Category: Blog

Reader Rewards – What’s the Good Stuff?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE is done except for the dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s – and the endless adding and deleting of commas. I don’t know about you all, but I never did get the comma rules into my brain. I just accept whatever my copy editor does on those. If only Track Changes had an “accept all comma changes” setting!

Anyway, THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE is the third in The Uncharted Realms and – as some who’ve already read the ARC (man, some of you are *fast*!) have noted – it’s not the last. Too much story yet to tell! I’m tentatively titling book #4 THE ARROWS OF THE HEART and have it planned for next May or thereabouts.

If you wanted an ARC and didn’t get one, use the comment form on the website and Assistant Carien will be in touch.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven regards Reader Rewards: What Do You Do To Reward Your Fans (newsletter free-short stories, discounts, special appearances, etc.)?  Come on over for more. 

 

Selfies, Praise, and Road Trips

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I’m still digging out and organizing photos from the RWA National Conference. But here’s me with my agent, the lovely Sarah Younger. Along with her many savvy business skills, she sports an excellent selfie game. 

While I was away at conference, Heroes & Heartbreakers ran a post of mine on the Language of Praise. This is a topic I’ve been mulling for some time, and discussing with people like the thoughtful and insightful Campbell award finalist Kelly Robson. I’d love for you all to check out the article and give me feedback. I’m working up a couple of follow-up segments with specific ideas, so I’m all ears!

(I found it really hard – read: impossible – to comment on the article myself because Captcha wouldn’t let me through. If the same happens to you, please comment here!)

I’ve finished revisions on THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE, and it’s off to the copy editor. I’m really happy with how the story turned out. I feel a little superstitious saying that, but some stories worm their way into your heart more than others. Marskal and Zynda’s tale did that for me and I’m stepping out of their world again with some regret. 

But it’s a short step over to the novella I’m diving into today. THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN is a follow-on to Ash and Ami’s thread, in the same timeline. I’m telling it from Ash’s point of view (POV), which is a first for this series. Except for a short piece I did from Rayfe’s POV for a conference challenge, I haven’t yet written from any of the hero’s POVs. This novella will be in AMID THE WINTER SNOW with Thea Harrison, Grace Draven, and Elizabeth Hunter, out December 12. 

August is birthday month around here – both mine and several family members, so I’ll be doing a bit of traveling along with the writing. Enjoying beautiful monsoon season in Santa Fe, and around New Mexico and Colorado. Oh, and for those who were sad I wasn’t going to be at Bubonicon, I will be after all!

Anyway, I should be on a bit more of a regular blogging schedule again. What else have I forgotten to tell you?? Ask me questions!

 

What Dangerous Topic Jeffe Longs to Write

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Marcella, sister SFF Seven bordello mate and longtime crit partner, sent me this amazing glitter card. She’s been reading – and giving excellent insight on – this series from the very beginning. If I’d had more time, she would have been top in my thank you’s in the acceptance speech. I remember hitting midpoint on that book, The Pages of the Mind, panicking and sending it to Marcella. Braced for her to tell me I’d gone horribly wrong, down some twisted path of no return, I opened her email reply. In which she scolded me for stopping where I did and to keep going, dammit.

I tell you, folks, there’s nothing better to keep you sane than good writing friends.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven regards Third Rails in Genre Fiction: What subjects are too dangerous for you to touch? Or do you touch them anyway? Come on over to the SFF Seven to find out what mine is. 

Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

It’s Hot & Muggy Flash Fiction week at the SFF Seven. In beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico, it’s never muggy and rarely all that hot. Perfect weather for drinks on the patio!

 

Instead I’m talking about what I *am* writing (hint: Ash & Ami) and I’m sharing a post I wrote on the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) blog about compiling a list of Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads. SFWA asked me for a list of ten authors, so they could also be put on bookmarks. In culling all the terrific recommendations down to ten, I found myself having to take a hard look at how I define the subgenre of Fantasy Romance, so that’s part of this article, too. Come on over to weigh in with your opinion!

