Stacia Kane

I have a few final thoughts on my little art and compromise series, but first I have a couple of new reviews for UNHOLY MAGIC I’d like to share.

Book Chick City calls it “one of the best books [she's] ever read,” and says:

For me, Unholy Magic has the precise combination and balance of everything I love about the urban fantasy genre: action, romance, complex but likeable characters and world building. I adored this book so much from beginning to end – just perfect.

Smexy Books says:

Kane has written one of the most dark and disturbing Urban Fantasy’s I have read in a long time. This story drug me in, striped me bare, then rebuilt me page by page till the end. Enticing and addicting from page one…

5 out of 5 from The Fiction Vixen: In trying to come up with an adjective to describe the over all tone and feel of this story, I came up short. Gritty seems weak in reference to this book and just does not cover it. I had a brief twitter conversation about the Downside series and I eventually came up with this: Unholy Magic spits on gritty and calls its mother names. Yes, this book is that bad ass! Stacia Kane has written an amazing, spine tingling novel in Unholy Magic, taking me by surprise by surpassing even the brilliance of its predecessor Unholy Ghosts.

Last but certainly not least, we have Barnes & Noble’s Paul Goat Allen on the B&N Explorations blog, a man who’s been reading and reviewing fantasy for twenty years or so:

The bottom line is this – never before in paranormal fantasy have I read a series that features the combination of grand scale world building, labyrinthine storyline, superb character development, and social relevance. Stacia Kane’s Downside saga is taking paranormal fantasy to another level right before our eyes…

I challenge anyone who has never read a paranormal fantasy before to read this series – I’ll guarantee you that you never look at paranormal fantasy the same way again.

So, um, all of those are really nice to get.

But they do kind of have something to do with my art posts, honestly they do. Because yesterday the first post, But is it Art?was linked to on io9. Which was also pretty cool.

But I found the comments over there really interesting, in that so many of them seemed to automatically assume that you must compromise in order to get published, that it was necessary. That if you want to be published you have to expect you’ll be told to change things.

That hasn’t been my experience at all, frankly. While UNHOLY GHOSTS isn’t everything I’d envisioned it being when I started writing it, that’s my failure; I wasn’t asked to tone anything down or change anything fundamental about the story, characters, or world. Not one thing. Not in any of the Downside books, in fact. Not in any of the Demons books, either. Hell, DEMON INSIDE has a ritual cannibalism scene involving the hero of the series. Nobody asked me to take that out or tone it down or change it. Nobody has asked me to change or tone down anything I’ve written, frankly, with the sole exception of–as I’ve mentioned before–the incestuous rape scene in DEMON’S TRIAD, and that was perfectly understandable and perfectly okay with Anna and I; we’d inadvertently made it a bit sexier than it should have been and so needed to tone it down. That wasn’t a compromise. We weren’t asked to remove the rape, which was female-on-male. We were just asked not to make it titillating, and like I said, we were happy to do so.

That is honestly the only time in my entire career that I can think of where I was asked to change something in one of my books, and that’s not really a change at all. I’ve never had to give up on anything truly important to me. I honestly don’t know anyone who has.

Yes, saying that does sort of negate the whole point of the first post. And I think it’s important to remember that DEMON’S TRIAD was an X-rated ebook, sold with a warning; that scene very well may not have flown in NY, especially NY genre romance. UNHOLY GHOSTS and the Downside books are urban fantasies, which also give me a bit more leeway. As I said on Tuesday, if you want to write a cannibal love story (in mine, it was ritualistic and involved non-humans, remember) you may have problems. There are a lot of difficult subjects that you may indeed need to wait to write, until you have a bigger name or more solid standing.

But I also believe it comes down to the writing. I’d never sold to NY when I signed with my agent for UNHOLY GHOSTS, and the series was my first NY sale. I had no standing in the industry (not that I think I do now; I’m still nobody, really). But my agent and several editors felt my writing was strong enough, my story, characters, and worldbuilding compelling enough, that they didn’t care about the slightly difficult subject.

