Tag: #perfectlyfine

First Cup of Coffee – August 4, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

News about an exciting whirlwind trip to Las Vegas to see Celeste Barber, #perfectlyfine frose, a bit about chips on shoulders and publishing paths, and how the bar is what I remember about hotels.




Transcript
00:00.96
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Was so good today is Thursday August Fourth um well here we are in August beautiful lush summer gotta love it. Kind of an overcast day here in Santa Fe we’ve got um some rain last night. A little bit supposed to get more today robust monsoon season. There’s so much. So so much waiting I have to do so much. But I did get the finances caught up yesterday and that was a big thing.

00:56.46
jeffekennedy
Yeah, um, sort of thinking about and I also did a bunch of SFWA stuff? Um, you know it’s funny when we have conversations about things that we do to advocate for writers right? It’s big part of our mission. Advocate for creators. Really we’re trying to make that distinction acknowledging that not all creators of science fiction and fantasy work in prose. But there’s um, trying to figure out how I can say this. Sometimes advocating for publishers is not the same thing as advocating for writers and I had a little bit of a back and forth with someone yesterday who didn’t quite get my point there. It’s not that I think that traditional publishers. Are against creators. But I think that they’re on their own team and that just because a publisher wants something doesn’t necessarily mean that we should as an organization advocate for it because it may not be. The best thing for the creators and the person ended up saying something about how they thought that they thought that certain people had chips on their shoulders about um, traditional publishing or self publishing which okay sure some people do. But I wanted to say if that’s directed at me I’m not sure which shoulder I have the chip on since I do both traditional publishing and self- publishing and I think there are merits to both but I also don’t think that traditional publishers. Are going to take care of authors um over their own interests. I think there’s plenty of evidence for that anyway, that’s a little bit of a tangent. It was just something that was on my mind. Um, yeah, so it was good I got a lot done yesterday I got my 2000 words I participated in a meeting I got the finances totally caught up and the bills paid which I had not. In a while I still need to finish crunching royalties. But I’m getting closer. Ah it was actually pretty awesome because I got my 2000 words by 11:30 in the morning because I had an 11:30 meeting and so I started slightly early and I was feeling good and.

03:44.16
jeffekennedy
I was pretty intent on getting as much done before that eleven thirty meeting so I could like catch up whatever and then I got them all by 11:30 and ah I know I keep saying it if I can get my words by noon I am just a happy camper. It just makes all the difference for me. When I’m still trying to get my words at one or 2 in the afternoon. no no no I just don’t like it doesn’t work for me. Ah so some exciting news that I realized I forgot to mention and it sort of became this is like a last minute thing. And I saw Megan last night and the delightful Charlie we had Frose which was #perfectlyfine and if you don’t know that joke you’re gonna have to go back some podcasts or just accept. It. Was delicious at la casa sena in Santa Fe in the courtyard ended up being a gorgeous evening I thought it was going to be too rainy, but it was perfect evening didn’t rain at all and skies cleared out so it was a lovely peaceful evening.

05:02.29
jeffekennedy
But um, so we were talking about our plans to go to Las Vegas next weekend. Jeffe you may say we did not know you were going to Las Vegas next weekend and I will say to you? Well it was a last minute thing. Ah. And we just put it together. Um, so not this Saturday but a week from Saturday we are flying to Las Vegas and we are going to see Celeste Barber play at the venetian going to see her ah her show her stand-up show which is I think. It’s something like fine fine. Thanks, that’s it. It’s Fine Thanks! which is a nice dovetail with #perfectlyfine I’m sure I told the perfectly fine story here on the podcast if I didn’t those of you who watch all the time. Ah, tell me and I will tell the perfectly fine story. But I think I did so I have told it to a number of people so I may not remember where I’ll I’ve told it but it’s my favorite hashtag now. So yeah, um. Celeste Barber’s playing at the venetian her Fine Thanks american tour. She’s an australian comedian if you don’t know her. She’s a hysterical ah me it introduced me to her on Instagram she does these wonderful sendups of the ah you know like that. Ridiculousness of the things that people post to Instagram trying to show off their bodies. You know mean all airbrushed and she does like the real woman version of them and so she did her australian tour and she’s been up in Canada and she’s coming through the states. And we were able to get tickets for her show kind of last minute I think not a lot of people know who she are who she are who she is yet in the us. So we got um, 4 tickets for $20 each – dang! I should have given Megan money last night I forgot. Terrible. Ah, and Megan found us. Um airline tickets for spirit airlines out of Albuquerque to Las Vegas for $63 each round trip. Ah so it is. Extra if you want to check a bag. They don’t even have like um you it’s the carryons aren’t even freeance I’ve never flown spirit before I ventured it to David and he said does it take off from someone’s backyard and Megan said yes, lol.

