Tag: Laura Bickle

Is It Really Harder Writing a Sequel?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

These are scarlet gilia blossoms – big favorite with the hummingbirds. Such a vivid color.

It’s interesting how each new book I write is a different experience. Over the years, I’ve heard writers make note of this, but I suspect it’s one of tose things that, when you experience it for yourself and it hits home, you have that big “ohhh” moment.

In some ways it’s a satisfying feeling. “I’m a big girl writer now and I get what all these other long-established writers have been talking about.” But it’s also kind of daunting. Because you suddenly realize that you do not have this gig down. That you will never have this gig down. That each new book brings a new set of challenges.

Which is a good thing, right? All that learning and growing and development of craft and art.

This is on my mind because it came up in comments on yesterday’s post and also because I’ve started the sequel to Rogues Pawn, which will be Book 2 in the Covenant of Thorns series. Kev suggested I call it Rogue’s Spawn, which I am just SO tempted to do, if I didn’t think the Carina marketing team would kill me for it. It wouldn’t be inaccurate since Rogue does want her firstborn child – and that’s not a spoiler because it’s right there in the blurb. So, for now, I’m just calling it RP2.

Thing is, this is the first sequel I’ve written. The other follow-ups are same world, same general idea, but new characters, new story. This is the same characters and a continuing story.

And it’s HARD.

*sniffle*

Usually I love drafting a new story, but this has just been a slog so far. The first chapter has taken forever. I have to keep going back to the first book and my notes to make sure the continuity is right. It’s kind of pissing me off.

So, I did what every good writer does: I whined to my CP Laura Bickle about it. She cheerfully came back with “Oh yeah – writing a sequel sucks.”

Which took me aback. She’d never mentioned.

“The first half is always a slog. I never feel good about it until I get halfway,” she continued, all perky. “You’ll be fine. Just keep slogging.”

So, now I know.

So, how about you all who’ve written sequels? Can you verify Laura’s assessment? Any tips or tricks?

Or chocolate?

That works, too.

A Glimpse Behind the Curtain

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This is my Ellora’s Cave editor, Grace Bradley, sharing a meal and cocktails with me and Laura Bickle. I’m not sure why Laura looks so glowy – must be her radiant spirit.

This week I’m doing a series of posts over at Novel Spot, for their “Behind the Scenes” feature. This series lets authors tell, over the course of seven days, how they got where they are today.

So you can go see Day One: The Before Time and Day Two: Putting It Together, Making It Happen.

It was interesting to write these, to go back over the last twenty-some years and see how my writing career – and my ideas about it – have changed. And grown. Always a good thing to see some growth.

I think you have to register and log in to comment there, which I know is a  pain, so feel free to comment here!

Battle of the Butt Ruffles

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I’m back from convention!

And getting my bearings. While I recombobulate, I have a bit of a contest to offer you.

See, because Marcella, Laura and I are all on the cutting edge of fashion (ahem), we all ended up wearing butt ruffles to convention. I know – it truly boggles the mind.

Highly amused, we decided to take pics and let YOU, our fond audience, determine which butt ruffles belong to which person.

Choose wisely.

Keep in mind we returned burdened with swag and free books. I myself, scored a copy of Anne Rice’s new book.

(You’ll also be glad to know that I didn’t lose my fangirl mind and get lipstick on her or anything…)

Let’s hear those guesses!

Off to Convention!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

It’s that time of year again: the RT Booklover’s Convention!

I head out tomorrow morning and I will *try* to keep up with pics and gossip here as best I can. (But those of you who’ve followed along before know how well this usually turns out. I always think I’ll have plenty of time and then suddenly it’s Sunday, I’m on a plane home and all I can remember is a blur of faces and one, long, nonstop conversation. I suspect time-warp – I really do.)

If you’ll be there, look me up! Here are some for-sure appearances:

Tuesday, 6:30 pm, Ghost Tour – this should be super-fun. And Cindy Spencer Pape and I will likely be in the hotel bar afterwards.