Which brings us full circle. Getting published isn’t about compromising. getting published is about writing. It’s about characters and story. Focus on those, and on being true to them and to yourself, and on giving your work that emotional depth and making it as strong as you possibly can. That’s how you get published, not by giving in or giving up or whatever.

Tomorrow I’m going to post the CITY OF GHOSTS playlist, I think, and a weekend SNeak Peek. I’m also thinking of a contest of some kind, to name a character in the fourth Downside book? Trying to think of a fun way to have people enter; I’m thinking of doing a Twitter contest using the #cityofghosts hashtag HarperVoyager already came up with. Thoughts? Anybody interested?

On Tuesday we discussed whether or not writing was art, and how much of ourselves writers should put into their work. And it kind of struck me, as the discussion ran along similar lines at Romance Divas, as I was writing the post, and as I was preparing this one, that if we’re going to accept books as art and writers as artists…are writers the only artists who are regularly expected to completely distance themselves from their art? To act as if it has nothing to do with them?

I think this perhaps happens a bit more in genre fiction. I do believe there’s a sense that literary fiction is more artistic, that it’s deeper and more expressive or whatever. I think literary fiction writers are allowed to “get away with” stuff genre fiction writers could never even attempt.

But why is that? Is it because we think genre fiction is easier to write? Anyone who’s tried to write it can tell you it’s not. Is it because we think since the stories have certain general tropes that they’re not as original, or again, that they’re easy to write? Maybe. Maybe there is a sense out there that genre fiction isn’t art because we’re just putting a bunch of elements together in the same way as everyone else does, and that it doesn’t require any real depth from the writer. Which, as we discussed a bit on Tuesday, I think is frankly bullshit. In order to create a fully fleshed-out character you have to do some digging. In order to create a real and complex world you need to do that. If you want to make your story mean anything to readers, elicit any emotion in readers, you need to elicit that emotion in yourself, which means digging deep and–again–being honest. You can’t hide or lie to readers in your work.

But I do think there’s a weird kind of pressure on genre fiction writers to not let on that they see themselves or think of themselves as artists. There’s a definite pressure to act like their art means nothing to them, like it’s an entity completely separate from them.

Think of it this way. If a painter has a gallery show, and a critic ravages his work, does anyone frown and kick up a fuss if the artist gets upset about it? Does anyone remind him that reviews don’t exist to make him feel better, but to inform art lovers whether or not his work is worth their time? Not as far as I know. People expect the artist to be upset about terrible reviews. They expect him to be temperamental; hell, we all know what the phrase “artistic temperament” means, don’t we?

Now, I am NOT, absolutely NOT, implying in any way that reviewers don’t have the right to say whatever they want about books, or that reviews aren’t for readers and not writers–they absolutely are–or that writers should be allowed to freak out all over the internet and threaten people or name crack whore characters after people who gave them bad reviews or whatever. No, no, no, I’m not saying that at all, not one bit; you all know how I feel about that. This post isn’t about reviewers or reviews, except insomuch as they can be another example of what I feel is the expectation that genre fiction writers not consider themselves artists, not think or talk about themselves as artists, and not act as though their art is important to them. Like caring about your work has become synonymous somehow with freak-out rants and threats, instead of just…caring about your work. I’m not implying in any way that this sort of pressure comes solely from reviewers or readers, either; it comes from other writers just as much if not more.

Let’s take the “book as baby” cliche. Now, I am 100% in favor of the “Your book is NOT your baby,” reply to that one. I’ve had two babies. I’ve written over a dozen novels. I can tell you they’re entirely different.

And yes, you should be able to distance yourself from your work to some extent. Your work isn’t you. People are going to have differing opinions about your work; some may love it, some may hate it. Just like some people like you and some people hate you, and we try to learn from an early age that a lot of peoples’ opinions just don’t matter, that the only people whose opinions we should care about are our families and close friends, our bosses, whatever. You know what I mean.

