Category: Blog

Vegas Baby!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

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So far there are two entries in the Rogue’s Pawn Giveaway, and this is my favorite. Of course, the other is only slightly less brilliant:

BSs8eNjCUAA33cLYou’ll note that both of these are from Carien at Pearls Cast Before a McPig, so she stands to win Monday’s Cover Reveal drawing unless the rest of you plan to get busy this weekend! I know you all are thinking about it, cuz you’ve told me so. Make those fun ideas into reality! I totally want to see the Rogue Prawn interpretations.

Tomorrow I’ll be featured on the Dear Author blog for their August Extravaganza. Nice way to say goodbye to August. ~waves nostagically~ Stop by if you can!

Also, if you’re looking for a great local writers and readers conference this fall, check out Fiction Writing in the Digital Age, taking place in Las Vegas this October. Among others, my Kensington editor, Peter Senftleben, and my agent, Pam van Hylckama Vlieg, will be there. I’ll be giving what should be a very fun cross-genre workshop:

More than Wham, Bam, Thank-You M’am – Wooing the Female Reader

Over and over, statistics show that more women are reading fiction than men, particularly on e-Readers. With the overwhelming success of works like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight, it bears examining just what female readers are looking for – and what they’re buying. This workshop will examine how romance can be used to both attract readers and illuminate characterization. Sexual attraction can both entice and ratchet up the overall tension of any plot. Jeffe Kennedy, award-winning author of numerous series of erotic romance and fantasy, will walk participants through examples from literature and movies, to illustrate what women really want from a story.

Small conferences like this are great for meeting the industry folks in a more informal way. And besides, Vegas Baby! You’ll also see on the schedule that there are a couple of signings, so if you’re in the area, stop by and say hello!

Rogue’s Possession Cover Reveal and Scavenger Hunt!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

025What’s this?

Oh yes. You know.

Or, at least, the small community of rabidly passionate Rogue’s Pawn fans (you know who you are) are doing little chair dances right now.

That’s right. I haz hard copies. And I’m giving them away.

So, here’s the deal. I only have these five. These are the ones that Carina printed for the final judges in case the book finaled in the RITA awards. Since it didn’t, Carina sent these to me. There were also five books that went out to the first round judges, so they’re out there swimming in the world (or have gone to the big recycling bin in the sky). Otherwise, these are all there is for now. Do you know what that means? YES!

*Collector’s Item*

Now, because these were printed for the contest, they’re not high quality. They’re mass-market paperback sized and have all the same content as the digital book, but it doesn’t look or feel like a standard mmpb. Fair warning.

That said, I want you guys to have them, so you have something physical to hug and cuddle.

Yes, I know how you people are.

In celebration of the sequel, Rogue’s Possession, launching on Monday, October 7 and the cover reveal happening this coming Monday, September 2, I’m sponsoring a giveaway scavenger hunt.

Okay, so, the question of the moment is:

What do you have to do to get your paws on one of these for your very own collection?

Show your love. I want pictures. Send me a photo of Rogue in the wild, with you or without you. It can be just his name on a piece of paper or a lovely man with the sign around his neck. Or be creative – find your own Rogue! You can also print out one of the two covers and take your picture with that. Or show me what you think Rogue’s “possession” might be.

Then post the picture – Twitter, Facebook, your blog, in the comments here – anywhere at all and be sure to tag me. If I don’t comment or reply, be sure to ping me so I’ll see it. Use the hashtag #ILoveRogue.

Each Monday, I’ll draw a winner, on:

9/2
9/9
9/16
9/23
9/30

For every picture you send me, you get another entry “ticket.” Anyone who doesn’t win in the previous week will get added to the next week’s drawing. International is fine – I’ll pay the pound of flesh to ship this to you.

On release day, 10/7, we’ll do something super-special. More than just copies of Rogue’s Possession, though we can do that, too. In fact, let me know what you want and we’ll make it happen!