07:46.56
jeffekennedy
So we told Megan that if the plane crashes and kills us all. We’ll be really unhappy with her. But yeah, you can’t even carry on a bag for free. All you can carry on is a personal item and David needs too many things to keep him going. So I paid like $40 to check a bag. So that means we’re flying round trip for $200 and our tickets between the 2 of us are $40 and we got free rooms at the venetian from david’s ah you know account they comp us to room. 2 for 2 free nights. So ah yeah, we’re going to las vegas for like $250 no doubt we will end up spending more than that but not bad and it should be really fun I’m excited. So it’s yet another weekend I’m going to be gone in august I will probably bitch about this later but right now it sounds cool. I’m home this weekend next weekend we’re going to vegas ah going saturday morning coming back monday morning the following weekend I will be in albuquerque at bubonican – No wrong order the following weekend. We’re going to tucson. To celebrate birthdays see my family then the weekend after that is Bubonicon in albuquerque and the weekend after that labor day weekend I will be in chicago for ChiCon for world con and I’m giving a workshop there did I mention. I probably did I’m pretty excited that I get to give a workshop at world con and I’m on several panels and things so that’s nice. What’s with the mosquitoes you know like they say april showers bring mayflowers. It’s sort of like monsoon rings bring mosquitoes it’s not nearly so poetic or delightful.

09:42.37
jeffekennedy
Sorry for the clapping if that was startling so that’s the news in my world. Um I also need to finish writing this book during August so hopefully that’ll work out. I am teaching a class for the fantasy futuristic and paranormal chapter special interest chapter I think still of RWA lot of the chapters have been disaffiliating so but I think they are still affiliated. So I’m giving a workshop at their meeting on. Sunday afternoon and then we’ll be teaching the class for four weeks online ah so if you want to register for that I assume you can I don’t think they’ve even given me links on how to do that. But it’s going to be. Busy wizy months but hopefully with the leavening of a lot of play in with the work I’ll be able to get everything done. Um, let’s see other news. Some of you may know if you’re following closely on a polyon 2023 ticket sales have been postponed until they can revisit the ah the hotel. The venue was pretty disappointing. I didn’t have too many problems but then Jennifer L Armentrout sort of posted a list of all the things they struggled with some of them I didn’t know about boy the mosquitoes are just everywhere. Sorry um so that’s postponed it’s. Funny because we were at the Hyatt Crystal City in arlingto,n suburb of Dc is there a suburb of Dc. Anyway, you know what I mean and when I was in the bar called the Lobbibar which they spell a cute way but is otherwise. Unimaginative name I recognized this high table or it looked I was like oh I know this high table and I took a photo of it because it reminded me of this table in the bar at world fantasy con in Dc in 2014. Ah, and I’m amazed that it was 2014 ah time time is strange. Um, yeah I get my years confused but I know this because I looked it up.

12:29.18
jeffekennedy
I’m spoiling the story. So I took a photo of this table because when I went to world fantasy con it was the first time that I met ah my first agent in person and he was not yet there when I arrived and I was walking into the bar. As one does and this ah woman says to me are you Jeffe Kennedy and it was one of the first times that um someone recognized me and I said yes and she says hi I’m Jennifer Udden and Jennifer turned out to be. My agent’s best friend. She was also an agent and that was the beginning of ah of a fruitful friendship, a long friendship and there were several other people sitting at the table agents and editors and they just kind of um took over that high table. For the entirety of the conference they just parked there and so I would go and I would sit with them and they would buy me drinks and they would buy me meals and it was really um, it was just really fun. It was like 1 of the first times as an author that industry people were treating me to stuff. And so I took a photo of this table and I texted it to jen yesterday. Ah because I’d just finally gotten around descending it and I said this table reminded me of the one that we sat at at world fantasy and she was like oh my god the memories and. And I was like well it wasn’t the same hotel was it and so then when I went back and looked at my emails that was what I saw it was world fantasy in um, like November of 2014 and it was the same hotel. It was the exact same hotel and I the only thing that. You know now that I know I can match up the memories. Yeah I mean it’s eight years difference right? But I find it just really amusing that what is the thing that really triggers Jeffe’s memory ah it’s the bar. It’s the bar is what Jeffe remembers. Um. So none of us are shocked by this right and then amusingly enough because we one of the things we were doing yesterday is we’re working on the nebula conference for 2023 also and we. Was we were putting together our our RFP which is what you send to the hotel. It’s basically a request for a proposal. We send it to the hotels and ask them to tell us how much it would cost and what the logistics would be and so we were getting some advice on how to put together the rfp.

