Stacia Kane

So earlier today I happened to see something online about the KFC “Double Down” sandwich, which made me immediately think of the Luther Burger, although the version I’d always heard of the Luther Burger involved two jelly donuts used as buns, not grilled glazed donuts, but whatever. The point is, the Double Down sort of resembles the Luther Burger, in that it is disgustingly fatty and is probably delicious if you like that sort of thing; it’s bacon and cheese between two fried chicken fillets.

Anyway, while I have no desire to try to Double Down, reading about it did sort of make me want to have KFC for dinner, simply because why not, it’s been months and months. Hubs opted for Arby’s instead, which was right nearby; he went through the drive-thru there after dropping me off at the KFC to order for me and the kiddies.

Aaanyway. I guess we got there right after the dinner rush or something, because I had to wait a while after I ordered. No problem, I don’t mind. So I got the drinks (remember when you weren’t expected to fill your own cups at the soda dispensers? And how nice that was? I mean, I know fast food is cheap, but really, if I’m expected to work for my food it should be even cheaper. Sorry if that’s whiney; I’ve worked in fast food and I know how shitty it is, but seriously. It’s just weird to be handed an empty cup. Like I’m being told to get it my damn self if I want a damn drink so bad.)

So I get the drinks and stand at the counter, watching the two or three KFC employees racing around trying to fill orders. There was one guy who ordered before me, and then a Boy Scout troop leader who I guess also ordered before me but had wandered off to do something else. He appeared at the counter beside me, in his little Boy Scout outfit, complete with stupid just-below-the-knee shorts. Seriously, men? Stop wearing those fucking things, you look ridiculous in them. It does not, as you may imagine, provide you with some sort of Devil-May-Care insouciance. It makes you look like some creepy serial killer whose Mommy raised him as a girl. Plus, they make you look short and fat. ALL of you. Those things would make Ryan Reynolds look short and fat, and we all know Ryan Reynolds is built like a god or something. A God of sexy-body-ness:

Note the long pants

You are a grown man. Wear pants.
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Yes, yes, we all know about Amazon vs. MacMillan. And I’m sure we all have our own opinions. I know I certainly do, but since Scott Westerfeld said it better I’m just going to link to his post on it, and say, THIS.

I am also leaving the Amazon links up on my site, because I know there are readers who prefer Amazon, or even side with Amazon. But I do encourage you all to buy your books elsewhere. Bookstores are important. Choice is important. Support bookstores, and buy from them, because it matters.

Now. This weekend was also my first-ever attempt at making a beef-and-lentil soup. It turned out pretty well! As always I messed about with the recipe a bit, sort of amalgamating several into one and picking and choosing. For example, most recipes I found called for canned tomatoes. I don’t particularly like eating tomatoes in soup, so I substituted a can of tomato paste instead; tomato flavor with no slimy tomatoes. So here’s the recipe, since I promised I’d post it:
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Wow, it’s been a while, huh?

Sorry. I was, in the words of Bill Murray in Caddyshack, unavoidably detained.

Christmas shopping. Christmas cooking. Having family here for Christmas–my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces came for a visit. Good Christmas, in all. I got some cool books and a nice big Le Creuset pot to add to my collection (I am obsessed with Le Creuset, if you’re unaware of that).

Also, moving. In a nutshell, our landlord wanted us to buy the house, whereas as time went on we started thinking we did not in fact want to buy the house. But he really wants to sell the house, so we have moved out of the house. So now we’re in an apartment my mom owns, basically. Much cheaper, much smaller, but fine, and frankly we’re happy to be done with the house. The only problem is, we had no one to help us move, really, so spent from New year’s Day until the 5th hauling bags and boxes of stuff around. It was tiring and made me achy, and I’m glad to be done with it.

Also Faerie got her hair cut, which is adorable, but was weird for me as it was her first haircut ever. All that baby hair, gone! It went from butt-length to shoulder-length. The good news is I think the ponytail is just about long enough to donate to Locks of Love, and even better than that is that Princess now wants her hair cut as well, and her ponytail will definitely be long enough to donate. And her hair is very thick. So I’m pleased about that.

