Author: Jeffe Kennedy

First Cup of Coffee – April 4, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I am here with my first cup of coffee which those of you on video will note is Starbucks espresso still trying to figure out. What I can have that’s like not a latte so I had to come back to the room and heat up water to add more water to it I think maybe what I want is an americano I might try that next time. Ah because I’m not at home if you’re on video you could see I am in a hotel room today is Monday April. Fourth. And I am on mini break with my hubs and his siblings and behind me. That’s a little bit of a glare there with the rising sun but the beautiful Colorado rocky mountains behind me. So um, yeah, doing the podcast here from the hotel room kind of a dicey wireless connection. We’re on a very high floor which is cool. But um, yeah, apparently high floor means not so much with the internet but. We’ll see how it works out. Um, yeah, so we came up here yesterday Sunday and amazingly fast drive like faster than it’s been in years I don’t know if it’s like the price of gas or what it is. But um, there was like it was kind of a rainy Sunday afternoon but the roads were good and we have not made that drive from. We went up dinnerstate from Santa Fe to Denver and then cut over on E4 seventy for those of you who what? know. And just took e four seventy around to where it connects with 70 right at Golden there and then hop skip and the jump up the rest of the way and um, yeah, it was so fast. Ah. If. We had been going to my stepdaughter’s House. We would have made it there in 5 hours and we have not made that trip in only 5 hours and years I was talking with some people at um, the hot tub last night they have um, a rooftop pool here and. Which is I’m on the thirty first floor and the pool’s on the thirty fourth floor and so they had this this great rooftop pool and hot tub and they had fire pits which some of you may know is like my happy place so they were saying.

02:47.87
jeffekennedy
Asking me where I was from because they’re looking for somewhere else to move and they said yeah that they’re um, fifteen com minute commute or no their 5 minute commute I think 5 minute commute has become a 50 minute commute and either the traffic candior just terrible but not yesterday. So we lucked out. We leave here tomorrow and I don’t know I don’t expect it to be nearly that slick. We shall see I don’t know if I’ll do a podcast tomorrow. We’ll see how we feel might see how David feels but we might just um. Get up early and go so we’ll just see um probably if I do that I will um, do a podcast on Wednesday Wednesday to keep my mom happy I did get up and turn down the heat I think because I’m sitting like right. It’s coming out of the vents across from there I was like starting to swlter here so I did figure out what it was I’d meant to talk about on Friday and found my note it was like underneath other notes I’d written on the pad. I’m hot I might have to take this jacket off. Okay I took the jacket off. Its like pretty outfit though. So and it was corene. She she listened ah assistantrene she listened to the podcast later and she said well you didn’t promise anyone anything unless it was me. And I was like oh wait it was um, but by then I had found my no one so one of the big curfuffles in the author community at the moment. It’s kind of author reader community is that people. Apparently there was a viral tick to and you guys I’m just beginning to loathe the term viral you we have a highrell I don’t know and and and then I see people talk about how do you make something go viral. It’s like the whole point of something going viral is that you don’t know how you did it. Ah, but everybody wants viral I don’t reader I do not want viral I shouldn’t mess with my hair because then I just make it look worse I did at the casino last night um this guy sat down at the slot machine as I was getting up and. Yeah, what he said are you done and I was like yeah and go ahead. Good luck and heat and he paused and he goes you are an unbelievably beautiful woman I was so thank you I was like how much have we had to drink but still made me feel good. So um.

05:38.40
jeffekennedy
That was not my point so I talked about this before and my mom and a couple other people commented that they just didn’t know that people did this that they take advantage of Amazon’s very generous return policy and people read books and return them. Not everybody. It’s vanishingly small. Ah but it does happen and it becomes kind of a weaponized thing too. Ah, but apparently someone made a Tiktok video telling people how you could do this and advising readers to do this same. That it’s an author problem not a reader problem that it’s not their problem if authors are upset that readers read and then return their books. The problem is just to make this entirely clear in case people don’t understand the economics of this. Is that if somebody buys your book and returns it then the author does not get any money for that book. Ah, and there are some readers who apparently think that authors are really rich and there are some who are really rich and they’re very high profile. But most are not most are scraping by are just barely putting it together. Besides which if you read someone’s book then you should pay for it. You know at least something but there is some. You know a contingent of people out there who feel like if they get something if they can get away with something if they can get something for free then they will and Ebook pirating has been a thing since the beginning of ebooks.

07:33.70
jeffekennedy
I was gonna pause but now it won’t let me because I it’s funny with the um dicecy internet connection pausing becomes more difficult I just realized they didn’t silence my phone I thought I’d better. Do that. So anyway, um, it’s It’s a conundrum. It’s a problem and a lot of authors are very upset about this just like people have been upset about piracy from the beginning you know piracy is when somebody takes your book. And uploads it to a torrent site or some other site and sometimes they charge people a subscription to the site you know and then it’s like oh you can read on all these books for free. The author does not get money for those reads either. So the thing is um. Even though I have seen some authors saying things like that she got like apparently there was one who said that she had um, a hundred returns of her book in one week ah but I think that this sort of gets to be a vindictive thing because um. Um, I’m have to look at all of my notes here. Yeah excuse me so I had coherent thoughts on this but I haven’t had enough coffee yet. So. I’ve seen a slight uptick in returns I happen to notice it especially on the most popular books. Ah, and by this I mean percentage wise um you know because obviously the most popular books have the most sales. And I did notice that on like on dark wizard and fire of the frost 2 of the newer and more popular books that there has been ah a few more returns on it. Um, but by this I mean each of them had 10 returns. Which worked out to like 3% and that was just in 1 1 slice that I went and looked at it and I didn’t really compare over time I don’t worry about returns. Um, but this is the same thing for me that I have never worried much about piracy. I wanted to say privacy I’ve never worried much about piracy. Um, and this is because I truly believe that those people out there that want to pirate books that want to read free books that.

10:21.80
jeffekennedy
Do this thing of reading and returning. Um I don’t think that those people would ever pay for my books in the first place they’re not the loyal readers and the good customers. Who have been so generous as to make my career possible because and you guys those people are not listening to this podcast either I can almost promise that ah you guys who are listening to this podcast would not do this kind of thing right? So you know they’re. Here we come around to preaching preaching to the choir right? But the readers who value and love my books. Um, they are willing to pay for it. They pay several times. Ah some of them get. Arcs of my books and then buy copies for themselves head to sneeze there. Um, so the thing is a lot of these authors are very upset saying why is Amazon doing this Um, and why why are they not prohibiting it. And I go back and forth on this and there’s like a petition out there which I have not signed because I think internet petitions are not worth much to get Amazon to change their ways and I don’t think this is how you get Amazon to change their ways. Ah there are some good options out there. That if somebody has read more than half of a book which we know Amazon can tell that there’s not able to return it. Ah the one that I’m mostly most in favor of is we know that Amazon can track reader activity and they can tell. If somebody is systematically buying reading and returning books and I feel like those people Amazon should not allow to do that anymore. You know like you maybe get 5 returns in a year or something like that and we know that they have the capability of doing this. Whether they want to do it is another question. Um, we can see because we have pretty real time sales activity on our dashboards you know like I can see somebody doing this working their way through my series where you know they’ll buy it. And two days later return it and then the next book in the series by two days later return and systematically works the whole series I can see it which means Amazon can see it. Um and I I do think that Amazon should consider um, limiting those particular.

13:05.85
jeffekennedy
Offenders because they are few and far between but they are also regular offenders and apparently one of the outcries has been that these people say well that they can’t afford to buy the books and read them and so that’s why they do this, you know and. And other people are pointing out. That’s why libraries exist because yes, this is why libraries exist and if you get the book from the library and you can get an ebook through overdrive from any library anywhere then the author gets paid. So that’s why you should do it which. I’m talking to all the people who are not listening to this podcast right? but that is why so the reason that Amazon does this is. It’s a very basic practice of serving the customer that the. No questions asked return and the reason that they do this is because Amazon is serving the 99% of good customers who do not abuse the policy and they know and this is ah you know fairly. I don’t know if I want to say basic but it’s well-known business practice that the businesses that focus on the criminals that are so worried about shoplifting and so forth and there’s been studies on this that they do more to. Alienate the good customers than they do to to control the bad customers. So for instance, when you walk into a store you being the wonderful lawabiding ah paying authors for books citizen who listens to my podcast. When you walk into a store and you see a bunch of signs that say shoplifters will be prosecuted and you’re on camera and we hate shoplifters and don’t you dare touch this you feel alienated right? You you feel bad about it. I know I do could be and you you get this. Bad feeling about the business. It’s like well how come they think I’m going to steal everything from them. It’s because they’re focusing on that like 1% or less than 1% I don’t know what the number is of people who shoplift they’re more worried about that than they are about the 99% of the people who come in and pay for the goods. Amazon is very very smart and that they’re putting their money on those 99% who don’t do this return. Don’t take advantage of it in an illegal way in ethical way unethical I was gonna say immoral. But I then I got confused with my Ms. And uns.

15:51.33
jeffekennedy
it’s um it’s it’s a it’s one of the very smart ways that Amazon runs their business.

16:02.33
jeffekennedy
So one of the reasons that um that this came to my attention I mean a lot of the authors around me are talking about it. Ah, but Karine had mentioned that like this gal who like had a hundred returns in a week. Um. She had posted a long rant about it being very upset about it and part of what’s happening here. Is you know people talk about oh well, you know like it’s a toxic community on Tiktok and book talk but people do get personally involved. So. And I don’t know exactly what happened but here’s my guess from what people have told me is that you know like somebody put up this video or whatever on hey how you know here’s a way to read books for free. You know you go ahead and buy them and then read it and return and Amazon will let you and you should do this and then these. Authors or perhaps other readers came back and said hey this is really a shitty thing to do and the original people and their cohort doubled down and they were like let’s make this go viral. Everybody should do this. The reason that they’re doing that is they want to feel right? if. You can say well everybody’s doing it then it must be okay, that’s because they know in their hearts. Everybody knows that it’s a shitty thing to do that. It is stealing um and they want to rationalize it. That’s part of why they’re saying. It’s an author problem. It’s no. My problem but they know on their heart side. It is you know one of the things about human beings is that they almost always know when they are doing something wrong. They find ways to rationalize it and to excuse it. But that’s part of why our legal system makes. Such a big differentiation between whether or not the person is capable mentally capable of understanding right from wrong most human beings unless they are sociopaths or mentally afflicted in some way understand right? from wrong. So these people understand that it’s wrong. But if they can get more and more people to do this then they can feel more right because if everybody’s doing it well then it’s not that wrong, right? It’s still wrong. So anyway, this gal um, who’s getting tons of returns. It’s. Because she was going up against these folks and they were gonna punish her. Um and that’s their way of doing it but then somebody else took her post and shared it and that was where correne saw it and that person had finished up with this. Let this be a warning to you? um.