15:18.81
jeffekennedy
To cover having a hybrid conference because we want to do this as best we can and so there was a list of like all the hotels where there’s previous nebula conferences and I saw 2012 conference was at the Hyatt Crystal city. It’s like clearly this hotel has like established their brand as. Serving science fiction and fantasy community. However, um, the Jennifer L Armentrout ah corporation group are not happy with them right now and when she explained all the things that had gone wrong besides us not having. Adequate air conditioning in the ballroom that I was signing in I don’t blame her for being unhappy. But maybe they’ll get it together because it’s otherwise ah a decent hotel for a convention I mean obviously lots of us have done it. So um. I keep meaning to tell dorinda unforgeting and mentioning here. One of the things about flying back and forth to a polyon was I flew on Delta which I have not in I don’t know probably 2 decades I have a memory of flying delta. Back when we still lived in Laramie it would have had to been pre 2007 and ah missing my connection in I think Memphis and having to stay overnight. And they did comp my hotel room but calling David and just crying because I was so frustrated I couldn’t get home. This is when I traveled all the time. Yeah, and he was like it’ll be all right? you know, but it was um I flew home in the morning and had to get all the way back up to laramie. And we were hosting a party that afternoon for my own fucking birthday and it worked out I got home. Everything came off fine but I was that was just a low point and I associated that with Delta which really it wasn’t delta’s fault. I remember a ticket agent being very kind to me because I was probably just incredibly stressed and exhausted and it was like I does want to go I always try to be nice to the ticket agents because it’s not their flip and fault right? So um, why was oh. Flying on Delta so I flew on delta for reasons. Um I had a here are the reasons I mean they’re not important, but it was because I had been going to go visit. Ah Kelly Robson in Toronto ah, last January and that was

18:06.54
jeffekennedy
Delta was where I could get a decent fly to Toronto was it a year ago january oh well and ended up having to cancel that trip because pandemic and I think it was January Twenty Twenty one so I had that flight credit and I wanted to make sure to use it before it expired so and and it was a good way to fly into Reagan which Hyatt crystal city is right next to Reagan airport and you guys flying you all flying delta was amazing. There was. Fantastic. The people were great. The planes were so clean I was saying this to Charlie and Megan last night and I was said I’m wondering why I’ve been messing around with american and southwest when Delta was so fabulous and not more expensive and and Megan is like yeah, it’s like their planes are skeezier. And it’s so true so they had the Tvs and the seatbacks and free entertainment and I was able to watch for free. The new Dr. Strange on the way there and on the way back everything everywhere all at once and um. And it’s interesting. How both of those movies are really playing with multiverse things and um, yeah, sort of fracturing of realities and so that was really cool to sort of put that in I I very much enjoyed both movies I thought. Both were excellent. Um, and then because I had a connection I to fly through Atlanta I also just watched some fun movies like on the flanking side of those but it was nice to be able to just sort of sit in my comfortable seat which. I felt like I had plenty of room and it was a cozy seat and I was not in the lap of the person next to me and you know they provided the headphones with the little Jack and just to be able to sit there and concentrate wholly on the movie. Um, yeah, both of them were really good. And I probably have more intelligent things to say about them. But I’m about out of time and I am going to go to writer coffee today. So so yeah, often think of if I have specific things to say about those movies but I find it very interesting that that’s where we are with storytelling is. Playing with the whole multiverse thing many different realities and more than one person has commented that we appear to have gotten stuck in a very bad timeline. Ah as we want to go back to the ah the 2016 branch.

20:52.19
jeffekennedy
And go into the timeline where Trump did not win that election and maybe things would have been very different these last six years. So um, on that note, let’s make the best of this timeline that we can I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday and I will talk to you all tomorrow. You all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – July 15, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

A bit more on the internet/cell data saga (fair warning), and then further ruminations on RPGs, Wizardry, my own experiences along with other female/enby/etc. folks in the community, and Frosé.




Transcript
00:00.81
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Very good. Um, today is say it with me Friday woohoo. Ah July fifteenth the ides of july.

00:34.35
jeffekennedy
Ah, beautiful here in Santa Fe this morning we went for a walk. It was very pleasant even more pleasant and exciting is the xfinities tech is supposed to come um between nine and eleven this morning. And it’s now none I’m running a little bit later today partly because we went for the walk and we went up to the store and then I had to like move shit around in my office so that they had all these instructions you know, make sure that. Technician we can get to the outlets of that. There’s nothing in the way. Um, so that has been It’s interesting to me how much of a contributor to my feelings of chaos to have my office disrupted. Oh. There’s my mother. I asked her how she was and she never replied up. She’s thinking more clearly she’s feeling better all right I will reply to mom when I am done doing the podcast I’d left my phone on in case, the Xfinity tech calls. Um, it’s funny cause they send these some text messages saying. You know reschedule and you know as all these you know press one to confirm and None to cancel and None to reschedule it. It’s like I was just terrified of hitting the wrong wrong button and so please come please please please come and fix our internet. Yes, ah. Ah, ongoing saga if you have been following. Um, my phone was not working right yesterday I tried to tried calling Megan because um, so so I’ve answered my question that I posed yesterday of why can’t I just run internet through my hotspot. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten the basic plan I could but you know I got like the most basic unlimited plan I could and uploading my podcast video to Youtube took a fucking hour hou hour hou hour you guys I couldn’t believe it and it was. I could barely do anything else on my laptop at the same time because it was like hijacking the signal from my mouse and my keyboard and everything was running very slowly and it was it was miserable I mean champagne problems right? but still it was miserable I didn’t even try to upload to instagram. Apparently instagram is changing like if you’re going from if you’ve had a business page and now they’re going to teams or something so that’s probably why I can’t upload the podcast video to internet or to instagram sorry um, so then.