But at the same time, as we discussed a bit on Tuesday, when you write you do put a lot of yourself into the work. And a lot of people will decide from that work that they can judge or define you as a person; that they somehow know you because they’ve read your books. And as I said, maybe they do. I don’t know what people think of me after reading my books, or what sort of person they think I am, or what clues to that they’ve found in my work. And this sort of judgment has always taken place, and still takes place, everywhere from the largest newspaper in the country to the smallest review blog. People always want to analyze the writer through his or her work, and they always want to analyze the work by connecting it to what they know of the writer. That’s normal; it’s just the way it goes. But again, that seems to be the case for literary fiction and not genre fiction.

I don’t believe genre fiction is any less artistic than literary fiction. I don’t believe genre fiction writers put any less of themselves into their work or expose themselves any less, at least not good genre fiction writers. I’m tired of fantasy or science fiction or romance being treated like they’re not “real” books. But I also wonder, at what point does that become, not a self-fulfilling prophecy, but one which we ourselves contribute to?

See, every time we as genre fiction writers huff indignantly that our work isn’t that special to us, that it’s not our baby, that it’s not ourselves, maybe we contribute to the idea that genre fiction isn’t art and shouldn’t be treated/considered as such. Maybe we contribute to the idea that we haven’t put anything of ourselves into the work, that we haven’t actually written anything of depth or truth.

It comes into the “professionalism” argument as well. We’re all so worried about being professional, about being easy to work with and seeing our work as a commodity and ourselves as commodities and all of that…have we become so focused on publishing as a business that we’ve forgotten about the magic of it? About the art? Have we tried so hard to be seen as professionals, not as silly women writing silly things or whatever, that we’ve stripped away some of the joy, and turned art into drudgery? We don’t want to say our work matters to us because that’s not a professional attitude; but you tell me in what other profession people are expected not to care about their work? Why can’t we be professional and still deeply invested in what we do?

It seems sometimes as if that attitude, the “Oh, my work is just what I do for a living, it doesn’t really mean that much to me, I’m totally cool, yo,” attitude, is expected of us. And I’m not sure why. Is it because we do see the occasional stunning online meltdown, with ranting and name-calling and “Wicca curses” and the ever-popular “I’d like to see you write a book, mean girl!” and we all want to distance ourselves from that as much as possible? Maybe. Is it because in some ways genre fiction feels more like a popularity contest than literary fiction, by which I mean we’re expected to network with our readers and interact with them; we’re expected to be accessible and friendly and open, in a way I don’t think litfic writers are? (I could be totally wrong about that, it’s just the impression I get and something I’ve noticed). Litfic writers get on Oprah; genre fiction writers get on Twitter.

I love interacting with readers, I honestly do. I don’t mind the expectation that I promote and Tweet and blog and all of that other stuff, because I enjoy doing all of that. But again, I wonder if the desire to be liked by readers, the desire to be popular, to not offend them, to make them want to support us, has made us deny our art? Has made us put it down or act like it’s nothing special or important in order to seem like just one of the gals, as it were? If we say our work is important, or imply that we’ve done something special that only we can do (by which I mean expressing our own individual truth and telling our own individual story, not writing in general; certainly neither I nor any of my friends are the only people who can write) then we’re not implying to our readers that we think we’re better than them. We’re equalizing with them. We’re being careful not to let a hint of ego or arrogance leak into the air around us, because if they think we’re an asshole they might not buy our books. Hell, even just talking about what our goals were or what we hoped to accomplish with our books can be seen as pretentious or entitled or whatever else.

And I do think that’s part of it as well. Sometimes it feels as thought the denial of genre fiction as art is really writers being told to get the hell over themselves, they only wrote a fantasy novel, you know?

