Category: Blog

First Cup of Coffee – March 4, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.10
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, that hits the spot. Ah, but all right there we go. Let’s get this day started today is say it with me friday. Um, March fourth March Fourth into Friday all ye brave soldiers. All you warriors of words and other things. Ah so I apologize that I had no podcast yesterday I had a um, kind of a busy morning and I had to go get my blood drawn. That’s wonderful, ah annual. Actually I haven’t had it done in a long time. I’ve been very bad I’ve been neglectful of things physical but I’m seeing this new general physician and he’s fine. Whatever I won’t go into detail I mean he’s okay David really likes him so that’s it’s harder to get David to like people. Um, he’s a young man. And in some ways I don’t feel like we speak the same language. For example, when I said something about dealing with being post-menopausal. He asked me how long ago I had gone into menopause or finished you know. It’s funny because men always think menopause just means the period you know it’s like when did you last have your period and I told him it had been a few years and he’s like well then you’re not. You know you’re done. You’re not postmenopausal anymore and it’s like um, okay tell me honey. Ah. Speaking from experience there so otherwise but he’s fine. So I’d go get my blood drawn 4 tubes of blood. Um, do I didn’t miss it and yeah it was kind of. Interesting. The phlebotomist was an older guy very experienced and so he was talking about my veins that um like I have these veins that are very close to the surface of my skin. You know the blue veins I thought like everybody had them. He even asked me he did this arm.

02:38.56
jeffekennedy
And it’s ever so slightly bruised but not too bad. He did a really great job and he was like are you sure I’ve been drawing your but before your veins look very familiar but he said that a lot of phlebotomists don’t like to use those veins that are very close to the surface which are called verriccose veins which I immediately want to be like. And do not have variricosetains. But obviously I do but um, but it’s always has such a negative connotation right? but he said a lot of them won’t a lot oflebotoists or nurses. Don’t want to draw from those veins because they’re so fragile and he said but they’re great veins to use it. You know what you’re doing. And he knew what he was doing. He was very gentle and efficient and did a great job. So it’s something I’ve been putting off for a very long time something that I needed to get done and I was gonna go to writer coffee yesterday. It was just me. Jim Sorensen and Jack Mitchell and so I thought okay I would go there and you know get my blood drawn first because I do get the fasting draw you know and and then meet them for breakfast. And I ended up sleeping in yesterday I’ve been sleeping so much I mean I think I’m just still recovering from that push on gray magic um I slept long today too. So yesterday I’d had this bold plan that I was going to be like up by 5 and would you know get. All of my things done exercise and podcasting get some writing done and then be at the lab by 8 kind of happened did not happen instead I woke up at like 156 and I was moving pretty slowly I did exercise did to did to my Thursday weightlifting did not get to the lab until like eight thirty did no writing got no podcast done. Um, yeah. What was I doing in all that time we don’t know I have no idea lifting weights feeding cats. So I am get my mother I sometimes I think about this because my mom once asked me what do I do when I wake up so early. You know she’s like what do you do with all that time and it’s like you know it never feels like that much time probably if I like really tried to keep myself efficient I would do better but I don’t I go back and forth because I sometimes.

05:22.31
jeffekennedy
Think well I should try to be a lot more efficient and not drift about and burn up those early morning hours and then I think why am I always pushing myself so hard dead and it’s okay to drift about in the early morning hours I don’t know so. Um, yeah, so I got to the lab late and I had to wait a little bit and then it took a while. So then I didn’t end up meeting Jack and Jim until 159 and they’d been there for a while had already had a lot of coffee. It’s always bad when you get to the party late. You have to catch up. Ah, but we had a great time. It was delightful and I didn’t leave there until I left there around ten thirty five um and give my mom a calling way home. That’s what I was checking to see what time was it that I left. So. So yeah, um, it’s funny because I paused in order to check what that time was not that it matters. But you know, heck and then I saw that I had a text from my friend Megan about drinks tonight. So of course I had to answer in the affirmative. Yes, please. Yeah, so um, so then by the time I got home. It was like 11 and I was sort of waffling should I try to write and I have been thinking about my friends my concerned friends and all of you out there. Some of you comment to me. It’s like oh. You know if I’m feeling this empty maybe I should not be trying to write the next book already. And yeah, so I don’t know if this is just like brain drain some of it might be from traveling might have had like a little bug from traveling not covid I don’t have covid um. Yeah, so I slept again long this morning I didn’t wake up till like six thirty but I am feeling beach day a little better and so yesterday I did a lot of business stuff I caught up on a ton of business reader. I had over a hundred emails in my sifwa inbox. How did this happen you know and a lot of it is just because I get cced on stuff which is good. You know it’s like I have to get ccd on stuff. So I see it. But it’s like oh my god and. And I know that some of you this sounds like nothing but I am an inbox 0 kind of gal I tend to view my inbox as my to do list which I don’t think is entirely healthy. But I revert to it. Um I did answer an email yesterday that I knew I had been taking a long time to reply to and it was from January thirty first

08:11.40
jeffekennedy
How did this happen. It’s like February vanished vanished into the ma of writing so that’s where I’m at ah I did get my inbox down considerably I got it down to less than 10 I would have gone for total zero but a few of them take a little bit more time and and I by the end of the day I was kind of tired I was done I also had to go yesterday was the day of medical stuff so later in the afternoon I had to go get my mammogram and my bone density test. Ah, girl never forgets her first bone density test but it was actually pretty cool. It was kind of um you lay on the bench and they like do the scan up and down on all of this. So I am slightly shorter than I used to be she said sitting up straighter i.

09:10.77
jeffekennedy
I’ve always been 5 four maybe slightly over five four and I was um, 5 three and a quarter with I’m making a sad face. Um I suspect. It’s this curvature in my upper spine. So I really need to get back into doing yoga. The great news is is my favorite yoga teacher sent a thing yesterday that they’re opening a new yoga center this spring it was fake this spring. Um, so that’ll be wonderful because I do not like doing the video yoga. Just doesn’t work for me so I’m very excited to get back into in-person yoga. And yeah, get that see if I can reclaim that inch. She said sitting up straighter again. I do have scoliosis and kyhosis a relic of my adolescence. When I was um in middle school and early high school I actually had to wear one of those back braces you know, like from Deanni and Judy Bloom you know that went from my hips with the thing opening my tomb like that. So my back has sort of been the thing that I always have to take care of. So let’s that’s a good goal right? Reclaim the inch hashtag then we’ll see how all my other metrics come out even though I’m not post-menopausal I mean aren’t you like. Postmenopausal for the rest of your life right? You know it’s like you have menopause and then your post and then from there on but otherwise I think I really healthy I’m blessed with ah genetically blessed with usefulness that and lots of sleep and a clear conscience I think. so um so yeah will I try to write today I don’t know um I think I started to touch on this before. Yeah with some of my concerned friends saying what I was like but last week I did take the week off I mean I was in l a for. Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday yeah I did do copy on its while I traveled and polishing and all of that and then I didn’t do anything on Thursday and Friday um, but it’s been pointed out to me that doing business doesn’t count as resting which I don’t know. It’s really pretty weather today I’m tempted to not do much but I also feel kind of guilty ish if I don’t work. It’s pathological. What? Ah what can I say.

11:56.53
jeffekennedy
Ah, so and Darynda has taken. She’s not taken this week off she’s gone into her fugue state of trying to finish this book where she wants no contact and I think she sort of spirals through the clock and so I really don’t have her to contend with either. So. Know I know you guys Laura Darnell you’re gonna be out there. You’re gonna say I think you should take the day on maybe I will um, definitely feel like I need some more will refilling. So but I do feel like a good kitty cat that I’m getting all of the medical stuff done I I really have let it slide for quite a while. Ah. I know. But maybe yeah now that I like like more or less like I do like the um the offices and all of that and I feel like the um I don’t know if this is true everywhere if you guys are experiencing the same thing but I feel like the offices are just much. Nicer now I don’t know if this is like a post covid thing but they’re much more efficient. They’re much better at getting me in and out I mean I couldn’t believe how fast the mammogram and bone density went yesterday I mean it was boom boom and you know from place to place and they were really. Pleasant and efficient and friendly and helpful in all of this and there wasn’t you know it just seems like even five years ago going to the doctor I felt like I was being chewed up by a machine or something and all of these places are doing so much better and they you know I’ll send surveys afterwards. How did we do. Um, yeah, so they did good. They did good I’ve got my windows open I don’t know if you can hear the birds singing Zoom’s pretty good at suppressing background noise. Oh this isn’t Zoom – Zencastr. But still yeah might be a good day to go for a walk and enjoy the sunshine. It was ringing when I woke up this morning that was lovely. It was um that might have contributed to the oversleeping. It was very overcast and a little bit of rain and then I went out to put. Water and the bird bath and the air smelled of petricore I love I that was like in some of my very very first essays that I wrote you know the center of rain in the desert and that was before I knew the word petroorps but.

14:35.89
jeffekennedy
It’s just one of my favorite sense of the whole world and maybe all the more precious for being fleeting. So I don’t remember if I talked about this the other day. So I’m going to talk about it again now that you’ve had to sit here and listen to all of my burbling on about. Medical stuff. Um, the maintenance of the human body right? Oh before I forget before I forget I should tell you guys I almost did forget didn’t I that dark wizard is a Kindle daily deal today. Who Amazon picks us they they send you an email saying. Do you want to be part of this and then you say yes and then they say okay, we’ll think about it and then they send it to you so they sent it to me and dark wizards on sale at Amazon ebook for two forty nine so if you haven’t bought it now’s a great time to buy it if um, we buy it for your friends buy it for your family. But um, yeah, feel free to share because yeah would love to kick that up sales for Grey Magic have been great. So I’m hoping that this will be an additional boost. 1 thing I did start doing yesterday was getting through my to do list I really feel like I need to put together a promo plan for my backlist. And I was mentioning this on a chat and one of the girls asked. Well, what do you mean by backlist. She said that’s confusing to me and I said well for me it means completed series because when you have active series for example, like bonds of magic and Grey Magic came out monday. And so that means I’m like you’re putting up stuff about hey release great magic. It’s out. It’s in the world and then that bumps that whole series right? You know and people are like oh it’s just like I’m doing today right? Dark Wizard’s on sale and then you get book 2 bright familiar and great magic. So that’s very active. But then I have other books that have you know like a completed series for instance like uncharted realms. Um, that have been out for a very long time that I like just forget to talk about and Carrie Anne Ryan gives a really smart seminar on promoting your backlist. Just having this regular schedule where you bring up these completed series and like hey did you know why I wrote these books? Um, and it’s it’s really very smart in something like the doctor’s appointments I have not been doing and it has felt like too much to think about.

17:19.50
jeffekennedy
And I did work on that some yesterday and I had the brain power for that so that was really good. Um, so then the other thing I wanted to talk about was from the pro writing aid panel that we did on Monday afternoon the online panel that I did. With Alexia Chantel and Mary Robinette Kowal one of the things we’re talking about process and and I did touch on this I know because I talked about me being an intuitive writer whereas Mary Robinette is much more analytical and she was saying. She was asking me if my books really do come out when I’m done because I like pants my way through a garden. Um, right for discovery. However, you want to put it if they come out that way at the end and she said because your books are very tightly plotted. Which gave me a little flutter of pleasure I was like well thank you I appreciate that I love that she thinks my books are tightly plotted and and what I wished I had said at the time was this is part of why I don’t like the dichotomy. Or even the spectrum I don’t like the names of plotter versus pantzer because you guys know I don’t like pantser because it’s like fly by the seat of your pants which to me implies a loss of control that I think reflects the other end of the spectrum sphere of losing control. But. It’s also that if you write for discovery if you pants if you garden. It’s not that you don’t plot which is why I always refer to it as being a pre-plotter I am not a pre-plotter I do have plots and. I mean there we have it Mary Robinette Kowal says my books are very tightly plotit I just don’t plot them before I write them and I think that’s the difference. That’s why I really wish people would adapt that term I oh wait. Oh I should show you guys look at this. Was gonna wave my wand and make it so but look at this what I have if you’re on video not on video. It’s a long box burgundy colored box and dorinda brought me this from Harry Potter World is a gift because she is lovely and it is. Ah, magic wand so it’s um, if you’re not on video. It’s a beautiful dark wood warrant with kind of like a tulip shape at the end and it’s um, it’s from Ravenclaw house which is I have done the test to find out that I’m Ravenclaw.