03:18.53
jeffekennedy
After I finally got everything uploaded and I thought this just is not a tenable substitute and I need to do the s simple board meeting yesterday afternoon. So I called my friend Megan she had texted me and said did I want to go for frose – #perfectlyfine – Um, in the evening fros or Harry’s and our whole tradeoff balance there is is it raining or not because it’s monsoon season monsoon rains come in in the afternoon. Um, if it’s a sunny hot afternoon frose is the thing to do if the rain has come in. Because we’re high altitude desert. It gets cold right? So yeah, then it’s then it was Harry’s roadhouse and margaritas. So I was thinking about it that we were getting together anyway and so I tried to color because I didn’t feel like typing it all out. Um. Another minor inconvenience is that I’ve been using the the text app on my laptop to do a lot of my texting but I can only do that if we actually have internet because you have to have the phone and the laptop on the same internet but apparently having the laptop get internet from the phone is not the same thing. Don’t ask me so I tried to call her and my call would not go through would not go through would not go through then she tried to call me back and leaves me a voicemail saying hey I saw you tried to call me but it didn’t ring on my phone. Ah. So then I had to get on with chat with the verizon tech and it was one of those deals where the Verizon tech was taking like 5 minutes between replies and you know because they’re clearly helping I don’t know None different people at the same time. And eventually after 45 minutes I got to a place where they had me reset reset the network on my phone and now my phone is working fine and they’re like well I’m so glad that and maybe they are doing this because they said you are awesome. You made this work. And I was like yeah too bad it took 45 minutes to get to the solution. There was a point at which the person had said to me. Um, you know Well so I understand that you’re having trouble with your hotspot is that correct and I said no, that’s not correct. And they said well can you tell me what the problem is exactly and I said how about you reread the conversation. We’ve been having for the last half an hour during which I’ve explained what the problem is exactly multiple times and which I think they did because then they came back and said oh you’re having trouble making and receiving calls I was like.

06:06.24
jeffekennedy
Um, my gosh this week I tell you I’m just hoping that the xfinity appointment goes well that I’ve internet. So anyway, I finally got to have a voice conversation with Megan and I said can I come up to your office to radius and use your internet for this board meeting and then we can go for Drake’s you know. Me a quiet corner and I could do that and she said well even better. Why don’t you go to my house because ah, her husband is out of town I guess I could say husband now right? Husband is out of town doing San Diego comic con working and. They have the big dogs that prefer to have company and she’s like it would be a great favor to me if you would go over and sit at my house and do your board meeting there and use our internet I was like perfect and she said and then I could come home from work and we can go have drinks well then ah a wrench in the works as her daughter is having a medical crisis. And mean ended up being home. She said I’m just she so I’m gonna come home I’ve got to arrange everything and now she’s um, leaving this afternoon flying to to Arizona to be with her daughter and she’s gonna be there for the whole week because her daughter has to have surgery and all this kind of thing. So ah, she would so she spent her afternoon like finding house sitters and dog sitters and all of this and she had to run out and then she came back and so it was like none and I’d already started drinking her champagne as. She had told me to do my board meeting was done my other work was done and so she was like she still has cases of champagne leftover from the wedding she was like please drink some champagne so I was sitting out on her porch drinking champagne when she got back and she said okay so the house Sitter’s coming over at None and. I said well do we have time to go for Burgarita still and she’s like oh it’s gonna be a little tight and I said you know why don’t we just sit here and drink champagne and have food delivered and she was perfect so we had italian food delivered. We sat out there. We drank champagne we chatted and now she’s taking off again. So I may yet be going over to our house to use internet. We’ll see ah yeah, ah, such as life right? It’s amusing to me. Can’t recall if I reflected on this yesterday, but it’s amusing to me that ah it has wreaked so much havoc in our lives this week not having internet and having so difficult cell service for these 2 things that.