18:51.88
jeffekennedy
It’s ah it’s not entirely clear to me. What was a warning except I think that this a lot of authors very naturally want to go to the position of if everybody keeps returning my books I will not be able to make money and and some authors you know like they’re selling so few. That they’re like getting negative royalties which sucks I mean it sucks and they’re struggling and you know so authors want to take the position of if you do not pay for my books then I will not be able to write them anymore I won’t I won’t be able to make a living doing this. You have to pay out and you know it’s not exactly a viable profession and obviously I’m very much in favor of writers being able to make money writing their books. That’s the whole mission of sapwa. Um. It’s my personal mission since that’s what I do and it’s still preaching to the choir right? because if you go out there and you say let this be a warning to you. You are reaching your loyal readers. As Corine was for for this person and um, no longer felt friendly. So here. We are back to the same thing right? Ah coreine felt like she was being treated like. Ah, potential criminal right? like a shoplifter instead of like the loyal book buying fan that she is green spends money on books she buys paper books sometimes at prices that I can’t believe she wants to pay for things I like just read the book and because that’s what I do but she’s like no, it’s collectible I want this. We love you carring. So I know what’s the take home message here. Um, it’s kind of my same message that I’ve had all along about piracy which is you know, chill chill people. Ah, it’s not It’s It’s not that big of a problem and you’re better served by approaching this like a company like Amazon. It’s not an accident that Amazon is so successful and part of why they’re successful is is because they do not worry about. That small percentage that are trying to cheat things instead. They entirely focus on the people who are here take my money and they are taking the money. So so that that’s my whole thought on that. Um and I’m already over 20 minutes here so I’m going to head on my way.

21:35.55
jeffekennedy
But um I am going to get this posted and I’m going to do some writing this morning here in the hotel room going to sit the other way so I can look out at the mountains and be a good kitty cat and get my words in and and then yeah this afternoon I get to do a spa treatment. I get to have a body scrub and a body wrap. Ah which I’m really excited about I’ve been saving up my money to do. Um I feel like I have lizards skin and I’ve not been able to have a good expiliation for um I don’t know at 2019 and I don’t know when before that. So very excited for that. Thank you for buying my books to enable me to not have lizard skin and for me to be able to make a living doing this I appreciate each and every one of you and I think you know that I work. Very hard to make sure that you get that value for your money. So um, maybe tomorrow definitely Wednesday and you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – April 1, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.31
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Today is say it with me Friday wooo. It’s also April first April fools stay here in the Us. Um. So far I have not seen any fooling I haven’t looked at much I looked at Instagram but I I think I probably say this every year am not a fan of April fools day I’m not a fan of pranks in general of trying to trick people. Um, just not my thing I know some families are much more into it. But for me, it’s um I think there’s a level of cruelty in pranks that is um, just not part of who I am.

01:07.76
jeffekennedy
It’s interesting because I w rid coffee yesterday and had a long conversation with Jim Sorensen and we always have interesting conversations. We were talking about how SFWA’s new membership requirements are. Based on affidavit. It’s based on the honor system which some people object to somebody There’s always somebody objecting to something but part of our reasoning on this is that if somebody wanted to game the system. If they wanted to cheat their way into membership. It’s not that difficult to falsify documentation in this day and age so and interestingly Jim commented that if there were rules that he might be. Tempted to cheat them just because he would feel like he was being clever in circumventing the rules. But if it’s on our system then he feels like he has to abide by it because it’s like oh well, if you expect me to be honorable then I guess I have to. Interesting psychology huh. So um I I wonder if there’s not something connected to that with like whether or not you like to play pranks on people I think some of it’s the getting away. It’s the feeling like you’re clever and that you’ve managed to trick somebody for me. It. Very rarely has to do with actual good humor and the stuff that is actual good humor. We don’t have to have a special day for it right? I did contemplate doing some sort of. April fools podcast today. In fact, I very nearly when I start up Zencastr here I label all of my episodes by date. So I had the you know saw yesterday’s March thirty first twenty twenty two and I was very very tempted to label Today’s March Thirty second 2022 but then my ah my inner data nerd rebelled because it would be incorrect.

03:36.74
jeffekennedy
The other conversation that Jim and I had was about answering questions on Panels and at conferences. Um, and I don’t remember how we got on that topic but we were talking about. When people ask how there are certain questions that come up almost every time in interviews or when you’re on a panel or when you’re doing a q and a and that sort of thing I’m going to pause because I know that i’s something I plan to talk about today if I made a note which I thought I did. And not finding it a well I’ll go I’ll keep on this one and then I might have to look if I still have time I know something kind of important I think I promised someone I would talk about it today if I forget and I brought and you were the one I promised. Ah, remind me and I’ll talk about it. Well maybe not Monday we have to talk about that too. Anyway. So we were talking about answering questions and like there are certain questions that come up over and over again and that are difficult to answer and I was using this as an example that one of them is. Well I so what I was explaining is that one way that I handle that that I’ve come to handle this over time is that I try to answer the content of the question. The what I think the person is really wanting to know but they’ve kind of gone for this very standard. Um. Almost empty question and so the example I was using is the where do you get your ideas people ask where do you get your ideas a whole lot and that I think people aren’t really, they aren’t asking where do you get your ideas that they want to know something else. Basically they want to know. How do they get good ideas and become successful writing them and so I was in the midst of this is sort of a meta explanation I was in the midst of explaining this to Jim when he cut in and said being clever. And said, um, well that Harlan Ellison always said Schenectady New York that he sends off a self-address stamped envelope and they send him back ideas and and I said well that but that’s an asshole answer and that Harlan Ellison it should be pointed out. Was an asshole and Jim said yes, but it’s amusing to the audience and that’s what matters so we got into this big debate about it because I was like I can understand why he thinks performing for the audience and being amusing is like your job when you’re on that kind of thing.

06:28.96
jeffekennedy
But he’s much more in this niche profession of like you know he works on like transformers in Ji Joe so he goes mainly to fan conventions it and he said well do you feel like you have this. Onus or this responsibility to answer people’s questions sincerely and authentically and I said yes, um, but I guess that’s who I am I mean that’s like I’m always trying to give sincere and authentic answers answers for better or worse and i. I said you know I feel like um sure you get a laugh out of saying something like I send off to Schenectady New York for my ideas and you know ha ha ha it’s it’s the equivalent of like an April fools joke. It’s like let me let me make fun of you for and asking this question. Instead of honoring what you are really wanting to know. Um, but this is this is where we fall out and you know and I could see both sides of it. Um I think I’m there to pass long information Jim thinks he’s there to entertain people. Um, so I think the best answer that I’ve ever heard to this one is something that John Scalzi has talked about when I saw him here in Santa Fe because somebody asked where you get your ideas. And he said that he thinks that a better way to address. It is to think in terms of that. Really the question is how do you know? an idea is a good one and and he talked about his method for this that if he gets an idea he sits on it. He doesn’t write it down. He just molds it over. If he still has it the next morning he gives a little bit more thought if he still has it in a week gives it a little more thought and he said and if the idea persists for like six months then it’s a worthwhile idea and he actually invests in it and I find that a really useful both approach. And way of answering that question in an am. Um, authentic and useful way. Um, and and Jim kind of disagreed. But or maybe he didn’t disagree but um. He still thought that it was better to give a funny answer.

08:59.66
jeffekennedy
Or if not better, certainly easier. Um, and I mentioned that this had backfired on me because when I did that interview with Julia Quinn I don’t know if that like went up and got recorded or or what. Was an interesting interview but 1 of the people in the online chat asked where she got her ideas and and I sort of translated that into this. Maybe it’s you know, saying that was the question and but that maybe it was more useful to think of it in these terms of How do you know? It’s a good idea and Julia Quinn completely bamboozled me and she said oh no, she said I’m not one of these writers who has tons of ideas she says I’m the one who’s always sitting there going. What can I write about this time. So so then she actually talked about. what she does to get ideas so that’s what I get for assuming and and maybe that part of the take home messages. You know we’re all different. You know the whole find out what your process is and own it and I’m still looking around for like where I wrote down. But maybe I just didn’t write it down. Whatever it was I was thinking of talking about yesterday. Alas, maybe it will return to my brain eventually. So um, yeah yesterday I did not get my 2000 words. In fact, ah, barely eked out I don’t think Cphon got a thousand you guys. Ah some of it was going to ride her coffee I think I got eight eighty five so I’m actually going to try for 3000 today if I do 3021 ah, have 10000 for the week. So I and then I’ll have the weekend to recupering so we shall see what happens? Um, yeah, we shall see.

11:09.78
jeffekennedy
Yeah, I’m not quite sure why I crashed yesterday I actually was feeling kind of fuzzy I don’t know if it was being off schedule or being fuzzy or what sometimes we don’t know next week is going to be a little different I am um. Going up to Colorado to spend a little bit of time with my husband’s siblings so we are driving up on Sunday and staying there Sunday and Monday nights so I made you a podcast on Monday and Tuesday morning I don’t know I want to try to keep getting my 2000 words and we don’t have to get up and leave early on Tuesday so I’m hoping that I might be able to get words before we hit the rod and drive back but that’ll take priority over podcasting so we’ll just see see how I feel tra la tra lay. And then I am home for a couple of nights and then Thursday afternoon I drive down to beautiful protellus new mexico home of Deronda Jones incidentally I’m going to be at Eastern New Mexico University’s Jack Williamson lectureship talking to students and being part of panels Jack Williamson is a very famous ah old timey science fiction writer. What’s interesting about him is like I never read him and don’t know him don’t know his work really. But apparently he coined. Whole bunch of commonly used science fiction words today. How’s that for a cool legacy Melinda Snodgrass told me that and now I have to find that list of words. Okay, you guys I did the thing where I failed to properly unpause. So now I have to. I’m not sure if I’m repeating words coined by Jack Williamson this is the point this thing I’m trying to get at ah terraforming these are not all in 1 place but um, also genetic engineering ion drive. It turns out that he um got his bachelor’s degree and master of arts from Eastern New Mexico university and Portales so that’s why they did the lectureship for him and I was trying to find I wish they did have them all in 1 place. But. They don’t so anyway I think that’s really cool to have that kind of legacy that um there are all these words that are attributed to you I know um I have a friend who writes fantasy who was credited with coining hydromancy.

14:01.50
jeffekennedy
Using water magic and she was so pleased to be credited with that. So anyway, I won’t keep um, looking for these. Oh here’s another oh psionics. He’s credited with them coming up with the word psionics psi. Um, but I already mentioned genetic engineering. So anyway, that’s really cool should be a fun lectureship. So. I should be able to do a podcast on Thursday but I don’t know if I will on Friday again I’ll have to prioritize getting those words I’m so be a disrupted week. We will see how I do I’m hoping that going for a lower word count will help me. Actually get those words and then we’ll go from there I may have to rethink my schedule. So um, only other news is that yesterday the FIERCE HEARTS anthology came out that was incredibly well received. I will borrow a post from Instagram put it on the photos showing that was number 1 in all the subcategories. Thank you everyone for supporting this anthology to benefit Ukraine that’s just really an incredible amazing thing. Um. I do think it’s funny that like my name is first. Ah, it’s like I don’t know if I’m that high profile you guys but hope hope I could bring you readers I mentioned yesterday that the book contains a sneak peek. The. Prologue in first 2 chapters of the storm princess and the Raven King the book I’m currently attempting to write I’m actually doing okay, um, where am I don’t do that Jeffe but there I like hit the x instead of. Maximize not I mean to duta done to du I’ve got 36000 words so not slouching. Um and that’s kind of fun to write. So um, on that note I think I will go get to writing. I hope that you all have a fabulous weekend I will be patchy here maybe next week but we shall um, it’ll be what it is right? I don’t know how many of you look for me at like a particular time regularly or if you just wait to see it pop up.