20:08.42
jeffekennedy
And I think she said she thought it was Lena Lovegood’s wand those of you who know better if you are a video you could tell me if that’s true. It actually doesn’t say anywhere that I see in the box. So no way I’m going to wave my wand and make it so in the world that we say preplloter at least i’m. I’m gonna give up on people getting rid of the word panter because a lot of people like it but can we just say preplotter because if you’re writing a book and it’s any good at all. Then it’s plotted right? a book without a plot is a problem. Words to live by I’m wishing and making it so all right? So on that note I don’t know what I’m gonna do today I just do where I feel like um so I hope that you all wonderful friday. And hope you have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.

Grey Magic, Dark Wizard, and Storm Princesses – Oh My!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven we’re sharing newsletter info and promoting work. For those feeling hesitant to promote their books during this terrible time, I’ll remind you – as I’ve been reminded – that art brings us joy and books open minds. When we’re dealing with close-minded bigots, hatred, and war, we need stories more than ever. We provide the counterbalance. Please share about your books, because the world needs them.

So: Promo from me! Book Three in my Bonds of Magic series, GREY MAGIC, released on Monday!!

      

This series is The Witcher meets The Selection.

His Darkness, Her Brightness… Together They Defy the World

Lord Gabriel Phel at last holds his dream in his grasp—and faces losing everything. He’s finally won the love of his wife, familiar, and mother of his child, and she offers him a heartfelt commitment he can truly believe in. Together they’re building a true house, one with a growing family of friends and allies that can help them stand against their enemies. And he’s learning to master his magic, to use it as the powerful tool and weapon it should be. But old and new enemies array themselves to take it all away.

Lady Veronica, now fully of House Phel, is doing her best to embrace happiness. After all, she has her hands full managing her mercurial and powerful wizard as he navigates taking his place as the head of their house, and with learning her own extraordinary ability. But she fears whatever peace they win won’t last long. When their enemies inevitably strike—including, perhaps, her own father—they must be ready to defend all they hold precious. It doesn’t help that her idealistic husband insists on making foolishly noble decisions that put them at even greater risk, nor that she loves him all the more for it.

As Nic and Gabriel struggle to put their household in order, giving ill-advised safe harbor to Nic’s runaway sister and risking their lives to save Gabriel’s sister’s sanity, their enemies draw the noose tighter on their well laid plans. When the unthinkable occurs, it’s up to both of them to trust in the nascent, unknown magic they’ve woven together.

      

If you’re into audiobooks, you can listen to the first in this series, DARK WIZARD. Books 2 & 3 will be out on audio soon! Comment on this post and I’ll pick one person to receive a promo code (US only, not my fault) for a free copy of the DARK WIZARD audiobook!

       

Finally, if you follow me, you’ll know that I canceled the preorder for THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING, Book Four in the Heirs of Magic series. Several things came together to force me to cancel, alas. BUT, this neatly segues into our main topic, the newsletter! Subscribe to my newsletter for news on when this book will release. There are also regular yummy giveaways.

 

First Cup of Coffee – March 1, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




transcript
00:00.40
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. It tastes a little different this morning. Maybe that’s just me I know I don’t have covid now anytime somebody says that they taste something. Taste funny. It’s like all of you lost your sense of smell and taste. It’s co today is Tuesday March first and it is mardi gras woo happy mardi gras um yes, I’ve been to various kinds of merit Mardi Gras um my mom lived in New Orleans for a while and so I’ve been to. Um I’ve actually never been there on fat tuesday on the Tuesday itself I’ve been there for leadup I’ve also attended Mardi Gras type things in Memphis went to um. Ball when I was in college and it was fun. So I know it’s um, different sorts of festivals and other parts of the world in Netherlands and italy it’s carnival. So if you are on video. You will see I am wearing my enormous ginormous Mardi Gras earrings that are masks 1 on either side I guess I could have put on beads I didn’t put bes on purple green and gold are mighty gra colors. So. So yeah, a little bit of mardigra festivizing here I do have tons of Mitiggra be’s not nearly as many as I used to and no I never showed anyone my tits so that’s a thing for those of you who don’t know a us tradition. When the floats go by the the boys on the floats will yell out show us your tits and girls will lift up their shirts some of them and show their their breasts to get like the really good beads and a friend of mine pointed out who is a detective in New Orleans he was like. Don’t show those yahooos your breasts when you can go buy that string of beads like the really good beats the really good ones. You know you could go buy it nanny store along here for like ten twelve dollars like isn’t it worth more than that I was like huh.

02:44.98
jeffekennedy
It’s a good point. I was going to say something else but I will so.

02:58.49
jeffekennedy
Ah, so yeah I did not write yesterday I just did release stay things I was as you guys know if you listened yesterday I was feeling very empty brained and I’m perkier today. So we’ll see I need to now get into the business of. Reorienting my brain back into thinking about The Storm Princess and the Raven King tying up Heirs of Magic I guess I should say that release day yesterday went fanabulous. You guys are awesome. Wonderful. You know, additional sales on top of the preorders I’m I’m very happy I also anticipate it will go on this week 1 thing that we talk about a whole lot and I know I’ll come back to storm princess because I did want to talk about release day stuff. Especially if you’re indie is because when we get to choose what day we release on is there’s all this debate of what is the best day to release books if you’re traditionally published books come out on Tuesday and so. You guys may or may not know this. But the reason that traditionally books come out on Tuesday is because The New York Times bestseller list comes out on Wednesday and which means that they would go to press on Tuesday night or Tuesday afternoon so they would count sales up through Monday. So the publishers started releasing books on Tuesday because that gave the books a full week of sales before the New York Times counted them. But best seller list. That’s why Tuesday that’s why Tuesday is the magic publishing day I think it’s funny. You know like how the how the tail ends up wagging the dog on these things. My nose has been inching lately. Doesn’t that mean that like someone’s giving you a gift or something I could ever keep track of the superstitions. Um, yeah, so so that’s why and now we know that the New York Times best seller list is even more a combination of. Black magic smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand because there are books that how do I put this. How do I say this delicately maybe by not saying it delicately at all. Ah, there is certainly exchanges of favors if not money.

05:48.66
jeffekennedy
For books to be placed on the bestseller list because the publisher wants them there regardless of sales if you’re looking at it from a purely numbers perspective. Those numbers are from particular bookstores. So The New York Times bestseller list counts books sold in bookstores I don’t know how they’re doing ebook sales since didn’t they add it or maybe it’s Usa today that added ebooks. But so like even counting just paperbooks. It wasn’t even all paperbooks. It was paper bookss at particular bookstores and and I know this because when not back when I lived in Laramie Wyoming I had a very good friend who was a manager at the local independent bookstore and she worked very hard to get that bookstore to be. 1 of the bookstores whose sales counted towards New York Times bestseller list in order to support one of the Wyoming authors Cj box. So so you know what’s interesting. It’s always been very selective very very much. Picking and choosing only particular um venues books and so forth. So if you’re self publishing. There are some people who will release on tuesday if they’re really trying to hit a list I’m really am not persuaded that it makes any difference. Hit a list. Not just for the sake of hitting the list and that’s something I notice a whole lot with self publishers is that that we can take these things that are hallmarks of success and kind of um, put the cart before the horse as it were. So something like um, like 1 hallmark of success is selling enough books to hit a bestseller list. So now there are all of these people who’ve reverse engineered it and figured out ways to hit a bestseller list so they can have those letters and say Usa today. Usat bestseller because then it gives them the hallmark of success but you didn’t actually get there because of the success of the books you just picked this thing another one I’ve noticed is people commissioning. This is funny. Commission fan art and it’s like well fan art is art that fans of the books create because they love the books and so it’s a great hallmark of success right? when somebody’s so inspired by your books that they create art about it. So.

08:31.77
jeffekennedy
Some of these self-publers are going out and commissioning paying artists to create what they call fan art but it’s not actually fan art so you know it’s all of these things where you sort of create this window dressing the appearance of success in order to be successful. You know and I do get that there’s you know some of that magical thinking and manifestation realization of the um you know like dressing for the job. You want to have kind of thing but and I’m not saying. That people should do those things but I think don’t make don’t mistake it for anything but what it is so other than that if you’re self publishing then the question becomes where do you. What day. Do you publish on for maximal success and and kind of the answer is we don’t know it doesn’t seem to matter I try not to publish on Tuesdays because all of the trap books are published on Tuesdays each week and so there just tends to be a glut at the same time. You know like a high tide floats all boats. You know, maybe there’s something to that to being on Tuesday this time I published on the twenty eighth because on a Monday because it was the very last day of February and I wanted that Amazon many. A month earlier right so if I had published today instead of yesterday then I would have gotten the money for that book as it is I’ll get this at the end of April if I’d published today I would have gotten it at the end of may so it’s a significant difference for me so far as. Money flow. So yeah because I was behind on the book I picked the very last day of February that I could and made it whoo. So so that’s awesome. But now I’m interested to see. Because I think normally I would not have picked a Monday and yesterday was a very very quiet day I know a lot of people are staying off of social media because of the war in Ukraine. Um, it’s just it’s been a lot and the people who are online are paying attention to that and not to other things. So yesterday felt very quiet as far as release days go but I’ve noticed already today I’ve noticed already today that there have been some more people popping up and congratulating me on the release of gray magic.

11:15.53
jeffekennedy
And I’m interested to see if like some of those usual, you’ll like where people do the weekly roundup of releases if some of those pick it up today because a lot of people just do those on Tuesdays and pick up all the books both tred and self published for the week um so maybe that will create a nice tale for this book which is definitely something we want. We want to keep those sales up for the the entire week also and you’ve heard it here. Um, the first book. Dark wizard is going to be a Kindle daily deal on Friday Amazon offered that to me so that’s pretty awesome. So I’m really going to try to keep that momentum going this week and yeah it was great time and on their part I think they may have been watching. Pre-orders on gray magic I mean that makes sense doesn’t it. So maybe that is the 1 thing about Amazon for as much as we bitch about them is that Amazon is very invested in selling books and so they they help us sell books and that’s. Kind of an awesome thing that they are running these algorithms all the time and looking at stuff and looking at how to boost sales. So um, yeah, so that’s all my stuff on release I’m interested to see how it goes this week um you know it is a funny time and I think we’re all very concerned. Um, so it goes right? So yes, now I need to get my head out of release of great magic. Of bonds of magic I need to start thinking about strong princess on the Raven King tying up this series and how do I do that I don’t know. Um so I did this very interesting online panel yesterday. With um pro writing aid they’d asked ssu one if we would be interested in putting together a panel and I handed the task off to Lexi Chantel who listens hi lexii Alexe did an amazing job. She ended up with me and Mary Robin at Koal and and I think it was great. Ah, she had asked other people and for various reasons people couldn’t do it that day it was yesterday was a strange day I don’t know whatever I was so busy doing so people couldn’t do it so it ended up being.

14:01.79
jeffekennedy
Just the 3 of us and Lexi did a great job of asking questions I feel like you didn’t talk about your own books in athley but that’s what you get for getting me and Mary Robinette on something is we will both talk a lot but they um. Audience was super engaged and asked great questions and it was really fun and Mary Robinette I think is very smart and and we have very different processes and so it was just interesting to to look at you know, like how she does things versus how I do things. And you know for me I think so much of it has to do with whether or not, you’re an analytical whether you take an analytical approach or an intuitive approach almost more. So I think that’s even more important than. Looking at things in terms of whether or not you are a pre-plotter or an architect versus a pancer or a gardener. Um I think whether how you approach the process of writing whether. For you. It’s an analytical thing which I think it very much is for Mary Robinette the way she describes things she um she works. She’s accustomed to working with teams because she comes out of theater. And so she actually has people read along as she stays a couple of chapters ahead but she has people read along and give her feedback on the story as she writes and she adjusts accordingly. Um, which I said gives me his It’s hard for me to imagine doing that having that. Feedback I um I want to to be in the story and I think it’s because I am an intuitive writer and it’s difficult for me sometimes when people try to get me to approach the story analytically because I just can’t um. I think that’s partly why I’m not a pre-plotter because I just you know when people ask me like well what is this character’s goal. My brain just doesn’t work that way which is funny because I’m very analytical in other ways. But as far as the creativity i’m. Very much an intuitive writer. So I feel like when I’m going moving back into the story and finding these characters again. It’s kind of a.