I admit part of that is true. As proud as I am of the Downside books and as much of myself as I put into them, I don’t think they’re WAR AND PEACE. I know they’re not.

But they are art. They are my art. They are an expression of something deep inside me and the way I see the world. That’s what art is; the expression of something to elicit an emotional reaction, remember?

I’m happy to distance myself from that art when necessary; I don’t show up screaming on review blogs if someone didn’t love my work. I don’t reply to Amazon reviews or whatever. That’s not my place. I will freely admit that my books are not my babies, and I will let them go, and let people interpret them as they may. All of that is fine, and expected, and right.

But what I will not do any longer is pretend that my books aren’t part of me, and that they don’t matter, and that they aren’t art. Because they are.

This is something I’ve been thinking of for a while, and have wanted to post about for a while, too. It’s probably the first post of a few, and I warn you, I may ramble a bit.

A few weeks ago over on the Romance Divas forum a discussion was started about honesty in your writing, and what that means. It moved on into discussions of art and connection to your work as art, which I’m also going to discuss. So basically we’re going to have a big mishmash of Stacia’s Deep Thoughts about writing, which will hopefully be fun for everyone, but of course we’ll see, won’t we?

Anyway. The initial question, posted by the lovely and talented Kate Pearce, was whether or not we, as writers, compromise ourselves–change what we want to write–in order to sell the work or make it “acceptable” to a particular audience; do we stop ourselves from writing things readers might react badly to. Keeping in mind we’re discussing genre fiction, and genre fiction has certain conventions and reader expectations. All of which are, of course, perfectly fine; readers are entitled to expect the book they pick up will be what the cover and bookstore shelving or whatever promises them it will be.

But at what point do we stop writing what we want to write in order to be successful? At what point do we suffer for refusing to do so?

The thing is, your writing should excite you. Not ‘excite” as discussed in the Strumpet series, lol (although sometimes it should, depending on what you’re writing), but excite as in fire you up intellectually and creatively. I firmly believe that if what you’re writing doesn’t do that, the reader will sense it. The writing will be flat. The story will seem cliche. And frankly, a flat, cliche story stands very little chance of selling (yes, there are exceptions, but in general, and especially when it comes to first-time authors or those just beginning careers). This post isn’t about writing techniques, though. It’s about the deeper aspects of writing, the emotional stuff, the stuff we couch in skill.
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…So that’s what I’m doing today.

Today is the official release day for UNHOLY GHOSTS in the US, and I guess it’s being released in the UK/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand as well? Yes, it seems that way. And I’m frankly terrified. Excited and elated and terrified.

We had a couple of new reviews come in, and they’re good ones. Not just, or not necessarily, because they’re positive, although they largely are, but because they’re thoughtful. Because they read the book and really considered it, and really put that consideration into the reviews, and really?

It’s not my place as an author to ask reviewers or readers for shit. It’s not my place to tell them how they should think or feel about my work, or how they should express those feelings. But I won’t deny that it pleases me immensely and makes me feel good when they do put that consideration and thought into their reviews. It’s gratifying, and I appreciate it, and if I could ask for something, that would be what I would ask for.

So first we have Michele Lee’s Book Love:

Unholy Ghosts is a thrilling ride, textured and vivid, a powerhouse of fantasy. Brimming with characters that aren’t quite heroes but aren’t quite bad guys either, it shows the hard core, broke down parts of the world other stories skip over, the dark side of reality that comes not from magic, but from the poor, desperate and disillusioned trying to make it through a hard life.

Seriously? I got a little teary when I saw this one. It was so close to how I think of the books; Michele understood so clearly what I was trying to do and express. It’s absolutely amazing to feel understood like that, and like you’ve truly connected with someone through your work.
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I could have sworn that I’ve blogged about this before, but I just did a search and nothing turned up, so I guess I haven’t. Or maybe I’m searching wrong. Anyway. (No, I did sort of discuss this before, in this 2007 post, but not with the same focus, so I don’t feel as though I’m repeating myself.)

