Transcript
00:00.58
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author fantasy romance and romantic fantasy. I’m here with my first cup of coffee. This is also my first cup of coffee since I returned home. Um, so it is especially delicious.
00:27.00
jeffekennedy
Ah, today is Thursday February 20 fourth I am Back. Ah you know I was drinking hotel coffee hotel Starbucks what do you guys think I think that the Starbucks at hotels I know they’re legit. Or supposedly legit Starbucks but I don’t think their drinks are as good. Yes, like if you go to a real Starbucks store I feel the same about grocery store Starbucks but I got brevey lattes at the um. marott laxs where I was staying and the it’s it’s just amazing like making this with my own half and half breve latte is you make it with half and half instead of with whole milk or 2% or what have you. Those tasted so watery. They were so watery I don’t believe that it’s they must not like use all half and half or something like that cutting corner skimping who knows ah oh this reminds me sorry I got pause. I didn’t want to forget I wanted to take a picture of the bird wing marks on the snow so we got snow last night. It was lovely just see snow I was I’ll tell you my traveling trebiles I was very happy to get back home. Um, but when the birds. Wings hit the snow. It makes a mark that looks like claws looks like claws except that there’s too many of them because there’s like well put the photo on the show notes. But like 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 yeah likes. Six five so it’s like alien ah marks what’s really cool. So always fun to see the tracks of the critters who have been out there. So um. My travels were good I came back a day later then I had planned I was supposed to fly home Tuesday afternoon and and be here all day yesterday to finish up the copy edits and revisions on great magic. But. Actually united messaged me before I even left which I thought was interesting when did they message me. Let’s just look because I do find this really interesting I mean this is better. This is way better than the bad old days where you have no ideas.
03:14.82
jeffekennedy
So they messaged me on I guess Sunday no I left on Sunday they must have messaged me on Saturday why doesn’t this have a date stamp. Let’s say if it shows on my phone I have my um phone texting you know, connected. To the computer which makes it easier to type. It’s a little bit more invasive but I’m willing to make that one concession. 1 case. It’s beginning so Saturday so on Saturday um united text to me and said. Winter weather across the rocky mountains may cause disruptions to your upcom united flight including delays or cancellations in case, your travel plans are flexible. You may want to consider flying on a different day or connecting in a different city at no additional cost I shouldn’t paid attention to the different city part. I could have checked my rebooking options but I thought well I’m just gonna go so I went and then on I clicked away too soon had no trouble getting there on Sunday which was really my primary concern I thought I needed to be there and all of that so then on monday. They texted me and said that they had canceled my flight from Denver to Santa Fe on Tuesday because of severe weather conditions. So like they knew more than 24 hours ahead and they let me rebook and we were in the midst of getting a tour of a hotel. By the sales manager because why I was there is for the sfwa nebula conference and we were looking at hotels for 2023 as well and so we went to a bunch of different hotels and got the tours of them saw the facilities and let me tell you it was a lot more tiring. I expected it to be um, but so we were in the middle of the tour and and I to apologize for my inattention sort of trailing along but I could rebook right there on my phone I felt like I should do it right? Away. So it gave me a rebooking option for early Wednesday morning and so I was like okay hope hope that’ll work and it was supposed to get me in by like twelve thirty yesterday still going to Denver um, it was kind of funny cause it. Kept trying to swap out like later options I’m like no no this is this is the option I want and it wasn’t terrible. My flight left l a at like 7 a m so but I also did a backup flight on southwest.
06:02.71
jeffekennedy
Because on southwest you can cancel like 10 minutes up to 10 minutes before the flight so I did a backup flight on southwest that would have left l a at like 9 connected through phoenix and into Albuquerque. And gotten into Albuquerque at like 3 in the afternoon and David would have had to drive down to Albuquerque to get me so I waited until I was like on the playing in l a and it looked like everything was good to go and then canceled my southwest flight I kind of. Wanted to wait till I got there but I I would have missed my um 10 minute window so I canceled the southwest flight from my plane and got to Denver and Denver was very snowy. And everything was looking good I had a fairly short layover. Got um you know was there at my gate and everything and then they said they had a maintenance problem low oil and they needed to check into it I was like ah so I went ahead and did it again and made a backup flight. Reservation on southwest leaving it wasn’t it would have left a lot later in the day I think it didn’t lead to like 5 it was my only only other option again going down to Albuquerque but it would have been better than if you know because united didn’t have any other flights to Santa Fe that day. That was like okay well I really don’t want to spend another whole day in night in Denver so I made the backup flight again and we ended up going. We got on up on the play we were like half an hour late forty minute hour late forty minutes late and david picked me up in santa fe and once I landed in santa fe then I went to my southwest app I mean it’s really nice to have these phone apps and be able to do this I went to my southwest app and canceled that flight and amusingly enough when I went to that flight did this like big red flag warning on it saying warning your flight due to you know. Conditions weather conditions beyond our control beyond our control. Your flight may be canceled or delayed and you could rebook and by the time it was pretty nice when I landed the wind was sharp but by the time we got home. Um, the wind was really picking up and by. Like five o’clock it was storming away here. So I was glad that um I like feel like I sort of wove between the windows there finding my windows of opportunity.
08:45.57
jeffekennedy
So yeah, my copy editor sent the edits on gray magic they were there when I woke up early Wednesday morning in my hotel room. So I was able to download my document and then I went through the track changes on both flights but did take me both flights to go through them. And then once I got home. We stopped for euros on the way home and then once I got here I spent another couple hours I did trek my time on it. Um, my my start to finish for yesterday is like really. Wild cause it’s like I spent over 10 hours from like when I started when I finished but my I started at like seven thirty Pacific time so it’s a little bit of an artifact there. Um, but 4 hours four and a half hours it took me to do all the copy edits and then I went back and I did. Revise those last 52 pages I believe it was that I had written yeah 52 pages and I did find stuff that needed adjusting. Nothing horrible. But. Stuff that I was glad I had a chance to fix.