16:40.20
jeffekennedy
It feels like a process of submersion of concentrating and getting into that. So so one of the things I’m thinking about today is that the nebula finalists calls will start going out and I have already seen the list of. Finalists for this year’s nebulous and approved it and now it goes through a couple of stages of verification. But then I will probably be making some phone calls today. So which is a fun thing to do It’s definitely a perk of being president. But i. Also feel like it’s going to interfere with me sinking into this story.

17:25.93
jeffekennedy
That’s why um, Mary Robinette talking about working so collaboratively kind of gives me hives because all I can imagine is like having so many other voices in my head as I’m writing which she loves apparently I mean that’s that feeds her. Um I don’t want none yours voices in my head. But maybe I’m feeling southern today with ah with the Mardi Gra missing south I haven’t been to New Orleans in a while world fantasy convention is in New Orleans in November and I’m considering going. That would be nice wouldn’t it. Mema’s last time I was there might have been the RT conference in 2014, 2015 surely I’ve been there since ah I don’t know all right? well. This isn’t interesting. So um, so yeah I wish me luck getting back into the story congratulations to those of you who are nebula finalists the british science fiction awards also announced. Was it british science fiction hold on I was wondering why my counter wasn’t going up. Um, so yes, it is the british science fiction association and they they announced that yesterday nebula finalists will start being notified today and that’ll announce after. Um, I just wanted to remind you all that if you are not a nominee shortlisted a finalist if your books didn’t make this debt that is only 1 kind of recognition. Yes, it’s a hallmark of success. We’re coming back to this. You know how do you know what what are the emblems of success. What are the milestones yeah, getting nominated for awards winning an award those are those are 1 kind. They are not the only kind of having readers read and love your books. That’s the most important thing not having bestseller letters after your name not having art of your characters commissioned or. I want to say authentically generated there people receive things in different ways and do different stuff with it. So so yeah, if you are an author or other kind of artist out there and it can be.

20:11.40
jeffekennedy
Difficult during a award season when these awards are announced and very often. It’s the same names on these lists because those are the ones that a small community of people has decided is worthy of this particular kind of recognition. Um, don’t don’t worry about it because keep in mind that’s one community of people and it’s not It’s not everybody and it’s not the only thing so on that note. I’m going to wander off and see about getting my head back in this book and I will talk to you all on Thursday you all take care happy fat Tuesday.

First Cup of Coffee – February 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 which if you are on video you will have noted is actually Starbucks today. Um, oh I should say today is Monday February Twenty Eighth Twenty Twenty two last day off 2022? Ah, no wrong last day February that was a funny slide. Um, and the husband went and did an airport ride for someone early this morning. And he brought me back a special release day Starbucks treat because yay today’s release day Woooo Grey Magic out in the world living large very exciting. Yeah, um I was trying to think about what am I going to talk about today other than gray magic is out in the world I mentioned on Friday like maybe I could do a reading or something like that. But only 1 person said that they wanted that sorry Laura. Um, you know and like Facebook live and I don’t know we’ll sort of see how the day progresses. Um, yeah, yeah, it’s a funny thing. I often get asked what I do to celebrate release days and release days. Um, and I I do think I’ve talked about this many times before to release days to me feel like a um, a relaxing a letting go a coming down. As opposed to like a pitch of woohoo. Um I love that there were so many wonderful preorders for this book I reached a personal best more preorders for this book than any book that’ve done on my own a couple of the anthologies have. Gotten bigger but you know for all that the anthologies there’s like 4 of us. There’s not 4 times. It’s manying preorderss for this. so so yeah I’m just um, I’m thrilled delighted and thrilled. Ah, and of course you know it’s a funny time with with Russia invading Ukraine and how that’s been going and the people working on that lots of of good comments out in the world though.

02:51.20
jeffekennedy
You know people reminding us that we still need joy. We still need those things oops that’s the Darynda text tone hold on a moment all right? So Darynda is going deep into writer cave to finish her books so she’s. Tapping out for the week her books her book I’m like fuzzy brain to- today I don’t know why. Yeah, um, it could be just like that release day energy going out into the world. Maybe I won’t do a whole lot today. We’ll see it was funny because um I had church yesterday with. Megan and Charlie we had a bottle of champagne that was lovely I’m trying to think if I’m allowed to we were celebrating a couple things I can’t remember if I’m allowed to say so and I don’t know. Could it be that drinking a lot of champagne yesterday afternoon is responsible for me being muzzyheaded this morning say it isn’t so I don’t think that’s it. So anyway, um, rambling podcast today I should be like doing. Some sort of snazzy release day thing and yet this is what you get, you get me muddling my way through my Starbucks.

04:30.85
jeffekennedy
Yeah, so um, Darynda’s crunching to finish this book I may not do a lot today. That’s what I was thinking about was um, Megan was asking me if now that I’ve finished gray magic and released it if I’m going to take some time off and I said well I did take some time off. Last week and she she was very funny because she’s like and what did you do and I said well Monday and Tuesday I was in l a doing the hotel search for nebula conference and Wednesday I pretty much flew back. You know there was a travel day and. I did do copy edits and polishing. So I said okay you know, but that’s that’s not drafting but I did work on the book that day and I said that then Thursday and Friday and over the weekend I didn’t write at all. And she said yes, but what did you do and I was like well I did a lot of business stuff getting things off my to do list and she’s like that doesn’t count as taking time off I’m like yeah but what would I do? What would I do with myself, especially with it being the end of February I mean. It’s kind of warming up but it’s not great. Weather. It’s not like I can be out puttering on the garden It’s not nice enough for that and yeah, what would I do I mean I did take you know yesterday afternoon I went and ran some errands and and I did dork around a lot this weekend. I got a lot of household things done. So so I don’t know I’d much rather if I’m going to take time off and like not work on anything at all I’d much rather do it when I get to go do fun things.

06:19.40
jeffekennedy
Ah, so so yeah, I’ve got some some things to do I’m doing a panel this afternoon an online panel for pro writing aid they asked if sifho would do something and so I’m doing it. Um, Lexi Chantal put it together. And I’m doing it with Mary Robinette Kowal and I don’t think anybody else we asked a couple other people and I think they couldn’t do it so but we’re gonna talk about writing fantasy and that’ll be interesting. Otherwise I don’t think I have major obligations today I may just try to um you know, just post things and be around and that sort of thing and who knows Laura Darnell maybe I will do a Facebook live thing but um, right now I’m feeling a little. Like not so much do I want to do that I also feel like even though it’s good to promote things and remind people that there’s you know, give us our escapism and. And my story I mean great magic is very much about fighting tyranny and fighting the putants of the world. Um, even though I you know do think it’s okay I also feel weird partying too much. You know? Yeah. So um, it’s only seven and a half minutes I need to think of other things to talk about here I do have notes I should talk about that. So I’ve been reading Juliette Marillier I had mentioned that. Gonna try to only say her name once because the transcript really hates that name but I’m now on the third book of the 7 waters series and so first one’s daughter of the forest then son of the shadows and now child of the prophecy. And it’s very interesting how she goes about her series I kind of feel a little bit like where has she been all my reading life. Why didn’t I pick up daughter of the forest a long time ago since it’s been on my Kindle forever. She really writes fantasy romance guys. Um, it’s each one of her books has a core romance. That’s very important to the development of the character.

09:03.00
jeffekennedy
And it’s interesting to me that she’s published by tor and she’s really presented as being fantasy and her fantasy is very dense and delicious. Her word world building is gorgeous. Although it’s more like a historical fantasy. It’s all set in. Um. I think sort of a non-time delimited ireland a lot of it’s you know, sort of with the old ones and the the fae and humans and then the conflict between Ireland and Britain. And there’s vikings who arrive. So you know it’s sort of that vaguely Authurian time scale someone who knows more about specific history periods might be able to tell me but I I suspect she’s deliberately vague about it. Um. And there’s nothing at least so far. No mention of of Arthur or any of that stuff. Besides that would be in Britain and there’s occasionally trips into Britain. But for the most part it takes place in Ireland and it’s very irish and. I would say that one of the huge differences between how she writes the kind of story that she writes and the kind of story I write is sneeze I want to say that she kills people off. More readily than I do and I’m wondering if that’s true. She takes a a broader scope approach than I do so for example and I feel like this isn’t spoilery. But if you don’t want to know anything tap out. In the first book. Oh and I should look up what this fairy tale is hold on. Okay, so daughter of the forest is a retelling of the wild swans which was ah now I’m fresh on this knowledge Hans Christian Anderson’s story where. Princesses 11 brothers are turned into swans and she must labor to break the enchantment in daughter of the forest. There’s 7 and the 6 brothers are turned into swans and the youngest the daughter has to do all this stuff to break the enchantment. And after that I mean I could really see how she deliberately set out to do this fairy tale retelling and then the subsequent stories are not but she uses romance tropes you guys I mean they’re totally she does enemies to lovers.

11:49.32
jeffekennedy
In the first 2 books second book is even secret baby. Um, which I just wonder what people would think if I said you know these are these strokes that are being used. Um, so I think. Were I writing it I would have um, wanted to go on from daughter of the forest because it’s all told from ah sosha’s point of view. The the daughter who must labor and I think it’s I think they’re all first person point of view. Seems to me so that’s all told from her point of view and I really expected the next book to be like go into one of the brothers stories which is I think what the traditional romance canon approach would do and instead it picks up with sources. Daughter um, son up the shadows of about her daughter and there are I’m trying to do this without spoilering I feel like this really isn’t much of a spoiler because you find out within a couple of first couple of pages but like. In the time between the first and second book 2 of the brothers have died and they’ve died in battle and I guess that’s very realistic and she wants I feel like she kills people off much more readily than I do um and I know that I have characters die. But i. Think I tend to I would have liked had all the brothers live and so it’s an interesting choice to me. um and yeah you know it’s um I think she’s going for this sort of generational scope which is. And I tend to be much more close focused and maybe that’s the difference between you know people often ask? What’s you know, like romantic fantasy fantasy romance and this has a much more over the generations scope like that. And so now the third book child of the prophecy is someone else’s child and and I was really trying to figure out who it was gonna be and it took me a little while because told from that first person it’s like what are the clues who who is this. And so it’s kind of cool when you figure out who it is and so now it’s not as big a leap in time as there was from well actually it is close to the same leap in time from book 1 to 2 and 2 to 3.

14:35.39
jeffekennedy
So so yeah, that makes it interesting I don’t know that I would do it that way shit I get much more attached to my characters I think than she does and maybe that’s part of where I’m getting this where she’s much more willing to kill her characters off. You know, like having. 2 of the brothers die in battle like that off page in the interim and I mean it’s like well I guess that’s realistic because that’s what happened in that era still yeah. I would not be so willing to do that and that may be my um, you know we talk about voice. What is an author’s voice and I was explaining this to someone over the weekend this gal who for romancing the vote I donated six months of author coaching and the gal who won paid. Over $1500 to to win that and was like wow um, and so we were talking about voice and I said that voice the best explanation I’ve ever heard of author voice is that it arises from your beliefs. And yeah, so that your beliefs infuse everything you write and you do refine that over time and she was talking about refining voice and what that meant and she kind of had. I don’t know a different perspective on it than I do she was talking about trying out different kinds of stories and seeing which ones fit her voice and and I was voice is a hard thing to talk about because it doesn’t always make sense. Yes, it. Or maybe it defies quantification rather than making sense. Yes, it arises from your beliefs it arises from the core of who you are as a person but many of us are muddy about who we are as people especially when we’re younger and. Especially when you’re first refining your craft as a writer. You don’t always know how to have that shine through in everything you write if that makes sense and 1 thing that she said was I said so that you sound. It takes a lot of writing it takes a lot of words and a lot of refining and I’m repeating myself cutting away things cutting away the chaff and I said so that you don’t sound like your influences anymore and she said oh well I have.