Here’s the thing. Writing involves making up stories. Perhaps you’re a plotter, one of those bizarre creatures who knows exactly what’s going to happen in the story before you open a shiny new Document and follows your path as tidily as a ballerina with months of rehearsal. (In which case I seriously envy you, despite my snottiness. It’s fond, admiring snottiness, I promise.)

Or maybe you’re a pantser like me, and start with a character or two and a premise, and toss them into the document and see what happens. Maybe like me you have a few vague ideas of where the story will go; I tend to have some sort of idea of what the climactic battle will be like, and maybe a scene or two sort of lurking in the back of my mind waiting to be used.

But either way, you need to make up the story. It’s down to YOU; it’s your responsibility. Quite frankly, a fiction writer who cannot make up a story is not a fiction writer. If writing fiction is what you want to do, you need to learn and absorb the skill of Making Shit Up. Period.

Which is why it drives me insane when I see writers–or those who want to be or claim to be writers–asking people what they should do with their story. Should the hero and heroine get together now? Should the villain do this or that? How old should the characters be? Should the villain die at the end? Should the father be the bad guy?

Then there are the secondary questions, what I refer to as the “unfamiliar” questions. I call them that because the questioner is seemingly unfamiliar with either the genre in which they are writing, or with books in general. (They could also be called the “Is it okay” questions, since they tend to start that way. These are questions like, “Is it okay if the hero cusses? Is it okay if the heroine isn’t a virgin? Is it okay if the heroine kills the bad guy? Is it okay if the hero gets drunk? Is it okay if the hero has a kid?” etc. etc.

I’d say the latter annoy me more, but honestly, they both annoy me equally.

First, a couple of quick things:

1. “The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2″ has been released, containing stories by myself, Jeanne Stein, Jaye Wells, Caitlin Kittredge, Tiffany Trent, and Ann Aguirre. My story, titled “Trust Me,” is–I think–kind of a fun little yarn about Jack the Ripper, and is officially the Last Erotic Romance story I wrote (for now). So while I did tone it down a bit for the antho, expect lots of sexxoring.

Shorts are difficult for me, in general; I have a hard time keeping myself from expanding and expanding and introducing subplots. But this was a story that really didn’t leave a lot of room for a novel, and the idea had appealed to me for some time (as with all mystery buffs and goulish people, I am fascinated by the Ripper), so when I had the opportunity to submit it for the antho I jumped at it. So rush on out and get it; my story is probably the weakest of the bunch, given the other names involved, but I think it’s kind of a sweet little tale nonetheless.

2. Kari Stewart, my agent-mate and author of A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS, coming next summer from Roc, has written a great little series on writing series novels on her blog. You have to scroll down a few entires, but it’s well worth it.

3. Charlaine Harris did an interview at Voice America’s “Mystery Matters” show on Friday, and guess who she mentioned as one of her favorite secondary characters ever, right around the fifty-four minute mark? Terrible, my big bad greaser from UNHOLY GHOSTS. Check it out!

Now. To the point of the post. (Yes, I seem to be on a bit of a self-publishing kick. I promise I have not forgotten the Critique series. I’m just busy as heck these days and going through some other things I won’t bore you with.)
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*except when it is. Which isn’t often.

Lemme ‘splain.

More and more lately I’ve been hearing this argument, or discussion, or comment. Self-publishing is just like punk rock! Because anyone can do it. Because self-published authors are taking the bull by the horns and doing it themselves! Fuck the Publishing Man! Rock on!

And it’s something I’ve wanted to write about for some time, but it was this Genreville blog post in PW that finally inspired me to do so.

Yes, there are a few similarities, or rather, there is one way in which they are alike. But for the most part they are vastly different, and this is what irritates me and makes me want to pull out my hair sometimes. Because the differences are vast and wide.