08:52.90
jeffekennedy
And I know I sound like an old lady at this point you know shit came like can you kids don’t know but you know that I before you know that there was a time in my life would those were things that we did not have we simply did not. Have it all and it’s like and now the loss of them makes it almost impossible for me to work. Um and yet I remember a time when I worked without those things was trying to find a way to embrace it. But it’s just um, it’s disruptive. So hopefully after this all will be back to normal. Um, follow up on um, excuse me the game stuff I talked at the beginning of the week about I guess on tuesday. Tuesday’s podcast I talked about um, doing the roleplaying games and I told you the story about a pith Jennifer Dieys and my high school boyfriend who was involved in that story did listen to the podcast I did not point it to it so I don’t know if you listen every day kev or if you saw the descriptor on that None but he replied to me on Twitter and he said actually let me tell you exactly what he said because he told okay I found his clarifying tweets. He said wizardry was the game. We sent your poor low- level character into a dungeon with a higher level crew. Even if Jennifer had survived the pit. She definitely would have been slain in the none encounter with enemies. She was set up to fail. Ah, and I kind of. Loved that he told me all of that and I don’t recall if we if he told me before that my character was set up to fail but it was very interesting having this conversation with Gregory Wilson and some other people another um. Female friend of mine who is an amazing fantasy author ah told me a story saying that she stopped playing games rpg games I guess that’s redundant isn’t it role-playing games when she was 19 when the boys that she was playing with decided to cast a sleep spell on her character and rape her and yes, it’s the fantasy of the game but it’s also a representation of yourself and we know that people take this.

11:32.16
jeffekennedy
Kind of things seriously right? You know it’s that it’s the avatar of yourself and I felt so bad for her and it was interesting sharing with them. Kev’s information about it being wizardry and ah Gregory Wilson said oh that he had this epic rant about wizardry and playing it in the eighty s. And how much he hated that game and I will link to his rant because it was an entertaining rant and it’s just like 9 minutes long so um those of you interested might enjoy hearing this rant Kev if you are listening ah you may enjoy hearing this rant. And um, but it was it was It’s been interesting to revisit that because I had never really connected that maybe a lot of my current aversion to. Role-playing games or lifelong aversion to role-playing games may have stemmed from that incident in which I was set up to fail ah in which my boyfriend and his friends mainly wanted to get rid of me and successfully did so um, you know and it’s like hardly a big thing. In the scheme of things but it is interesting. How we do learn aversion to stuff and and I mainly am still thinking about it because I know that this has been such a pervasive experience for women and. Non-binary non um, heteronormative people in the science fiction and fantasy community that that gaming particularly roleplaying gaming is such a big part of the um, kind of the group. Interaction right? The the fantasy of playing together and that there you know has been so much terrible, cruelty and abusiveness that’s flourished in that aspect of the community and a lot of people are doing much better work to to combat it. But. Um, yeah, it’s ah it’s just it’s too bad. That’s gone on for so long and I’m glad that people are battling it and I’m glad to have conversations with people like Gregory who are very welcoming and saying you’ll come back and play this game and and I think I’m gonna try I’m gonna. See about playing some of these games because maybe I would like it. ah good kev also clarified that ah the town I mentioned was gold hillll and it was till desk do party was the name of the production company doing the murder mysteries. He says None stars would recommend.

14:22.26
jeffekennedy
And he also said it’s possible. He had an unfair advantage in the game as well since he had attended many times before as I recall he was also the only person who wasn’t drinking so another unfair advantage. So um. Let’s see so there’s those things I’ve got rogues possession upload it ah ready to release soon. What did I say July Twenty Sixth something like that I should know I know that and it’s all upload. It. So. It’s nice to have these things where I’m not ah uploading under the wire rogueeson continues to sell very well I did see on um, good reads. My assistant was saying that it wasn’t on Goodreads and I found it for her. But now we have multiple versions so I have asked. The librarians on goodreits to consolidate the additions. But I couldn’t help noticing that there was like ah not great reviews on the new edition. Some of them could be trolls. Ah but there was one on there like the the top review. Um I didn’t read all of it I just started to. Read it but she was complaining that there should have been a trigger warning for exactly that section that I was thinking about deleting people I was like yeah but it was funny because she said um that that was an abusive relationship and that she dnfed at that point because. Should have been a trigger warning for abusive relationships and that she just couldn’t read that and it was like well that particular section is an abuse. It’s not supposed to be ah, a relationship. It’s it’s basically torture. It’s it’s It’s like it. No no, no, it’s not an abusive relationship. It’s being kept captive by hostels who torture you? Um, so maybe not a close reader. Ah maybe a troll I don’t know so anyway, if you have never reviewed. Ah, rogues pawn on good reads and you feel like saying something nice about it on either edit I assume they’ll blend together and so that will that will help I do think it’s funny because it’s like ah now I’m back to thinking maybe I should have deleted that scene. But It’s really important for her character. It’s important for shaping what happens later and so when I did look at deleting it and having it be like just flashback and all that it would have been really hard to disentangle at this point.

