Stacia Kane

So, first, a HUGE thank-you to everyone who commented on my “Author Photo” entry. I admit I am totally shocked by your picks; I thought #4 was by far the worst of the bunch, that it made me look moon-faced and elderly. #3 was my favorite by far, followed by 2, then 1, then 4–which I really didn’t like that much at all. So, quite a surprise, indeed. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do; I keep thinking if we do one more round of photos I might hit The One.

But I will say that after years of hating the way I photographed I was very surprised by how nicely most of the pictures we took came out. And that made me feel pretty good.

Something else that’s been making me feel pretty good lately is my expanding collection of matching bra-and-panty sets. (Yeah, I’m talking about my underwear, so? We’re all adults here.)

Soo, for years I haven’t really owned anything remotely like a matching set. Well, I have, I just never really wore them together. I have a couple of velvet bras the hubs bought me when we were engaged; they came with matching velvet boy-shorts, which were adorable but tended to be too warm under clothes (in South Florida, remember) and also tended to slip cown or bunch unattractively. I also bought myself a few sets, but the panties always seem to get worn out so much faster than the bras, in large part because while panties are washed after one wearing, bras aren’t. (Again, c’mon. I can’t be the only woman in the world who’ll wear the same bra for several days. If I’m doing something where I’m sweaty of course I change it immediately, but for day-to-day use…I dunno, am I disgusting for this? It’s just bras aren’t cheap and I don’t have that many.)

Anyway. Yes, I don’t have many bras. So there’s this new store in Barnstaple called La Senza, and they have really nice, inexpensive stuff. So because I’m low on bras I bought a couple. And because they were half-price and the panties were too, I’ve ended up buying several sets over the last couple of months. With the result that I know own like six matching bra-and-panty sets.

And it’s pretty neat, I have to say. It’s kind of fun to have matching stuff. It makes me feel like a grown-up. And they’re so pretty! I bought this one, for example, which isn’t usually my style but is just so cute. Or this one. And several more that aren’t on the website; a pinstripe set (I love pinstripes); a bright baby blue set, a red satin set with black tulle over it, a red set with black stripes…and all so inexpensive!!

So while I’m not always matching (I still have some older bras I love, that don’t have matching panties) these days I seem to match more often than not. And so I’m wondering. Ladies, do you match? Was I weird for not matching before? Am I weird for matching now? Men, what do you think? I’ve heard that men could care less, is that true?

A few other things:

Urban Fantasy Land is having a “Best of 2008″ poll, with some neat categories, so go on over and vote. I am actually nominated, which is cool as hell, in the “Best Demons/Zombies” category, but as I’m in the running against Mark Henry, Richelle Mead and Jackie Kessler, in addition to Justine Musk (my new Twitter friend, which just about stunned me out of my shoes), Jenna Black, and Kat Richardson, I haven’t the proverbial snowball’s chance. But you know, it really is an honor just to be nominated, so I’m content. Anyway, go on over and vote!! Link to the poll! Let’s get some numbers over there!

And when I say “Go over and vote” I mean vote for whomever. Do not vote for me unless you really are crazy enough to think I deserve to win more than those other great writers. As has been mentioned all over the internet in the last few weeks, the Preditors & Editors poll has begun, and while (again) it is very exciting to see my name in it–although I don’t know if I am this year, I haven’t looked, but I know someone nominated me last year and I actually ended up ranking fairly high–it really doesn’t mean anything at all save who has the most buddies with the most dummy email accounts. I love P&E; I think Dave does great work there.

But the poll…ugh. No offense, but you cannot tell me that award is fair, or that the winners always make sense. I hate polls like that, which are nothing more than popularity contests or seeing who can best game the system. When the top tens are consistenly filled with books, publishers, and authors of whom no one has ever heard, something isn’t right.

Also. Our buddy Psynde has a new pet, a really cool fighting fish whom she has named Terrible, after one of my Unholy Ghosts characters (I let Psynde have a sneaky peeky at the ms). “Stunned” does not begin to describe my reaction, no shit. This is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in my entire career; someone actually liked one of my characters so much they named a pet after him. That shit just doesn’t happen to me.

Anyway, stop on over to Psynde’s blog to take a look at Terrible in all his fishy glory and say hi to Psynde, and let’s keep our fingers crossed that my horrendous luck with fish (every time I try to have one it dies within a few hours) doesn’t extend to Terrible.

And I think that’s it for today.

Yes, I know. You’re all waiting with bated breath, right? Ha.

