Stacia Kane

Okay, a couple of quick things first:

First, and most importantly. Last night I noticed Mrs. Giggles–whom you all know I adore–linked to my Jade Goody entry and wrote an excellent and very informative post about Pap smears and the types of cells/cell abnormalities found in them. It’s well worth a read; great information there. But more importantly, Mrs. G. makes a point that I neglected to make: whether or not you are sexually active, you should be getting your pap smears annually. I don’t care if you’re a nun, once you reach a certain age–Mrs. G suggests 18–you need to do them. And she is 100% correct. I’m ashamed that I didn’t mention this myself. Please…get the test, whether you’re having sex or not. I need you to live so you can buy my books. (No, seriously, buy my books or don’t, but get the test. It could be the most important thing you ever do.)

Second, this will be my last bloggy-type blog post for a while. Thursday I’m just going to post some scheduling/update things and possible freak out a bit more. Next Monday the movers are coming; I will probably pop in for a very quick post, as I plan to open the blog to reader recommendations, which I’d like to start doing once every few months. After that we’ll be in transit for the next few weeks.

Third, we had a lovely time in London this weekend. Got to meet up with fellow writer, the excellent Kaz from lj, and have a couple of drinks on Friday night, and share some giggles and gossip. Unfortunately, thanks to the vagaries of the transit system on Sundays, I did NOT get to see my friend Yeyo from lj, which I’m very unhappy about; she’s been a good friend to me for almost seven years, and I’m heartbroken that I didn’t get to say goodbye to her and her wonderful hubby in person. But we did get to the British Museum and the Natural History museum, and to just be in London one more time; I do love London. Sigh.

Okay. Remember my post about UF as a genre, and how it’s changing? I had no idea when I wrote it that the post would be such a big deal; it’s still getting comments and was actually quoted in an NPR interview with Mario Acevedo, which was pretty exciting.

Anyway. Like I said it’s still getting comments, and I want to address a couple of those here in a new post.

First, a very nice lady posted the URL to her UF/paranormal mystery Yahoo group, which I haven’t joined yet but fully intend to. At the time she posted they had over 400 members, all avid readers. So groups like that are, IMO, great places to join and be a part of, in addition to reading blogs like Urban Fantasy Land (of course!) and Bitten by Books, or livejournal groups like Urban Fantasy Fans. (And please, if you belong to or know of another fan/reader community, leave it in comments!)

Second, I had quite a few comments about the level of sex in UF, or where the line is between paranormal romance and UF. This is a really interesting question for me, because I know the Demons books come pretty close to straddling that line. In my mind they’re UF, because although the Megan/Greyson relationship is a big part of the first book (and figures prominently in future books), ultimately the book is about Megan vs. the Yezer & the Accuser. She has to defeat the Accuser on her own. It’s about her and her story and how she changes, and the second is the same.

The Downside books are definitely UF. There is some romance and some sex–I’m going to get to the sex part in a minute–but ultimately Chess solves the mystery and Chess has to fight the bad guys, every time. She may get a little help from her friends, and she may fall in love along the way, and she may deal with a lot of issues related to her sexual or relationship choices, but in the end it’s just her doing what she has to do. And the romantic subplot stuff is a much smaller part of the books on the whole (with the possible exception of the third book, which it looks like we now might be calling SPELLBOUND GHOSTS.)

Now, one of the most recent comments the entry got was this:

I hate picking up a UF (and sometimes a SFF novel) and finding a thinly veiled romance. I am simply not into romances as a rule and really don’t care to read about someone having teh hawt sexxorz.
While I appreciate that people head in the UF direction precisely because of the copious sex and romance, it is not for me. I have even taken to picking up a book in the store and skimming page by page counting the sex scenes and considering the length of the scene. 0-1 is ideal, up to 3 dependent on the length and detail. Anything above that is an automatic ‘no’. I have no problems with relationships, searching, acquiring, troubles and what not. It can provide interest. I like things to be a bit more realistic than the standard romance instant lurv. I just wish books were better labeled. I have picked up novels listed as paranormal romances and found a great story with little to no sex and a more or less realistic approach to relationships. I have also picked up books labeled Scifi, fantasy or fiction with more insta-lurv and sex than a skin-a-max late night movie marathon. Hence the page by page skimming in the store. This is not to say that I haven’t purchased books with, in my opinion, too much sex, I have. The story just has to be very good and I can just flip past the areas that to me, aren’t important. These are very rare. I do have to laugh at myself though, wanting realistic relationships in novels which have nothing to do with reality.