17:07.38
jeffekennedy
And I know that a lot of readers feel the same way and I don’t blame them a bit but for prisoner of the crown that prisoner of the crown starts out with um, her early life and how you know how she was basically set up to be a victim. And then how she’s victimized in her marriage and all of this is about how this changed ah changed her family and ultimately brings about the downfall of an empire because she was they picked the wrong girl to victimize um and. I understand people hesitating to read that first book. But yeah, it, It’s what shapes our character so funny and what else.

18:05.78
jeffekennedy
I’m I’m making good progress on shadow wizard I’m having a lot of fun writing jadron um I’m I’m liking Cellie too but Jadron in particular is in really interesting character isn’t he. Here’s one of those characters by the way if you have read the bonds of magic books when he appeared on the page in bright familiar. Basically when he stepped out of the carriage I did not know what was going to happen in that scene and when he stepped out of the carriage. It was like this character who had decided he wanted to be part of these books and. Total surprise to me and so I’m so I’m enjoying delving into exactly what his deal is and I’ve been listening to the audio book of bright familiar and then I’ll finish that then I’ll read that listen read the audio book of great magic. So. Getting those things done and hoping to get a lot of stuff cleared out of my office because oh as I started out and probably didn’t finish saying my office is utter chaos in part because like the modem and internet connection was all behind bookshelves so there’s like. Books everywhere and I also have to mail out a whole bunch of stuff for Sifwa and I have a whole bunch of stuff for a polycon. So I’m hoping this weekend to like put my office back into order and then I will feel like um, it makes a big difference for me. I I um I wouldn’t say I’m a scrupulously neat person but I am like a clean desk person and I am a non-cluttered organized office person and um, yeah, deep cleansing breaths right? on that note. I hope that you all have wonderful relaxing fabulous weekend and I will um, talk to you all on Monday possibly with internet how you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – July 11, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Why I don’t think of storytelling as lying, conversations with writer friends about process, achieving Inbox Zero, fitting things in, efficiencies with To Do Lists, the story muscle as a visceral thing, and why I love Romance.




Transcript
00:00.76
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Um, delicious today is Monday July Eleventh we’re full of perkitude here at Chez Kennedy Hope you are too. Um, yeah I ah. Good weekend I had a restful weekend had some good conversations with people not with all the people I meant to I reached out to a couple of friends that I owed food and conversations to say we could talk on Sunday I’m getting my life back and one said okay that should get back to me with the time. And then she never did and the other one I’m going to talk to this afternoon. Um, so I’ll keep pursuing the former and hopefully talk to the latter and then I did get to talk to another friend yesterday. Um, we had a. Virtual well I was trying to explain how it was because I told my mom that I’d had a glass of wine with my friend and she said um I assume you mean a virtual glass of wine and I was like well the wine was real but the the interface was virtual. But it was funny because my friend is also a writer and a very busy person and she was showing me a new kind of scheduling system that she’s using ah sort of an online calendar. Um, because that was partly how I had scheduled to. Have like social time with her and I I want to set up my mind the same way. Um I was using callendly before and I should do that again. So that people can like schedule social time to chat as me because I did like doing that and she was glad that I did and so were like okay. Keep this going I think she was intent on reciprocating which is very nice. So but so she’s showing me this other scheduling system that she’s using which would probably be a little much for me. It’s really cool, but one thing I’ve discovered about myself is that if I am. Too heavily scheduled I I start to feel pressed and I don’t like it but you can pick the things that you put in there. It’s kind of a cool system and so one of the things she was showing me on the sidebar she was sharing her screen on the sidebar.

02:43.81
jeffekennedy
You know have like lunch exercise you know email you know, along with scheduled meetings and an attempt to like handle daily things like we all do and um and it showed for that day for Sunday and on exercise it said couldn’t fit in and I started laughing. I don’t think she thought it was as funny as I did because I was like isn’t that just the way it’s like exercise couldn’t fit in even our Ai driven scheduling systems can’t figure out a way to fit in some of those things I was very amused by. She not so much it could have been that she was more focused on like trying to explain to me why the calendar couldn’t fit in exercise on that given day but I was I was going for the um, the the universal irony of the thing could not fit in it’s like writing right it’s the thing that although I hear it much less now I don’t know if it’s because where I’m at or where aspiring authors are at but you know for so long. It seemed like I would hear from people you know oh I want a book. But I can’t find the time you know what? I wonder if pandemic changed that people were like well I definitely have the time but maybe so that’s an interesting thought isn’t it anyway. Yeah writing could not fit in um because. And and that’s how this calendar is is you could set things as being um, immovable appointments and then it would shift other things which it is a cool system. You know so like if you end up having if you usually schedule lunch for noon and you end up having a meeting that goes till twelve thirty it’ll shift lunch down. Um, so I mean I could see that I could see that I I kind of do that on my own scheduling. Some things are more flexible than others. So on the one hand I’m I’m tempted and interested and on the other I think ah. Is it really doing anything I can’t do for myself I was in a meeting the other day and somebody was referencing their to-do list and they said that they had read that you should never change the order of your to do list. That you shouldn’t spend any time rejiggering your to do list because then that you’re just using time that you could have been using to do the thing which I can see but all of us on the call kind of groaned.