17:24.31
jeffekennedy
So many influences that won’t be a problem for me and it’s like yeah actually I that does muddy things I think that muddies things. Um you want your voice to come through like clear water and. When you have a lot of influences or a lot of things ah getting in the way then it’s not clear water and I think the only thing that does get to that point where you purify is writing a whole lot and that’s why we talk about you know like a million words. To learn your craft or to get your voice to come through or there’s a lot of people who you know like this end goal. Whatever it is but write a million words. Um, yeah, it just takes that that repeated practice. David’s always telling me. You know about because he’s a musician about the ah you know like how the Beatles played in those german pubs for a long time and they played a lot of covers and they played their own songs too. But you know like night after night after night and that’s the kind of thing that you need to do like be. Before you hit this this point of recognizable I want to say brilliance but it doesn’t have to be brilliant, but where your voice comes through where it’s like this is your thing that you’ve created this is your art you have to spend. A lot of time doing it over and over again until you really cut away all of the things that are not you and that part that is you really shines through It’s interesting to me with the bonds of magic books and people have already been setting me. Notes because people have read it already. That’s so funny to me. It’s like well this one gals in France. So I guess she read it all day today and she already read it and loved it and she said that this is her favorite of my books and I’ve been hearing that from a lot of people. And I’ve been thinking about that and I think in some ways you know though I loved all of the 12 kingdoms and uncharted realms books those started from a slightly muddier place for me and that world is shaped by my other influences. Um. And then there’s all the spinoffs to that and I I do love all those books but I do think that they speak more to my influences than to where I’m at now. Um forgotten. The empires is maybe a step in between.

20:11.58
jeffekennedy
But then when I wrote Dark Wizard that was a book I really wanted to write for a long time and I do think that that book and maybe this series is more me than than anything else. Maybe my voice is shining. Most clearly through this. So um, so now happy release day to me and to you thanks to all of you for supporting these books and I will be rounding about today. So now. And I will talk to you all tomorrow you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 25, 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. So delicious. Ah so today is say it with me Friday woooo boo. Beginning of the weekend for some of us always worthy of celebration. February Twenty Fifth last Friday of February February went fast didn’t it. Time is just really speeding up again. I think ah, some storm has broken here along with morning we can catch Stevens and it’s um, it’s not. Actually warm but I went out to put water in the fountain for the birds and it’s um, you know feels very springlike. The sun is nice and warm. It’s um, you know like a real field of 33 but the sun is intense. Worming and spring like and the birds are singing. David says you can’t trust the birds that they don’t know but they they definitely think it is so um. Yeah. Ah, ah, how are you guys. But I’m definitely um I’m not going to write today still so that will give me a whole week. Well more or less. It’s a week off of drafting I did spend Wednesday you know doing copy edits and.

02:12.12
jeffekennedy
Polishing those final pages of grey magic um, and yesterday I was tired I did not get through all the business things I thought I might I had cut through a few so today’s just gonna be a businessy day and kind of kick back day I also do not have obligations this weekend. Well 1 meeting but it’s a regular Saturday meeting. So not a lot of things and on Sunday I’m going Megan and I have church. My friend Megan Mulry have I told you guys this it’s but I probably haven’t because I don’t mean to be offensive but we started calling that calling it that um well back in the pandemic probably like a year ago when things were on lock down here and the only places we could meet up were outside and so we would bundle up and go to places like um santa fe h q santa fe brewing headquarters where they had the fires I’ve talked about it before that cat fire is set up outside and we could drink champagne by the. Camp fire and it would inevitably be on Sunday because that was when we could that it was just a good day for both of us. Um, and we would usually meet for like you know at like 11 or 1 or something like that and a lot times we’d eat. You know we do brunch or that sort of thing. But um, we just start calling it church because it was always on Sunday we’d like um you up for church this weekend’s like yes buying awayfuse some people? Um, but you know what do you expect from. Ah, Daoist my church is outdoors and yeah I don’t know how lawsu felt about him spirits probably did not like them. He’s not racing and hunting maddened the mind I can imagine what he thought about wine. Have to look back through the surus. So anyway, looking forward to church on Sunday I’m gonna get some laundry done and I’m gonna get a bunch of stuff done. In fact let me write down something I need to start putting my taxes together I thought I’d better. Write that down.

04:46.76
jeffekennedy
Ah, so yeah, um, one of Amazon’s things and again this is like only Amazon is they flag errors. What do they call it quality. They call it something like um. Ah, quality issue brought about by the fact that so many people were throwing up absolute garbage and to like I’m sorry kindda unlimited I know some of you get mad at me because you feel like I don’t love kindle unlimited and reader. I do not love kindle un limited I think there’s a lot of problems with it but because so many people are putting out so much crap because you can kindle unlimited lets you just row, whatever well actually to be fair kdp allows you to throw up whatever crap you want so Amazon decided well they’d better start. Putting out start doing quality notifications. So and so if I go to my bookshelf I get this thing saying 1 or more of your books has quality items I need to be addressed and then you view the items that’s so gray magic because I uploaded it yesterday. Um, they even have on here last audit on and its bots it spots doing the audit they found that one of the links isn’t working so we’re actually gonna fix it and Karrene researched and the link is weird like sometimes it has the series title in it. Or not on my website. Whatever the other one is one from fire of the frost which I’ve been trying to ignore all this time. But since we’re going to fix this link I said well would might as well fix this. And it’s a typo in Grace’s story um which a reader reported I know a reader reported it because there’s like a suggested fix. Um, readers darling lovely readers. Please don’t report these quality control these quality issues to Amazon I know that people feel like they’re being helpful I know some people are compulsive editors. Um, it’s not helpful because and so this one in particular I closed it. But I could tell you what it is and when I sent it to Carine. She even said people really need to get lives. So if this was you I’m sorry but you do need to get alive. It’s not that we don’t love you but tell you what this correction is so it’s a typo.

07:36.36
jeffekennedy
And it says um, her shyness is but a shield once she lowers it you will understand why I love why I love her as I do only it says one she lowers it one. She lowers it instead of once she lowers it so this person. Corrected it reported it to Amazon as a quality issue all virtuous like and now Amazon has been pinging me about it every time I open my bookshelf even though I try telling you I wasn’t goingnna fix it. There’s an option to say we’ll not fix and give a reason and I’m like because it’s not worth it. To reformat the whole book for 1 stinking typo a really minor typo I told grace about it and she was really aggravated so we’re gonna fix it now because since we have to fix. That other link which Amazon did not catch interestingly enough it’s it’s random which ones they catch. But um, yeah I know that a lot of authors have started putting a note at the front of the book saying basically typos happen. Errors happen apologize for any if you notice something please contact me at this email address. Please don’t report it to Amazon because apparently if you have too many in there which doesn’t happen to me or hasn’t yet. Crossing fingers knock on Wood Amazon will actually take the book off sale I’ve um, seen people having their like their mayup fantasy words. Be reported to Amazon as misspelled words.

09:28.85
jeffekennedy
Craziness people craziness along those lines though I did see um the passive voice reported that Amazon is suing a couple of the big companies that provide fake reviews on Amazon. That interesting. It sounds like and I will link to the article in the show notes if I remember but it was on the passive voice so you can find it. Um, it sounds like. I thought at first maybe it was gonna be like some straw broke the Camel’s back but it sounds instead like Amazon has been investigating for some time and apparently they now I’m gonna have to find it so I can share. Okay I found it. So. It says there were a couple of interesting things in here. Um their lawsuits aim to shut down 2 major fake review brokers app Sally and rebatist. Um. Who helped mislead shoppers by having their members try to post fake reviews in stores such as Amazon ebay walmar epsey this legal actions one of the Amazon’s comprehensive and proactive efforts to ensure a safe and trustworthy shopping experience. Bum Pom bum bum um so it says um Amazon strictly prohibits incentivized or fake reviews which we knew and uses a combination of machine learning technology I e bots and skilled investigators to detect and prevent and remove them. Old investigators. Um says in 2020 Amazon stopped more than 200000000 suspected fake reviews before they were ever seen by a customer 200000000. That’s unreal ah, nefarious industry has emerged in recent years in which fraudsters facilitate fake or inflated reviews in exchange for money or free products. Amazon’s legal action comes after an in-depth investigation into these review brokers which taken together. Claim to have more than 900000 members willing to write fake reviews fake review brokers attempt to hide their activity and evade detection of course because it’s illegal and against terms of service. For example, the fake review site app Sally sells fake reviews for his lose $20.

12:07.14
jeffekennedy
And instructs bad actors to ship empty boxes to people willing to write fake reviews and provide apppsalally with photos to be uploaded alongside their reviews. The fraudulent scheme run by Robbaist will only pay people writing 5 ive-star reviews after their fake reviews are approved by the bad actors attempting to sell those items. So and we know that there are authors out there who’ve done this too. Those books that have like all 5 star reviews and they and they all sound weird I mean. That’s why I kind of laugh at skilled investigator because it’s pretty easy I think it’s easy to spot a fake review because first of all a book will have entirely 5 star reviews which nobody gets up. Even Stonehenge has like 1 ne-star reviews for not enough rocks with this is true. Um, sorry I’m still amused by Stonehenge. The fake reviews will say things like um. And don’t know if I can even recapitulate it but you can just tell that the person hasn’t read the book. Well they’ll say things like you know this book captured me from the beginning and is an excellent story. Yeah I mean it’s just you could tell that the person is written. Thousands which they have of these reviews. It’s um, yeah, a nefarious ecosystem has sprung out but it’s just amazing people. People will people right? so. Um, yeah, that happened I was going to talk about something I’ve had this little note out for myself for a little while I noticed I think I mentioned a while ago that I had been watching the expanse and I’m into season 2 now I’ve slowed down recently. Guess because I didn’t have a lot of brain cells. Well I’ve been out of town and all of that but I was noticing because it I think they brought them in at the end of season 1 but anyway in season 2 there’s definitely a storyline about the the martian marines because the expanse. Tells the story of like an intra-sollar system war and so the big players are earth Mars and the asteroid belt. The people who lived there and the martians have marines and I saw.

14:53.51
jeffekennedy
A couple of reviews on it bitching about how the leader they call her gunny. What is it I’m not good with military titles. Um, it’s like what if she’s the leader the gall in charge. Um, anyway, there are like male and female. Marines right? and the the leader gunny I think it’s like technical sergeant something like that is a female and I saw people bitching on there about female marines and it put me in mind of this writer I used to know a guy. Ah, guy who had been in the military and was writing about military things and he was writing about soldiers being in um, suits what’s what’s the word I want here people you know the um Mechanized suits. So basically. They were fighting aliens and so they were inside big shells I Want to say avatar type things but that’s not it. They would actually put the soldier the person inside the suit and they would operate it and they would have much more strength and yo shell kind of thing and they were talking about how? um. The smaller guys would fit better in the suits than bigger ones and so it had kind of shifted things because of you know it was no longer the brawniest guys but the ones who could better fit in these suits and so I’d read this and I um I asked him I said well why don’t you have any. Female Soldiers. You should you know why aren’t there female soldiers in these suits and he said oh no, that doesn’t work that way and I said well but it would work that way because women tend to be smaller than than men overall and you could put female soldiers inside the suits or you know by or. Not by um, androgenmous I’m not I Still not my words are not backup. You know, but anyway you could have people that are not very large, very masculine soldiers who are inside these suits and I said you know why? not female soldiers. And he said well because you can’t take women in combat and I was like excuse me and he said yeah you you know women aren’t able to withstand you know, just physiologically physically are not able to withstand combat and I’m like yeah but you’re putting them inside these big metal suits I mean let’s just leave that aside you know the whole strength thing. Um, you know you’re you’re putting inside these big metal suits right? It doesn’t matter what kind of physical frailty you have and he said no, you don’t understand the reason that you can’t have females in combat is that the men will not will be distracted because they’ll be.