And yes it has been very cold here, and we had a little snow.

But enough with the domestic blah blah blahs. (Unless you want to tell me about your holidays, in which case please do!) Let’s talk about fun stuff!

First, I’m debating whether or not to keep the blog on a Monday/Thursday schedule, or if I should just blog when the mood strikes me. Thoughts? (And yes, I know, I haven’t exactly been regular of late, but I’m trying to get back into the swing of things.)

Second, ARCs for UNHOLY GHOSTS went out last month, and I’m already seeing some feedback online. I’ve got a couple of reviews, which sadly I can’t share yet but am very excited about, but here’s some Goodreads updates from one fabulous, charming, and delightful reviewer, if you’d like to take a look.

Third, got my Guest status approval from Dragon*Con for 2010 a week or so ago, so as of now I plan to be there with bells on. (Probably not literally, no. I’m not really a bell kind of a girl. But I’ll be there anyway!)

And I’m working. I have three open projects at the moment and am shuffling my way through them, which is fun. Also have had thoughts on a number of writing-related topics we’ll be covering here on the blog.

Which brings me to an apology. It’s an apology for something you guys didn’t know about, but an apology just the same. I’d intended to use the days before Xmas to convert the Strumpet series to PDF and expand it as a gift to all of you; unfortunately because of the family and everything else, I didn’t have the time. I barely had time to open the computer at all, in fact. So it didn’t get done. I do still really want to do it, and am still working on it in drips and drabs. So do look for it soonish, and if you’re one of those who has asked me about it or who got use out of it, and have any comments on it or anything you feel you’d like to see expanded or gone deeper into (heh heh), please let me know, either by commenting here or by emailing.

I’m also considering, once that’s done, uploading it onto Lulu so y’all can get print copies if you so desire. Does anyone have any experience with that? Because given how bad I am at that sort of thing, I have a feeling I’ll need help when the time comes.

And I guess that’s about it for the moment. I certainly hope you all had wonderful holidays, and that you’re all keeping warm!!

So, I’m sad Dragoncon has ended. Not just because it was exciting and cool and I met some amazing people, but because the end of the show means Mark, Tiffany, and Synde will be leaving. I hardly got to hang with Richelle or Nicole at all, and they’re already gone.

So in my depression, I thought it might be fun to do a little shopping yesterday. I hadn’t had a chance to head down to the dealer rooms at all–I barely left the Hyatt, where all the dark fantasy stuff was taking place–and since I had no panels, and neither did my pals, I figured it would be a good time.

The dealer rooms were still busy and they’d marked down a lot of stuff; the better not to have to drive it all home, right? And a lot of it was pretty cool stuff, too. I was, being me, particularly interested in the corset sellers, since I love corsets and am always looking for new ones. I have four already and wore one on Sunday, so…a new corset from Dragoncon would have been pretty cool.

I didn’t see any I particularly liked in the first couple of booths–they were beautiful but nothing caught my eye–and when we got to the last and biggest booth, which was “Corsets by Casta Diva,” I was determined to find something I wanted.

I started skimming through the tags looking for 24s. I’d been at it only a minute or two when one of the women who worked there asked me if she could help me find something. We then proceeded to have this conversation:

Me: I’m just looking for 24s. Are they all grouped together, or–

Her: I don’t think you’re a 24.

Me (frowning): All my other corsets are 24s.

Now at this point, I feel as though I’m not only being told I’m fatter than I think I am, but that I am too stupid to know what size I wear or that I’m lying about my size. Not to mention it’s the last day of a con. I’m a little bloated. I haven’t slept more than a few hours since Wednesday night.

Her: Have you been measured?

Me: Not in–

Her: I need to measure you.