Wednesday, 2:15-3:15, Panel – SPECIALTY: WRITING UNDER MULTIPLE NAMES: PROS & CONS
PANELISTS: Lynne Connolly (AKA Lynne M. Connolly/Lynne Martin), Seleste deLaney, Jeffe Kennedy (AKA Jennifer Paris), Cindy Spencer Pape (AKA Cian Fey), Hunter Raines (AKA Lacey Savage), LaVerne Thompson (AKA Ursula Sinclair)

Wednesday, 3:30-4:30, Reader Party! – THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE SIDEKICK
HOSTS: Laura Bickle (AKA Alayna Williams), Marcella Burnard, Jeffe Kennedy (AKA Jennifer Paris)

Wednesday, 9:00-Midnight, Party! – ELLORA’S CAVE STEP UP & STOMP

Thursday, 4-6, Signing! – E-BOOK, INDIE PUBLISHER & GRAPHIC NOVEL EXPO

Thursday, 8:30-Midnight, Fairy Ball! – THE CLAN MCFAE PRESENTS A MAGICAL SCOTTISH FLING & COSTUME COMPETITION

Saturday, 6:15-7:30, Party! – FAN-TASTIC DAY PARTY

Saturday, 8-9, Moar Party! – CARINA PRESS COCKTAIL PARTY
Join Executive Editor Angela James, Carina Press authors and other members of the Carina Press team for cocktails during a celebration to thank everyone for their support as we head into our first anniversary!

Saturday, 9-Midnight, Still MOAR Party! – HARLEQUIN DANCE PARTY
Harlequin Enterprises hosts a spectacular dance party and an evening of glamour where you will meet the stars of romance.

I’ll be at workshops and private events here and there, too. Otherwise your odds are pretty good of finding me in the bar. Look for the hat. Feel free to stop by and pull up a chair!

Houston, We Have a Breakthrough

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We’re starting to get the warmer weather cloud formations again. Some of them are so funny – little self-contained spaceships sailing by.

So, I mentioned yesterday that over the weekend I pitched The Middle Princess to a St. Martin’s editor. It was interesting, because the advice is to always pitch just one book. Even if you envision the book as part of a series, the Laws of Querying say thou must never, ever pitch the series. You may only pitch a stand-alone book.

It’s a funny rule, as many have observed, because clearly publishers like series. They like them because readers like series. When was the last time you wanted to implore your favorite author to right something totally different, in a new world with characters you’ve never “met”? Never, right? In fact, I often have that sense of trepidation when my favorite authors come out with a whole new world and characters. I have to overcome my resistance. I drag my feet, not *wanting* to have to get to know all of these new people. What if I don’t like them? Why can’t I have my old friends back??

Ahem. Not that I get worked up about this kind of thing.

At any rate, this lovely editor gal, while asking me to send her the manuscript and a synopsis (yes – it’s a necessary evil. just write one already), also requested that I sketch out the next two books for her. That was the interesting part – I obeyed the Law of Querying and did not mention that I envisioned that the older and younger princesses would have their stories, too. But it must have been clear. Built-in trilogy. Yes, I totally see it that way.

There’s just one teensy, eensy problem.

Yeah – all of you who’ve been reading any length of time already know what it is.

I so cannot plot in advance.

Or at least… I thought I couldn’t. Turns out I can.

Break out the naked cherubs and dirty martinis!

I’ve oft extolled the many virtues of my critique partners, Laura and Marcella. Marcella is really good at character motivation, goals and obstacles – stuff I just hate to think about. And Laura is excellent at drawing out stories from my subconscious. Laura argues that I *do* know what the whole story is, that it’s all there swimming around in that black lake under my thoughts. She appears to be right.

All this time, I’ve thought I needed to perform the action of writing to draw out the story, but it turns out there are other methods. In a Yahoo IM conference, the three of us talked about the other two sisters, the overall arc and themes I set up in Middle Princess. They asked me questions, made suggestions and I told them the answers and whether their ideas were warm or cold.

It was exhilarating and fun.

At the end, I had my sketches of the next two books. This is extraordinary for me. I find it fascinating that I continue to discover new things about my writing process, to acquire skills I lacked before.

Kinda like it should be.

Sweating the Small Stuff

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

One good thing about dark winter mornings is that I’m awake for the sunrise. Not something I would otherwise make an effort for, but look what I miss in the summertime.

Today is our 21st anniversary. On this date, lo these many years ago, David took me out for a drink and to see a movie after the Superbowl. I’m terrible at dating and neither of us had much fun. Still, he persisted and I liked him, so we had a little fling.

We’re still flinging.

Funny how that works out. More and more I think that life, the universe and everything doesn’t take well to being planned out. Certainly not to being controlled. That’s why I like the idea of Tao – grab a wave and do your best to ride it without drowning.

It seems I see a lot of people grasping for control lately. Maybe it’s a feeling of instability embodied by that deathless phrase “in this economy.” I don’t even know what that means anymore, except that it somehow conveys that people are afraid. And fear often makes us hold on tighter, with clenched fists and squinched-up eyes. We might become less tolerant, rather than more flexible. Less inclined to let the small stuff go. Less able to see that it’s all small stuff.

