Stacia Kane

Ah, it’s a fine bright Monday morning, just the type of day to announce some exciting news.

First, I’m going to be in French! Well, not me personally, of course. Megan Chase. French publisher J’ai Lu has bought translation/publication rights to PERSONAL DEMONS, DEMON INSIDE, and DEMON POSSESSED! I don’t have any news on release dates or anything, of course, as I’ve only just signed the contracts, but I’m still extremely excited. Yet another step on my road to Global Domination.

Also, I can now dream of entering a French bookshop and having the clerks know who I am and invite me to an impromptu party in my honor, which I will totally schedule for the night the hubs has important plans, too, thus blowing him off, but then at the last minute I can blow off my French readers without bothering to even pick up a phone or anything. And maybe later I can find the restaurant my party was at and there will be copies of PERSONAL DEMONS (or whatever they’ll call it in French) lying around with wine stains all over them. Ahh, what a glorious fantasy.

Aaaand…Remember HOME, the short story I wrote for THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF GHOST ROMANCE? I pulled it from the anthology back in March. And when I did I promised the story would definitely see publication somewhere, even if it was just here on my website.

Well. It won’t be. I’m very pleased to let everyone know that HOME will be published as an estory original on the Heroes and Heartbreakers website run by Tor/Macmillan. I of course don’t have a release date or anything like that yet, but I’ll definitely keep you all updated.

Heroes and Heartbreakers is a really cool site, for those of you who haven’t checked it out before. It’s mainly a romance site, and it’s got a great, active community and lots of cool stuff. I love their take on genre fiction, actually, and they’ve been extremely kind and enthusiastic about the Downside books in particular, so I’m even more excited to be working with them.

I believe I mentioned before that HOME is definitely a romance story, which was a bit weird since it’s a Downside story. I like it quite a bit, of course, but it felt odd writing a story where everyone was basically happy in the end. That’s a pretty rare occurrence for these characters, heh, so I hope everyone enjoys it. You’ll be able to read it free if you’ve registered on the site, and/or it will be available at all the major ebook retailers etc. if you’re not. But you really should register, since it’s a cool site.

So, more info on that as we go along. But HOME has found a home (ha! See what I did there?) and I’m really glad.

Speaking of Downside stuff to read online…you may remember a while ago where I mentioned some friends of mine have set up a girl-geek-focused website called Stellar Four? It’s a really, really awesome site, and they do some great stories.

Anyway. This week they’re doing an Urban Fantasy Week, and they’ll be giving away a copy of my dear friend Stacey Jay’s DEAD ON THE DELTA, although of course you’ve all already bought it, right?

As part of their UF week, I’m going to be posting a new, never-before-seen excerpt from SACRIFICIAL MAGIC on Thursday or Friday (most likely Thursday). So you’ll definitely want to go check that out. Read the excerpt, browse the site, laugh at the awesome posts, leave comments, and enter the giveaway (I just might be persuaded to give something away myself, if enough people comment and all).

Tomorrow we’re heading out to visit some friends etc. in the Southwest, and then to the house where we’re renting for a bit in north Wales. So I may not be around as much this week (I know, again) but hopefully by the end of the week we’ll have all our internets and all set up, and things will calm down. Plus, I’ll be able to post pictures of north Wales, which is gorgeous.

Oh! And yesterday we went to the Willian Village Fair, and saw Morris dancers. It was quite something. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to view the video, but here’s the link just in case. (Warning: the sound starts right away, and it’s loud accordion/drum/bells/etc.)

I think that’s it for today! Oh, but don’t forget the L.A. Banks auction! Two days left to bid on the custom Downside shirt and mp3, and we’re at $51.50, which is totally exciting for me since I was afraid I’d only bring in a few bucks. So thank you all SO MUCH for bidding!! I am thrilled to see that my item is so far one of the biggest earners in the auction, and it’s all down to how fantastic and generous you all are. (And if you haven’t bid yet, well, you have two days to go.)

Lookie! I have an official, yes-this-is-it release date for SACRIFICIAL MAGIC.

March 27, 2012

So mark your calendars and all, everybody!

Also, my friend Stacey Jay’s book DEAD ON THE DELTA released yesterday, and you should all go buy it. Really. I read it and loved it; it’s set in New Orleans, and there are wicked little faeries spreading disease and lots of bayou grime and booze, and it’s so well-written and exciting.

Go visit Stacey’s site to learn more. Or just run to the bookstore and grab it. Seriously. I honestly believe that if you like my books you’ll like this one.

CRAZY busy. We leave next week. I’m almost done with Book 5 and really think it’s pretty damn cool so far; of course, a surprise happened which means I have to go back and rewrite a ton of stuff, but I’m excited about the surprise.

And here’s a short snippet from SACRIFICIAL MAGIC:

His room hadn’t changed. The house hadn’t changed. Only the looks given her by the various guards or enforcers or whoever they were had; from bland acceptance to subtle suspicion.

And she’d changed, it seemed. At least a bit. In the car chatting all had been well, but when the door closed behind her it occurred to her how long it had been since she’d been there. And what had happened last time she’d been there. Happened several times and again in the morning, if memory served, which it did.

Another awkward moment when she started walking toward the bed, remembered, and turned back to the couch against the wall. Lex already sat there, lighting a cigarette, flipping a switch behind him so The Jam started playing in the background. King of his little room-castle, just like how one day he’d be king of this side of town.

“So what’s up?” The question sounded lame even to her, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. The bed with its plain blue blanket and sheets loomed larger and larger in her vision.

1. As I think I mentioned before, we are moving this summer, back to the UK. The move itself is booked for June 10, or rather, we’re officially leaving June 10. We’ll be traveling for a short time before that.

I’m excited about it. A little apprehensive the way you are any time you move, but generally excited. And of course, ugh, all the work of moving; the packing, the planning what you can use up beforehand and what you can’t, blah blah blah, it all sucks.

2. Still working away. I’m really excited about this fifth book; there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on in it, whee!

3. I’m planning a couple of really cool blog rants for the coming weeks.

4. Just officially confirming for anyone who pays attention to such things that as reported in Publisher’s Marketplace yesterday, my agent Chris Lotts is starting his own agency (The Lotts Agency), and will continue to represent me there.

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!

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 »