RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
Author: Jeffe Kennedy
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I’m over at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog today, interviewing the charming and savvy Kerri Buckley. She’ll be at the Colorado Gold Conference this fall, so here’s your chance to get the inside track on getting prepared to meet her!
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Thunder on the Battlefield, the fabulous anthology that contains Negotiation, the prequel story to The Mark of the Tala, is on sale through Friday, April 11! You can get the digital book for only 99 cents.
Hell of a deal!
Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Battlefield-James-R-Tuck-ebook/dp/B00EE15GY6
Nook:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thunder-on-the-battlefield-james-r-tuck/1116359900?ean=2940148400660
Kobo:
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/thunder-on-the-battlefield-sorcery
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It’s Sunday, so I’m over at Word Whores, talking about disease detectives.
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This was from a few weeks ago – the full moon setting into a sunrise-pinkened bank of clouds. So beautiful.
Just a reminder that my online workshop, Writing Sexytimes in Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Stories, will start on Monday, April 7! If you missed the description earlier, this is it:
Sex is a fundamental human experience and arguably the most powerful. The intimacy of sexual interaction can elevate the tension, emotion and visceral impact of most any story. But how do sex scenes best function in the speculative fiction genres?
This class will cover the basic of adding vivid, sensual and heart-pounding sexytimes to any story. In particular, students will explore examples of sex scenes that enhance the world-building and fantastic elements of any speculative fiction tale. Finally, writers will come away with tools for using sexytimes to enhance and build unique excitement in their worlds. Students will be able to submit short scenes to the instructor or the group for feedback
I’ve had a few questions from various people,, so I wanted to put some answers here, in case others were wondering. No, you don’t have to be an FFP or even an RWA member to take the class. Everyone is welcome. You need access to email and that’s about it. If you’re reading this, you probably have that part handled. 🙂
Also, you do not have to be very far in your writing career. I’m going to try to set this up to work for writers at all levels. We’ll spend a fair amount of time studying what others have done in the genre, so we’ll approach quite a bit from the reading perspective, too. If you’re not ready to share your work, that’s just fine! There will be exercises, but no grades. 
So if you want to simply lurk, that’s cool. You can always work on exercises, etc., whenever you’re ready to.
You can register via this link.
I’m very excited to see how this works! It should be big fun. I have other workshops that I’ve put together, listed here. I’ll be doing the Walking that Consent Line Workshop in June and I just committed to doing the Sexual Tension – Getting Away from Wham, Bam, Thank you, Ma’am and Sex as a Tool for Character Transformation in 2015.
Also, after some conversation on Twitter yesterday, I’m thinking of adding one on managing writing time. Let me know if you think you’d be interested in that.
Happy Friday everyone!
~dances around with Rebecca Black hair~
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I’m over at the Contemporary Romance Cafe today, talking about the pain of trying to keep up with slang and be hip as we grow older.
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A few weeks ago (time flies!), David and I drove to Tucson for my mom’s birthday. On the way back, we stopped at Elephant Butte Lake for a couple of nights. It’s a huge, man-made reservoir on the Rio Grande River in southern New Mexico. The landscape is often stark and desolate – and also full of amazing color and unearthly views.
We haven’t been doing much in the way of vacation lately – particularly time that’s not connected to work of some sort, like conventions – so this was a peaceful stop to make. The inn we stayed at was a simple place and we ate mainly at the restaurant there. We spent some time gazing at the view and talking. This picture brings that feeling back for me.
So, many of you know I have a day job. The company I work for had about 150 employees when I started, lo these 17 years ago, and has now cracked 500. We’ve also gone to a shared technology system, with a newsfeed we’re all encouraged to post notices, too. Our internal version of social media. I’ve been trying to overcome my baseline grumpiness about the changes and become more active with this shared site.
Because I work from home (euphemistically referred to as a “satellite office”), I decided to post my cover for THE MARK OF THE TALA. After all, if I worked in one of the offices, I would have dragged my ARC in and passed it around like a newborn baby. Also, since this book is not erotica, I figured it was safe to share.
I didn’t want to take up a lot of the feed with information about my book though, so I just posted the cover and a note saying people could look on my website if they wanted to see more.
WELL.
Last night my supervisor emails me and lets me know that they took the post down. There’s no fall-out for me and the powers that be figure I showed only a “rare lack of judgment.” See, my website contains offensive material. Or, rather, provides access to it, which is against our Information Resource Policy.
(Doesn’t the Entire Internet provide this access???)
So, thus my wrist was slapped. Nobody is mad at me, but I feel oddly chagrined nonetheless. It’s been some time since I had any shadow of feeling that what I write is somehow unsavory. Yet, there it is.
(Amusingly, I linked to my website instead of oh, say, Amazon because it seemed wrong to post anything reminiscent of a buy link. I suspect that would have passed muster, even though Amazon ALSO provides access to all those selfsame offensive materials as my website does.)
It’s interesting to me, however, in a broader perspective, to watch companies like mine try to cultivate the opportunities offered by social media while simultaneously attempting to enforce policies that control it. Social media is social, not corporate. It’s about people interacting, not soulless, sexless workers. What my company is trying to accomplish isn’t *really* about social media at all, but something dressed up to look like it. Kind of an Office Space-style version of Hawaiian Shirt Day, where we’re encouraged to relax – but not too much.
At any rate, consider me duly chastened. And more unwilling than before to post to the company newsfeed.
Fortunately, no one expects me to participate in Hawaiian Shirt Day.
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The submission window for NestPitch NOW OPEN, and will remain open for 24 hours 12-noon 1st April to 11.59am 2nd April (USA EST) There’s no cut off number. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest.