I’m so excited about this sequel finally coming out, and hearing you all making excited noises, too, just heightens the fun!

Now, hie thee out there and post some pictures!

Bucking Along with the Mouse and Twitter Rodeos

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

009We haven’t had a Jackson pic on the blog for a bit. Here he is, being writer’s block. He’s very good at it. When he wants to be on my lap, I *must* move the laptop computer and give him access. Note the expression, also – which is one hair before head-butting me for more petting.

This morning when I logged onto Twitter, I saw this article about a hacker getting into a slew of Twitter accounts. I read this bit:

Active Twitter users should immediately revoke all third-party apps tied to their account. To do so, visit Twitter’s application page and click “revoke access” for each app listed. You can then go through the connection process again for the apps you still want to use.

Cleaning house like this is a good practice in general — you may be surprised about how many third-party providers you granted access to your account since signing up.

And decided it was probably good advice. They were right – I *was* surprised. I bet I’d granted access to something like 40 3rd party apps. I revoked them all, feeling all the virtue of the spring cleaning effort. After all, I could just go through the connection process again for the ones I wanted to keep! Tra lay, tra lay.

Not so much.

The first thing I did was re-open TweetDeck. Now, I did a post on Word Whores on Sunday, smugly explaining how I manage the Twitter Avalanche of Input by using lists. Many, many lists in carefully ordered columns. Well, when I revoked access, TweetDeck dumped all of my columns. I had to re-add and re-order them all.

It was probably good, because I discovered I hadn’t updated some of my lists recently and one was public that I’d meant to be private. Alas. Still it sucked up time I hadn’t planned on and now I feel like I’m running behind.

This all came after I got online, which was also delayed by an extended mouse rodeo.

See, we have the kitty litter boxes out in the garage and a cat door for the kitties to go from the house to the garage. This works out great and we’ve done this in all three houses we’ve owned, although it was the basement area in the previous two. Keeps the litter box odor and detritus from the living space. However, in this house, mice can penetrate the garage. They worm their way in, especially this time of year, stockpiling food supplies for winter. Fortunately, our cats are good hunters and catch the mice. Unfortunately, they mostly enjoy the capture part – and they want to share the joy of their prizes. So they bring the mice into the house.

Usually in the middle of the night.

We can pretty much ignore the tell-tale sounds of the hapless mouse being chased from cubby hole to hiding spot while we sleep. Thus, in the morning, we’ll rise to the kitties holding vigil in front of the couch or armchair, where the mouse will have taken final refuge. David will get his work gloves and we’ll tip up the heavy furniture. Working like a pride of lions, David and the kitties will round up the mouse and David takes it outside.

I know, I know – where it likely learns no lesson at all. Sometimes I wonder if these are the same mice, over and over. But we’re a catch and release household.

This morning, however, was not a seamless operation. We blame Jackson.

Jackson is really bad about loving to play with the mice. So bad that, given the least opportunity, he’ll snag the mouse and run off with it, depositing it in yet another part of the house. Today it was my office. The bookshelf was bad enough – requiring the removal of many books – but then the mouse got into the motor compartment of my treadmill. This meant getting out the screwdriver and removing the cover to the compartment. I said, oh well, the maintenance instructions said to remove the cover every six months and vacuum it out. I’d been meaning to do that. David got the tools. I got the handheld vacuum cleaner. Jackson got locked out this time.

So, plus side, the compartment WAS full of dust and cat hair, so it needed to be done. On the down side, the mouse was a PITA to get out from under the motor. We finally chased him out of there and he ran under the printer stand. More dust and dust bunnies. David finally captured the feisty bugger and he’s has rejoined his kin with a fine story to tell. I set to vacuuming, feeling the virtue of the spring cleaning effort.

All told, this took about an hour out of our morning, putting me behind. Which was further exacerbated by the Twitter thing.

Funny how some days are like that.