05:34.49
jeffekennedy
And we’re all like I spend a lot of time rejiggering my to-do list and and the person said well that’s the point and it’s like yeah but it’s important to rejiggering. Um I’m not sure I want to I don’t know. You know it’s sort of like the other efficiency advice you know like you only pick up a piece of mail once which now translates to email that you only look at an email once and you respond to it then I’m happiest when I’m in that place I am not always in that place. It would be interesting to try to do that with the to do list. It would take quite a bit of rejiggering for me to get it to a place I could do that because I do always have more on my list on any given day than I can get to which I do know is a problem. Um, and so I I do think in terms of if I move things to particular days and really commit to on this day I’ll get this thing done and I can’t move it will that help I don’t know. But I did get um I got to inbox 0 over the weekend whoo which is great because ah, especially my SFWA inbox had gotten up to like 42 emails which I know is not a lot compared to other people run their lives. But mine was at that because they were all things I had to deal with and and it had slid back to um the beginning of June that there were things lurking in there in my defense we had had a little bit of an. Email server hook hiccup and a whole slew of emails that sort of came through like to the general president email had gotten stuck and so they were all liberated at once and they were all things that I had to consider in some way or another. So now that I’m back at inbox 0 hopefully I can keep keep going. Um, but my friend and I were just talking about one of the difficulties with inbox 0 is that there are days when you simply can’t face. Opening your email I was glad to hear her say the same thing. It’s like you know that after you get traumatized a few times. It’s like oh I don’t want to open my email but but yeah, so I actually have notes today I was thinking about.

08:20.80
jeffekennedy
Things this morning. My brain was clicking along which is a good thing. Ah I was talking to David because so we have this puzzle box for the cats that we got it off of Amazon you know and you put it together. It’s cardboard. It’s got like two levels. And got little boxes inside and you put their toys inside and you put treats in there and then the cats absorb their energies by digging the treats out of the box and at first only Jackson liked it. Um Isabel completely ignored it. But Jackson got tired of it. He I think it’s too much work for lazy boycat. Um, and then Isabel discovered it a few weeks ago I don’t know why it suddenly caught her attention. But. She loves this box she loves this box she like sleeps beside it she loves it so much. Sometimes she sits on it sometimes she lies next to it and gazes at it lovingly and she wants us to put treats in it all the time. And she is senior cat and she has started to decline and wait. So I’m not concerned about um, her eating too much sometimes I worry about her eating too many treats and not enough of her cat food. But I don’t know how much of a concern that is so. She yells at us to put more treats in the puzzle box and this morning I was making my coffee prepping to come out here and David walked through the living room and Isabel stared meowing at him rather strenuously and I said don’t listen to her stories I already gave her. I already refilled her box with treats and I thought it was funny that I say that and I recall that coming from my grandmother that she would say stories now don’t be telling stories as a way of saying telling lies. And it made me think about there are always some some writers out there who say things like I lie for a living I tell lies for a living. Um and I don’t like that and. And I could see probably where they come from culturally because it’s the same place. My grandmother came from right with that. Don’t tell stories. Don’t listen to her stories where stories are equivalent to untruths and I don’t really believe that.

11:03.37
jeffekennedy
Um I don’t believe that storytelling and lying are the same thing.

11:16.68
jeffekennedy
Incidentally and completely off topic Thursday and Friday I was not able to get Instagram to load this podcast I don’t know why I might have to go back to doing a clip. But if you missed the podcast at the end of last week this is why. If you watch on Instagram and I know a lot of you do so it just keeps saying can’t load or or can’t share I think can’t share probably Instagram changed their settings again. Alas so. Ah, just wanted to mention that if um, if it won’t load today I’ll try to do the snippet again and see if that works hello hummer.