Okay. First, yes, I am messing about with the template. I attempted to download the new CSS template I’m using for my shiny! new! website!, but Blogger kept insisting something was wrong with that code. Nothing was wrong with the code; I’ve run it through three different programs to make sure. The problem, I guess, is that it’s a webpage code and not a blogpage code. I dunno. Anyway, it blows, because I love my shiny! new! website! template. (Above is a sneak preview of the header.)

Anyway. Feedback is appreciated. I can already see the sidebar fonts are too light; I will fix them over the weekend.

Second.

I hope the person in question doesn’t mind me posting this, but a friend said something to me earlier–and I said something in return–that I felt the need to repeat here publicly.

In a nutshell, my friend is getting ready to begin the query process. I sent her a list of names of fantasy agents I esteem–Jim McCarthy, Rachel Vater, Miriam Kriss, Kim Whalen at Trident, Katie Menick at Howard Morhaim, to name a few–to add to her list.

Of course, at the top of the list I put my own agent.

My friend thanked me for the suggestions but mentioned she probably wouldn’t query my agent because she didn’t think she had a chance at interesting an agent with such a prestigious agency (Look, this is what SHE said, okay. I’m not trying to brag or anything here, I’m really not, so I hope I don’t sound like one of these people who’s constantly running around talking about their agent and how their agent is the greatest agent who ever lived and how other writers would kill, yes, kill, to be repped by my agent because my agent gets a billion queries a minute and is clearly The Most Important Person In Publishing and the business would stop dead if this person were ever to leave it because they are so, so, so important and amazing and thus by extension so am I. So please don’t think I’m doing that.)(Although I do obviously think my agent is pretty fucking cool.)

Anyway.

She told me she didn’t have a chance with him, because she didn’t have any prior publication credits and she’s not writing in a “hot” subgenre, and this is what I said in return:

Don’t be ridiculous. Prior credits have nothing to do with it and you should know that. Chris signed {another cool writer} and I don’t think {writer} has any prior credits. I know my prior credits didn’t matter one bit to him.

Query him. Query him, unless you just don’t think you’re good enough to get a really good agent; in which case, why query anybody at all? Believe me, if I’m good enough for him–me, of all people–so is anybody else.

What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll waste under a minute cutting and pasting a query letter? You’ll get a polite rejection? Oooh, scary. :rolleyes

Yes, I’m being deliberately harsh here in an attempt to show you that you’re being silly. Query EVERYONE who can give you proper representation. EVERYONE. So they say no, so what? Chris isn’t some sort of beast; he’s not going to come to your house and throw poop at you if your query isn’t for him, or send out an email to every other agent in NY making fun of you for having the effrontery to think *he* might be interested in your work.

Either you believe you’re publishable or you don’t. (Yes, I use boldface a lot; so? You got a problem with that?) And if you do, you query everyone. Period.

Hugs, dear. I’m trusting that you know I’m really not trying to be a bitch here; I just don’t want you to limit yourself like that. Where would I be right now if I hadn’t decided to go ahead and query him? Maybe I’d be repped by somebody else, sure; I had five or six other fulls out when he offered. But you know, maybe not. Who knows?

Just send the fucking query. At worst you’ll get a form rejection. At best you’ll get a great agent.

And that goes for you too, readers. Don’t give me that shit about how The Big Guys aren’t going to be interested in you. Either you’re ready or you’re not. Either you think your work is publishable or you don’t. Why limit yourself at the query stage? If they say no, they say no; big damn deal. What if Bigtime Agent is the one, and you never find out because you’re too chicken?

There are LOTS of great agents out there. Try them all.

Thus ends your new year inspiration for the day.

So, first, happy Thanksgiving everyone! We’re celebrating here, of course; turkey (all they had was a fifteen-pound behemoth, so we’ve got plenty of turkey, oh yes), mashed potatoes, cornbread, green bean casserole, rolls, corn, cranberry sauce, and of course, homemade pumpkin pie. Ahhh. With fresh whipped cream. (We can’t get Cool Whip here, and call me a philistine, but I love Cool Whip and don’t care that it’s made of inorganic substances. It’s not like we eat the stuff every day.)

And of course, we’re watching the news and keeping an eye on the terrible tragedy in Mumbai. And we’re horrified, and distressed by it.

But you know what? We’re still having Thanksgiving. I’m still blogging (and doing line edits for Unholy Ghosts, yay!) We’re still going to watch Jaws and L.A. Confidential later–our traditional Thanksgiving movies–along with Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

And I refuse to feel bad about that.