Before I start, let me give you a quick run-down of my credentials to even discuss this topic. I was heavily involved in the punk scene for, oh, ten years or so. With an ex-boyfriend of mine, who was in a band, I ran a tiny punk record label; we sold records for a dollar each. I helped book shows; I had bands stay at my house; I slept on floors; I did a little touring; I watched recording sessions; I sang one line in a song that ended up on a Lookout! records compilation; I went to drunken all-night parties; I never paid to get into shows because I always knew somebody in the band; I traveled across country with the ex (he wasn’t my ex at the time) and his band to attend a three-day punk festival in northern California; I can play a few Ramones and Sex Pistols songs on the guitar; I started my own band with a couple of other girls, and we were getting ready to try booking a show when our drummer quit; and a whole bunch of other stuff I’ve forgotten. This was one of my favorite things about writing the Downside books, was being able to draw on those experiences and namecheck my favorite bands.

I say this just because I want to make it clear that I do in fact know what I’m talking about; it’s not to brag or say “Look how cool I am” or anything of that nature (I readily admit I am not cool. Perhaps I was at one point in my life, but now I sit around all day writing and pouring juice for my daughters).

The only self-publishing I can honestly and truly say is punk rock are zines. Zines are–at least they used to be–fully punk self-publishing. Handwritten pages (although now that we have computers it’s very possible they’re typeset or laid out using Pagemaker or whatever), usually full of personal essays, record reviews, jokes, show reviews, that sort of thing, photocopied and stapled together at Kinko’s or in your basement or whatever. Are you getting a sense here of what punk rock zines are about? Could it be, hmm, that they are about punk rock? (I haven’t seen a zine in a while, save some of my old copies of big ones like COMETBUS or SCAM. So forgive me if some of my zine info is a little out of date.)

The rest? Not so much.
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This article originally appeared, in a slightly different form, over at Emily Veinglory’s EREC blog. Then last summer it was published in the September issue of Lady Jaided, the Ellora’s Cave online magazine. But it occurred to me this evening that I’m quite proud of this little piece, and it should be on my site. So here it is.
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Well, here we are. My first blog post in my new home. I hope it works. Have you all seen StaciaKane.net? Staciakane.com should lead to it too (waiting for the nameservers to change over) as well as decemberquinn.com. I love the site; it’s better than I could possible have hoped. The fabulous Frauke at Croco Designs did it for me; she literally took my logo and my few vague thoughts (“I like skulls and black and white” is basically everything I gave her, no shit) and created the most gorgeous site ever. So go check it out. And yes, there are still some lurking typos; we’re working on it, I swear.

Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday. It was the hubs’ birthday, which of course I forgot when I did my Monday post, as we actually did most of our celebrating on Tuesday; dinner at Trader Vic’s downtown and a night at the Hilton (so we could both drink, y’see, and not have to drive home. And boy, did we drink. Mmm…tiki drinks.)

Anyway. So that deadline I had? Yes. I am very pleased to announce that DEMON POSSESSED, the third Megan Chase novel, was turned in at about 4:30 am Tuesday morning. Overall I’m pretty happy with it. I didn’t get as much editing as I would have liked, but my editor will be sending it back with her comments next week, I believe, so I can fix whatever little issues there may still be then. But I certainly think I’ve managed to up the stakes exponentially in this one, and the main conflict of the book came off pretty much exactly as I’d hoped and had been planning since I wrote the first one. So we’ll see.

This is the main problem, for me. When I start I’m all excited and think the book will be fantastic. It never lives up to what I had in mind. I can only hope it comes close. I could tinker with a book forever. FOREVER. At some point I have to force myself to stop–or well, now my editors force me to stop–and release it into the wild like an orphaned baby animal who can now hopefully fend for itself. And hope it gets a decent reception.