16:43.80
jeffekennedy
Probably a mix of wells anyway, um you guys have good time and I will talk to you all sometime next week you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 31, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:12.69
jeffekennedy
Very good today is Thursday March thirty first and of the first quarter of 2022 I tell you you guys but whip him by is it just me. None of you have told me if it’s just me so um, yeah, 3 beds down on 2022. Let’s see here so we have exciting news today um today is the release day for I have to check it to make sure we get my details correct Fierce Hearts: subtitle a 2022 charity anthology of romantic, fantasy and fantasy romance. Like right on brand right? Ah for Ukraine so this is a fundraiser put together by the gals at romantic fantasy shelf of Miranda Honfleur and Jessica Fry put a huge amount of work into this and all proceeds go to. Um, sure the details are somewhere I know that they’re being very responsible but it’s going to relief efforts for ukrainian refugees and war victims and it does include a story by me. Um. What it is is the preface and first 2 chapters of the storm princess and the Raven King yes it is a special sneak preview of that novel my work in progress. Um, consistent listeners may recall hear me mention a week or two ago that I’d gone back to revise those first couple chapters just to make sure that it um flowed correctly. Um there may be changes. By the end but that’s now I feel fairly locked in this is a big departure for me because you guys know I don’t like to really share stuff before it’s like done done done but um, important cause and. I didn’t really have anything else to give them. You know like they wanted something about 5000 words and reader I do not write things letter only 5000 words which is ironic because I started out writing short and now I don’t so I even considered giving them like.

03:05.60
jeffekennedy
And old thing I was looking back over stuff I just didn’t have anything that would work so that was what they suggested this work in progress. It’s a couple of chapters basically of ah Salena and Rhyian. With each other There’s a lot of that in this book some of you have mentioned I did mention that I have the preorder links up I recommited um, longtime listeners know that I did have a preorder up I pushed it out twice I couldn’t push it again. Um. And I went ahead and canceled the preorder. So now. Thank you all for preordering again. The preorders are stacking up and I so appreciate that from all of you I announced that the other day that the preorder links were up and a couple people commented that I have been. Teasing you with this romance for a very long time and it’s true I’ve enjoyed the teas I have been accused more than once of being a tease but I feel like in the very best possible way. So so yeah, it’s um. I wanted to play with this kind of thing like if somebody does in a so okay, let me back up. It’s too much allow me to sum up. Um, yeah.

04:35.20
jeffekennedy
Ah, and now I’m gonna lose my trainoffs start. Okay because I started on The Princess Bride.

04:45.18
jeffekennedy
Okay, so I’ve always been someone who doesn’t believe in second chance romance which you guys this is actually a second chance romance is and that it’s like my least favorite trope I don’t like it in books I don’t like it real life. Um. I’m a believer that whatever went wrong in the relationship. The first time to blow it up. The first time is gonna happen again unless somebody really truly changes and so that has been the theme of Salena and Rhyian’s relationship that Ryan did something unforgivable because he was being a little shit and it comes from his fears and his personality flaws. But he broke Salena’s heart and we know this from the prequel novella the long night of the crystalline moon. And throughout the ensuing 3 books or the first 3 books of the series of Heirs of Magic they going back and forth fighting a lot and he wants to get back together and Salena does too really, but she’s. Trying to be smart because she knows he that people don’t change and that Ryan hasn’t changed I’m gonna have to fix these names. But. For that transcript. So that’s what I wanted to play with was how do you show a character really changing and and I wanted this to take a long time because I feel like a great flaw. Of many romances, especially like romcoms movies. Ah, they don’t give the characters time to really truly change change takes time it can happen in a moment or it takes a whole lot of time. And usually when it happens at a moment. It’s as it’s as the result of a whole long time of maturing and reflecting and so that’s what I wanted to show was Rhyian getting his shit together as it were. And so it’s been interesting to write this book. Especially since it’s the culminating book in the fantasy arc as well. So I’m having to resolve all of that at the same time It’s an interesting challenge. The reason why all 4 of these books have.

07:29.24
jeffekennedy
What’s the word I’m blinking on the word I want to say prequel and that’s not it but prologue Jesus I mean I just said it a few minutes ago right? The reason that these books have prologues here I’m breaking my own rules again. Maybe this is life as a creative. We’re forever breaking our own rules I normally don’t like proposals proposals. What is my problem this morning like a little bit of prologues I don’t normally like prologues. Because I feel like if it’s backstory then you need to fold it into the story if it’s actually the beginning of the story then it should be chapter. One. The orchid throne has a prologue. Because my editor asked for it I don’t love it. I’ve talked about this a lot on here I know many of you do like them I know a lot of readers. Skip them which is interesting. So the reason that I put a prologue on book one um The Golden Gryphon and the Bear Prince. Was because the way I’d done the prequel novel villa. It’s segue straight into the events of book one and in book one all of a sudden there are a whole bunch of characters and my lovely writer friend Darynda Jones. Freaked the fuck out when she read it and she said there’s way too many characters way too fast and your readers are going to hate you and it’s too confusing. She said I got confused and I had read the prequel novella so it. It was a um, it was a welcome. Freaking but it was also late in the game she is like oh you know what? if you start it like she wanted me to like start it a couple months later or something like that she is struggling with a revision right now where her editor is asking her to change the opening. She’s like I’m not changing my opening so I should remind her of this very thing that she suggested I change my opening I couldn’t it was too late I was like you know sliding under the wire to get this published anyway I thought she was probably right I considered like postponing publication and. You know all of this I was freaking the fuck out but then I talked to a couple other people and and I think including her and we came up with the idea of doing a prologue that would introduce the 2 main characters.

10:18.91
jeffekennedy
Because all of these books that female and male ming characters have been friends or or their cousins since childhood that if they’ve all grown up together. So this is all basically friends to lovers. And Salena and Rhyian are the only 2 that were actually lovers as teenagers and the rest of them were sort of nurturing these ah quiet desires for each other or as in the case of Zeph not so quiet. Desire. Zeph doesn’t do anything quiet like I just love her I’m I’m rereading that book now because I’m rereading a whole series to remind myself of everything and um I just love the way she pursues asther with such wholehearted. Passion and I know that some readers complained about it because they said well he he says no um, you know and and astors the virgin prince and. Astor says no because he feels like he has to like it’s the honorable thing to do. He doesn’t say no because he doesn’t want to he wants it? Um I know he wants it and I thought I made it clear that he wants it. But it’s been pointed out to me by a number of people that if I had gender flipped this. If it had been the female princess who was a virgin and deliberately clinging to her honor. Ah, while the seductive non-royal that she’s secretly passionate for was. Determinedly seducing her that this has been done many times and it would have been fine I had so much fun flipping that trope. Um, but and and some people love it. But not everybody loved it and I think it’s funny. That’s like Zeph. Being unmaidenly in her determined pursuit of Astar which yes Zeph is no maiden. Ah so anyway I’m getting off track here. So what I ended up doing in that prologue was going back to when Zeph and Astar are teenagers. And a little bit of flirtation play to set up that longing and relationship and so that way I got the reader to focus on the pair of them knowing that they are the main characters of this book. So.

12:59.88
jeffekennedy
Um, so yeah, that’s why so since I had done that with book one I’ve done it for all 4 books and each of the prologues follows that same model where it does a glimpse back to their to their youth and sets up their relationship. And with Salena and Rhyian the prologue shows that fateful incident.

13:28.71
jeffekennedy
Yeah, so um so yeah you can read that in the fierce hearts anthology money goes to a great cause please support that link in the show, notes, etc, etc. And my other news is that the podcast interview I did with Kingdom of Thirst is up on well on the kingdom of thirst podcast I’ll put a link to that as well. In fact, I should well all remember to do that. So go ahead and take a listen Abigail did a great job interviewing me. She says that there are echoes that she couldn’t edit out this is entirely my fault because she told me to use headphones or earbuds and I didn’t because I never use it here. And I I guess this room is a little echoey but I mean this is where I sat to do it but her what she uses her equipment. She uses for the podcast I think it’s just so much more sensitive that it really got a lot of echoes and I should have I just used the computer mind click I use this and I should have switched to my phone. And use the earbuts and so that was entirely my bad I don’t have headphones that I plug into this laptop and I should probably just get some for that kind of thing I don’t like wearing them but I do love my it could do my little ad here. These are my Bose sound sport. Earbuds. We gave a pair of these to my brother-in law for Christmas and it was his birthday yesterday and I sent him a happy birthday and then he also said I love those earbuds by the way so these are the best things they’re little wireless earbuds you loop them behind your neck. It has a. Built in mic and I have very small ears very small ear openings and they just fit in perfectly. They come with a couple of different sizes of things. So anyway, I am I need to use those from now on I’m sorry Abigail. I I I do suck I because she would she even like set me this whole tips and tricks ahead of time and and I did read it but I thought oh I don’t need to do the earbud microphone thing because I never do I even said it in that voice. So I suck I’m sorry but it’s a great interview. Abigail’s a fantastic interviewer she it was great conversation and I think you guys will enjoy it a whole bunch. So on that note I’m going to head out I’ve got writer coffee today and I will talk to you all tomorrow. No fooling.

16:24.51
jeffekennedy
You all take care bye-bye.

Hulk Smash! (the patriarchy)

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven we’re discussing what we do in our stories to smash the patriarchy.

My favorite way to crack up patriarchal thinking? Model other kinds of worlds and societies!
See, the insidious thing about living in a patriarchal society is that we absorb that kind of thinking as part of “normal.” We are programmed from the time we are small children to assume that given rules imposed by our society are fundamental truths. Stuff like that females aren’t as physically strong as males and therefore cannot be fighters. Or that females are in sexual peril from males and that this is part of the natural course of life, that females must be protected and observe safety rules to avoid that sexual peril. Or that females are responsible for pregnancy and its consequences.
One of the great aspects of writing alternate world fantasy is that the worldbuilding is an excellent tool for changing up these programmed “truths.” We can create worlds and societies that DON’T believe these things, which then changes all kinds of layers of the lives of females. Personally, I love to write a world where gender doesn’t dictate ability to be a warrior, or a wizard. Or where rape isn’t a given. Or where birth control is magically handled and available to everyone.
Of course, it’s also useful to impose power imbalances, too – and then use those to highlight how injustice works. By seeing familiar power imbalances in new light, we may notice more about our own world. Instead of simply accepting that programming, we can work to change it.

First Cup of Coffee – March 29, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.12
jeffekennedy
Ah, good morning. Everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee and with a cat if you’re on video you may have seen the tail go by and here he is. Ah, he jumped up on my desk right? as the camera was going live Jackson say hello to everybody I don’t know why he takes he has to be up here right now except that he’s been very much into loving lately. And so now you get to see his but because that’s how a cat shows their love now you’ gonna sit there. Okay, he said right there she’s sitting off to the side now you want see I left my office door open because David’s taking a bath here. We go. We can have first cup of coffee with a cat. Yeah cats don’t like coffee. So today is Tuesday March Twenty Ninth hope you all are doing well, it’s a rainy Tuesday here in Sara Fe I don’t know if Jackson’s thinking that maybe he wants to go out already. You want me to leave him in the photo range there. We go, you can see the back of his head. Um. Yeah, sorry I’m thoroughly distracted by the cap visit. That’s why I get for leaving my door open. So let’s see. Um, yeah, wick’s going well for me so far hope it’s going well for you I did get my 2000 words yesterday. It’s it’s interesting. It’s um. Much easier to get them on Monday after a couple days rest and then harder towards the end of the week so I have to see is um, is 2000 a day really sustainable I sure hope it is because I don’t want to slow down more than that. But I do have to abide by my. Own advice right? find out what your process is and own it there. He goes going on his merry way. So that was special day though. It doesn’t that mean something the cat comes to visit. You. So probably not the households where you have lots of cats that come and visit you all the time it seemed like I had a few things to talk about today and now I don’t know what any of them are all right um.