17:43.77
jeffekennedy
Totally focused on protecting the females and not on the mission objective. Let’s just take a moment. Okay so the men are so just like biologically driven to protect the females to the point where they ignore. The mission objective I just I can’t even with this reasoning and he was very sincere about it and he got kind of aggravated with me you and he said well you know I’m not the guy you think I am I’m not that guy I was like well you know that walks like a duck and quacks like a deck i’m. God saying um yeah I want and there were so many things that you know how it goes you want you sort of continue these conversations in your head and this happened several years ago and I still continue in my head you know like the things I wanted to press him on which I wasn’t gonna do because. Didn’t want to get everybody else aggravated but it’s like um why why aren’t your soldiers better trained to pay attention to the mission objective. Why don’t they trust their fellow soldiers who are in these big mechanized suits to handle their own ship this whole thing of. Males protecting females is so obviously wrong I mean it’s it’s a wonderfully idealistic and romantic notion. Sure yeah it’ll be great if males protected females but the reality of it is is that’s not the case. Um. Did you know that a woman is far more likely and I don’t have the percentage at my fingertips to be murdered when she is pregnant than at any other time in her life. There was a recent study on it where they went back like over the last hundred years of data and they showed that pregnant women are. Disproportionately likely to be murdered and almost always by the father of their unborn child. So yeah, don’t tell me that men are biologically programmed to protect women. Don’t tell me there can’t be. Female marines in space I’m just I’m so tired of this I’m just so tired here I am in my weak feminine shell and ah so anyway, that’s my rant. The day. Um, and now I’m going to go off, get some things done I’m excited to crunch through this list. Wish me luck I would really love to get a bunch of stuff off my list here. Um yeah so I hope you all have a wonderful weekend whether it’s time off work or not.

20:35.70
jeffekennedy
And I will be back here on Monday we will be having a partee. We’ll be having a party um for release of grey magic yep if you have ideas of something you’d like me to do on the podcast for release day I’m happy to do it. I read I never nobody ever says I want me to read makes me think that nobody wants me to read but I don’t know it’d be fun to do like q and a I don’t do this live I don’t know if you have ideas send them my way. And I will talk to you all on Monday take care bye-bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 24, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.58
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author fantasy romance and romantic fantasy. I’m here with my first cup of coffee. This is also my first cup of coffee since I returned home. Um, so it is especially delicious.

00:27.00
jeffekennedy
Ah, today is Thursday February 20 fourth I am Back. Ah you know I was drinking hotel coffee hotel Starbucks what do you guys think I think that the Starbucks at hotels I know they’re legit. Or supposedly legit Starbucks but I don’t think their drinks are as good. Yes, like if you go to a real Starbucks store I feel the same about grocery store Starbucks but I got brevey lattes at the um. marott laxs where I was staying and the it’s it’s just amazing like making this with my own half and half breve latte is you make it with half and half instead of with whole milk or 2% or what have you. Those tasted so watery. They were so watery I don’t believe that it’s they must not like use all half and half or something like that cutting corner skimping who knows ah oh this reminds me sorry I got pause. I didn’t want to forget I wanted to take a picture of the bird wing marks on the snow so we got snow last night. It was lovely just see snow I was I’ll tell you my traveling trebiles I was very happy to get back home. Um, but when the birds. Wings hit the snow. It makes a mark that looks like claws looks like claws except that there’s too many of them because there’s like well put the photo on the show notes. But like 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 yeah likes. Six five so it’s like alien ah marks what’s really cool. So always fun to see the tracks of the critters who have been out there. So um. My travels were good I came back a day later then I had planned I was supposed to fly home Tuesday afternoon and and be here all day yesterday to finish up the copy edits and revisions on great magic. But. Actually united messaged me before I even left which I thought was interesting when did they message me. Let’s just look because I do find this really interesting I mean this is better. This is way better than the bad old days where you have no ideas.

03:14.82
jeffekennedy
So they messaged me on I guess Sunday no I left on Sunday they must have messaged me on Saturday why doesn’t this have a date stamp. Let’s say if it shows on my phone I have my um phone texting you know, connected. To the computer which makes it easier to type. It’s a little bit more invasive but I’m willing to make that one concession. 1 case. It’s beginning so Saturday so on Saturday um united text to me and said. Winter weather across the rocky mountains may cause disruptions to your upcom united flight including delays or cancellations in case, your travel plans are flexible. You may want to consider flying on a different day or connecting in a different city at no additional cost I shouldn’t paid attention to the different city part. I could have checked my rebooking options but I thought well I’m just gonna go so I went and then on I clicked away too soon had no trouble getting there on Sunday which was really my primary concern I thought I needed to be there and all of that so then on monday. They texted me and said that they had canceled my flight from Denver to Santa Fe on Tuesday because of severe weather conditions. So like they knew more than 24 hours ahead and they let me rebook and we were in the midst of getting a tour of a hotel. By the sales manager because why I was there is for the sfwa nebula conference and we were looking at hotels for 2023 as well and so we went to a bunch of different hotels and got the tours of them saw the facilities and let me tell you it was a lot more tiring. I expected it to be um, but so we were in the middle of the tour and and I to apologize for my inattention sort of trailing along but I could rebook right there on my phone I felt like I should do it right? Away. So it gave me a rebooking option for early Wednesday morning and so I was like okay hope hope that’ll work and it was supposed to get me in by like twelve thirty yesterday still going to Denver um, it was kind of funny cause it. Kept trying to swap out like later options I’m like no no this is this is the option I want and it wasn’t terrible. My flight left l a at like 7 a m so but I also did a backup flight on southwest.

06:02.71
jeffekennedy
Because on southwest you can cancel like 10 minutes up to 10 minutes before the flight so I did a backup flight on southwest that would have left l a at like 9 connected through phoenix and into Albuquerque. And gotten into Albuquerque at like 3 in the afternoon and David would have had to drive down to Albuquerque to get me so I waited until I was like on the playing in l a and it looked like everything was good to go and then canceled my southwest flight I kind of. Wanted to wait till I got there but I I would have missed my um 10 minute window so I canceled the southwest flight from my plane and got to Denver and Denver was very snowy. And everything was looking good I had a fairly short layover. Got um you know was there at my gate and everything and then they said they had a maintenance problem low oil and they needed to check into it I was like ah so I went ahead and did it again and made a backup flight. Reservation on southwest leaving it wasn’t it would have left a lot later in the day I think it didn’t lead to like 5 it was my only only other option again going down to Albuquerque but it would have been better than if you know because united didn’t have any other flights to Santa Fe that day. That was like okay well I really don’t want to spend another whole day in night in Denver so I made the backup flight again and we ended up going. We got on up on the play we were like half an hour late forty minute hour late forty minutes late and david picked me up in santa fe and once I landed in santa fe then I went to my southwest app I mean it’s really nice to have these phone apps and be able to do this I went to my southwest app and canceled that flight and amusingly enough when I went to that flight did this like big red flag warning on it saying warning your flight due to you know. Conditions weather conditions beyond our control beyond our control. Your flight may be canceled or delayed and you could rebook and by the time it was pretty nice when I landed the wind was sharp but by the time we got home. Um, the wind was really picking up and by. Like five o’clock it was storming away here. So I was glad that um I like feel like I sort of wove between the windows there finding my windows of opportunity.

08:45.57
jeffekennedy
So yeah, my copy editor sent the edits on gray magic they were there when I woke up early Wednesday morning in my hotel room. So I was able to download my document and then I went through the track changes on both flights but did take me both flights to go through them. And then once I got home. We stopped for euros on the way home and then once I got here I spent another couple hours I did trek my time on it. Um, my my start to finish for yesterday is like really. Wild cause it’s like I spent over 10 hours from like when I started when I finished but my I started at like seven thirty Pacific time so it’s a little bit of an artifact there. Um, but 4 hours four and a half hours it took me to do all the copy edits and then I went back and I did. Revise those last 52 pages I believe it was that I had written yeah 52 pages and I did find stuff that needed adjusting. Nothing horrible. But. Stuff that I was glad I had a chance to fix.

10:03.40
jeffekennedy
And then sent it off to the for matter last night and he sent it to me this morning at 7 so I’ve downloaded those and looked them over. It looks great. So now I’m gonna upload and gray magic is ready to go very exciting. Um. And take you all for all the excited notes that you’ve been sending me that’s um, really lovely. You think there’s a cat tearing things up in the other room hold on cats are happy to see me again but also running wild. So um, that it was it was interesting being in Los Angeles we toured some hotels in Anaheim also out near um studio city. Yeah, so it and it was good to to be in person with some of this. So what people um. People I’ve not seen in in the flesh since pre pandemicdemic and so we had good meals together and good conversations and did a lot of planning and now I am sort of in catchup mode I am not goingnna write today I was. Definitely tired. Um I finished on Friday I guess I probably haven’t reported since I did my podcast Friday morning I you guys know if you listen regularly that I woke up very early Friday morning. And that David was like I know you want to get this done. You buy as well. Just get to work and I finished my um yeah finished writing it at about 11 am and sent it off to my copy editor or proof reader and got ready for durinda to visit. And she came to visit. She got here about um six I think yeah so I don’t remember now because it feels like a long time ago. What? all I did that Friday afternoon but I I took care of a lot of things and picked up the house that sort of thing and. Got ready for my trip and we watched Ionia together that was fun. She had never seen it and so that was um I really like the storytelling in that and I thoughtreda would appreciate it too. We’ve been taught we were talking about breaking the fourth wall.

12:35.39
jeffekennedy
And how that can be an effective way to tell a story and then um Saturday morning we got to sort of chat over coffee hang out and chat was very leisurely morning and I had a sifwa board meeting which we got done really fast that was great and. Then we went down our panel at the jean-cockto. It was interesting trying to do the hybrid which is like what we’re focusing on for the sipqua nebula conference for 2023 trying to do as hybrid as possible maximizing. So there are definitely tricks. That I learned but you know like having 3 of us there in person with some people in the audience and then 2 people zooming in it made for an interesting balancing act they did show us the screen with the faces. Of the other 2 people but it was down here and it was very much tempting to look down into their faces as we’re trained to do right paying attention. We look into their faces but the camera was not down here. The camera was up there across the theater pointed at us. So I was having to remind Darynda and Emily and remind myself to look up into the camera when we were talking I’m sure that this is like what the newscasters learn seems like this was in broadcast news and maybe some other things but it’s like you have to learn to look in the camera and. And it’s something that I feel like the younger people are better at with selfies because it’s the same thing that when people do the selfie. It’s tempting to look down at the image of yourself and you you have to look up at where the camera is and it’s the same thing on here I tend to look at myself. But I really should be looking at the camera so that you feel like I’m looking at you. It’s a funny thing isn’t it technology. So um, after that joined in I had a wonderful lunch and then we went out. To Melinda Snodgrass’s house and she taught us her plot break method. Although we didn’t get as far into it as I would have liked um and Darynda left I think around six thirty we got there at 4 she left at six thirty and they were just like sort of launching in the phase 2 and I was kind of thinking. Oh sure I stay longer than I was like I knew I was tired my brain was tired I was out of words. Um from finishing the book and I I said oh you know actually I should go home now too and so I went hope and I actually went to bed.

15:22.41
jeffekennedy
Pretty quickly got up early Sunday morning flew to Los Angeles and gal and didn’t started meeting up with people. It was funny because people started coming in and then. Ah, of us were there for Monday touring the different hotels to check things out and then it started to Peter off again. Um on Tuesday until um, it was like I was the only one left leaving on Wednesday morning because of my delay. But um, yeah, it was interesting. Interesting to see how all these different hotels had responded to both how they responded to covid and how they represented how they responded to covid because one of the questions we asked them and it was a little bit of a test question. Was what challenges had they faced with the pandemic. Um, which you would think would be a pretty standard answer and our executive director Kate had posed that question and I kind of felt like well what are we going to learn from this that we don’t always already know like we know what the challenge is the pandemic were. But it was funny because like 1 gal said none at all business is usual and it’s like okay so this place they’re just going to like take that party line and they’re going to lie about it. Um, and other places gave different levels. Of honest answers. So I think that it it was a good litmus test for like what will it be like dealing with this hotel. How direct and honest, will they be with me. so um so yeah that’s that’s been my last few days I’m I’m still feeling tired. It’s hard to say if I’m tired from it. It was remarkably exhausting going to see these different hotels I’m not quite sure. Why maybe just that paying attention and moving from place to place hard to say um. On top of traveling. So yeah I’m still feeling a little tired but I’m gonna get this book uploaded yay and maybe do some businessy things today but also kind of kick back and relax today. So um. I know my mother’s very happy to have the podcast back again. Hope you all are happy to and yeah, glad to be back into my routine and we’ll see how things go from here so Monday February Twenty Eighth release of gray magic. It’s actually going to happen.