Oh! And this is exciting. UNHOLY GHOSTS is listed on the HarperVoyager website (UK) and they’ve added their own copy, which I will now share with you cuz I think it’s pretty fucking cool:

The first book in a compelling new urban fantasy series, The Downside Ghosts. Murderous spirits and ruthless drug dealers combine to create serious problems for fiercely independent heroine, Chess, in these fast-paced, sexy and addictive novels – fitting for a witch with a serious drug problem.

Cessaria – or ‘Chess’ – Putnam is a troubled young witch who hunts down and banishes angry spirits (there aren’t any other kind). Her tools are few: magical tattoos that alert her to their presence, an arcane powder or two, grave dirt and her devious imagination. Chess’ employer is the only powerful institution left in the world: the Church of Truth. After the dead rose, twenty-three years ago, to slake their thirst for blood, governments and religious institutions fell, and the Church of Truth took their place. They harnessed the supernatural and saved the remaining population. The Church has been training witches ever since. Chess lost her family during Haunted week and grew up in a succession of abusive childrens’ homes and foster families until the Church recognised her talent and took her in. But she’s still haunted by those memories, and has developed a ‘small’ drug problem in order to stifle them; a problem that could see her lose everything if it were uncovered, and one that frequently gets in her way. Not only is she caught between her addiction and Church rules, she is also exploited by her dealers, who see her as their own personal banisher; juggling her commitments has never been more difficult, especially when someone summons a Dream Thief: a dark force so powerful and malevolent that it even frightens the dead.

I notice they’re calling it the “Downside Ghosts” series, which is also pretty cool. I’ve been (as you know) calling it the Downside series; I’ve seen it referred to as the Chess Putnam series and assumed that was how Del Rey would refer to it. But whatever.

Anyway. Monday we start our Summer Series on critiques and critique partners. And I am going to try to figure out how to do lj-cuts at WordPress and start tagging all the old entries.

Ooooh…and this new coffee I just bought is delicious; Ghirardelli organic Cinnamon Chocolate Almond, especially when I add some French Vanilla creamer to it. Now, I take my coffee black a large percentage of the time–when I drink it, which isn’t a lot–so don’t jump all over me about my hideous oversweetened tastes. Sometimes I like to try something different, is all. And this stuff is seriously yum. I can happily drink this all day, oh yes.

And why am I drinking so much coffee?

Because work time is upon me.

Today is June 1st. I have thirty days to finish DEMON POSSESSED. So if I am rather scarce for the next month, you know why. I shall try not to be scarce, as I’ve been so scarce the last few months, but I can’t guarantee my presence. Deadlines are deadlines, and I have me one of them.

I’m having fun with it, though. Which is nice. Getting back into the Demons world after so long–it’s been almost two years since I’ve written these characters–was a bit of a challenge at first but once it clicked again, it clicked again, and I’m really enjoying myself. We’ve had some sweet moments and some funny moments and some sexy moments, and I’m about to start the lead-in into the Moments Which Might Make You Want To Kill Me. Um. Yes, some Bad Things happen in this one. But you must trust me.

Anyway. In the midst of plotting and giggling and worrying, copyedits for the second Downside book arrived; the one which used to be DOWNSIDE GHOSTS and is now UNHOLY MAGIC. Which, btw, is up on Amazon!!

No cover yet–you know I’ll share that with you guys as soon as I get it, and I’ll post the blurb then as well–but the listing is there, and I’m excited about it.

Especially since…well. I’ve had a bit of a change of heart about that book. It was my Problem Child before, for several reasons, which I will outline for you now:

* It followed UNHOLY GHOSTS, about which I was more excited than I’ve ever been about any book I’ve written

* It followed UNHOLY GHOSTS, which I considered, and still kind of do, to be the best book I’ve ever written

* It was written while UNHOLY GHOSTS was on submission, and I was terrified it wouldn’t sell, which made it hard to write the sequel

* It was the first book I’ve ever written that required extensive edits (more on that in a minute)

Second books are hard. When you write the first, you have the thrill of discovery; you’re creating a whole new world, and whole new people. It’s exciting as hell, seriously.