02:44.62
jeffekennedy
So 1 thing I do know I want to talk about is I mentioned. Um well I guess ah was on Friday when I was talking about the set changes in membership requirements and I mentioned the story about how my. My story Pearl got published in 2 different magazines almost at the same time by accident. Um, and I mentioned that it was the second time that that happened to me and the. First time was in this wyoming wildlife magazine which was the magazine and is still the magazine for ah wyoming game and fish. So I was living up in Wyoming at the time and I worked for wyoming gamon fish I was working in the lab there as I was finishing my master’s degree because I was cutting bait getting my master’s and going to become a writer so I’d started writing essays. But still had to finish writing my master’s thesis and I had I was sending out essays places all the time. Yeah, and I talked about this some on Friday I think yeah that I had um. You know my ping pong method where I would send a story out I would have it at 3 places at a time which looking back on it I was really proud of my I’m really proud of myself that I did that it was a good way to do it by. Treating it like ping pong as soon as rejection comes in you send out another you, you deemphasize the importance of a rejection. All a rejection is is noticed that you need to send it out somewhere else. Um I’ve never been able to. Subscribe to the what seems to me overly perky advice like when people say every rejection you get put you that much closer to publication. Um I I never really got that one but it was a. You send it out. They send it back I could get behind the ping pong thing and I had my list of publications of the order that I wanted things published in organized um I sorted by different criteria.

05:31.22
jeffekennedy
Um I didn’t always know what I was doing for instance I did not understand I mentioned this on Friday when I was talking about trying to get that science fiction story published I didn’t understand the arcania of the science fiction and fantasy short fiction market. Which I now understand much better than I did then and yet I still find it. Um, arcane I guess I’m glad I’m a novelist. There’s it’s a very particular community. The short fiction market and I did not understand then. That there were ah the the qualifying markets that would qualify you for SFWA membership and people would submit to those first because that would be more likely to make them SFWA members and really it’s supposed to be that they paid pro rates and. Take this moment to do ah a little bit of a plug for so what? because what we’re doing is now that we’ve changed membership requirements. We’re creating a much more comprehensive scorecard for marketplaces that will take into account many more things than whether or not they pay per rates. Because just because a marketplace pays what we consider to be and really we need to change our lingo I need to do that too minimum pro rate minimum pro rate is ¢8 a word which is like you guys rock bottom I’ve talked about how you know like. And back in the day the glory days I got paid a dollar a word, a dollar a word and we’re calling minimum pro rates ¢8 a word that is a little bit differentlayer. Um, but I don’t know what voice that was so. We need to take into account the fact that even though marketplace may pay a sense a word that that doesn’t necessarily put food on the table right? which is really our goal we want writers to be paid. Professional rates. We want people to be able to make a living from their art and their craft. So. There are other things about marketplaces whether they are open to submissions. There are some marketplaces that say they’re open to submissions. But really, they only take. Stuff that they solicit or that come through agents not necessarily bad but it it is a factor in is this something that a writer can access. Um you know, like what kind of commitment. Do they have to to bipac.

08:20.78
jeffekennedy
Um, how responsive are they? what are their contract terms like how soon do they pay a market may promise to pay a minimum professional rate but drag their feet forever. They might try for right? Scraps. So these are all things that we want to take into account and we’re going to end up giving different markets scores and you know like the more they pay the higher they score they get. But also there’s other scores in there. And this short fiction committee has been working really hard on this and they’re amazing and eventually I would like to expand this out to novel markets and so forth and you know like even. Online retailers. What score would we give Amazon I mean we make the money there which ends up being like the make or break right? but responsiveness can be lacking although we do sapwa has an Amazon Liaison who has been very responsive I can email her and she has replied quickly. So so that’s something and that’s good to have for when we we saved that for when we need to escalate things. So anyway, um. Here I was back in the day sending out lots of short fiction pieces and to all kinds of markets and so I had sent the I had sent an essay to Wyoming wildlife and I don’t think I’d realized it at the time. But. Actually I was no longer working for game of fish I had been working for game and fish and was no longer because I had gotten this job as an editor writer with a petroleum group because I was building my writing chops and but the editor of the magazine Chris Madson didn’t realize that. And they had this policy where they did not pay department employees for articles and so imagine my surprise when David brought home the magazine because all employees got a free copy. Got a free subscription. And here was my essay by Jeffe Kennedy least correct by line this time called bullets and it was about me learning David teaching me how to shoot a ah gun which I didn’t want to learn how to do? Um, so.

11:01.67
jeffekennedy
Not only did they not pay me but I had no idea I was going to print it and this is this is an example of not a great marketplace right? because they and this happens sometimes magazines just they edit your story and they don’t tell you anything about it. So I ended up having to go to like the higher ups in game and fish and be like you know. Basically they stole my story and Chris Madson had to apologize and pay me I did get paid I don’t remember what I got paid. It may have been a dollar award because I was bringing out like all of the industry guns. They’re you know fighting for those rights even then right Um, and part of the concession part of the I know to make it up to me. Which I thought was funny so there was this guy who was um, his name was John Kennedy no relation unless it’s like way way back was I don’t remember what his title was but he was one of the higher ups in the agency part of it was is he said that they would agree to publish. Like 2 more essays from me to make up for this and so all I had to do was like send the ideas to Chris Manson who was like really pissed that he got called out on the carpet for doing this. It was a shitty thing to do. He should have never done that in the first place but he was really mad to get caught. And that he’d made the mistake you know I think he thought I was an employee so he could just publish it and do whatever the hell he wanted so you are all storytellers I assume or you would not be story. Readers. You would not be listening to this podcast I bet you can guess where this story is going. Yes I I never published another thing with that magazine I sent Chris all kinds of essay ideas and he ignored ignored me entirely and I had told John Kennedy that this would happen and he’s like oh I don’t think so but he also didn’t care once he dealt with the problem and came up with the solution. He um, moved on with his life. Um, but it’s interesting because it’s one of the ways that um. Publishing I’m trying to think of um, the analogy for this though but like every industry takes advantage of the creators as much as they can. We know all these stories about you know, like the um, the movie companies.

13:53.25
jeffekennedy
Having their stables of actors and controlling their actors lives and you know you see the biopics on that like about Judy Garland and that sort of thing we know things about like the record companies and how they use the talent and try to control the talent and. The same thing happens in the publishing world traditional publishing from short fiction markets to the publishers who don’t put the books out in the world. They they will take advantage of the creator as much as possible. And it’s not It’s not always malicious and in fact I think a lot of them would would protest me saneness and I may get protests about this because they will say no that they. They love their writers. They love their creators without their creators. They wouldn’t have content and they understand this and they know this but the thing is is that they are also in business they are doing this thing because it’s a business for them and so yes, they need the content and they love the content but they’re not. Doing this out of the goodness of their heart now I will caveat this that there are some short fiction markets in particular that and even some small presses that are doing in out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re also struggling because they yeah you know there but there I’m not being articulate, um, a lot of them are struggling because they’re trying to do their best but they aren’t necessarily um, doing as well as the cutthroat ones which is ironic right? So what’s the what’s the solution here. What are we talking about? ah. I think it’s that being your own champion that you just have to be ready to fight for yourself. Um, you know if we go to the the rock band example one of the things that we we can see in the movies that we know that happens is that the rock bands get out there and they’re. They’re partying I mean it’s a really difficult schedule. You know they’re going from place to place and they’re clock shifted and they’re partying hard and they’re encouraged to party and very often they are. Everything’s deducted from what they’re making I have a. Friend who dated a member of Dokken remember them back in the day and he like failed to pay taxes for a lot of years and he got levied these enormous fines and blew all his money in.

16:38.41
jeffekennedy
Much later was like living in his mother’s sewing room. He had nothing left. So the thing is is that you don’t there’s never an excuse to not be smart about your business practices and I think that the business minded people know this about creators is that creators. Are not necessarily business minded. We don’t want to be right? But if we did. We’d be in business right? But you got to learn, you’ve got to be ready to fight for your rights and you have to be ready to you know to get mean with people you know and not all of us like to do that either. But you have to keep in mind that if they can take advantage of you. It’s usually to their benefit to do so my nose is so itchy today. That’s why I keep pausing I’m sure it’s like the allergy thing getting pollen itches. So you know I guess the other message I have here is that I didn’t have any way to leverage Wyoming wildlife or wyoming game and fish after that point once I had signed that agreement. There was no no further penalty. And really I didn’t have a whole lot of leverage to begin with other than threatening to expose them. You know it was ah that’s often. The only recourse we have against these groups or companies or corporations right? is. To make them look bad to threaten their sales. That’s the only thing they really care about getting fish is a government agency so it was a little bit different there. Um, but ultimately they have the ability to resist and so. That’s what we have to do as creators. That’s why we have organizations like se to be able to band together to create that leverage and to support each other so that’s and death the sermon I suppose. Ah, yeah I don’t think I have anything else to talk about today I hope that you all have a wonderful Tuesday and I will talk to you all on Thursday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 28, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:14.42
jeffekennedy
Ah, excellent. Today is Monday March Twenty Eighth last week of March Twenty Twenty two um yeah I had a busy weekend. Um lot of different things mostly like non writing related. If you’re on video you will see I did some office rearranging. It may not be obvious to you mostly? it’ll look like that you have a wider perspective and that’s because I moved a printer cart that was on the far side of my desk. Over to underneath the window on that side the east window because I no longer need to have and it’s this has been the case for a long time I’m no longer limited by the cable on it. It’s a wireless printer which I seldom use anyway. And for some reason last week I started thinking about this more I wanted to be able to see out my window more and put the monitor against blank wall instead of having the monitor block the window. So this way I will be able to see the birds being merry. So as a result I am now farther away from this wall behind me so and you could see my bookshelves so that was something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Got that done this weekend. A lot of little things done like that and it was very beautiful weather especially yesterday and I got out into the garden and big news baby learned to use a chainsaw so one of the things that I have discovered about. Landscape here sort of landscape maintenance and the desert southwest when we moved into the house there had been landscaping done xeriscaping um xeri- not zero- I’ve seen people write it as zeroscaping which is just a level of I’m going to say ignorance that just amuses me I understand why people make the mistake and yet there’s a big difference between xeriscaping and zeroscaping.