The Writer Unpublished Manuscript Contest

Do You Want to Be THE WRITER?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

The Writer Unpublished Manuscript ContestThis is pretty exciting! My local chapter, the Land of Enchantment Romance Authors (LERA), is changing up our unpublished manuscript contest this year! Instead of having agents and editors as final judges, we’re switching things up to offer mentoring and promo support via judges who are established authors.  Writers of all stages may enter! Only the manuscript needs to be unpublished.

And I’m the judge and mentor for the Paranormal/Speculative Fiction/Urban Fantasy/Fantasy Romance category! Yes, it’s a broad category. What can I say? What this means is that the chapter will judge all entries and forward their top three to me. I’ll pick my favorite and mentor that writer and their manuscript. This means whatever that person needs – help with recs and prep for traditional publishing or help with self-publishing. Plus I’d help that person win overall against the wimpy writers chosen by the other judges. 😉 The overall winner gets to choose from the mentors and the whole chapter will support their efforts!

Other categories and judge mentors are:

Contemporary Romance – Long, Judge: Tamra Baumann
Contemporary Romance – Short, Judge: Katie Lane
Romantic Suspense, Judge: Robin Perini
Young Adult, Judge: Darynda Jones

Find out more information and enter here!

 

 

 

 

What Blender Setting Do You Go For?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We’ve been on a long road trip this last week, seeing all kinds of family. And leaving the cats behind, like the monsters we are. Here is Jackson showing off his best Pitiful Abandoned Kitty face.

Thus, I’m late posting today. But so it goes!

I’ve shared this news elsewhere, but I’m happy to share again here! Many of you have asked what I’m up to with various writing projects, including a few delayed ones. (Yes, the next Sorcerous Moons books are coming – I promise!) Basically what happened is that I changed agents back in February/March. And then I worked up something entirely fresh for New Agent Sarah Younger. Basically I gave her a list of ideas, we debated them, and I wrote 100 pages of one of her top three choices – the one I loved best. We went back and forth on it with several revisions. That’s a great benefit of working with an agent as sharp as Sarah. She gave me great feedback on the book, tightening it up and making it the best it could be. Basically we spent three months working on this. 

Which meant I kept setting aside other writing projects to work on the next round of THRONE OF FLOWERS, THRONE OF ASH. Thus my entire schedule getting delayed and shuffled. The beautiful part is, when Sarah took this out on submission, we had tons of interest, multiple offers, and a sale two weeks later. And here it is!!

These books won’t start coming out until 2019, so now I can go back to a regular schedule. Which absolutely means finishing both the Sorcerous Moons and Missed Connections series. The other thing that happened is that Kensington, who published my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books, started up a new SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) imprint. They wanted to publish THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE, but that would have delayed its release until March of 2018 and I knew you all would have fits. (See? I do love you and want you to be happy. I really do!)

So, we said no on that, but they really wanted me to be part of this new imprint, so we settled on me writing a trilogy for them set in the Twelve Kingdoms world. It will be high fantasy, which means less of a romance arc. BUT, I’m pretty sure it will be Jenna’s story. For those of you who know what that means! We finished talking about that right before the other submission, so that got announced at the same time. 

All that taken care of, our topic this week is Scrapbooking—taking stories from real life as the springboard for your stories and subplots. Come on over to get my take on blender settings. 

Exciting New Project!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I shared this video in various places, but I wanted to share it here, too, because it amuses me so much. Jackson had been snoozing in the shade and apparently decided a warm-up was called for. I looked up from my screen and he was lolling out there, soaking up the sun on his belly, king of his little universe.

That cat just cracks me up.

I’m popping in here today to let you all know about an Exciting New Project! (Hence the title. *cough*) The fantastic Thea Harrison has asked me, Grace Draven, and Elizabeth Hunter to participate in an anthology for the midwinter holidays!!!! It’s going to be called AMID THE WINTER’S SNOW. <- I love this title. Don’t you love this title? It’s very Enya to me.

We’ll each contribute a novella from our fantasy worlds, the story taking place around some sort of midwinter festival. Release date: December 12, 2017. We should have it up for preorder about a month before that. We’re working on a cover now, so stay tuned for that!

I’m also going to have some exciting news soon on a whole new series, but I can’t spill yet. Woo hoo!