I’m ruminating on characterization today, especially of beautiful/privileged women, with a particular focus on Nic from DARK WIZARD and how she changes over the series. Thus, there may be spoilers.
I'm ruminating on characterization today, especially of beautiful/privileged women, with a particular focus on Nic from DARK WIZARD and how she changes over the series. Thus, there may be spoilers.
Some stats on my Bookbub Featured Deal and setting DARK WIZARD free for the week. TL:DR-great sell through on books 2 & 3! Also how I harvested grapes, organized all the things, and danced to TSwift.
Some stats on my Bookbub Featured Deal and setting DARK WIZARD free for the week. TL:DR-great sell through on books 2 & 3! Also how I harvested grapes, organized all the things, and danced to TSwift.
Updates on my next projects and on the state of trad publishing – spec is out, full mss are in – and thoughts on being hybrid & the “middlest” author. Also info on how/why trad publishing only counts print sales.
Updates on my next projects and on the state of trad publishing - spec is out, full mss are in - and thoughts on being hybrid & the "middlest" author. Also info on how/why trad publishing only counts print sales.
I’m celebrating finishing SHADOW WIZARD! And the exciting results of my BookBub Featured Deal with setting DARK WIZARD to free. Also a bit on endings, respecting the story brain, and tithing to the creative powers.
I'm celebrating finishing SHADOW WIZARD! And the exciting results of my BookBub Featured Deal with setting DARK WIZARD to free. Also a bit on endings, respecting the story brain, and tithing to the creative powers.
Happy release day to ONCE UPON A FORBIDDEN DESIRE, a Fantasy Romance fairytale anthology! Besides that I’m discussing defending writing time with fences and thoughts on setting first in series free.
Happy release day to ONCE UPON A FORBIDDEN DESIRE, a Fantasy Romance fairytale anthology! Besides that I'm discussing defending writing time with fences and thoughts on setting first in series free.
Telling some stories about WorldCon that illustrate the power and efficacy of networking – and how that’s really making friends with people. While we never stop pitching, it does get easier and friendlier.
Telling some stories about WorldCon that illustrate the power and efficacy of networking - and how that's really making friends with people. While we never stop pitching, it does get easier and friendlier.
A bit on audiobooks and the relativities of going exclusive with Audible vs. wide – and *how* to go wide if you do that. Also some (bad) news on the midwinter holiday fantasy romance anthology and a question for you all.
A bit on audiobooks and the relativities of going exclusive with Audible vs. wide - and *how* to go wide if you do that. Also some (bad) news on the midwinter holiday fantasy romance anthology and a question for you all.
I’m sharing the incredibly gorgeous covers from the Czech translation of the Chronicles of Dasnaria trilogy, and also talking about covers in general, how self-publishing helps being savvy about them. Some spoilers for this trilogy and for Forgotten Empires.
I'm sharing the incredibly gorgeous covers from the Czech translation of the Chronicles of Dasnaria trilogy, and also talking about covers in general, how self-publishing helps being savvy about them. Some spoilers for this trilogy and for Forgotten Empires.
I’m back from WorldCon in Chicago! Reporting on the convention – awesome – and how lovely Chicago was, along with thoughts on ballet and appearing effortless. Now l’m buckling down to finish SHADOW WIZARD!
I'm back from WorldCon in Chicago! Reporting on the convention - awesome - and how lovely Chicago was, along with thoughts on ballet and appearing effortless. Now l'm buckling down to finish SHADOW WIZARD!
Transcript
00:02.97
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Delicious.
00:19.64
jeffekennedy
Ah, today is Tuesday September Sixth and I am back I am back from my travels back here in the grape arbor as you can see if you are on video and um, yeah. Nice to be home. Um, travels were good though. Um, just came back from world con and Chicago which was fabulous. It was um, personally my best world con ever I very much enjoyed it. It was um the the layout was amazing because it was all in the single hotel all of the events and everything we’re all in the one hotel where most everyone was staying and that is just. Infinitely preferable to me. Ah these other world concept I’ve gone to Dublin Kansas City and San Jose they were all um in like convention center type things that were separate from the hotel. And in Dublin because the hotel was fairly expensive. We stayed at an airbnb that was a considerable distance. Um from the events of the convention and while I really like the place we stayed in. It’s just a totally different con experience.
01:52.49
jeffekennedy
Um, if you’re not staying where the convention is occurring when you have to deliberately go to the convention space to do things people tend to go there and leave whereas at the hotel you get to see people on their way to stuff so you see people much more. Also this was like our first at least for me and for many people first big convention since pandemic. So even though I had been to Bubonicon ah the weekend before and Jack Williamson lectureship in the spring. Even though I’ve done a few other things. This was the first big one and the first time that I had physically seen so many people and it was it was just a delight. It was really great to be able to hang out in the bar and talk to people again. Oh and Apollycon, I forgot that one Apollycon was different because we didn’t have a lot of author hangout time. Um, and this was great. Just lots of um, lots of talk. There are just.