02:45.36
jeffekennedy
And now I’m totally gonna have to fix that on the transcript anyway. So there are these yucca that are planted in clumps and so it turns out that yucca over time they sprout new greenery on around the edges. But the center of the clump can die off especially in severe drought like we’ve been having but I think it’s also a factor of age and some of this might have been like original landscaping from when the house was built you know and now we’re um, coming up on I think we passed 25 years anyway actually we’re coming up on 30 years yeah 30 years since the house was built I used to live in a a nineteen oh six house so I always think this is like a brand new house. So. This had been something that I’d been noticing for so the last couple of years was that we had these sort of dead clumps of yunk yucca in the middle with the greenery around the edges but they were kind of being smothered by the old stuff. And I thought okay I need to dig this out and I was talking about this with my friend Megan Mulry who I saw yesterday we we went to see the lost city I’ll talk about that. Ah actually all I could say about is he it was great. Was so great. But I was telling her about my my yucca travials and she was sympathizing because it’s like you know I’m using the big rake the heavy rake you know, sort of digging it in there and inking pulling and some of the dead stuff will come out but then there are these bowls these very deck. Trucks that are at the base of it. You know that are like I don’t know um I’m showing it with my hands I’m trying to think of how to describe that I mean we could just say like ten inches across and they’re surprisingly dance I commented to David that. When I’ve seen things about you know, like the native americans having woven stuff out of yucca if you’ve ever been to an exhibit that has shown that kind of thing where they show all the different stuff. You know the baskets and the you know tunics and all of this stuff that they’ve woven from yucca fibers and I’d always kind of wondered. How do they get that much now I know because it’s like these things are just compressed fibers and you could sort of draw out the fibers and everything I was kind of tempted to play with that and see um a reader I’m not going to. But if I were someone who did spinning and weaving.

05:34.14
jeffekennedy
It would be interesting to play with that stuff. So anyway I had tried like cutting some of it hacking at it now this is gonna work so I asked David to show me how to use the chains up. Yeah. And he helped me some he doesn’t quite have the physical strength or endurance really anymore to do a lot of that because it’s a lot of work even with the chainsaw I you guys my back is sortidated but shoulders are sore um I knocked off around two and went and took a shower because my allergies were also killing me where. Our junipers are just full of pollen and probably hear it my voice like a gust of wind will blow and you’ll just see this huge cloud of pollen flying out of it so I went and showered off all of the pollen and then just. Read for a little while while I before I went to meet me and for the movie but up to the movie. Ah, you know I stood up and I was like oh I stiffened up a little bit during that time. So I got it part of one clump I got at. Very worst clump. So I’m gonna sort of do this by increments. This is one of the things that I am learning to do is not to try to do everything all at once. So now I can get at some of these It’s just kind of it looks messy and unsightly I don’t know. If a lot of stuff I leave if I think it’s part of the natural progression of plants. So I leave stuff over the winter. That’s the other thing I did was I raked up a whole bunch of stuff from over the winter I cleaned out in the secret garden our first just in time for our first daffodil to bloom i. Clean that out Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning our death bill had popped open so crack open the window here. It was almost warm enough to sit outside this morning can move out to the secret garden soon. So I’ll put the. Brand new daffodil on the show notes and let’s see so the lost city lost city of d. It was fabulous but can I say it was fabulous. Um, it was. The exact right amount of homage to romancing the stone and with a blend of new invention. Um, the arc was fabulous character arcs ah.

08:23.85
jeffekennedy
I really loved I mean the the nods to romancing the stone were amazing and and like the very best moments from romancing the stone but then also Sandra Bullock has her character take. Agency in a way that Kathleen Turner’s character didn’t always have and that’s phenomenal and then um, Channing Tatum he’s just great I mean I don’t know that I’ve ever really been a huge fan of Channing Tatum but he um. He brought a a depth to a character that doesn’t have a whole lot of depth. He really just and he’s got this comedic sense. They really played off together. Well apparently they’d considered Ryan Reynolds for the role and I love me some Ryan Reynolds and I thought he was great with Sandra Bullock and the proposal I loved that movie too. But I don’t know Channing Tatum was perfect. Perfect for this role. Ah, he plays her fabo esque cover model. They make one fabio joke in there which was. Ah, good fabo joke as opposed to all the tired fabio jokes and and they they had some interesting things to say about romance and so you tune out if you don’t want any spoilers at all I won’t. Spoiler anything important but I’m going to tell you a little bit about the movie Sandra is obviously a writer and very smart and her she’s a linguist and historian and so she’s written these books about this character who’s an archaeologist. And she’s she’s in mourning because her husband died and she’s also conflicted I want to I don’t want to say completely bitter. She. She doesn’t want. She’s an introvert she doesn’t want to go leave her house. She doesn’t want to go out and do this book tour stuff you know coming up with a plot arrangement for her to be wearing a hot pink sparkly Jumpuit in the jungle is is fabulous I mean it’s just It’s great and for them to have it end up in shreds around her very shapely figure I was looking and Sandra Bullock is 2 years and one month older than I am and she she’s looks amazing I realize this is her job. But.

11:09.57
jeffekennedy
She looks amazing. So um I thought was very funny because when she goes out onto the stage where channing Tatum is also going to appear as her cover model for her books dash. Um, and. You know she doesn’t want to do it anyway and her editor or publicist says I think she’s our editor you know tells her not to use big words which I think is funny because I think I’ve mentioned here that my agent tess asked me not to use big words on occasion. So I mean there was some. There was a nice interplay there of of these things and Sandra Bullock says at 1 point how like her linguistic history books never sold and now she writes schlock and jenning tatham says something to her about that which is great because. He’s also you know obviously beautiful. There is an extended shot of his naked ass gonna tell you guys right? there and and it was it was fine fine with a capital maybe in all caps fine. I’m gonna have to fix that on the transcript too and he’s um, not a super smart guy. He’s not a super intellectual or educated guy and he gets stuff wrong and she corrects him on stuff. But he’s also this very nurturing caring person. Um, and you know they play it for comedic effect. But he’s also just kind of you begin to appreciate him. As along with Sandra as the movie goes on and at one point she says something pretty sharp to him about basically being a brainless model and. And he says something to her later about that you know like not knowing who he is and yes, what he has tried to do and it’s it’s this wonderful mirror of of her. You know that like he he tried to be a serious actor and. Couldn’t make it and but he could make it as this cover model and so that’s what that’s what he’s doing and and he says to her about not to call her book schlock because she you know he said you know talks about.

13:55.66
jeffekennedy
The enormous amount of pleasure that it brings to people and how meaningful it is so it’s just all really well handled. It’s um, the romance is handled in exactly the right way with a certain level of um. I what’s what are the words that I want with delight and affection and respect. But at the same time going in for for the full romance. So yeah. And there’s there’s a really wonderful epiphany at the end about about mourning and about what’s meaningful and yet it’s still funny. so so yeah enthusiastic thumbs up weld done Sandra Willock well done chenning day. Ah. Red Pitt is amazing. He’s in it for a surprisingly short amount of the movie. Ah, but it was great. So um, um, excuse me. So yeah, it was um, it was good weekend. It was productive and was while. Oh and I did something else I did tell during I was running a little behind for no good reason I slept a little long still getting used to that. Um, even though I went to bed plenty early. So also been watching Bridgerton this weekend I through 3 episodes of Bridgerton really loved how they handled in episode 3 the Anthony’s backstory and all of that at Aubrey Hall I thought they’re doing a great job in some ways. Almost better than the books showing his um trauma from watching his father die that is not a spoiler. We know that about Anthony um, and and the way that any hint of that sends him into a panic really well done. And I love love the cow playing Kate and I I like the um you know making Kate and eda be East Indian I think that is a nice um, folding in of diversity I’m I’m perfectly good with it and I think. Kate has just the right amount of self-protective rigidity for the character and dignity a lot of pride and dignity on Friday evening I went to a reception. Um.

16:45.58
jeffekennedy
That was put on by Ucross Foundation Ucrosss foundation does writers residencies and when I was a baby writer sometime back in the mid 90 s I did a residency at ucross for two weeks and I think I mentioned this on the podcast before um, just amazing, just incredible. Couple of weeks of my life. Ah pivotal for me as a writer I would say transformative and just in seeing myself as a writer. So the ucross board usually meets in Santa Fe because the founder. Who originally started the cross foundation raymond planck had a house here in Santa Fe before he died and I believe the board still meets here. They they fly in and they usually bring in some kind of guest. In this case, it was a poet M.L Smoker who I very much enjoyed meeting. She was lovely. And enjoyed her reading very much and they also invite like local fellows people who have been you crossfellowship recipients in the past. So you know free food open bar, interesting conversation with people. Um. It was funny though because I did talk with a few people. It’s a very arty crowd very artsy as you may imagine and when I mentioned they were asking me what I was up to now you know and I said oh well I was mainly writing fantasy novels and that I’m the current president. Science fiction and fantasy writers of America they were just all oh that’s nice, but I may be um, adding the lip curl there but um, yeah, totally not impressed. Not interested so speaking of genre. Related prejudices there. We go so the more things change right? Ah there’s a new director of the foundation and I should have chatted up with him more but you know like what does it matter I think that’s like maybe a thing we do when we. Imagine going to like reunions or to in some ways that was a reunion right? because like they knew me when I was a baby baby writer you know and hadn’t didn’t have my book yet and um, not. You know, just a few publication credits and was working on something totally different which is why they probably admitted me if I’d been working on genre fiction. They probably would not have given me the fellowship which is you know, interesting to contemplate but you always think you know you go back and say look look at all these.

19:34.60
jeffekennedy
Things that I’ve done and then they’re like totally not impressed. I was like okay well you know everybody’s got their um goal posts. You know like we’re all playing on different fields with different goal posts that. Meaningful to us and I think that’s what’s important is that the goalposts we’re shooting for are meaningful to ourselves if you are always aiming for the goalposts that are meaningful to other people I think you will not be happy. So on that note I’m going to go. Work on the storm princess and the Raven King I’ve been rereading the eras of magic books so far so reread the long night of the crystalline moon and I’m partway through the golden griffin and the bear prince which is good because I’m encountering details that i. Need to incorporate so that’s my project right? Now you all have a wonderful Monday hope it kicks off a fantastic week and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 25, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning Everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy Author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy here with my first cup of coffee.

00:14.93
jeffekennedy
Ah, pretty wonderful Today is say it with me friday. Woo happy Friday everyone March Twenty Fifth hit ah blast Friday in March of 2022. Amazing I just feel like it’s going fast could be just me. It just me.

00:50.50
jeffekennedy
So let’s see where are we with things I feel like I’m still doing pretty well with the new plan of 2000 words a day although caveat. Um. I did not hit my two thousand yesterday. However, I’m still on track for the week and I feel like it’s still good. Um I had a lot of distractions yesterday and that was my own fault I let myself get distracted. Um, alas. I think part of it was the new schedule maybe oversleeping some but also I was taking my attention off of the writing and dealing with other things. Um. And I guess I could. There’s no reason that I can’t talk about it because one of the things we’ve been working towards for a very long time in SFWA is changing the membership requirements and in some ways you could say that I’ve been working towards this hm. For how long wait I can find this date hold on I know I don’t have to tell you to hold up I’d tell you to hold on. Okay I found it I’ve been working on this for almost ten years since 2013 how do I know this. Because ah my very first science fiction short story was published in September of 2013. It was a story called Pearl which is no longer up for sale and the reason it is not up for sale. Is because it does not have a happy ending. Although I love this story but I talked about it with grace at one point and felt like it was just not on brand for me because it doesn’t have a happy ending so I took it down and i. Have this idea someday of expanding it in my spare time into a longer story with perhaps half ending I don’t know I don’t know if it would work sometimes I think about maybe I should just put it up again with the warning but then it gives away the ending who know. Let me know if you have thoughts anyway, it was very interesting. Um, so this is like you know 2013, 2012 I don’t have notes on when I first wrote it I had to look up the publication date of it. So I wrote.