All entries will receive a receipt. If you don’t, check with Nik Vukoja on Twitter @nestpitch and/or @nik_vukoja
Send your entries to nestpitch @ outlook .com (no spaces)
For formatting instructions and rules go to this post go to: http://nestpitch.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/nestpitch-update-rules-conditions-whats-a-bilby-anyway/
NestPitch is a contest where participants email their 35-word pitches together with the first 300* words of their (finished) manuscript,(100-word for PBs).
The selected pitches will be featured on these blogs:
Brooke Powell www.thecakenovelist.blogspot.com
Kimberly P. Chase http://kimberlypchase.blogspot.com.au/
Jeffe Kennedy http://www.blog.jeffekennedy.com/category/blog/
Tina Moss http://www.tinamoss.com/
Amanda Foody www.amandafoody.blogspot.com
Dannie Morin http://dcmorin.blogspot.com.au/
Sharon M Johnston http://downunderwonderings.blogspot.com.au/
Sharon Bayliss http://sharonbayliss.blogspot.com.au/
Stacey Nash http://www.staceynash.com/
Then agents, their identities hidden, will leave a request for pages, partials and/or fulls of the featured pitches.
Entries must be embedded within email (no attachments) with following:
Name: YOUR NAME
Title: TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT
Genre: Category/Genre of Manuscript (i.e. NA Romance)
Word Count: (nearest 1000)
PITCH: 35-word (max) log-line
Answer to qu:
(question: in one sentence, max 15-words in the sentence: If my Main Character were an Easter Egg, what flavour would he be & why)
First 300-words of your manuscript. If the 300th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence. For Picture-book submissions please only submit 100-words. If the 100th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence.
Please ensure
(i) your manuscript has not been featured in another Pitch Competition in the past 12 months – that’s ANY pitch competition (not twitter pitches), from the period April 1st 2013 to 31st March 2014
(ii) your manuscript IS NOT published. This INCLUDES self-published.
Our Slush Bilbies & Nest Bloggers will read through the pitches and pick the top 72 pitches for the agent round; April 17th – 18th
We try to get a good mix of various genres, but the writing comes first. Basically, if the submissions aren’t ready, it’s in your best interest that we pass, the last thing anyone wants is your manuscript to be old & tired from “doing the rounds” before its ready.
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I’m over at Word Whores today, mulling over the word “decrepit” and my battle not to become my grandmother.
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Coming online April 7 – 20!
Sex is a fundamental human experience and arguably the most powerful. The intimacy of sexual interaction can elevate the tension, emotion and visceral impact of most any story. But how do sex scenes best function in the speculative fiction genres?
This class will cover the basic of adding vivid, sensual and heart-pounding sexytimes to any story. In particular, students will explore examples of sex scenes that enhance the world-building and fantastic elements of any speculative fiction tale. Finally, writers will come away with tools for using sexytimes to enhance and build unique excitement in their worlds. Students will be able to submit short scenes to the instructor or the group for feedback.
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A lovely vista at Cerrillos State Park from a hike last weekend. I mentioned before that author, critique partner and fab friend Carolyn Crane came to visit for a long weekend.
She mainly came to Santa Fe to get out of the crushing Minneapolis winter. In fact, when she Tweeted that she didn’t know how she could make it through the endless snowstorms, I sent her a link showing how cheap plane tickets to Albuquerque were and reminded her that I have a guest room.
Ostensibly I was doing her a favor.
But then she did me one. First of all, having her visit brought several days of nonstop writer convo into my life. Carolyn is one of my favorite people (and RWA roomie!) and we had the best time rambling over numerous topics, gossip, business and ideas. We even came up with an amazing brainstorm for a Sekrit Joint Project. Best of all, Carolyn got along great with David and even had him bringing out his guns to show her the different kinds. You’ll all be pleased to know that her Associates will have a much more varied arsenal now. 🙂
At the same time, I got back my final set of line edits on an upcoming manuscript. For this third round of edits, my editor STILL wanted more on a particular scene I’d never wanted to put on the page in the first place. Her instincts are good on this kind of thing, but I felt so *done* at this point that I just couldn’t face taking another stab at it. But Carolyn – well, she cleaned my kitchen for me.
You all know what I mean, right? Or maybe this is mainly a female thing. I know a lot of guys cook and clean, too, but I’ve never heard them mention this. But my female friends and relatives sure have. And I know I’ve said it to them.
“Oh, let me finish the clean-up – it’s so much more fun to clean someone else’s kitchen!”
Because it just IS.
My own kitchen I’ve cleaned hundreds, if not thousands of times. I know every countertop stain, the persistent yellow crud in that hard-to-reach lip of the sink at the back, that one pan that never *quite* yields up that old burn on the bottom. Over time I give up on these things. I just don’t care enough and I’m resigned to these little, enduring failures to reach perfection.
In SOMEONE ELSE’S KITCHEN, however, I become a dynamo of shininess. I scrub those pans until they gleam. Those countertop stains cannot withstand my zeal to see them gone, gone, gone. My mother managed to get my glass-top stove cleaner than it was when we moved in – and was happy to do it.
So much more fun to clean someone else’s kitchen.
Likewise, Carolyn took up the torch of expanding that scene with excitement and enthusiasm. She wrote a page for me in no time at all – and had fun doing it. Once I had that from her, I was able to see past the old stains and revised it to blend with the story. What she gave me was brilliant. More, I don’t know that I had it in me to do myself. I might have just let that stain go, yet again.
A gift beyond price.
Best of all, she’s excited that I owe her. She’s got ideas for a scene or two she’ll ask me to riff on. And I’m excited to do it. I’d love to take her story and play with it. For the first time, really, I get what fan fiction is all about.
It’s all the fun of cleaning someone else’s kitchen – just once – without having to face it day after day.