10:03.40
jeffekennedy
And then sent it off to the for matter last night and he sent it to me this morning at 7 so I’ve downloaded those and looked them over. It looks great. So now I’m gonna upload and gray magic is ready to go very exciting. Um. And take you all for all the excited notes that you’ve been sending me that’s um, really lovely. You think there’s a cat tearing things up in the other room hold on cats are happy to see me again but also running wild. So um, that it was it was interesting being in Los Angeles we toured some hotels in Anaheim also out near um studio city. Yeah, so it and it was good to to be in person with some of this. So what people um. People I’ve not seen in in the flesh since pre pandemicdemic and so we had good meals together and good conversations and did a lot of planning and now I am sort of in catchup mode I am not goingnna write today I was. Definitely tired. Um I finished on Friday I guess I probably haven’t reported since I did my podcast Friday morning I you guys know if you listen regularly that I woke up very early Friday morning. And that David was like I know you want to get this done. You buy as well. Just get to work and I finished my um yeah finished writing it at about 11 am and sent it off to my copy editor or proof reader and got ready for durinda to visit. And she came to visit. She got here about um six I think yeah so I don’t remember now because it feels like a long time ago. What? all I did that Friday afternoon but I I took care of a lot of things and picked up the house that sort of thing and. Got ready for my trip and we watched Ionia together that was fun. She had never seen it and so that was um I really like the storytelling in that and I thoughtreda would appreciate it too. We’ve been taught we were talking about breaking the fourth wall.
12:35.39
jeffekennedy
And how that can be an effective way to tell a story and then um Saturday morning we got to sort of chat over coffee hang out and chat was very leisurely morning and I had a sifwa board meeting which we got done really fast that was great and. Then we went down our panel at the jean-cockto. It was interesting trying to do the hybrid which is like what we’re focusing on for the sipqua nebula conference for 2023 trying to do as hybrid as possible maximizing. So there are definitely tricks. That I learned but you know like having 3 of us there in person with some people in the audience and then 2 people zooming in it made for an interesting balancing act they did show us the screen with the faces. Of the other 2 people but it was down here and it was very much tempting to look down into their faces as we’re trained to do right paying attention. We look into their faces but the camera was not down here. The camera was up there across the theater pointed at us. So I was having to remind Darynda and Emily and remind myself to look up into the camera when we were talking I’m sure that this is like what the newscasters learn seems like this was in broadcast news and maybe some other things but it’s like you have to learn to look in the camera and. And it’s something that I feel like the younger people are better at with selfies because it’s the same thing that when people do the selfie. It’s tempting to look down at the image of yourself and you you have to look up at where the camera is and it’s the same thing on here I tend to look at myself. But I really should be looking at the camera so that you feel like I’m looking at you. It’s a funny thing isn’t it technology. So um, after that joined in I had a wonderful lunch and then we went out. To Melinda Snodgrass’s house and she taught us her plot break method. Although we didn’t get as far into it as I would have liked um and Darynda left I think around six thirty we got there at 4 she left at six thirty and they were just like sort of launching in the phase 2 and I was kind of thinking. Oh sure I stay longer than I was like I knew I was tired my brain was tired I was out of words. Um from finishing the book and I I said oh you know actually I should go home now too and so I went hope and I actually went to bed.
15:22.41
jeffekennedy
Pretty quickly got up early Sunday morning flew to Los Angeles and gal and didn’t started meeting up with people. It was funny because people started coming in and then. Ah, of us were there for Monday touring the different hotels to check things out and then it started to Peter off again. Um on Tuesday until um, it was like I was the only one left leaving on Wednesday morning because of my delay. But um, yeah, it was interesting. Interesting to see how all these different hotels had responded to both how they responded to covid and how they represented how they responded to covid because one of the questions we asked them and it was a little bit of a test question. Was what challenges had they faced with the pandemic. Um, which you would think would be a pretty standard answer and our executive director Kate had posed that question and I kind of felt like well what are we going to learn from this that we don’t always already know like we know what the challenge is the pandemic were. But it was funny because like 1 gal said none at all business is usual and it’s like okay so this place they’re just going to like take that party line and they’re going to lie about it. Um, and other places gave different levels. Of honest answers. So I think that it it was a good litmus test for like what will it be like dealing with this hotel. How direct and honest, will they be with me. so um so yeah that’s that’s been my last few days I’m I’m still feeling tired. It’s hard to say if I’m tired from it. It was remarkably exhausting going to see these different hotels I’m not quite sure. Why maybe just that paying attention and moving from place to place hard to say um. On top of traveling. So yeah I’m still feeling a little tired but I’m gonna get this book uploaded yay and maybe do some businessy things today but also kind of kick back and relax today. So um. I know my mother’s very happy to have the podcast back again. Hope you all are happy to and yeah, glad to be back into my routine and we’ll see how things go from here so Monday February Twenty Eighth release of gray magic. It’s actually going to happen.
18:09.61
jeffekennedy
And they said it couldn’t no you guys have all been like we know and we’re happy to wait and I greatly appreciate it. Um, yeah, so and otherwise I will um I’ll be back here tomorrow to talk to you so I hope you all have a wonderful thursday. Um, and yeah, talk to each 1 you all take care bye bye.