18:09.61
jeffekennedy
And they said it couldn’t no you guys have all been like we know and we’re happy to wait and I greatly appreciate it. Um, yeah, so and otherwise I will um I’ll be back here tomorrow to talk to you so I hope you all have a wonderful thursday. Um, and yeah, talk to each 1 you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 18, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.18
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy and here with my first cup of coffee ah greatly needed. If you are on video. You will see. It is very early here. It’s just now six o’clock am and I can see the sky beginning to lighten out my east window sun is coming. It’s not here yet. So yeah I woke up early and I woke up I woke up at four I went to bed kind of early I went out last night with my friend Megan. Oh I should have said wait wait sorry say it with me today is Friday woo. Almost forgot February eighteenth so so yeah um I went out and saw my friend Megan Mulry last night we had a lot of fun. We had drinks and dinner and it was it was lovely. And and I came home and went to bed and woke up woke up at four and I out and I thought I would go back to sleep and David got up. He woke up. He wakes up a couple hours. You know every couple hours at night and takes more medication because without it. He can’t sleep and so he got up and I was laying there and I thought I was going to go back to sleep and he came back in and said um he said I just want you to know that if you want to get up and work. You won’t bother me and I said well. I go back to sleep and he said okay and so I laid there and I was like wide awake and so I was like oh I guess I’m awake so I got up I thought well I can get a jump start because I’ve got this midday today deadline which it’s nice that he’s aware of that too. I so I guess I’m not going back to sleep and he said um, he said well if he said I’m not surprised. He said if I were you I would be wanting to get to work on that stuff too and I said yeah I guess you know me better I know myself. So. If you are on video. You can see look It’s an orchid. This is my first orchid rebloom I posted the ah photo of it of like the flower stock. Not long ago but look.

02:47.49
jeffekennedy
Kind have an actual orchid rebloom from my trader Joe’s orchid. Um i’ never got one of these to bloom before and so isn’t that cool. So I’m just got put it here. I’m just gonna like hold it next to my face because I’m so excited. Okay I will can I just sort of move it into the frame here. But well we don’t want to interfere with the coffee drinking. So um, let’s see on the book Grey Magic not quite done I’m at just shy of 103000 words I think I am on the second. To last scene. Actually I think it may be the third to last scene. So. It’s not the penultimate scene. But what’s is there a name for a third to last probably not probably third to last means not done yet. Was so um, so yeah I I worked I did my 3 hours of writing yesterday and I slowed down I did really well at first I got a had a good first hour a great second hou second hour and not so great third hour because I just ran out of juice. So I only got a little shy 2500 words yesterday, but still still. that’s that’s good as Darynda says we’ll take him um and then I was I thought well. I only have you know like 500 words to go to hit my 3000 so I thought well I’ll go rest and so I david was out driving and I got my reading chair and I’m just about done with Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. the transcript really hates her name I think it’s very interesting which names the transcript can absolutely handle. It’s like if you’re famous on google then. Transcript picks it up right away. Um like jennifer lopez owen wilson no problems at all my name. No Juliet Marillier? No. Darynda, it hates Darynda these are things I’m having to fix now I’m gonna have to go and fix all of them for saying all those names. Um, so where was I before I went on that tangent writing oh I was reading daughter of the forest and so I I read for a couple of hours and I thought I might nap but I didn’t I think I’m keyed up finishing this book I’ll probably.

05:28.30
jeffekennedy
Crash once I finish but um, yeah, so then I thought so I read for like an hour or so and then I came back to it and looked at the manuscript I thought well maybe I’ll try and put in another hour at least try to get these 500 words and I looked at where I stopped I was like. Got that big nope out from the creative self. So. It’s like okay, no.

05:56.54
jeffekennedy
Um, so up and at it early today. Um, figured I might as well go ahead and get the podcast out there. So my mother will be happy if nobody else and I don’t know if I have much else. Say um, Megan and I had fun talking about that friendship article that I talked about earlier this week on the podcast the one in the Atlantic and I’d say I think I mentioned on here that. 1 thing I treasure about that particular friendship was I sent her the link and I said here’s your homework assignment for us to discuss and she said on it and not only did she read it. She had like notes she had read it on her phone so she had all these highlighted sections and so we went through disgust and. It was very interesting because um, she and I are about the same age and so you know it was just read all the article the essay written by the woman who is about our age and yeah, so we we had a ah wonderful time discussing those things people were we got that. Who went to Harry’s roadhouse and we sat at the bar and got there at 5 and it was nobody was in there. We’re like oh it’s good time to get here and then it just got busier and busier and busier and she told me that um, New Mexico finally lifted our mask mandate. So. People seem to be very excited celebrating and so forth.

07:37.39
jeffekennedy
Yeah, um, you know I know that we’re conflicted on that right? you know it’s once I was vaccinated and and we didn’t have to wear masks for a while the mask mandate was lifted. You know and then we had to start wearing them again because of all the people who. Um, are not vaccinated and also the vulnerable. So yeah, it’s just um I own a messy situation I hear so many conflicting ideas about it. But I have no problem continuing to wear my mask. Um. Guess we’re requested. We’re required and if somebody wants me to have it on around them I’m happy to do that. So well 2 years hu birth bird just flew by my window dawn is coming but surprise Birdie’s up flying it already because if you’re on video you could see it’s still quite dark. So um, let’s see so yeah yesterday afternoon I just kind of went into a little mental stupor and it was nice. It was very nice i. Read for a long time and Jackson came got on my lap this morning David got to see how I taught Jackson to get his weight that he’ll get on the scale and sit when I tell him to sit David was all impressed. So now I’m really tempted to try the fluent pet thing. Don’t know if I you’ll Mary Robinette Kowal has been doing fluent pet with her cat and I’m I don’t know if I want to or not I’m tempted and I’m not I kind of don’t want the thing laying on my floor that I sound like my mother. So yeah, this is a random collection of disconnected thoughts because this is where my brain is at I’m brain empty. Yeah, just got to finish this book right? Darynda and I were having a conversation. She said that she was feeling like um she had kind of a ah moment of epiphany now I understand scrambled eggs I should probably refer explain that. Um, if you’ve taken any of my classes or particular classes. I. Use this cartoon that I think I found in the new yorker but it um shows people eating it sort of like an outdoor cafe and it says um breakfast at epiphanies and there’s somebody going now I understand scrambled eggs and so.

10:29.56
jeffekennedy
I love that for explaining what an epiphany is one of my little jokes to myself. Oh you know I’ll come back to Darynda I would say remind me but you can’t I’ll do my best um, it was really fun doing my Reddit. Fantasy ama the other day because a lot of the people there had read my books and a couple people asked me questions um or mentioned things about my influences and it’s the first time that I’ve had a reader. Um. Just like somebody who doesn’t know me well just from reading my books pick up on one of my little inside jokes to myself. She said oh I knew this because you you named this character this and I figured that was an homage to this other writer and I was like it totally was but I didn’t expect. Anybody to ever figure that out. You know it’s like I put these little things in to amuse myself and then it’s kind of delightful when somebody spots it these little easter eggs. So anyway, during this been stressing trying to finish writing her book. And she said that it occurred to her the other day that I’m gonna have to fix her name all through this text now. Um that it occurred to her the other day that why was she being so upset why was she. Feeling so ground under by this. She’s like I have the best job in the world I am doing the thing that I love to do and I said it’s true and I have to remind myself of that too. Ah, and I said well some of it’s just it’s human nature because this is our job. And when it’s your job and it’s your work and you have deadlines. It’s not like just playing. It’s not all you know, romping through the the meadow and plucking words it’s um, it. It’s nose to the grindstone. I mean that’s that’s that’s what work is about um and I said but at the same time I have to remind myself and and she was thinking to remind herself too that you know this is what we wanted. We chose this and it’s still way better. Then another job I was like you know you could be out there doing asl translation which you know american sign language she is fluent and certified and all this kind of thing but I guess that could be really difficult work and she taught for a while and she was like yeah or I could be teaching kids who don’t want to learn.

13:17.22
jeffekennedy
You know? So it’s it’s that thing of reminding yourself of your blessings I think we just tend to focus on when things are difficult. Um, but it’s still a pretty awesome job and and all of this. For instance, on this book. You know I’m the one who set this deadline I definitely want this payout so that’s why I wanted it by like February twenty eighth so that I’ll get that amazon money that means I’ll get it at the end of april and if i. Missed that 28 if I did even a couple days later then I wouldn’t get it till the end of may so you know it’s like wanting to pay that mortgage and everything but at the same time the the actual pressure the how am I ending this book. Do I need. 2 or 3 more scenes to to end it well to please all of you to please the reader to please myself. It’s um, you know that’s that’s all internal pressure I could just it’s kind of funny because as I’m coming up on the end of this book. I’ve seen several places where I could stop if this were not book 3 in the trilogy I would see places that I could stop um because I get accused of riding cliffhangers and when. When we see that kar will say you know people keep using that word and I don’t think it means what they think it means so I was like yeah, it’s having an open-ended. Story is not the same thing as a cliffhanger. Um, but there are more things to tie up with the book 3 in the trilogy and. I’m definitely gonna write another book in this world I know what it’s going to be about as you guys read gray magic you will know what the next book will be about too. You’re goingnna see that but what I’m trying to figure out at this point in time I’m trying to figure out a couple of things. So this trilogy and I think I asked this before and some of you gave me feedback but I’m going to ask it again. This trilogy has been nick and gabriel for all 3 books and there’s going to be other romantic pairings. In the next books. Um, and I don’t know if it’ll be just like one couple per book or what or 1 couple over several books I’m deciding. That’s 1 question. Um.

16:03.51
jeffekennedy
The other thing I’m thinking because that’s the romance convention is you know once like these 3 books have been Nic and Gabriel’s povs back and forth next book would go into another couple’s pov right? and I’m kind of. Entertaining branching out and doing multiple povs because there are more epic adventures going to happen and I’m considering adding multiple povs into the ensuing books. So that it would like maybe the focus would be on the romance between some other people but I’m wondering can I go back to Nic and Gabriel’s p o these because I’m not sure I’m entirely ready to leave them What do you guys? think about that i. I tend to not want to deviate from the structures that I set up I feel like that’s part of the promise like in the first book I’m saying here’s the structure. It’s gonna be do dual pov. So then if I go into the next ones. For instance, so here’s another question right? book the next book should it be book 4 of bonds of magic or book one of a new trilogy I think there’s arguments for both I don’t know what to do I’m not gonna make decisions while my brains this empty. But. These are things I’m trying to figure out but I’ll be interested to know what your preferences are I’m kind of feeling this thing where I want to branch out into multiple povs. There’s ah another book that I started a couple years ago um we didn’t really get anywhere with it on submission. This is the science fantasy I’ll tell you guys that um and I told Sarah agent Sarah at the beginning of that our talk at the beginning of the year then I finish it and she said well maybe we could take it on submission again. Because it’s been two years and there’s been a lot of turnover in the editors and stuff and she said if you’re gonna write it anyway. So I’m thinking about that 1 doing multiple povs because that one would really lend itself I want to do that. Like maybe this is like where my I don’t usually talk about muses I don’t really believe in the muse. But I’m feeling like this is where my storytelling yen is going could be interesting all right.