12:06.70
jeffekennedy
Hammers coming in to feed off of the hanging lobilia very picturesque. So oh the other thing that my friend and I were talking about. I’ve got something fuzzy on my face. Sorry I don’t know what something floated down. Um, oh we were just talking about the storytelling muscle and what that feels like. And how for both of us. It feels like more of a visceral thing than ah, a floaty thing and I was saying that’s partly why I don’t really grok with people saying things like the muse or the spirit or the inspiration. Ah, you know the word inspiration comes from inspire to draw breath in it never feels like an airy breathy thing to me. It feels like a gut thing. It feels like a muscle and she was asking me about something I’d been sort of debating been waffling on in writing shadow wizard. And I said oh you know what? I I got to the point in the book I meant like um, a little more than 25K words now I’m closing in on act one climax and so I meant I mean we could see I lied to her probably and said I was at like 25K words and i. I don’t think it’s that many 21.4 give or take a few 3,500 words but it was good enough for the conversation and I said that I had gotten to that point where I started to do the thing I wanted to do. And it felt so good I was so happy that I could do that and she had kind of given me quasi permission waved the permission wand to try this new thing I wanted to do oh who am I kidding I’ve already told all of you ah that I want to write more than 2 povs in Shadow Wizard. So I’ve been alternating with Jadren and Seliah for the first part of the book and now I have switched to Gabriel’s pov and. And she asked what did I think about it I was like ah felt so good and she’s like that’s that visceral feeling is it like yeah yeah, and and we’re both talking about how it feels like a she said sometimes it almost feels like sculpting like you’ve got this big thing and you’re kind of wrestling it. So I find it interesting that we both.

14:45.74
jeffekennedy
See it the same way. Always fascinating to me how people see their process. Um, you know that I also wrote these notes on this and I’m tried to decide if this is like a whole nother topic and I’m probably not going to get to in the. Next 5 minutes but I can talk a little bit about about that first act. Um I’ve been reading several different books over the next last few days or the next few days um trying to. Trying to satisfy various obligations and settle in um, for something that’s going to feed me through writing shadow wizard and I haven’t quite found it yet. I was reading a book that ah. Kelly Robson recommended to me and she really really wanted me to read and it’s a fantasy, a new fantasy. It’s not romance though and and I do feel occasionally a little bit of chagrin about. When people will say well does a book have to be romance and it’s it doesn’t I read a lot of books that are not romance. But if I read a book that is I’m trying to explain what it is about this book without getting too specific um romance. Adds a level of of happiness and reassurance to a dark story for me so I can read a story that is nonfiction or that is um, even something that is like. I don’t know. Um, ah I’m not sure I can even say what it is but if there is a story like this one that was fantasy but where the protagonists are all really unhappy people and it’s. Macabre ah, in a way that is similar to and I’m going to mention this one um Gideon the Ninth I know a lot of people loved Gideon the Ninth I did not get through it and it’s I read it for quite. I don’t know I think I read like the none 25% and it’s nothing against Tamsyn Muir because I I do think that um Tamsyn is a wonderfully skilled writer and created a fascinating world and I loved that opening scene the opening scene was

17:35.33
jeffekennedy
Amazingly well done which kept me going but then it goes into this world where there is so much darkness and the people are miserable and they are all unkind to each other and I know that. Least people say that there is eventually a romance but I didn’t I didn’t believe that it was going to be a romance with a capital r because the people were already so unkind to each other and I thought it might end up being more of a um I don’t know. Kind of a gray romance if you know what I mean because it was really more of a fantasy or science fiction story and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s perfectly fine perfectly. Fine I should tell you all the story about perfectly fine but I won’t write now. Have to get permission. Ah no, but it’s it’s been become our new favorite hashtag so I’m totally distracted by perfectly fine perfectly fine as a way of seeing saying. I understand why people enjoy this thing and it’s perfectly fine for them to enjoy this thing but but I don’t get it and I seriously but I don’t get it because I see it so differently. Um, the. The hate hate relationship thing is just not something that’s fun for me and in this book that Kelly wanted me to read. It was um, there was a lot of that and it was. A very interesting magic system and an interesting world and setup. But I knew that I was not going to get happy emotions from reading this book and I think that’s what it comes down to is. And maybe that’s something that romance readers and writers have a difficult time conveying. It’s it’s not just that we want the romance or the love affair. It’s that I want that emotional satisfaction and that was RWA’s definition for a long time. Probably still is. Um, I’m really not sure what’s going on with RWA these days but you know it’s that emotionally satisfying conclusion and and that’s what you want? Yeah I mean they probably didn’t want to say happy. But there’s something to that you know that we want to come out of it feeling.

20:15.99
jeffekennedy
Joyful and optimistic and believing in um, in a satisfying relationship. Whatever kind of relationship that may be and if I am in doubt about getting that and I’m not going to. Get happiness from the story in any other way than I’m unlikely to want to keep going with it and so I think Kelly was pretty disappointed in me that I wouldn’t keep reading this book and then she was talking about another book. She said well did I ever tell you to read this book and I said yes and I tried to read it and I didn’t like it. She’s so we’re we’re just um, doing perfectly fine to each other so ah on that note I think I will go on I know I didn’t finish talking about first 25% but I’m gonna talk about that more tomorrow because I’ve. Other things to say about that and yeah, but now I need to go get some work done. So I hope you all have a wonderful Monday and I will talk to you tomorrow I’ll take care bye bye.