03:37.46
jeffekennedy
This story and up up until then I had been writing essays and well that’s not precisely true I had written some other things. Wow what’s the order of this. Okay I found it. This makes much more sense I have been working on this since 2008 that’s when Pearl was first published. Um, yeah I wonder where these folks are now. So anyway. That makes much more sense because I knew that I had started shopping my fantasy romance novel rogues pawn the book that became rogues pawn um in about 2007? Ah so but I had written this story first I know it was the first science fiction story I ever wrote and then the fantasy romance novel I started writing later but you know how these things go with try and get them published. So this was back in the day of sending out. Um. Well, it wasn’t paper submissions. It was via email. Um, excuse me but email was funkier then it was not as seamless I don’t even remember what system I used was it outlook already by them. I know I was using word perfect. So I wasn’t using Microsoft anyway, that part doesn’t matter. But um I did have my website I’d had my website since um oh like 95 I built my first website myself. But you know from my first publications and so forth. So anyway, I was always multiple submissions gal I’ve been a believer of that from the beginning I’ve never thought that I’ve always thought that that was bad for the writer. It’s it’s in favor of the publication I even gotten an argument with the editor once but I have um I would have a rule that and this was my ping pong rule I’ve talked about it before because I sent out lots of essays and short stories and I would have everything out. At 3 places at a time and as soon as a rejection came in I would treat it like ping pong and pop that one back out I’d have it all ready to go like where I was going to send it next. So always at 3 places and I kept track of this on spreadsheets I was using excel.

06:21.30
jeffekennedy
So I would be ready to go with you know, like the next place but I would also track like how long a place had had it so and here what I was terribly newbie writer I didn’t know much about the science fiction fantasy community. I didn’t have any friends who were writing in that world. Um, so you know now I know more than I did them but I had the story out parole to ah. Ah, magazine called Abyss and Apex and I also had it to a place called Aeon and Aeon accepted the story to rejoicing and I contacted Abyss and Apex. And I you know, emailed them and said you know and and this is what I did all the time when I would have something accepted is I would contact the other places that had it and I would say you know this has been accepted by this other magazine. Um, you know wanted to let you know can you tell me. Tell me the status of yours because then I would like if a couple places accepted and I would pick which one I wanted because the power lay with me then right and I think actually I’m going to modify this little bit. On abyss a and apex I had inquired much earlier yes because I’d had it for a while and they had said let us check. Let’s let me check on it and then never got they replied then but then never got back to me again. So when eon this is right. Then when Aeon accepted I set my standard of you know this has been accepted elsewhere. So I have to withdraw which is how I got an argument with this one editor at a literary magazine at a university because I sent her my you know. Sorry this has been accepted elsewhere I have to withdraw it notice and she wrote back and she said well you know we don’t condone simultaneous submissions and you shouldn’t have done that and I wrote her back and I explained I said you know having that policy. Ah. Makes the assumption that your time is more valuable than my time he said and it’s not fair to writers. This is a ah predatory practice if you know publishers even then you guys baby Jeffe I was you know fighting for this kind of thing but you know I was also working a job as ah, environmental consultants and.

09:07.87
jeffekennedy
You know it was I knew what fair business practices were so she wrote me back and she said you know I never thought of it that way we’re changing our policy so Jeffe fighting for writers rights way back when. So and then she ended up publishing one of my essays the following year. So you know it always works to communicate with people don’t burn those bridges stand up for yourself all of these wonderful take home tales. So anyway, Aeon publishes my story and they are you know. Wasn’t too rousing response but you know we also 2008 we barely had social media I think I joined Facebook in 2009 I’m pretty sure my Twitter was 2009 so you just didn’t know back then. And that was that was a good and bad thing. You know sometimes you knew how you know and I don’t know you wouldn’t get the say you didn’t have the same sense of whether or not something had been received. Ah, but then one day I get this email saying from abyss and apex. A kind of blistering email from this editor accusing me of playing her false and she’s like you double published the story you published it in Abyss and Apex and Aeon at the same time. So it turns out Abyss and Apex had published my story without. Telling me I’m serious reader I I mean it’s amazing and it’s not the only time this happened to me it happened to me with another magazine too. They’d never sent me a contract. They’d never sent me edits they published it. Um and it had gotten great review. Ah, but unfortunately. And actually it might have been Ian who contacted me about it saying what the hell was is also in abyss and apex who also had not paid me I mean all of these things and I was like I know nothing about this so the editors thrashed it out between themselves and it turned out that. The editor at Aybss and Apex was you know, horribly chagrined and embarrassed and said that she’d had a breast cancer scare and this had fallen through the cracks and I don’t know I mean how could they’ve not corresponded with me ever. Well so what it turned out was that I had contacted them with an email. Address that during this long time that they had had it had gone defunct and they had like sent the contract to that old email address I never got it I never responded. Um and so that was how it happened when I told my friend Kelly Robson this story

12:01.46
jeffekennedy
She who knows far more about publishing short fiction. She was like wow that’s really unfortunate because apparently abyss and apex had a much higher profile this is ending up being a very long story but you know Eon At Least well corresponded with me. I don’t know so anyway, um, Aeon was not on the list of SFWA’s approved markets so SFWA has had this thing forever where they have this list of publications that pay professional rates and are. There are approved markets and you could qualify for membership if you sold a certain number of works to an approved market. So I had Aeon was not on this list Abyss and Apex was which is partly why Kelly says that so. There was this thing on this sip well website because I wanted to be a member right here I have my science fiction story I was already a member of Rwa and I contacted the office as it said to do about getting my. Market added nobody ever replied to me. It was very frustrating and I wasn’t able to join SFWA until like 2013 or 2014 when I sold my first 3 book deal. So. For me for a very long time I have not liked how the SFWA handles their membership requirements and this has been you know like I was added to the short fiction committee and I was like why am I on this committee when I first joined them they said well because you were. Mad about that whole thing with ion and I was like oh yeah, but but by then I was writing all novels and I felt like I didn’t have a lot to say about short fiction. Um, so anyway, this has been an effort for a very long time and yesterday we. Sent out the email with we had a big bylaws vote we changed the membership requirements. This is something that started with Cat Rambo’s presidency when I was first on the board of directors and Cat wanted us to be able to admit. Um. Game writers and we started talking about how to admit, comics, writers and graphic novelists and the problem is is that all of SFWA’s membership requirements were predicated on word count like you these different categories and myriad categories for you know, like if you.

14:49.95
jeffekennedy
Had a piece that was this long and how much you got paid per word for that and for a long time. Um, you know like the flash fiction writers were very upset because they would get paid plenty but their word count wasn’t enough to qualify. So then when we started looking at. Membership qualifications for game writers. You know where they might not have that much actual prose it got murkier and then when we started looking at for comics, books writers and graphic novelists. You know. They might have very very few words and they might be in like little speech bubbles and how do we count that we’d also had these sort of archaic rules in there about the english language requirements and. You know we’re supposed to be an international organization and why are we talking entirely about english language and so by the time Mary Robinette Kowal was in office. We’d really come up hard against the comic books and graphic novelist thing because. She really wanted to get them admitted to the organization and and the figuring out how to fit them into the membership requirements was just incredibly sticky. So she said okay, we’re going to do a 2 hour work session. And all of us who were invested in this and I don’t know there were maybe six eight of us on this call and we go got on Zoom and this is a couple of years ago now and we decide to th thrsh this out you know and so it’s like okay we’re going to finish this call. We’re going to if we have to be here the whole time if we have to go long. We will. And we’re going to figure out how can we do this and we ended up coming up with this incredibly dare I say elegantly simple solution where we change the requirements to be based on the catalog of work and so now in order to be a full member if you have. Made $1000 from your catalog of work then you meet the membership requirements. It doesn’t matter how long the work is it doesn’t matter in what medium the work is produced if you’ve made $1000 you’re in associate. Is a hundred dollars and you know and it’s funny and something that we did in tandem with this was we were changing that whole qualifying markets list which is big change for people and applies very much to those short fiction markets.

17:35.62
jeffekennedy
And what we’re doing instead is we’ve created a market scorecard where we go through the different publications and we give them basically a grade so it’s a it’s a big change. It’s a big change within the community and a big change for us and I feel like it’s an enormously positive one. Um. But yesterday there were a lot of questions and I was kept going and answering them I felt like I needed to I had to go to Mary Robinette cause we hit 1 snag and I was like do you remember why we did this and so I was texting with her later on the day and. Said I can’t believe there’s so many questions because people are like well what about poetry and what about this and what if I do x y z and I mean a lot of them were good questions but it’s like so many questions and Mary Robinette that was like you don’t have to answer them all. That’s like I know. But so anyway. I got distracted yesterday. That was all a very long way of saying that. But I’m hugely happy about this? Um, achievement I’m really happy to have gotten this out there. It’s very funny because when we put together the press release on this. Our communications director took out I’d put in a thing about acknowledging Cat Rambo and Mary Robinette koal on their contributions as the administration on this and they um. And she wanted to take it out and I said no I think it’s really important because we’ve been working on this a long time I want people to know that we didn’t just make this a spur of the moments decision and I also want to acknowledge their leadership on this and yesterday I saw this tweet where somebody thanked Cat and Mary Robinette for making it possible for them to join and cap very graciously said. Don’t forget current president Jeffe Kennedy and theel just liked it. She didn’t like it thought it would be nice of her to reply because I said thanks cap you know. Thought it would have been nice of her to reply and be like oh my bad and thank you too Jeffe but now she didn’t so I guess I’m I’m chopped liver. Ah funny how those things work isn’t it. But yeah, it’s a big accomplishment. A lot of people worked on this who have not gotten acknowledged. And I’m super excited. Super excited to to sort of open these gates that were very rusty and creaky and did not work. Well, it’s also going to be a huge benefit to our staff that’s going to be much much easier for them to review. Membership.

20:18.66
jeffekennedy
So that there will not be newbie writers out there whose emails are never replied to again. Oh that’s the angel singing on that note I’m gonna go I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you on Monday youall take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 24, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.80
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Ah happy chair dance. Today is Thursday March Twenty Fourth only a week of March left and which means that the first quarter of 2022 is almost gone. How did this happen. We don’t know it’s a mystery. I always love that line in Shakespeare in love with the I can’t think of the afters name but the date owner where he’s like it’ll work out. People are like how how and he’s like I don’t know it just ah yeah, something like that that was probably bad. Ah. Not a brilliant anecdote. There’s another movie quote from you for you. Ah, so my week is going well the ah 2000 words a day is working remarkably well um, I’m yeah on track so far this week we’ll see what happens yesterday Darynda proposed a slight change to our um. Morning routine. So we’re starting at Eight o’clock this morning well almost eight o’clock I there eight o’clock was the plan and then I as you guys may or may not know I don’t set an alarm I wake up naturally which is like something that I cling to I don’t want to have to set an alarm. Now that I’m a full-time writer. It’s like the one gift I give myself. It’s a a special thing for me that I get to wake up naturally otherwise I tend to be a real bitch of a boss so this morning for whatever reason it It’s very interesting if you do sleep on a natural calendar. You will find that and I’ve been doing this for what almost seven years now wow ah your sleep time or at least my sleep time waxes and wanes from night to night. Some nights are shorter and some are longer and last night was a longer night for whatever reason. Um, because as I recall I think I was in bed by like nine I usually I’d start turning into a pumpkin after about eight o’clock and of course the daylight savings time.