Taking Stress Seriously

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Master of the Opera, Act3 Phantom Serenade (ebook)The cover for Act III of the Master of the Opera e-serial coming out starting December 31. No blurb for this one yet, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

You know you want to.

So, this week was kind of difficult for me due to the day job. A big project was due on Tuesday. It’s a long story, but let’s see if I can summarize. I worked on this project as one of the team leaders for about 13 years, until it was finally cancelled. Early on, I began recording our protocol – the rules we followed for making audit decisions – mainly because that’s the kind of girl I am. Eventually we were tasked to take our informal document into a more formal format. Over the years, it became a terrific and popular tool in our niche field. I was referred to as the “Protocol Queen.” Yes, I admit it – I was proud of it and my work on it.

Fast forward to now – the project was axed due to lack of funding. This year we were tasked to make a final update to the Protocol, set it up so people could use it without us and set it free. Of course, I did most of the work, along with a junior person. Then we ran into a SNAFU with the client currently in charge. My boss got into trouble for no fault of her own and we ended up burning a LOT of hours dealing with the problems. Our big boss asked someone else in the company to step in as project manager, to help deal with the client. At the end, the new manager did her QA. On Tuesday morning, the day it was due, I discovered she’d not only done her QA on an old version, she’d done it without Track Changes due to time constraints. The document was 125 pages. My junior person did a document compare, to make sure all the fixes we’d made between the version she changed and the good one, got transferred over. She said the edits were so dense, she could barely find our previous fixes.

I didn’t have time to read it, so what had been my baby went out that way.

I tried to let it go.

But what had started as a headache and feeling tired the previous week, turned into a full-blown, knock-me-out being sick Wednesday morning. I felt exhausted, achey, crushing headache, nauseated, roiling gut – I was miserable. Unable to think, I had to take a sick day – both from day job and writing – and spent the day whimpering in my armchair.

For the record, I’m not really a migraine girl, but I do get headaches when I’m sick.

Fortunately, I live with a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and he gave me acupuncture and some teas and by that night I was somewhat human again and much better the following afternoon.

It doesn’t escape me, however, that the project was over and I spent time resting and letting it go.

This reminds me of an article I’ve saved, because I wanted to blog about it. It’s an interesting article and well worth reading. In fact, I think everyone should probably read it and see if they recognize themselves. This gal ended up going completely bald from stress.

I was in Chicago for a sales conference, and I remember being in the hotel room and seeing that my hairline looked weird. I thought maybe I was just having a bad hair day. When I got home, I had a quarter-sized hole in the back of my head. I went into panic mode. I was seeing this guy, who is now my husband, and we were spending a lot of time together, so I was like, “You need to just look at this. Am I crazy? What do you see?” Within a week, I went to the doctor who told me I have Alopecia. It’s a genetic condition, but it doesn’t necessarily manifest until stress triggers it.

My doctor asked if I had gone through a traumatic event recently or if anything had changed in my life. I said, “No, but it’s been pretty stressful at work.” I had been thinking, “If I don’t get this promotion, I’m going to quit.” That may not seem like a big deal, but I felt like I had helped build the company, and I thought I would be there forever. I don’t know if it was the stress I’d felt struggling so hard to find the right fit at work and then the fear of leaving that made me go bald, but it was definitely a huge contributing factor.

This struck me, because it reflects so much of what gives me stress – that emotional commitment to my work. When she talked to her manager:

I went to speak to my manager. I said, “Look. I don’t know what needs to happen here, but I’m overwhelmed. I’m losing my hair.” He didn’t know how to react. He just looked kind of dumbfounded, because at that time it wasn’t obvious yet. I was still able to maneuver my hair so no one could tell. Maybe they just thought it was in my head. My manager said, “I know you want to move into this new position. Are you saying you can’t put those hours in to get there anymore?”

I think what’s striking about this is, how little the medical establishment and employers credit stress for what can be massive effects on our health. It’s one of those “It’s invisible, therefore it can’t be real” things. (For the record, my boss is wonderful and totally gets it – this was out of her hands.) The doctors look for trauma. The employers want us to get over it and move on. Neither of these approaches gets at the real problem.