I was going to reply to this in the comments but it interested me so much I thought it would be a good separate entry in itself.

First, I’ve gotten a few comments along the lines of “There’s too much sex for me.” And what troubles me about it–one of the things, anyway–is the way the commenter always seems to feel kind of sheepish about it, or like they expect to be attacked. Guys, there is no reason in the world why anyone, anywhere, should have to apologize for their reading tastes. Never. Ever. (Unless you like reading kiddie porn or something, of course.) But just because you don’t want to read erotica? You have every right not to read erotica if you don’t want.

I’m kind of the opposite, because I won’t buy a romance if there’s no sex scene and I’ll skim in the store for that. If there’s no sex it goes back on the shelf. And I don’t apologize for that. As readers of The Strumpet Series know, I believe sex scenes are important; I outlined my reasons in this entry specifically. In a nutshell, though, they are that I believe sex scenes–if well-written–show us something about the characters and their relationship that we couldn’t see any other way, that they are fulcrums on which entire plotlines and character arcs can shift, and that leaving them out in essence hides things from the reader and leaves them out of important parts of the story.

But let’s be honest. Not every sex scene is going to do that. They should, but they don’t always. And let’s be honest too, some readers just don’t find them interesting or appealing. I think that’s a shame, because I believe a well-written sex scene is a thing of beauty and adds a lot to a story, but I would never tell anyone they HAVE to read them if they don’t like them.

But I do think this points to the other thing which troubles me, and it’s one where I think those blogs and groups I linked to above can help. Because UF is a fairly new genre–which is to say, it’s been around for a long time but has just gelled into “UF,” everyone seems to have a different idea of what exactly it is. There are people who believe UF is exclusively first-person heroines, for example. There are people who believe that if a human is in love with a paranormal creature, it’s a paranormal romance no matter how much or how little of the book is devoted to the relationship.

So it’s hard to label the books correctly. It’s hard to know exactly where to look and what to look for. I’ve seen a few people who feel PERSONAL DEMONS is a paranormal romance rather than UF.

The thing is, what used to define genre romance was the HEA–the Happily-Ever-After ending. That separated romance from anything else. But now there are books sold as romance that don’t have it. There are books sold as UF that do.

And the level of sex isn’t really a good indicator of genre either, as the commenter pointed out. PD has one sex scene; DEMON INSIDE has two. UNHOLY GHOSTS and the further Downside books have at least one each; two at the most. Because I do believe they’re important; they’re part of the story. But PD skirts the line of paranormal romance whereas UG doesn’t at all, I don’t think.

All of which is a rather long and convoluted way of saying this is a complex issue, and one that will probably get more so as time goes on, which is why groups and blogs and communities are important.

I dislike the mislabeling of books in general. Books should be easy for readers to find; you should get what you want without having to hunt around too terribly much. While I am absolutely an advocate of trying new and different books, it’s hard to try new and different books when you don’t know where those are either. This is why I want to open the blog to recommendations on Monday and why I want to keep doing so on occasion; it’s why I recommend various genre blogs and groups.

But I’m really interested in your thoughts on this. How do you as a reader decide what genre is which? Where do you make the distinction? What do you look for in UF and how is that different from what you look for in para romance, if you read both?

Like I said if you know of a UF group or blog that I don’t have, please leave it in comments. I’d like to keep specific titles out of this one, as we’ll do that next week and hopefully that thread will keep going while I’m away.

So you tell me. What do you think?

So. So so so so so.

Finished (almost) line edits for Unholy Ghosts over the long weekend, which was awesome. I love edits; I think they’re so much fun. And it’s made me even more excited aboutthe book than I already was, and I have ohsomany plans for its release (date TBD.)

This sort of (but not really) ties into something else. Well, several things. Almost.