02:34.82
jeffekennedy
Has kind of messed that up. But you know my evenings are very low key and I start winding down early and I’m one of those people who falls asleep really fast. So I was asleep for a few hours and then my elderly cat Isabel beautiful fluffy Isabel. She doesn’t get as much press as Jackson does I’m not quite sure why maybe because Jackson was like the kitten and Jackson’s very charismatic and I think feel like Isabel does get short shrift because sometimes people will say well you know does because because. Visitors you know Jackson is so gregarious and so engaging and charismatic and everyone’s well people will say be like well does isabel do anything almost in those exact words you know like is there anything special about her Isabelle’s also a main coon cat and she is blue smoke. Min ku cap and I’ll put her photo on the show notes here. So and I realize I’m going off off topic but hey that’s the brand here at first cup of coffee. So last night. Isabel Isabel is now 16 and she sleeps a lot and she’s deaf and last night every once’s while she wakes up I don’t know if there are nightmares or I’ve tried to look it up and it’s like ah a kind of dementia in cats. Otherwise she doesn’t seem to have any kinds of dementia but she woke up and she was crying and crying. And she has this very loud meow now that she’s deaf and I was sound asleep. But for some reason that penetrated which very little does I’ve often joked or I don’t joke David says that the great thing that he brings to our relationship is that if the house burns down. During the night that he will carry me out of it and save my life because he thinks I’d sleep through it. So this penetrated and I got up and I didn’t know David wasn’t in bed. He’s often up at night. So I went blially out looking and. He like came out of the kitchen and I said where is she and he said I don’t know and she was back in his office and that was at Eleven Fifty five so I’ve been asleep for a few hours and so I picked her up and brought her in. Bed with me which she just doesn’t come do on her own anymore. She used to sleep with me every night but now she sleeps in his office which is the warmest room in the house and I think that’s why I’m interested to see if this changes as summer comes on but we have um, brick floors with radiant heat.

05:21.90
jeffekennedy
And I have the temperature in his office. David’s just I mean he’s skinny skinnier than I am and and he’s just ah, you know as he gets older. He gets colder so the warmth in his office come guest room is. Up there and Isabelle has this little throw rug that we’ve put down for her and it’s this one corner of the floor that she’s figured out is like where the radiant heat gathers. There’s certain places where the floors definitely warmer than others and the cats have found those in their feline way. So she. Spends a lot of time sleeping on that little rug in his office and but I brought her into bed with me since she seemed disturbed and she slept by my pillow for most of the night so that was nice because I know I woke up once around 4 and she was there and I went back to sleep. And normally if I go back to sleep like that it means another hour and a half and sometimes I’ll calculate it because it’s like far is a little early to get up but usually like another hour and a half and that’s right in line with you know, like scientific studies on sleep cycles that a full cycle is an hour and a half more or less. So but then I woke up at six thirty oops so um yeah we’re supposed to start at 8 it’s seven fifty seven now but we moved at tape 15 at my behest during it was ready because she said she wants to. To start and were earlier which is big because she originally for her meeting me at 9 was a lot for her and I had you guys know I track everything you know I was like well you know I’m usually starting by 9 we could just make it be 9 but for me writing wise the earlier I start the better off I am and I do have graphs to show that I get better work counts if I start earlier. So this works great for me. It’s just a little bit of adjustment. Especially after daylight savings time kicking in but it’ll be interesting to see how that works I’m going to keep doing the two k per day this week and then next week I might see if I can go up to 2.5 um, yeah, we’ll just sort of see I’m going to experiment a little bit I’m going to be curious. We have some travel coming up so that’s going to change things around some we are going to go up to Blackhack Colorado.

08:10.51
jeffekennedy
And meet up with David’s siblings for a couple of nights just a little get together and I’m going to do the It’s a it’s a casino hotel thing and I don’t really like and I’m like. But they do have a spa and I’m going to do I’ve been dying for a body scrub and they do a body scrub and wrap so very excited for that and then at on April Seventh and eighth I will be down in portalis. New Mexico fabulous Portales which is ah where Doronda Jones lives ah and it’s down right near the Texas panhandle but it’s where Jack Williamson famed science fiction writers from. And I’m going to be down there and doing some panels and stuff I believe they will also be streaming looks like some interesting panel topics too. There’s a new guy in charge this year David Sweeten who seems to be I haven’t met him in real life yet. But he seems to be just really on the ball I’m really smart and he thinks I’m a great writer so you know clearly he has excellent taste and discernment. So I’m looking forward to this last year I was on a weird panel that it’s it’s this happened. To me a lot and I think it might be the whole crossover fantasy romance um woman writer with kissing in her books is ity a is it really not fantasy confusion but there are certain conferences. Especially these very little ones where I think what happens is that the organizers don’t really this always sounds bad. They don’t know who I am ah and I think this can happen to any of us you know, like there are certain people that they know what they write. But what happens is is if you are a writer that like quivers doing programming hasn’t actually read if they don’t know much about you then they end up sort of sticking you on panels in weird places like I got put on a panel that. Like a great transgressor on this and I’ve complained about it before is mile highcon up in Denver which I like to go up there because I have family up there. Denver’s my hometown. A lot of people in the area I know.

10:55.37
jeffekennedy
I’d like Mile Hi Con but they always put me on these fucking weird panels like once they put me on a superhero panel. You honest like I don’t really write superheroes or not even really I don’t write superheroes at all and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. And so last year with the old organizer on the Jack Williamson lectureship I got put on this panel on what was it was like writing science fiction or something. I wish I could remember the topic but it was really kind of strange I was like I do not know why I’m on this panel and the bad thing is is there are a couple of reasons for writers to do panels 1 is that it’s fun. Um, some of the. Most gratifying times that I’ve had as a writer is being on a panel with other wonderful writers where we end up having these amazing conversations. That’s the pinnacle because then you get a lot out of it being on the panel. So that’s good reason. Um. Reason that we do it is promo is to know, get ourselves out there um have people know who we are the other reason to do it is to be nice to you know, pay it forward contribute to the community. It’s like and I and a lot of writers view it that way. Because they’ll be like I don’t want to be on more than one panel for the conferences and I’m like really then why are you going? What are you doing there. They’re like oh it’s so exhausting. Really you know it’s like you know they’ll be like I’m on three panels cisconfer and. 1 every day and it’s exhausting like oh well, what do you do all day I know I’m bitching I just think about people who have jobs that you know like where they actually have to work really hard i. Well I will always say that being a writer is mentally draining and you really have to balance that creative flow and be smart about how you do it, especially if you’re a full-time writer or not even especially, it’s I think it’s worse if you’re trying to maintain another career and kids and family and all of that too. You know you really have to balance that energy but you know some of these writers I know for a fact have like never had a full-time job and you know there are jobs that you know like if you are working at it all day long. That’s all it’s a lot It’s.

13:37.90
jeffekennedy
Just you know a lot of running around in meetings and dealing with stuff and I will always say that the most the hardest job I ever had was being a cocktail waitress you know, full stop I am so glad that I don’t have to make my living as a cocktail waitress. Because waiting tables sucks you guys it sucks and it’s really hard and I know that people who haven’t done it sit back and be like well she goes a scurry back and forth between the kitchen. It’s like you have no idea absolutely no idea which is why I always tip well unless somebody really. Sponning it in anyway. So I’m sure I had a pointer in there somewhere I got interviewed on um, was it Tuesday afternoon yeah Tuesday afternoon by the kingdom of thirst podcast Abigail a great interviewer. We had so much fun I really enjoyed her podcast I should go ahead and link to it in here. So that. In fact, I’m going to type that in right now so that you guys can check it out but my old air. And a couple of weeks um kingdom of podcasts but she was talking about this podcast about first cup of coffee and just saying how. Relaxing. It is that it’s zen and I love that I love that it’s she said it’s just like having a conversation with your friend over coffee and it’s just like a nice chill thing to do and I love that I think that’s awesome. So. If I can’t think of stuff to stay say I feel like I can always fall back on the fact that that I’m just offering a zen experience here. Actually really, it’s more of a Dallas experience but we’re not going to to quibble lines there. So um, my point and I did have 1 oh that darinda and I are starting earlier. Um and maybe trying to get our 3 hours done by noon which is great and yesterday I was done by like 1130 and I got more stuff done on the to do list. You guys will be delighted to hear it i. Um, trying not to obsess about like getting everything off the list which I think is helpful. You know it’s that um, you’ll like the measureable goals. The ones that you can actually reach so but I got several things done off the list and so that’s great I got.

16:24.41
jeffekennedy
Bright Familiar uploaded, the audiobook. So just waiting for approval on that and then that will be out soon and other just little piddly things. Oh and so this is where I was had kind of started with all of this I did register for. World con in Chicago at the end of August beginning of September – Chicon. So I am planning to attend that and I also went ahead and registered for world fantasy con in November so planning to be at that and I will be at a polycon. In July so I need to get fact, let me make a note tear put this on my list I’ll get carene to put these appearances on the website.

17:20.45
jeffekennedy
So that’ll be good. So it’s like um, yeah for but but that’s the sound of the ah the world gradually sort of like revving up again. We’re kicking into gear. The other thing that happened yesterday is I got to. Email with an amazing writer someone who I particularly fangirl cut to exchange emails. You guys I can’t tell you what it is yet, but it’s very exciting, very exciting news. Not my career related but otherwise related. So. If you are canny. Your little brains will be thinking about what could this be? Ah yeah, so it was um yeah, particular little fan Girll moment there that I got to email with this writer from my myer. Who I admire I almost never use whom I just dislike whom I once had an editor my quiinsington editor had a special note saying this author hates whom don’t use it. So so yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how shaking it up here. A little bit will do and. Feeling good about things. So on that note I’m gonna go and meet up with the fabulous Darynda Jones and I will talk to you all tomorrow you take care bye bye.

Jeffe’s Writing Space

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven, we’re sharing our writing workspaces and current TBR list.

Why both of these somewhat disparate things? I have no idea. My TBR isn’t physical (mostly). I keep my inventory of unread books on a – you guessed it! – spreadsheet. There are currently 323 books on it.

I know.

I’ve been working my way through it, really I am, but even my determined efforts end up being like fighting the hydra. For example, I’ve had Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest on my To-Be-Read “pile” since April 19, 2017. (Thank you, Amazon for that purchase date.) I finally started reading it on February 12, 2022. LOVED IT. So, what did I do? Yes, bought the entire six-book Sevenwaters series. I’m now 60% through book six, Flame of Sevenwaters. By removing one book from my TBR list, I ended up buying five more and spending more than a month bingeing Juliet Marilllier and not addressing any of the books I already have. And I might not stop here. There’s a couple other books of hers that I’m eyeing. We’ll see how I feel when I finish this one.

As for my writing space, I have a dedicated office that is ALL MINE. You can see it above. We got an unexpectedly heavy snow last night, so it’s a darkish morning and you can see the snow out the window. I love my big window as I can watch the birds and other visiting wildlife (and they are merry), and I can see all the way down the Galisteo Basin to the Ortiz Mountains and Sandia Peak. My desk is hydraulic, so I can adjust it for sitting, standing, or walking, with my treadmill below.