The second? Well. It’s still exciting, but that little extra oomph that comes from building a world from the ground up is gone. You’re playing in an already-created pond. You’re revisiting familiar characters. While that has its own rewards and thrills, they’re different. It’s awesome to expand the characters and take their stories further. It’s awesome to write “what comes next.” But it’s not as easy as writing the first, at least not for me.

UNHOLY MAGIC was hard to write. It was a second book. It was a second book in a series I wasn’t sure was going to sell–I believe I was around 2/3 done with it when we got the first offer–which made me wonder, as I wrote, if there was even a fricking point. And it was heartbreaking, because I was (and still am) so violently, deeply in love with the characters and the world that I couldn’t bear to think I might not get to introduce other people to them. I had an agent, and that was extra pressure; what would happen if the book didn’t sell? Could I produce something else he’d like as much? Nobody ever talks about how scary it can be to sign with an agent, in that suddenly someone else expects things of you, but it can be a little nerve-wracking.

You all know I’m a pantser, not a plotter. Well. All this stress and worry made UNHOLY MAGIC veer off into odd tangents. It took me something like 13 weeks to write, which is longer than any book has ever taken me. Eeep! It didn’t just flow! UNHOLY GHOSTS flowed; I wrote the first draft in seven weeks (well, eight weeks, but for a week of that time we were out of town or I was sick, so techinically it was seven weeks). So if UNHOLY GHOSTS flowed, and I love it so and think it’s great, then maybe the non-flowy book is…um, not great?

Things got worse when I got into edits. I ended up cutting over 30k words from that book; a gargantuan amount for someone who rarely cuts more than a few thousand here and there. Whole sections of the book were ripped out, rewritten, and restitched; it was kind of terrifying. I didn’t know what I’d written, I was too close to it. Trapped in it. All I could think of was that UNHOLY GHOSTS was good and easy to write, or rather, it came easily and was a deeply exciting challenge, whereas UNHOLY MAGIC was blood, sweat, and tears every step of the way, and not what I’d hoped it would be.

And that is the way I’ve felt all along. At least until I finished CITY OF GHOSTS, the third book, which true to form I now think is probably just not very good. But UNHOLY MAGIC was the real sticky one, the one I just could not warm up to.

Well. I finished the copyedits last night. It was the first time I’ve read the book all the way through since…geez, since line edits, seven months or so ago.

And you know what?

I liked it.

I did. The book doesn’t suck. It really doesn’t! It’s pretty good, I think. It held my interest. I didn’t want to stop reading it. I found some good lines in it, some writing I was really proud of. Some nice character moments. Some scary bits and sexy bits; I was surprised, actually, by how sexy the sexy bits were.

My point isn’t to brag about The Wonders Of Me or to convince you to preorder UNHOLY GHOSTS and UNHOLY MAGIC right now (although, of course, you could. Y’know, if you wanted to). It’s not to pat myself on the back. Really.

It’s to share a little bit about my editing process and thoughts. And to say that even though I generally hate my work, I do eventually find a place where…I don’t. So those of you who also hate your work? You too will probably eventually find a place where you don’t.

You are really not necessarily the best judge of your work. I’m not the best judge of mine. My agent, my editors, my cp pals, have been telling me UNHOLY MAGIC is a good book for months, while I frown and bitch and whine and envision readers coming after me with torches and sticks because they hate it so much and I’ve let them down so horribly.

I feel better about the book now. I think readers will like UNHOLY MAGIC. I think it’s a good sequel, it’s a good expansion of the story and world; similar enough to work, but different enough that it doesn’t feel like a carbon copy or like I’m working from a formula (I’m not, of course.)

So there you go. A full year after writing it, I finally like UNHOLY MAGIC.

CITY OF GHOSTS, on the other hand… Sigh.