Once, when we were in Scotland on vacation and riding one of their lovely trains, we overheard a conversation between a woman and her companion. She told her friend, “My doctor says I have the heart of an American. I have to slow down and reduce stress or it’s gonna kill me.”

That has stuck with me ever since. “The heart of an American.”

Apparently the international symbol for stress.

But, as Americans, we don’t realize it. We’re so accustomed to living with certain stress levels that we’re only aware when it really puts us out of commission. Even then – as I did – we tend to blame it on a virus or some such. And it could have been a virus that made me sick (that’s what it felt like). If that’s the case, then emotional stress of the preceding days diminished my immune system enough that it got the upper hand.

I don’t know that there’s any solution but to take stress seriously. At least for me, it’s something that can affect me profoundly. It’s something just to “get through.”

Fortunately, today is Friday.

~does the Friday dance~

Writers Meeting Readers – Making a Good First Impression

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Master of the Opera, Act 2 Ghost Aria (ebook)

Here’s the cover for, the second episode (Act II) of Master of the Opera: Ghost Aria. I posted the one for Act I, Passionate Overture, last Friday. The next two will be revealed by Bookpushers on Thursday, August 15! I love how each cover is the same image, with a slight variation to reflect the theme of that Act. Here’s the blurb for this one:

In the second seductive installment of Jeffe Kennedy’s thrilling Master of the Opera, a young woman falls deeper under the spell of the man who haunts her dreams, fuels her desire, and demands her surrender. . .

With each passing day of her internship at the Sante Fe Opera House, Christine Davis discovers something new, something exciting–and something frightening. Hidden in the twisting labyrinths beneath the theater is a mysterious man in a mask who, Christy’s convinced, is as real as the rose he left on her desk–and as passionate as the kiss that burns on her lips. He tells her to call him “Master,” and Christy can’t deny him. But when her predecessor–a missing intern–is found dead, Christy wonders if she’s playing with fire. . .

If her phantom lover is actually a killer, how can she continue to submit to his dark, erotic games? And if he is innocent, how can she resist–or refuse–when he demands nothing less than her body and soul?

I love how they wrote these up – they sound ever so much better than what I would have written.

I also got this yesterday:

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Nothing like a shiny award to perk a girl up! This award comes at a great time, too, because the sequel, Rogue’s Possession, comes out October 7! Which no longer seems forever in the future, huh? The other day, a couple of book bloggers who loved Pawn heard about the sequel’s release date and were squealing with excitement on Twitter, speculating about what might happen next. I may or may not have succumbed to teasing them a bit about it. 😀

Still, there’s really nothing better than having smart enthusiastic readers excited about the next book. My favorite kind of conversation ever. Having someone else love my characters and story as much – maybe more! – than I do is a kind of transcendent feeling. This is why, if for no other reason, writers should find ways to communicate with their readers. It closes that loop, the one that starts with daydreams and hours alone at the keyboard, in a way that nothing else does.

It’s difficult for many authors, I know, to figure out how to behave in public. This might sound silly, but many people who become writers succeed because they’re happy being away from society for the huge chunks of alone time needed. Musicians and others in the performing arts are necessarily more social. They have to learn to engage with their audience, at some level or another. Visual artists have a long history of being cantankerous, cranky or just plain crazy. In times past, lovers of art and books rarely met the creators. Except for publishing house horror stories about autocratic and terrifying authors, for the most part no one knew what the writers themselves were like.

Recently a book blogger asked people about meeting their favorite author and asked if they regretted it. Of course, this is like asking people about car wrecks or kitchen accidents – everyone trots out the most horrific story they know. But they told of authors ignoring them, blowing them off, acting snobbish, being downright mean, etc. If I remembered where I read it, I’d post the link because it really was instructive.