I used to have my framed book covers on the walls, but I realized I didn’t like looking at stuff that represented past efforts. So, I took them all down and hung art that’s inspiring to me. The poster over the window is one I made that says, “What would you write if you weren’t afraid?”

And there you have it!

First Cup of Coffee – March 22, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee but I left the spoon in it’s a good thing that I noticed that. Before I sipped today is who knows Tuesday March Twenty second I could show you guys this little spoon for those of you on video. It’s um, make sure it’s the right way up. It wasn’t I think people used to collect these things. But anyway it says um Denver engraved. It’s a little like a little baby silver spoon I like it because I could do just a little dollop of cream I’m pretty sure it’s real silver and it’s got a um indian head. I would say native american head but this is clearly like fantasy indian somebody’s conception of the thematic ah ideal of Denver was this ah I don’t know. I mean it’s really kind of funny because if you could see him on video like there’s ah, an ear piercing and a necklace that looks considerably more maori than any native american who lived anywhere in the Colorado area. Definitely an artist’s fantasy. But then in the bowl of the spoon it says Denver and so I kind of like it. It’s it’s a nice little petite spoon I should probably sell it melt it down for silver just because it’s a little bit heinous with the fantasy indian chief on there but um. I like it I was some I think my grandmother’s might have been what if my great aunts. There were a lot of Maiden Aunts among the Kennedy family.

02:06.52
jeffekennedy
So um, today is a special day because I know something that I rarely know about my own podcast but today is episode 700 whoo ah, a little while back I was trying to figure out how many episodes I’d recorded and I believe Laura Darnell was very helpful with that and telling me exactly how many there were I got a little confused even though I do keep it on the spreadsheet of course um some of them were like 2 parters. Mostly through my own technological ineptitude. So but now I figure out a better way to keep track and I believe that today is officially 700 so kind of cool and and I even made a note to myself to remember it. And say something. Other people know like how many episodes they’ve had I do not well clearly I do know more precisely I should say that um, when I first started doing this lo these what five years ago honey how time flies. Um I started keeping track by seasons. Um, so I did um season one you know and and then where I started season 2 I started over so season 2 episode 1 whereas other people do it numerically which is probably wiser and I did not keep track of dates for that first season I had 80 episodes in that first season and I know I started like sometime around July. Probably look at it on buzz sprout. But do we care that much. So anyway I should probably like put the years on these that would be helpful so this is season 5 so we know it’s been five years and this is 2022 last time I check. I’m just gonna tap these in here right now. Sorry if this is boring.

04:26.31
jeffekennedy
Yeah, so season 1 was 2018

04:35.29
jeffekennedy
Pretty amazing. How so. I was just noticing I keep track of that on my goals spreadsheet because I have a spreadsheet for everything and as no say ah I have not updated these goals in a while. Um right. I have goals for 2019 2020 and then clearly I did not do it for 2021 and 2022 so I guess I must have moved on to other things but I should probably like. Revisit that and see which things I’ve already done and which things I need to do always good. Okay, there now. My spreadsheet’s a little bit neater for at least today I get to do. On the kingdom of thirst podcast today being interviewed on that so that’ll be fun and it’s um, cold and snowy morning here in Santa Fe more snow. It’s nice. So yesterday we got quite a bit of rain it rained whilst allll the day i. Did get my sweet pea seeds planted before the rain started so that’s that’s ideal that’s like the ah the gardener’s nirvana right is if you can get things planted right before a gentle soaking rain and the sweet pea seeds are great. That’s part of why you can plant them early because they can withstand the frost. So um, yes I saw again Laura Darnell who often comments on stuff was nice to hear from her she um, had not been familiar with sweet pease. How is this possible. Ah, you know like I said I follow I was talking about this yesterday anyway, you know I follow my grandmother again my grandmother with the anus indian spoon I follow her gardening advice. My mom often says that the green thumb skipped a generation that I have my grandmother’s. Gardening ability my grandmother beautiful garden but my grandmother would plant sweet peace seeds in Denver on St Patrick’s day and so I do the same or more or less st patrick’s day is the trigger and I don’t know she did it exactly on.

07:03.64
jeffekennedy
And soak the seeds and buttermilk overnight like she does. But boy you know all, but you know my even my mom complaining that she did not have ah a very good garden. She I always thought she had a great garden and my aunt. Um, they we always had sweet pe. And and my mom would cut the sweet piece and bring them inside and they are. They’re so fragrant. They’re beautiful and they’re fragrant and um, they bloom for most of the summer so so yes if you are not familiar with sweetpeas. Go get you some I’m Laura I hope that you will share some photos of yours. My mom can’t grow them in Tucson. It’s just way too hot as but you know in Laramie Wyoming they were great and I don’t know. Kansas City maybe they’ll do better in like the spring and the fall might get a little hot for them in the muggy part of summer since Kansas City really does that muggy part of summer. So um. Yesterday was good day. Got my um 2000 words we got the Jeep into the mechanic have to do a little bit of work on it but it should be certified for David David to drive it for lyft and uber today. And he already has a scheduled ride for tomorrow. Did you guys know that lyft is doing a real scheduled ride thing. Um, it’s it’s really pretty cool because you know how like on uber it offers you the scheduled ride option. But then it’s not. They don’t actually schedule a ride for you. They just like send out a call for a car at that time because uber is so freaking wedded to that algorithm they do not want to budge off the algorithm. So this is something that has cropped up in the last couple of months where lyft has asked. David sent him a message through the app and asked him if he would like to accept a scheduled ride for this address at this time on this date and he can opt in or not and then the first time we were like what is this? What is this strange creature and. It was someone in our neighborhood who needed a ride to the albuquerque airport. So the at once he confirmed we’re like okay try it. Why not once he confirmed then it said okay you know be online on the app like 15 minutes before this time.

09:52.81
jeffekennedy
And he did and then it directed him to the pickup and and he drove the person down to Albuquerque so it’s it’s a real kind of scheduling and it’s it’s great and he’s gotten one for like you got a request for like may fifteenth. Um, so. You can you can actually plan ahead and I think it’s just so smart of lyft to be doing that because it’s what we all want you know uber keeps trying to force us to bend to their their algorithm I think they think that they’re going to be Amazon and may and enslave us to the algorithm. But. What they don’t realize is that the reason that we become enslaved to the Amazon algorithm is because Amazon makes seems really really easy for the consumer. They give us exactly what we want in exactly the way we want it. Ah. And uber is not doing that they they want their algorithm to work and they want us to you know be and trained to it but something like that like actually being able to schedule a ride and have a car show up. And exactly the time you want it to show up. Um, uber doesn’t want to do that. So interesting. So sir David’s already got a ride scheduled for tomorrow so he’ll be back in action. We still don’t have word on the camera. Ah apparently Usaa was taking down to their. Approved storage facility in Albuquerque which is an hour away and this is new. This is new because we’ve had Usa a for a long time but you know they’ve gone public now and things are different. Things are changing which is unfortunate because I don’t I try not to resist change for resisting changes sake but some of these changes to sa a I feel like are not positive.

12:13.11
jeffekennedy
Then also it adds time so we shall um we shall see apparently whether or not the car is totaled is still in question I mean obviously it’s in question but different people have weighed in Darynda’s husband owns. Um. Body shop and he looked at the photo and said he doesn’t think the car is totaled so he said unless there’s damage. You can’t see which is possible. So so why she’ll find out and. Got my nails done yesterday I went with yellow mom isn’t that funny I was kind of thinking yellow anyway, my mom and I were talking about how we’re like into yellow all of a sudden I think this is like how fashion trends happen I always think of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. Predicting the trends before they become a trend is yellow. The next trend you heard it here first on first cup of coffee. So um, yeah, otherwise I’m I’m feeling like. And maybe I say this all the time my business to do list is very long at this point and some of it’s because I’ve broken things out into smaller tasks. Ah but like i. Need to upload the audiobook for bright familiar I have to register for a couple of conferences I still owe spreadsheets to someone because I was crunching her. You know like how she does her writing over the course of the year um I’ve got to set up a preorder of. Gotta put some books on ingram because I didn’t do it. Yeah, bright familiar and gray magic I didn’t put on inggram and I’m just gonna have to bite the bullet and do it um make a preorder list for a polyon I had to update a bunch of books and I need to reupload them I go. Ah, the faro gal gals a blog post for March and now we are March Twenty second I really got to get that done. So I’ve still got figure out a plus marketing I like I don’t know what is time who am I but. I don’t understand why I’m like not well I guess I do kind of understand why I’m not getting to all these things but it’s annoying me that I’m not getting to all these things I should look at my at those goals right? Um, which.

14:54.58
jeffekennedy
I Do have these different categories like revivifying the to do list minimizing the tasks that float for a long time god. That’s an ongoing thing so I won’t examine this list but maybe that was meant I need to um I need to figure out ways to get to some of this. Stuff that maybe you know maybe it’s partly being president of sfwa that like those hours that I would spend doing business-y things I’m spending a lot of that on SFWA things.

15:32.64
jeffekennedy
So um, what else because I wrote down those things to talk about. Maybe I don’t have much else to talk about. Yeah, maybe I don’t it’s interesting talking to people about conferences I’m sorry we’re not doing nebula conference in person. Ah the board felt very strongly that it was too much of a financial risk. I wanted to do it but I wasn’t gonna go against what the rest of the board wanted and it made things easier in a lot of ways. Ah but I was texting yesterday with Mary Robinette Kowal and. For for a funny. It was actually very funny because someone asked a question in the sifwa slack that had to do with last year’s conference like how long the panels were going to be up and because we’d kept the recorded panels up in the nebula airship. And somebody they asked how long are they going to stay up because they hadn’t finished watching all of them and I was like oh that’s a really good question even I do not know the answer but let me talk to the team and find out what everyone is thinking because I was a part of the events team last year and and. Then this text pops up for Mary Robinette and and she answers the question she says um, let’s see if I can find it here. Well she said we told. So she just texts me out of the blue and says we told panelists that we would leave nebula panels up for 1 year and I was like and I said god is that you and she said verily it was I and it turned out that she. Had notifications set on that channel and so it had she didn’t even remember she had had it because I know she doesn’t monitor slack closely and so she’d gotten a notification on it and answered the question for me and it was just it was just a funny thing. You know like. It goes in here and comes out there. So then we text it back and forth for a little bit and I was catching her up on just she’s very good about checking in with me on whether or not I’m being aggravated by being president and then she asks me for background stuff on some of the.

18:16.39
jeffekennedy
Ah, stuff that we’re dealing with and it’s um, it’s very kind of her. It’s very supportive of her. We one of the things that we have in so well which is a semi-official role is the role of past president and the past president I mean we have lots of past presidents. But we have. Usually each president designates 1 person to be their past president advisor and she is that for me and she’s good about checking in with me and just like doing the are you taking care of yourself thing because 1 thing about having been president before is you know that some of it can be aggravating and stressful. So at any rate I said well um, you know if we get to see each other in person again. We can do a a long drinking binge and I think it’s gonna be I told her I think I think I’m gonna go to chicon at the end of August. Um, world con in Chicago but I think that’s the next time so but at least there will be that time so that’s one of the things I have to do is register for that conference and I’m gonna register for world fantasy convention which is in New Orleans and November so I’m committing. And committing to things du but Don it’s exciting all right I’m going to go and get going on my things I’m gonna try to get some of this shit off of my to do list but this is my resolve wish me luck. And I will talk to you all on Thursday you all take him bye bye.