Updates on THE FATE OF THE TALA and Other Celebrations

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Farolitos up on the roof, with a nearly full moon rising – a lovely sky for finishing that job yesterday evening!

I’ve finished the outside holiday decorations and I’m hoping we’ll get the Christmas tree later this afternoon, to decorate tonight and tomorrow. Then decorating will be complete! We’ve also made some inroads on shopping, I got to have a fancy cocktail out at the bar at Inn at Loretto, plus I have several parties coming up, so the season is proceeding apace.

Otherwise I’m head-down on THE FATE OF THE TALA. The insightful and generous Marcella Burnard sent me feedback that helped with perspective on the story, so now I’ve gone back to the beginning to revise, tweak and tighten. Then I’ll finish out the ending. So I’m still on track for a January 15 release date! For those who’ve asked, I am doing preorders on my website store only. That’s mostly because I am not locked into uploading the finished book days ahead of the release date. My plan is to make the book live in my website store first – which means people who preorder there gets the book before anyone else! – then I’ll start uploading to retailers. I totally understand if you’d rather buy through your favorite retailer! It’s just less pressure on me (and I make more money on each copy) to do it this way. It’s been really wonderful to get that preorder income already (with retailer preorders, I don’t get the sales until release day, and the money comes in two months after that) because it helps offset my expenses in publishing the book.

I greatly appreciate all of you who are willing to buy through the website store and I totally sympathize with those of you who prefer not to go with the bother of sideloading, etc.

Hope you all are enjoying the holiday season in whatever way gives you the maximum Delight & Gladness!

#1 Thing to Assuage Holiday Stress

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I posted this pic to Instagram Stories asking people to vote on whether this is a helpful cat or not. Something like 82% voted “yes.” (I forgot to look at the final score before the story expired.) This only proves that my tribe of followers are TOTAL CAT PUSHOVERS.

And yes, that’s THE FATE OF THE TALA on the monitor. I was amused by how many people messaged asking if that’s what they spied. Those who listen to my podcast know that I’m struggling with this book, but I’m also at 88K now – which I originally thought would be my total! – and I’m getting there…

NOT helped by cats who insert themselves between my hand and the mouse.

Anyhooo….

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our #1 Thing to do to keep our sanity this holiday season. Come on over to find out mine!

 

One Scene at a Time

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Exciting change in my life: my mom bought me a new bedspread, etc., and I’ve totally changed up the color scheme! I really love it. 🙂 Also, Isabel is pleased by how well it matches her blue-smoke fur.

I’ve been absent from the blog lately, I know – except for cross-posts with the SFF Seven blog – because I did thirty days of podcasting in November. (Well, I missed November 30 because of travel, but I hit October 31, so I *did* do thirty consecutive days!)

I’m also funneling all my word energy into writing THE FATE OF THE TALA. I tell you people: I thought this book has been hard to write. But I just got on the phone with my lovely bestie Grace Draven to talk through some plot points. She ended up making a diagram as we talked and more than once said “You’re trying to do WHAT?” and “Wait, that TOO?!?” I had to point out several times that her incredulity wasn’t helping. (She just laughed, the way she does, that high-pitched giggle that sounds just like Dolly Parton’s.) At least I ended up feeling better about the fact that this effort really IS difficult.

And she gave me ideas for how to proceed. We ended up with the writer’s version of AA, where I’m just taking it one scene at a time. So that’s what I’m doing. Getting through this scene. Then I’ll think about getting through the next scene.

Amazing how that perspective helps!