First, I was reading Empire magazine earlier. I hardly ever read Empire anymore. It used to be really good; lately there have been errors galore–shit people writing about movies really should know. Like the time they claimed it was the Jerry O’Connell character in Stand By Me who threw up blueberry pie all over the people at the pie-eating contest, when everybody knows it was Lardass who did the vomiting, in a cunning revenge plan. And you know, a movie magazine should not be making that kind of stupid mistake, especially not when at least two people would have had to read it. There was another one, too, but I don’t remember what it was. I think it might have had to do with The Breakfast Club. Anyway.

They did an article about this new movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, which is going to be kind of like Heat but about John Dillinger. And they had some pictures of Depp and Bale and several other men, in costume. Which included hats.

Why, oh why, did men stop wearing hats? They look so good. So sharp and sexy; tough and sophisticated at the same time. But it’s nearly impossible to find a man in a hat these days–and by “hat” I mean a real hat, a fedora or a porkpie or a snap-brim, not some fucking baseball cap. Baseball caps can be just fine, say, on an actual baseball diamond, or when doing work outside in the sun; I will never forget watching the hubs and my roommate (who was my ex) putting up plywood over the windows (hurricane coming) at our house, both wearing baseball caps. It was quite pleasing to see, I admit. Especially since they were both sweating profusely (summer in South Florida, remember.) While I hovered around, bringing drinks and taking advantage of the fact that not only am I a girl, I’m a petite girl, and thus was of no use at all to two men, both of whom stood over six feet (and, uh, still do of course), when it came to drilling holes in the walls and doing heavy lifting and stuff like that.

Sorry, I digressed a little bit there, didn’t I? My point is, I wish men still wore real hats. One of my favorite bits in the book The Way You Wear Your Hat–which is an awesome book, btw–was the discussion of Sinatra’s many hats, and how he loved them.

So I want to do something for hats. I think when I have signings and stuff I’m going to bring along special gifts for men wearing hats. I seriously doubt I’ll get any takers, but it would be cool, wouldn’t it?

This weekend is the formal Xmas party for hubs’s work, so looking forward to that. Last year only one or two other women beside me actually dressed up; I have no idea why, considering that the men were all in tuxedos and it is a black-tie affair. I seriously considered dressing down this year, and possibly wearing something where people could actually see my legs. But my conscience refuses to allow it. If my husband is in a tuxedo it is inappropriate for me to be in a dress I might wear just as easily to the mall or something, and all the Cosmo articles in the world about making accessories “dress up” your look fail. Formal is formal. So I have a skirt (which requires a crinoline–luckily I own several) and a corset with a ruffle at the top, and I am ready to go. (Yes, I will post pics as soon as I have them.)

And there are two other cool bits of news!

First, Mark Henry–my fellow Reluctant Adult and great pal–has unveiled his new website!! MarkHenry.us is a treasure trove of fun stuff, music, little lists and funnies, info about Mrk and his (awesome) books–make sure you check it out, and be ready to spend some time! It’s as full of zombie goodness as an all-night Romero film festival.

AND. This Thursday, December 4th, I’m going to be spending the day over at Bitten By Books, chatting and answering questions and generally having fun. My event starts at 8 am Pacific and runs until the same time the following day (although as I have the party and have to leave my house Friday morning for it, I’ll have to come back to get to any comments I might have missed on Saturday). I’m even giving away a prize–a $25 Amazon gift card. They’re lovely over at BBB, and it should be a good time, so make sure you come by to hang out! (I will post this again on Thursday.)

And that’s pretty much it. Thanksgiving was okay but the turkey was dry; I tried something new and it was Not Good. But we watched our movies and hung out with the kiddies and generally enjoyed ourselves, so it doesn’t matter. And, as I admitted in the comments to my previous post (on blogger), I don’t really like turkey much anyway, so no big loss.

So, to sum up:

1. Empire is not as good as it used to be.
2. Men should wear hats.
3. I am dressing up properly on Friday.
4. Mark Henry’s new site rocks.
5. I am hanging at Bitten By Books on Thursday
6. Cooking the turkey upside down for the first hour or so is the best way to get a juicy turkey.