Just like I refuse to feel bad about getting caught up in whatever the internet scandal du jour is when the economy is having problems and there’s a war on or whatever. Just like I refuse to feel bad about doing Christmas shopping when there was a tsunami. Or about taking my girls to the park or the play center when…well, insert-very-serious-issue-here.

I’m sure you’ve seen this, too. A little conversation starts on some blog or something about, say, Michelle Obama’s election-night dress. Or Britney Spears. Or any one of thousands of inane and silly–but fun and diverting–discussions. And there’s always got to be some grumpyass, more-intellectual-than-thou person who comes along and chides everyone for “wasting [our] time” talking about clothing or recipes or whatever, when “the economy is in the toilet/there’s a war going on/people are dying/seals are being clubbed/whatever.”

And oooh, does that ever piss me off.

You know what? I’m perfectly aware that there’s a lot of misery in the world. I’m perfectly aware that thousands of people go to bed hungry, or that right at this moment someone could be dying, or losing everything they own, or someone could be measuring themselves for a pretty white seal-sin jacket. And yes, it bothers me. I hate it. Of course I worry about those things, of course they upset me.

But I cannot spend my entire life focusing only on Serious Issues. And neither can you, or anyone else. We’re human; there’s only so much we can take, you know?

Not to mention, even those topics cannot possibly take up entire days and weeks of conversation. You cannot spend your every waking hour writing, talking, or thinking about those topics because they are simply not complex enough to require it.

And what would be the point, anyway? I don’t make government policy and neither do you (well, maybe you do; I know I have some readers in the DC area. *waves*) So we can spend our every waking moment involved in serious discussions about rainforests and ice caps and indigenous peoples, and it won’t make a damn bit of difference–oh, except, apparently, to make us feel superior to others and prove how intellectual and above-it-all we are.

Because really, that’s what’s behind those comments. I love it when people inform me that my interests are silly and my conversations a waste of time–taking time out from their busy schedule of Judging Others and Improving Their Minds, it seems, to drop in and educate the Little Stupid People on what we should really be concerned about. Um, hey, if you have so many Serious Issues on your mind, why are you dropping by here anyway? Did you think perhaps over at the TalkAboutBooksandClothes blog (which I just made up) conversation has suddenly turned to terrorism and its root causes, and your input is sorely needed? Don’t you have anything better to do, like maybe setting up a soup kitchen in your backyard and learning how to weave fabric so you can sew fresh clothing for everyone who needs it? Or maybe you’d prefer to make yourself some clothing–a t-shirt that says something like “I am superior to you in every way, as I only think of serious issues and am very, very smart. This makes me a total boor, but I don’t care because I’m above all that too.” I mean, that is the message you’re trying to get across to us all, right? That you’re better than we are because you’re smarter and more serious, whereas we’re a bunch of flighty idiots? And how dare we have discussions that don’t meet your criteria, or interests that don’t coincide exactly with yours?

I am a human being, and so–I presume–are all of you reading this. And you know what? I have a very wide range of interests and opinions, and I imagine you do as well. I think we ALL do. And while some topics may be more serious than others, I don’t see any reason at all why we should all force ourselves to sit gloomily around, staring at each other and occasionally talking about unemployment.

We NEED diversions. We NEED things to remind us that life goes on. That the world is more than just a vale of tears and misery. There’s good things, too, like high heels and french fries and great books and silver nail polish and action movies where the good guys always win and comedies where you laugh so hard tears roll down your cheeks and music and beer and fast cars and…any one of thousands of other things. That things might be bad now, but that doesn’t mean they’re never going to get better–and that maybe they’re not as bad as we think. We need to remember that even in the midst of tragedy, one of the amazing things about being human is our ability to feel complex emotions; we can laugh through tears, or wear a bittersweet smile. We are perfectly capable of discussing many things, of feeling and thinking many things, all at once.

We’re not one-note beings. And there is nothing in the world wrong with that, just like there is nothing in the world wrong with visiting Go Fug Yourself for some diversion from the misery we see on the news. Just like there is nothing wrong with trading gossip with friends because it’s fun and we need a little break; something to take our mind off our problems.

Just like there is absolutely nothing wrong with being thankful today, even as we spare a thought for the victims in Mubai and their families. And there is nothing wrong with sitting down to a big feast today. There is nothing wrong with planning to go shopping tomorrow to take advantage of all those sales.

Because we need the break. We need the relaxation. We need the comfort of having our families and friends close to us. We need a laugh. We need to remember that in the midst of the bad, there is good, and that we can still laugh and talk and smile; our hearts can still lift, our heads can still clear, and above all, there is still hope in the world.

Because life goes on. And quite frankly, if you don’t know that…maybe you’re not as clever as you think.