The thing is, I could kind of read into some of the stories and know where the author was coming from. Not in an excusing-them way, but in a sympathy way. Often what’s read as snobbishness or a blow-off is the author not knowing how to behave. If they’ve never worked in corporate culture, never learned to deal with a range of people, they can come off as frozen, when they’re really overwhelmed.

I read this article recently. No, I didn’t click on it just because it’s about Hugh Jackman. Okay, maybe I did, but then I *stayed* for the content! It’s a terrific contrast piece about meeting a CEO and meeting Hugh Jackman – and the first impression each made.

For me the key part of the article is this:

In three minutes, Hugh Jackman turned me into a fan for life–but he didn’t sell me. He didn’t glad-hand me. He just gave me his full attention. He just acted as if, for those three minutes, I was the most important person in the world–even though he didn’t know me and has certainly forgotten me.

There’s the way through that deer-in-the-headlights moment (or two-hour signing). The ubiquitous “they” often give the advice to ask people questions about themselves, when you’re in conversations that are stalling. It never hurts to focus on the other person and, as writers, we’re all naturally interested in character. Give that person your full attention, treat them as important and learn something about them.

After all, it’s only three minutes.

Less, in social media.

How to Write a Mainstream Success – or Not

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Double Book Cover Thunder on the Battlefield

Have to throw out one more plug for the Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword & Sorcery volumes! Sister Whore Marcella has a story in Sword and I have one in Sorcery. Marcella did an amusing post on Friday comparing us to Donny and Marie Osmond. The two-volume anthology was edited by former Whore James R. Tuck and is available in digital as below. Print editions should follow soon.

Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword Kindle version Nook version
Thunder on the Battlefield: Sorcery Kindle version Nook version 

Otherwise, I’m over at Word Whores today, giving some examples of mainstream successes in literature and the choices the authors faced to gain that level of success.

Being the Good Example (for once) and Making a Difference

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

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Looky! The covers for my Master of the Opera e-serial are starting to appear! The first two are on my website. I actually have the next two, but those will remain SEKRIT until Bookpushers reveals them on August 15. After that, there will be two more! Very exciting. There will be six episodes in all, released about every two weeks starting December 31. (At least, that’s the current word.) Here’s the blurb for Act I: Passionate Overture.

In the first tantalizing installment of Jeffe Kennedy’s ravishing serial novel Master of the Opera, an innocent young woman is initiated into a sensual world of music, mystery, passion–and one man’s private obsession. . .

Fresh out of college, Christine Davis is thrilled to begin a summer internship at the prestigious Sante Fe Opera House. But on her first day, she discovers that her dream job has a dark side. Beneath the theater, a sprawling maze of passageways are rumored to be haunted. Ghostly music echoes through the halls at night. And Christy’s predecessor has mysteriously disappeared. Luckily, Christy finds a friend and admirer in Roman Sanclaro, the theater’s wealthy and handsome patron. He convinces her there’s nothing to fear–until she hears the phantom’s voice for herself. Echoing in the labrynths. Singing of a lost love. Whispering her name: Christine.

At first, Christy thinks she’s hearing things. But when a tall masked man steps out of the shadows–and into her arms–she knows he’s not a phantom of her imagination. He is the master of her desire. . .

Didn’t they make it sound awesome? Even *I* want to read it…

So, I mentioned on Twitter that I was the subject of a priest’s sermon – and I was the GOOD example. Now, I’m trying not to be hurt that none of you believed me and I *did* promise to tell the story today, so….

Back in July, as some of you may or may not know, David and I made the journey up to northern Wyoming to bury his father. We’d been expecting it as his dad, GF, had moved into hospice a week or two before he died. Still, it was wrenching. GF was the head of a large and happy family, a courageous and warm-hearted person and we’ll miss him greatly. For us this was a three-day event, because Buffalo, Wyoming is one of those “you can’t get there from here” places. We spent Wednesday driving an hour from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, flying to Denver, taking a 19-seat prop airplane to Casper, Wyoming, renting a car and driving another two hours to Buffalo. Then we turned around and did it in reverse on Friday.