18:45.51
jeffekennedy
I am going to actually get to work if you’re on video you can see that the sky out my window is beginning to lighten. You can see the ah the silhouette of Sandia peak out in the background that deeper blue against the lightning sky so rise and shine. Here we go I hope you all have a wonderful Friday whether it’s your actual end of work week or not and that you have a great weekend and next week I don’t know if I’ll be doing podcast or not. We’ll see so um. But next time you see me this book should be done if it’s not, we’re all in big trouble but all right you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 17, 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. Well ambrosia today is Thursday February seventeenth one day from deadline not that we’re counting. Okay, we’re totally counting. Ah yeah, getting there on gray magic I’ve got. About 50 fty-five hundred words to go I passed a hundred thousand words yesterday. Um, yeah, and so I like I’m down to the last couple of chapters and we’ll see how they go. Um. Yeah I I did get over three thousand words on it yesterday and I hope to get at least that many today so that I can have wind it up tomorrow and have a little bit of time to revise before I send it off. I only have to revise I’m guessing. Well let’s see that’s that’s how much it will. It is at this moment I know a lot of you don’t know worktown you know a lot of authors we work by work count because it depends you know people will ask me how many pages is that. And so I work in word and I use like standard one inch margins 12 point times new roman double space industry standards people will try to argue with me that those shouldn’t be industry standards and it’s one of those things like okay. Yeah, and there are a lot of things in this world that necessarily shouldn’t be but are so that’s still industry standard. That’s how I turn in all my manuscripts. Um, so that’s three hundred and seventy pages and I am guessing. That I will have in the neighborhood of 400 pages total when I’m done and so that means that I could go back over I mean do we know I guess we can see it’s. Guessing what it would cut it also depends on how much white space is on the page right? How much dialogue there is or as opposed to like really dense paragraphs. That’s why page county isn’t a really great mark for progress although readers of course use that. Ah.

02:44.56
jeffekennedy
So I’m gonna have something like 57 pages to go over. Although that’s probably not accurate because I have um I’ve been going over them so far as I’ve been working. Yesterday I had three lattes I’m cranking it. So um, yeah I could tell I’m tired I’m getting mentally tired but this is a push but then. Once I get this done turned in by about midday my time then I’m gonna do a little bit of cleanup around the house where things have been falling apart and then Darynda Jones arrives tomorrow evening in the flesh. She’s skin spend the night and then on Saturday we will do our panel for at beastly books that’s in the show notes she emily ma and I will be in person at the Jean Cocteau theater and it’ll be streamed. I think live streamed and some other people joining us via Zoom zoom. Yeah I was just thinking about something else like I won’t talk about it yet I’ll talk about next week and then we will then do into and I can have a nice lunch. She’s vegetarian these days so we’re going to um Sweetwater Kitchen here in Santa Fe which is great has great. Vegetarian choices and then we’re going out to Melinda Snodgrass’s house to learn about plot breaking very interested to learn her technique so it will be a um, a convivial weekend once I set this book aside then I will be able to just sort of enjoy company and peoples. And then Sunday morning I fly to Los Angeles where I’m going to meet up with a bunch of the SFWA people who are working on the nebula conference. We’re gonna do our site walkthrough and I will be there Monday and Tuesday coming home Tuesday evening so we’ll see how about. Podcast on Monday day Tuesday I um I might see if people want to some of the people who are there want to come on the podcast with me I might not do it. We’ll see because this is also going to be a little bit of a mini break for me. So I’m gonna set all those things aside and kind of um.

05:17.10
jeffekennedy
Try to kick back and rest my poor strained brains. So then yeah I get home Tuesday night and the plan is then to who knows of we have to find the correct date. So then I should have copy edits back for Wednesday so I’m going to do copy edits on Wednesday which will really only take me a couple of hours so that should be a good um drained brain activity for me and then upload on Thursday so I do have some time I mean I just have to have it uploaded by like. 5 p m on Thursday so I’ll have time if I want to do another full read through I could and then although I already have several things stacked up for the plane people have been asking me for various things that I promised to do and. So I may work on some of those things on the plane or at the hotel and yeah, and then we’ll see on Thursday and Friday we’ll see how perky am I am I might start storm princess I might just wait until the following week and then release stays the following monday. Monday the Twenty eighth and I don’t know if I mentioned here but I have officially surpassed the pre-orders for bright familiar. Thank you very much. Yeah I have more pre-orders for gray magic than for bright familiar which I think is a testimony to the the building. Interest in the series. It’s really gratifying. It’s just fantastic folks I I appreciate all the support and I have to tell you guys this really cool thing so there was someone who was in town a little while ago. And he bought a copy of dark wizard in print for be from beastly books and it was one of those things where I think he bought it to be nice. He did it to be nice to me. He did it to support beastly books. Um, he is a. You know a guy who’s really heavily into finance like Bren’s a hedge funded and this sort of thing and I really didn’t expect him to actually read the book you know because you know you do these things you do these things to be nice sent me an email you guys. I’m not guess say who it is because I don’t know if he’d want me to but listen to this email. He sent me yesterday. Um, you know nice things nice to meet you in Santa Fe thank you for being so welcoming I at last had time to read Dark Wizard over the weekend and I was so impressed.

08:01.68
jeffekennedy
It’s totally not my sub-genre and would never consider reading the book if some one gave me a plot summary but it is so well executed and such a page-turner I was really sucked in and despite myself I want to read the rest of the trilogy. What really amazes me is that you have such an extensive bibliography. You must be writing very fast but the quality is so high no idea how you do it isn’t that nice. It’s I’m just ah, just thrilled I mean it’s it’s so wonderful to hear something like that I you know love all of my readers and all of you guys are so awesome. But. Winning over someone for whom this is not their genre is um, is there a better feeling I don’t know and such high praise. So one of the and and I did answer him and this isn’t. Something I talk about extensively maybe not all the time. Um I did share some stuff with him. And I don’t know maybe I do talk about it more than I think I do but I kind of hesitate to go there because it sounds kind of woo woo. But I mean first of all. I’m sorry I should clarify that I’m talking about how do I write fast and of course I don’t write as fast as I want to you guys hear me bemoaning that things aren’t going as fast as I want them to go especially right now as I’m like brain drained on finishing this book. I don’t know why I have to go into the the high whiny voice I say that so writing fast and producing quality. I think the first thing is is that you have to decouple the idea that working slowly produces higher quality and this is something I’ve talked about a whole lot. This is really ingrained in us I think it gets ingrained at us in school. The idea that you must slow down that you must be working very slowly in order to produce high quality is just really pounded in us over and over again. Um you know like they tell us that on taking tests you know.

10:41.33
jeffekennedy
Slow down you know and give yourself time to think and go back over it. Um, all of these kinds of things. Ah I have a lot of complicated ideas about this I wanted to mention sort of as a sideline here that we watched marry me with. Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson and enjoyed it. It was very cute. My nail tech yesterday I got my nails done yesterday. Very important at least it was relaxing my nail tech yesterday said that ah she liked it? Okay, but she thought that Jennifer Lopez just played herself. She thought Owen Wilson was great but that Jennifer Lopez was basically Jennifer Lopez and I was like yes, but you know is it she always with basically oh she is um, but there’s this line in the movie that comes around because Owen Wilson is a math teacher and he says. If you sit with the problem. The answer will come to you and so so there’s part of this this idea of slowing down that you give yourself time to think about it. Um, and I don’t think. That it’s necessarily true. In fact I think it’s often not true that this idea that slower work produces higher quality. Certainly we’re all familiar with the idea that if you rush through something. You are more likely to make mistakes and so I think that this is sort of developed as the the opposite face of that if rushing causes mistakes therefore not rushing will eliminate mistakes is that actually true though. Because there’s something else going on here, especially when we talk about problem solving and creative work is that our brains don’t necessarily work slowly. So if you’re really wedded to the idea of you know we’re basically biological machines. Um. You know? and so all the wet work up here is what’s doing the work den sure you can still look at it this way because ah the way that neurons fire the the movement of electrical activity through the brain is incredibly fast. Thought. Is incredibly fast. Um, yeah, we can think about this in terms of um, you know like is thought faster than the speed of light and I think arguably it is right I don’t know why I have to mess with my hair and scratch my head while I’m thinking. But.

13:29.60
jeffekennedy
It helps with that biological wetwork in there. Um, but then there’s something else involved and this is where I get into the woow woo thing is that I very much believe in the creative subconscious and I know I’ve talked about that because I have that as part of like my author coaching and mastermind stuff and I you know. Productive creative I always forget. Do I do Um, yeah, productive creativity and I very much believe in accessing the subconscious that stories come from. From a place that is beyond conscious thought. However, you want to think about it. You know if it’s um, you know another world or who knows we don’t really know and in many ways I don’t think it matters. The thing is is that our creative subconscious. Offers us this incredible wealth of storytelling of problem solving for all kinds of things that we don’t have to plod through in a conscious way. In fact. The more that you can remove that conscious control the more you can get that subconscious to flow so in a way this still fits with the line that Owen Wilson used and I guess this came from a comic that was discovered at San Diego comic con on a table which is. Really fantastic that that’s where the story came from I saw it on Twitter and’s I was like this is your reminder to finish your comic or your story or whatever because here it was like on a table at Sand Diego Comic Con and 2019 I was there I didn’t see the comic but somebody picked it up and then it became this movie. Very cool. That’s kind of trusting in the serendipity of the universe too. There are these things that move beyond what we can control and understand but they work in our favor this this is like Taoism this is like the flow of the tao right. So the more you can get out of your own way the more that this can work for you and so this is how Owen Wilson’s line has the other meaning if you sit with the problem. The answer will come to you. You’re not sitting there with your brows furrowed demanding. You know trying to calculate doing the calculation in your head or something like that you allow it to come to you and that’s much like storytelling and this is why.

16:14.72
jeffekennedy
You know if we go back to talking about learning in school about taking exams and so forth working your way methodically through the exam might work for some people know what your process is and own it. But for many people if you. Are in tune with yourself if your mind is clear and you’re going to an exam you can look at a problem and the answer will come to you and for me I I learned to never go back over the exam because if I went back over and changed the answer I would in. Inevitably change it wrong. It was second -guessing myself is just like always bad and I’ve learned this about myself know what your process is um, a lot of writers talk about that when they get stuck when they slow down when the story isn’t working. That they know that they’ve made a mistake and that means that they need to go back that they’ve gone down a blind alley and they need to go back and figure it out. Um, for me, it means that I need to peck away and keep going because if i. Change my mind if I go back. That’s second guessing myself and I know for me that second guess sing myself is always wrong. So for me, the ideal is to get that creative flow and and I spent and this is sort of the part I don’t always talk about but um. I may have mentioned from time to time that I spent a lot of years doing martial arts um like more than 15 years doing kung fu taichee bag washingi various martial arts forms um various kinds of meditation and. I did a lot of work to kind of clear the garbage out of my mind. Um and be able to sort of sit with myself in silence to eliminate all of the distractions and overthinking. To get out of my own way that was something we talked about a whole lot getting out of your own way and so I think that’s part of why I can do what I can do and it and david has said it. Yeah because we did that together and he’s like yeah you know you’re just really good at. Clearing everything out. It’s sort of like having that nice open pipe with all of the garbage gone and just letting that story flow in and I don’t no matter how I talk about it here. It probably sounds like I’m laboring over it. But ideally I get to the point where it just comes and I just type.

18:59.58
jeffekennedy
But comes in when I get to the point where I’m really really thinking about it. That’s when I slow down and I think I I get in the way of the story so that wasn’t necessarily what I had started up talking about today or planned to talk about today but I won’t get my own way. Same as here on the podcast. Um, yeah, so wish me luck I’ll be back here tomorrow morning hopefully feeling good about things and yeah, you guys all have a wonderful Thursday good luck. Um. Doing whatever it is. You need to do take some time to to clear your mind and just silence all the distractions you all take care bye bye.

 

Jeffe’s Furry Editors

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

First things first: the Romancing the Vote auction is live! I’m offering six months of author coaching to the winning bidder and the bids are climbing! This is an important cause and tons of great stuff from all kinds of wonderful industry folks. Go forth and bid!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is an homage to our furry editors. I have two, my Maine coon cat buddies:

Isabel, who specializes in floof and loving. She is not entirely helpful, so far as keyboard access is involved, but she’s the best at purring companionship. Total win.

I took this picture today. Jackson visits my writing desk daily, politely sitting to the side of the keyboard (win!) and staring at me until I pet him (not ideal). Observers have accused him of whispering the books into my ear. I will neither confirm nor deny. I can only say that, as a ghostwriter, he works pretty cheap.