One of my book blogger Twitter pals posted this today – a contract that an author sent to a book reviewer. It seems to be yet another attempt to control the uncontrollable – if, when and how a book gets reviewed. And, it’s ultimately an unenforceable contract. I’ve heard of other authors telling reviewers that they can only post reviews of three stars or better. Or arguing with readers who give story “spoilers.”

Ultimately it’s like trying to keep Tom Cruise from being cast in your movie: it might be terribly wrong, but it’s not a fight you can win.

As my friend Laura Bickle says, “I don’t want to die on that hill.”

A particularly poignant way of pointing out that we have to pick our battles. Fight for what you want, for what’s right, necessary and important.

But, really – don’t sweat the small stuff.

(Hint: it’s pretty much all small stuff.)

Best Writing Retreat Ever

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

You all know the saw – writing is a lonely gig. And that’s why having friends and critique partners can be so very important.

This last weekend, Laura and Marcella came to Santa Fe to visit me. We had a lovely time. We toured around the countryside – I’m sure they’ll share some of the adventures – soaked in the hot waters at Ten Thousand Waves and did some major shopping. We each managed to buy a few special somethings, to reward ourselves for hard work and to provide inspiration in the next year.

Over our last lunch, Laura made us get down to business and set goals and plans for the coming year. She’s the accountability girl.

We’d been talking writing all weekend, of course. Chewing over plot ideas, sympathizing over business annoyances, coming up with great book ideas and insisting that the others write it. The goal setting was the culmination of all those winding conversations. We probably wouldn’t have come up with the same things that first day. But after all those hours of working things through, everything seemed much more clear for what needs to happen in the coming year.

It wasn’t a writing retreat, because none of us really wrote. (Except for Marcella who was dutifully marking down ideas in her notebook.) I kind of think that if we’d formalized it, the energy wouldn’t have worked so well. No lectures, workshops, official brainstorm sessions. Instead the ideas ebbed and flowed in a natural way.

We’re thinking about doing it every year.

Thanks ladies!

Email Lives Forever and Ever

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This photo is for Laura Bickle. She knows why.

In the movies, there’s often a motif of someone seeking a particular document with important information. The bad people try to destroy it and the good people make lots of copies and put them in safety-deposit boxes or mail them to reporters. Usually the bad people manage to destroy most of the copies, but one will triumphantly make it through, to damn them before the world of public opinion.

This can never work in the world of email.

When I first became involved with some of my author loops, I was very surprised to encounter the “rule” that you could not forward emails off-loop. The thing is, that kind of thing is a courtesy and absolutely unenforceable. At the company I work for, all emails are considered company property and are archived for years. Nobody would ever say an email can’t be forwarded. Because, of course, it easily can. There is really only one true rule:

Never put anything in an email you wouldn’t want brought before the ethics committee or read in public. Or before a judge.

Last week saw a new author blow up over reviews, only with a new spin. A reviewer on Amazon gave a book a scathing review. Yes, it was harsh, mocking the book for being what the reviewer saw as a Twilight rip-off. The author did not melt down publicly over this. However, the reviewer received a forwarded email allegedly written by this author and sent to a group of friends or readers. The email asked them to go to Amazon and rate the review as unhelpful, so it would drop off the screen.

Brouhaha ensued.

I don’t know if anyone established if this was true, but the principle applies in general. An important lesson I’ve learned from my day job about being a writer. Assume that anything you put in an email, even to trusted friends or a “private” loop, can be made public.

And if it’s juicy, it probably will.

The Hallowed Ones

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog


Big news today! One of my favorite people, whose writing I also just love – which makes for serendipity all around, because these two things don’t always come together – has a Big Announceament! (Yes, I always hear that in my head as in the Legally Blonde musical. This man is gay AND European!)

Ahem.

So, Laura announced yesterday that she’s signed a two-book deal for her new Young Adult series!!

Let the hooting and rejoicing begin!

The first book is called The Hallowed Ones. The official spiel is: pitched as “Witness” meets “28 Days Later” in which an Amish girl must protect her family from a violent contagion, even as fear and denial threaten to erode her community from within.

I can add that for an image for this post, I looked for a good one of a raven in a denuded field, since we don’t have a cover yet. I really need to get out and snap some corvid pics. It’s a great story and I’m proud to say I was there for the initial brainstorming. In fact, I don’t think it’s going too far to say this story was totally my idea. Maybe even 95% my idea. I mean, sure, Laura came up with a few things here and there. Well, and then she spent all that time actually writing it – but really, I think this could totally be all about me.

Don’t you all agree? Yeah, I totally thought so.

At any rate, for the writers out there, Laura’s agent is the ever-charming Becca Stumpf at Prospect Literary Agency. She sold the books to Graphia, the YA imprint at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for a very decent advance on the two books.

SO exciting!

Congratulations Laura!