I didn’t feel the need to be measured, as I was measured when I moved from 26 to 24 by a very sweet lady at Fairy GothMother in London (where my other corsets came from). But her tone brooked no argument. She clearly expected me to obey or she would throw my fat ass out of the store. So I sigh and hold up my arms so she can measure me, thinking all the while that I don’t understand the need for this and I’m quite irritated by the whole thing. I don’t appreciate being told I don’t know what size I am. I don’t appreciate at all the implication that I’m lying about my size. And frankly, what the hell business is it of hers what size I buy?

So she measures me.

Her: That’s what I thought. You’re really a 25.

Me: …

Her (doubtfully): I guess if you insist on a 24, you can have one.

Me: Thank you.

And that’s when I turned and left. Oh, and informed my friends loudly that I didn’t need anyone else to be bitchy to me. Like that bitchy woman.

Which she was. What the fuck, man? I’m standing there telling you what size I am, and that all my other corsets are that size. But you still feel the need to measure me? And then to tell me that I’m wrong but you guess if I insist, you’ll condescend to give me the size I normally wear? I didn’t ask for your fucking help to begin with. I certainly didn’t ask you to measure me. I’ve been wearing corsets for several years now; trust me, I know how to wear them and what fucking size I am.

So there you go. “Corsets by Casta Diva” could have gotten some of my money, if they’d paid me the respect of assuming that as a regular corset-wearer I know what the fuck I’m doing, and hadn’t gone out of their way to Prove Me Wrong over an inch which is frankly due to con bloat, ladycycles (isn’t that a lovely little euphemism?), and drinking almost an entire bottle of Grey Goose–the big bottles–in three days.

It just ended things on a bit of a sour note. I was already sad that it was ending, and everyone was leaving. I didn’t need to be insulted and informed I was actually much fatter than I thought I was on top of it.

I’ll be back later to post a picture or two and to rant about something else, which had nothing really to do with me but which upset me quite a bit nonetheless.

Be gentle with me today, everyone. I spent an hour this morning with the Hair Butcher of Alpharetta, and am feeling a mite traumatized. I should have realized something was wrong when I saw her Laura Ashley-esque dress and little wedge heels; this woman would not understand what it means to want to look like a whorish punk rock Barbie. And no, she did not. The good news is, apparently I’m a better hairstylist than I thought, as all she really did (at first) was to trim–barely–the layers I myself cut. It was when I explained I wanted MORE layers that the trouble started. But oh well. It’s only hair. It grows. And I can put enough gunk in it to fix it in the end.

Anyway. Enough about me.

As I said the other day, I have plenty of crit submissions; six or seven, I believe. I am going to try to do them all, interspersed throughout instead of at the end. Thanks so much to all who submitted.

So. Last time I gave you all a bit of background on my fantastic crit partners. Today I’m going to talk about finding partners, a bit, and next week we’ll start doing the crits and talking about how what we need from crits changes as our skills develop. Next week we start getting into the nitty-gritty, in other words.

Kait Nolan left a link in comments on Monday that I want to post here. It’s Crit Partner Match and it looks pretty good to me.

But it occurs to me that with the exception of Anna, none of my critique partners were found specifically to be critique partners. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Crit Partner Match service–I think it’s incredibly clever, actually–or any of the other services about which I’ve heard good things, like CritiqueCircle.com.

My suggestion? Join Absolute Write. Or any other writer’s forum that has beginning and professional writers as members; that has a good mix. Romance Divas is another, if you write romance. As with any forum, AW or Divas are not for everyone. Hang out for a while. Join some conversations. Get to know people a bit.

For the love of all that’s holy, do some research before you join such a forum. Don’t join a forum called (to pull a name out of my mullet) “Professional Writers” or some such faff without checking the members out. Are they actually pros, or are they all self-published? Are they PA “authors”? Do they actually know what it means to be professional, in other words? What kinds of people do they seem to be? This may be simply a quirk of mine, but I avoid any forum where I see more than one member discussing their own God-given talent. Or offering to trade Amazon reviews. Or discussing promo ideas like slipping bookmarks into their utility bills so “the person opening the envelope sees it.” (Those are all opened by machine, AFAIK, anyway.) Do you know what I mean? You want a cp who knows what the hell they’re talking about.
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