First Cup of Coffee – February 15, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:01.10
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:14.88
jeffekennedy
Wonderful I did sip on it previously and it’s ever so slightly cold I have a busy morning today today is Tuesday February fifteenth and in this um. Ah, you know coming together of the various of Venn diagrams of my existence today is my author spotlight day for faro feb 2022 fantasy romance February so I posted a video talking about me. And my books I’ve got all my books piled up here because I was like showing covers boom. Um, and there’s lots going on with faro fab I also have a post in the Faro Feb Facebook group who are wonderful. And so yeah, that’s going all all this month lots of wonderful authors participating so you could check that out at http://farofi.com and so I did that and then I’m also completely unrelated but I so said that I would. Be 1 of the fantasy novelists featured in the read for pixels project which is advocating against violence against women and so I am doing a our fantasy Reddit. Am a ask me anything today and I so I to get on there and both of these things were supposed to be up by like 10 am m eastern time which is 8 am m jeffie time also known as mountain time but you could call it jeffie time it you know it’s funny I I think I’ve talked about this before but it always kind of. Mildly irritates me that people don’t include mountain time on the listings and yes I know we are the slice of the country with the lowest population. Well unless you count like the ones that include like Hawaii and the virgin islands I take those or even less. But. Nobody even knows what those are called I know the one with the virgin islands is called Atlantic time. But I I don’t know what it’s called where Hawaii is so maybe it’s Hawaita. We could call it that so anyway, um, but you know like they told me to have it posted by. 10 am easterner time or 9 am m central standard time and it’s like what about mountain time jeffie time but I let it go because I’m ah I’m forgiving that way.

02:54.76
jeffekennedy
So I’ll include a link in the show notes for the pixel project. They really are doing great work working to eliminate violence against women which I’m sorry if you don’t advocate for ah a project like that I I can’t help you.

03:15.99
jeffekennedy
so so yeah both those things had to be up by eight o’clock my time and I did pretty good I mean I got it like within 10 minutes of eight o’clock and now I am doing just my usual posting with you guys? Hi yeah so. I’ll put a link for the um, the our fantasy Reddit fantasy group a a it’s your chance to come in and as build ask me anything. Um, yeah, happy to to answer. Any and all questions whatever you guys come up with ah things are percolating along pretty well here at Caso Jeffffe um Cassa Kennedy it’s funny because you know my husband’s last name is not Kennedy, but he gets. He’s very accustomed to being called Mr Kennedy he gets mail to Mr Kennedy he’s a wonderful man. So um, let’s see where am I at so I did finish the revision of gray magic yesterday. Those of you who listened yesterday. You knew that I only had like 10 pages to go so I got those and I added 2300 words I didn’t add 3000 words but 2300 considering I spent an hour revising I was happy with that I took it I was pleased I didn’t work longer than that and. Trying to keep myself evenly paced. So now I’ve got almost 95000 words on this book and somewhere in the neighborhood of a little less than 11000 to go so so far on Target to finish by Friday. I think it’s going fine Karine’s read Assistant Karine has read what I’ve written so far and now she’s reading the chunks as I write them and she says it’s good. Of course she says everything I write is good although we’ve had this argument before she says she would tell me if it wasn’t um. But she said it’s really tense and exciting. So yamy, yeah, so and I I know how it’s I think I know everything that’s going to happen now I’ve been having various um epiphanies on the story and how things are going to end out. As I mentioned yesterday and probably before this I am definitely gonna be writing more books in this world as you read this book. You’re you’re gonna see where it’s gonna go and karine is a big fan of where it’s going.

06:03.57
jeffekennedy
She is like I know what the next book is going to be and so it’s exciting I may post a snippet later today to go along with my author profile stuff I’ll do it after I’m done with this podcast exciting. Let’s see oh um, I’m not very organized but at least I’m not as badly book-brained as I can be sometimes on the r fantasy reddit it’ll say on my post but I will come back and answer the questions tonight. So you have all day to think up your questions and post them and then I’ll pop in and answer them. This evening. So yeah, yesterday was good day I got those words done and then I I actually got through a ton of sifwa email I tried to go for inbox 0 yes I am one of those people my inbox tends to be like a to do list. I try to keep it ten box zero I get behind and um so it goes but I did catch up a lot of things yesterday and that felt good I saw an interesting I guess it’s getting passed around. But. I saw an interesting article and I will link to it in the atlantic on friendship and you guys know this is one of my themes so there was stuff in there that was really interesting including and I do have it pinned up here that. Let’s see I’m probably gonna have to let’s see if I could do a search. Okay, yeah, so ah in 2009 a dutch sociologist we love Dutch people don’t we assistant Karina Dutch ah the dutch sociologist Gerald Mullenhorst I’m probably not saying that with enough. Blem but you get it published an attention grabbber of a study that basically showed we but we replace half of our social network over the course of 7 years ah isn’t that interesting because you guys know I have been. You know, really interested in the fact and that some friendships seem to come and go and the the article’s very well done I understand why people are passing it around and I I in general agree with it. There are a few things that I think bear discussion and. I’m having drinks with my friend Megan Mouly tomorrow night and Megan is um I sent her the link to the article and I said here’s your homework assignment for discussion tomorrow night and she said on it which I think is just like a perfect example of our friendship.

08:53.15
jeffekennedy
Love that I could send her an article and say read this so we can talk I don’t know that we’ll have much to debate on it. But I thought it was very interesting. The person who posted it into my timeline said that she didn’t feel like she had these. Big friendship breakups. You know that she knew people drifted out of her life but that she didn’t feel like she had these breakups that the article talks about and the article really explores how we in a way sideline friendships ah compared to. Romantic relationships or family relationships which is something that you guys know I’ve talked about a whole lot and that they the author was arguing who and she’s a Jennifer a few years younger than I am but that’s that’s all. And she was arguing that maybe those friendships should be more important and that for her losing a friendship does feel like a divorce and so I found it very interesting that the person who is also a real life friend as well as a Facebook friend we have to make that distinction now don’t we. She ah you know linked it into my timeline. That’s where I saw it and she said that she felt like she hadn’t had that experience and nothing against her and this may be a generalization actually it is a generalization that people who say that I know a few other people who say that that they don’t feel like they’ve had these friendship breakups I think that there’s the people who actually tend to ghost other people and and leave the the ghostees feeling like what did I do? Why did our friendship end. Whereas these people are like trilaly. Yeah you know friendships come and go. But you know we and that is something that doctor talks about is how we view friendships differently and she mentioned it’s framed around. Ah, particular friendship and 2 women who were trying to put together a book and and how she could see their friendship disintegrating over the course of trying to put this together which I think thought was a fascinating frame. But. She also talks about a pair of friends who actually went into relationship counseling when the friendship had become rocky and I don’t know if I mean I think we all react react the same way where we’re like really he’d got a relationship counseling for a friendship but.

11:31.37
jeffekennedy
I mean if you would do it for ah a romantic partnership. Why not do it for a friendship and she mentioned someone else a friend who says well isn’t that the opposite point of having a friendship that a friendship is something that it’s special because you opt into it. Because you don’t have to do all of this emotional labor like go into counseling to preserve it. But the author a sister Jennifer makes a lot of the same points that I’ve been thinking about that ah sprint and maybe it’s our our generation but she said you know as we are growing older. That we are becoming aware of that. We’re going to lose our the generation that’s older than us will no longer have that support network. Um, a lot of us don’t necessarily have children I have step I’ve stepchildren but you know it’s we we’re looking at. Who will be with us in our older years and probably it’s going to be our friends right? I mean I look around and I see that you know Grace Drven and I keep I’ve been mentioning grace on here a lot lately. But um, you know. Grace and I have our particular fantasy built up about like when our husbands are gone and we live together and what we’ll do it. It may or may not include a house on the mediterranean and cavana boys. So you know and it’s not a real super realistic plan. But at the same time. It’s something that we are both aware of um, you know her husband had ah a medical emergency recently and she’s been pretty open about what happened with him and my husband has Parkinson’s and so it’s an interesting thing being a woman of this age and looking at the fact. That which really sucks and I even said it to my mother. My mother who’s been twice widowed that the first time was you know when she was quite young and my my dad her first husband died he was an air force spider pilot and he died in ah in a plane crash. So and he was young but then my stepfather died of progressive supernuclear policy a kind ah of Parkinson’s and now her third husband is getting older and it has alzheimer’s and you know you look at this thing where as a woman does. That’s totally unfair but you know that statistically our husbands are going to die before us and so then what do we do? who who do we have I didn’t mean to make this so sad. But you know it is looking around at who.

14:17.92
jeffekennedy
Who matters in your life who who are you connected to these networks and someone she quoted someone who had sarcastically said. Um, yeah, but your friends are not the ones who will take care of you when you have dementia and some of us are looking around and thinking. Well. Actually maybe our friends who will do that. it’s a it’s a shift maybe it’s a generational shift. But anyway it was a very interesting article on friendship and I’m looking forward to discussing with Megan because we have talked about friendships and how. You know this this seven year thing is really interesting to me because you know that that puts me back to like twenty fifteen half of a social circle so you know you still have people who’ve been your friends much longer than that. But i. I look around and I see that’s true that the people who are a vital part of my life right now. Ah yeah, we’re not seven years ago and there are people who seven years ago were a big part of my life and now I you know barely talk to if at all in some ways that’s reassuring. It’s like well you know it is a natural process. The the friendships coming and going. But 1 thing that Megan and I have really noticed is and and she and I became friends because we’re writers we knew each other from the writing community from the romance writing community. Met each other at a convention in like 2014 and now she happens to live here in Santa Fe but it’s kind of a coincidence that brought her to Santa Fe my pendant fell off there. It’s got a little gap on it I’m gonna have to fix that on the ring. So we had this conversation. It was during the pandemic during lockdown because I know that we were it was one of our um campfire cock cocktail hours where we went out to um, Santa Fe Brewing H Q where they would have the camp fires send the chairs around it and you could drink outside. You could order you know another round of drinks and a cord of wood. Not a cord but a bundle of wood to put on the fire and I know snowing and we were just talking about who were our close friends who were really in our intimate circle now. And she was talking about how that’s changed for her. Um, in you know this sort of mid-life place who are your really good friends. So 1 thing I did love about the article too was that there were.

17:00.52
jeffekennedy
Discussions of how do you maintain friendships you know like do I don’t know that you would necessarily go to I don’t know if I would go to counseling but there are definitely friendships that I kind of wish we talked about things and she talks about how to manage that envy in the. Relationship being especially if you are people who’ve come together because you’re working in the same field and doing similar things. You know how how people take care of each other knowing not the reality of envious there. And I really loved that about it. It’s like no, we don’t we don’t say oh you shouldn’t be envious because human beings are envious, right? it’s 1 the 7 deadly sins she she says that she thinks it’s the least popular of the 7 deadly sins and I think that there’s probably a good point to that nobody wants to admit it. You know it’s easier to be admit to being lazy or greedy or lustful but it’s harder to admit that to envy but we are all envious and so we just have to know that our friends may have envy for us and we have to manage that if. Friendship is valuable so I thought that that was really yeah, insightful. That’s what I’ve been thinking about and I’m still reading Juliet Marilier’s daughter of the forest which I’m gonna have to go in and fix because the transcript. Really barfs on her name and it gets my name wrong every time I have to go and fix that too. But I’m I’m opting in I’m keeping the professional model I think that the paying my $20 a month I think the Transcript’s really good I don’t know how many people are reading. It. But. It’s it’s been a minimal amount of effort compared to what I tried to do before and the expense of that totally different. So go Zencaster on that zencastr pro model at twenty dollars months works. Great. So um, yeah, I’m really loving daughter of the forest and it’s remarkable to me how much how many parallels there are to the mark of the talla. That’s really just which I’ve actually got right here because I was talking books right. Here it is the mark of the tunnel. But ah yeah, it if I had if I had read daughter of the forest. It’s like I would suspect that I had like cribbed stuff directly from that story but I hadn’t.

19:50.28
jeffekennedy
So isn’t that interesting that those story archetypes are there so many parallels things that I wasn’t consciously drawing on at all I think that’s why we love these fairytale stories because of these old. Tail archetypes in them that speak to us and now I’m going to go right? So hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday try in on the r fantasy Reddit tonight the ama supporting the read for pixels project. And I will talk to you all on Thursday you all take care bye bye.