The rosary was Wednesday night and the service Thursday morning. If any of you are Catholics – or have the misfortune to be connected to Catholics – then you’ll know these were not brief services. The full Catholic Mass funeral and graveside service on Thursday took 3 1/2 hours. After that we returned to the church to eat, then hung out at David’s parents’ house for the rest of the day and evening.

It ended up being good, because it slowed us down. There was nothing to be done, but hang out, eat food, drink wine (this is the up-side of the Catholics!) and talk.

Driving back down to Casper on Friday morning, we were emotionally exhausted. We talked about the family and related conversations we’d had without each other. David was driving and I glanced down, noticing something between my seat and the center console. I dug it out and discovered it was an American passport. The owner hadn’t filled out his contact information (Bad!), but I had his name, birthday and general location.

So I searched on my smart phone and found a guy his age living in the right area. I called the number and got an anonymous voice mail, so I left a message. I really hoped he wasn’t traveling somewhere and stuck without his passport. We debated what to do then. David suggested leaving it with TSA at Casper airport. I thought TSA would likely destroy it or it would disappear into the vast depths that suck up all the stuff TSA confiscates. When we returned the rental car, I asked the very young workers at the counter if anyone had called looking for the passport. They said no. I didn’t really want to leave it with them either, because, well… they seemed sweet but not terribly conscientious.

I took it with me.

During our layover in the Denver airport, my cell phone rang and it was him! Turns out this guy is a priest, lives in Buffalo, New York, and had missed the passport but had no idea how to go about dealing with it. He’d flown out to Wyoming the week before to help another priest struggling with a problem in his community.

I felt kind of emotional about it. The time we’d spent doing the rosary, mass and funeral was easily the most time I’d been in a church in years, maybe decades. I’m not a religious person – this likely comes as no shock to you all – but I did major in religious studies in college. More, I associate the church with my family. I often joke that I’m Catholic the same way that I’m Irish – it’s in the genes, whether I observe anything or not. GF died on July 4. David and I were in Denver at the time, helping my mom and Stepdad Dave clear out the house I grew up in. My stepfather Leo, a former Catholic priest, had married my mother a year after we moved in and died there 35 years later. His brother, my uncle who is still Catholic priest, was heavy on my mind. He’s living in an assisted living/retirement community and had really dropped contact with us after Leo passed away. While I was in Denver, I called the place, as my uncle canceled his cell phone, and got his mailing address. I tried to call him on his room phone, but got his voice mail.

The Monday after we got home, I took the passport to the post office and mailed it to Father Sam. With it I included a note where I talked about some of these same things. I wasn’t sure what it all meant, but it felt like it did mean something.

This week, a big box arrived for me. Turns out Father Sam of Buffalo, New York, also runs a bakery! This story can’t get any better. He sent me pita bread, amazingly delicious olive oil, salsa and these thin nacho chips that are out of this world. He also enclosed a note:

Dear Jeffe Kennedy,

Thank you! It is always good to be at the other end of a nice action. I have already used what you did as an example in my sermon this past Sunday. It often is a “pain in the neck” to go out of our way esp. when we are about hard stuff in our own lives.

You have made a difference and I preach a lot that God calls us to make a difference not save the world. He will do that!

God Bless you and your family,

Father A Sam

I want you all to know that I wept a little bit, even transcribing that. I’m not sure I can explain why. Maybe because I struggle sometimes with feeling like I’m not always the best person I can be. I dwell sometimes on friendships and connections I’ve lost, why some seem to end for no reason at all – except that I suspect it’s my fault, somehow. Maybe part of the take-home message is that making a difference for someone else doesn’t have to be a grand action. Even the little things count.

At any rate, I didn’t mean to make this a sad story – or such a long one! You all have a lovely weekend. Carien and Amy, you won books from Tuesday’s post, so let me know which ones you want!