the mood, and this is just a quick one anyway.

Wow, this is late in the day to be posting.

Seriously, guys, I cannot recall ever being this busy in my life. I mean, in normal everyday life, not, like, the weeks before my children were born when suddenly the entire house needed to be scrubbed and redecorated, or the weeks before my wedding when the entire house needed to be scrubbed and redecorated and I had a houseful of guests and I needed to get manicures and hairdos and fittings and all of that stuff, or when we move. This is just my daily task-list growing longer and longer. (Oh, and before I forget, did you all see the UNHOLY MAGIC playlist on iTunes? You know I don’t get paid or anything when you purchase it, but the artists do; I just put them together in case anyone was curious about the music in the books and would like to hear it. This way you don’t have to hunt around and not know which songs are mentioned or whatever.)

I just finished a short story for an anthology; it’s a Downside story but because I didn’t want to give spoilers, and am well aware that most readers have never heard of me or my books, I wrote it from an outsider’s point of view, which was fun. You know what the most fun part of it was, though, which is really weird? Getting to actually describe Chess head to foot. You know, it’s hard to find ways to describe characters when you write from their POV; you don’t want to use hoary old tricks like them looking at themselves in the mirror, and really, just about any other sort of trick to describe your characters feel hoary.

MC: Oh, Friend #1, I hate my hair.

Friend #1: Nonsense. I wish I had long blond curls like yours.

Do you know what I mean? I don’t describe my characters too closely, I don’t think of them in terms of what actor they look like and would never describe them that way. I like to leave that up to you guys to fill in, really. Which makes me think of a fun contest! Which I may mention at the end of this post.

Anyway. So it was really fun to write a short where, because the MC of that story doesn’t know these people, he can actually take in the details of their appearances. They’re still not really facially described, but there’s a much more complete description, down to things like what Chess’s bag actually looks like. (I’ll share that one; it’s faded army-green canvas.) The story is tentatively titled Rick the Brave, but I’m still trying to come up with something better.

Now I have two other projects on my plate, one of which is another short for something else, and one of which is a new series-starter WIP which I’m extremely excited about. I’m not super far into it yet, but what I have I’m very happy with, which is a great feeling. It’s tentatively called Stone and Steam, but that will probably change.

I also have a to-do list which includes five interviews, which I really need to get to. And, I’ve got a couple of dozen emails and forum messages in my inbox from readers, relating to the Downside books, which I swear I will answer, my days have just been disappearing from me lately. But I do get those emails, I do read them, and I do appreciate them immensely. Nothing in this world is as amazing as getting an email from a reader who loved your work. (Well, okay. Sorry readers, but there are a few better moments, I have to admit. Holding your baby for the first time is pretty fucking amazing. But outside of stuff like that, reader email tops the list.)

BUT. That does bring me to a question most of the emails have been asking, and a ton of people on Twitter have been asking, as well as here on the blog. And I really wasn’t able to answer the question, although I’ve known the answer for, oh, three weeks or so now. Ready?

YES. There WILL be more Downside books!!

I don’t have any more details I can share as to number or dates or anything, although I think I can pretty safely say, considering it’s now July, that we’re talking about next year. We’re still working a lot of details out. But I’m extremely pleased and excited, and I hope you guys are too. Read the rest of this entry »