03:05.93
jeffekennedy
Conversations that only happen in person and interactions that only happen in person and we kept talking about that throughout the entire convention about how meaningful that was just to be able to interact with people in person again. Saw lots of old friends. So lots of people that I have um like talked to online in the last few years it was interesting for me that this was the big first big convention I’d been to since I’ve been president of SFWA and um.
03:42.21
jeffekennedy
And it it was Nice. You know one thing that was really lovely and a lot of you all out there make this effort to but a lot of people came up to thank me for the work I’m doing which was immensely gratifying very Interestingly. Several people made a point of coming up to me and saying commenting on how very smooth my presidency has been and then adding that they know that that means that we’ve been handling a whole lot of stuff behind the scenes because things are never that smooth. And you know that’s that’s really gratifying too because that means that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed right? You know it’s one of those things you know like the ballet dancer who’s um, aesthetic whose whose whole effort whose goal. Is to appear to be graceful and to float and to be effortless. Ah meanwhile her tendons are screaming. Her toes are about to give way. Um, she’s sweating bullets but the audience sees the fairy Princess. Ah, and so it was really lovely to have people who appreciated both things who thought that the ballet was looking fantastic but also appreciated all of the sweating of bullets that had gone on in the background I had um a great.
05:17.84
jeffekennedy
Coffee with Catherine Asaro and she was ah she came and found me at my table talk and asked if and which was like second to last day and asked if I could have dinner or something like that and we ended up doing like schedule tetris to find. Ah, time to meet up and um I wasn’t sure what she wanted and Catherine Asaro if you don’t know has been around for quite a long time. She’s a former president of SFWA one of the um I think is at 8 or 9 I actually wrote it down.
05:57.21
jeffekennedy
Well, it turns out I only wrote down the number of grand masters there have been nine female grandmasters I think Mercedes Lackey makes 10 I need to update my numbers. But ah I’m I’m pretty sure this number sticks in my head but that I am the eighth female president of SFWA since 1965 so um, and Katherine Asaro is 1 of them and she was telling me something that I didn’t know it turned out. She didn’t really want anything in particular she wanted to tell me with a great job. She thought I was doing.
06:33.20
jeffekennedy
Um, the recognizing the ballet ah and she and and we just kind of gossiped I kind of told her stuff. It’s nice to talk to a former president because I can gossip about some things and they’ll keep it to themselves. You know it’s like oh this is what was going on behind the scenes. They can appreciate it. I also had some great conversations with Mary Robinette Kowal similar stuff and um, sorry I was just thinking about something Mary Robinette was telling me that I need to remember.
07:12.51
jeffekennedy
So but 1 thing that Catherine told me that I hadn’t known was that she was the one to appoint and McCaffrey Grandmaster and that was I hadn’t known that and and it’s so cool because as many of you know if you’ve been listening for a long time. Ah. And McCaffrey was is and will forever be 1 of my great heroes and it remains a um, a great sorrow to me that I never got to meet her but you know it’s like what is that? um one degree of separation is it 1 or 2 ah, you know. Knowing knowing people who knew her and McCaffrey was really my gateway gateway drug to fantasy and yeah, so and it was interesting to hear Catherine talk about that back in the day. Ah, there had been pushback on appointing and McCaffrey Grandmaster and you know and she said of course nobody would say exactly that they thought it was too girly but that that was the the subtext and.
08:28.79
jeffekennedy
Yeah, you know it’s um, it was just really good to to make that contact and talk with people. So yeah, we had a SFWA meet and greet. We did not have the suite this year people kept asking. Did we have one? no but we did have a. Ah, short meet and greet in the bar and yeah and I was on a bunch of programming sold some books at my signing table I’m like never again going to do a signing table without. The ability to sign books because none of the world con booksellers and there were a lot down in the dealers’ room. Um none of them carried my books I saw Jennifer Estep’s books though, sent her a photo of those. But yeah, not one of them had my books. And and this is actually partly my fault – mea culpa – that we could have emailed this um dealer’s email address and asked them to carry books. So maybe I’ll do that next time certainly what be next year next year’s world con is in. Chengdu China year after that is Glasgow year after that is Seattle ah I don’t know if I’ll go to Glasgow maybe um I saw that Dublin had put in a bid for another one. It would depend on if Glasgow would be this deal of.
10:01.74
jeffekennedy
Well, there were so many things wrong with Dublin those terribly terribly small meeting spaces that they you couldn’t get into any of the panels programming. So I don’t know if Glasgow would be the same deal but we’ll see two years down the road I’m not going to think about it now. So that’s my last convention for the year except for I guess I shouldn’t say it’s it’s penultimate convention except for a world fantasy con in New Orleans at first week of November which I’m very much looking forward to I will be. Ah, rooming with Kelly Robson her wife isn’t attending so Kelly and I will share a room that was that would be great I did get to see both Kelly and Alyx at WorldCon spent some time with them drinking wine that was.
10:57.90
jeffekennedy
Wonderful also ah went out for an amazing dinner Greek food inspired Greek which was so good. Ah, which you know makes me now understand how a lot of the other Greek food I’ve had is definitely uninspired.
11:18.58
jeffekennedy
I was on some excellent panels moderated some excellent panels. Ah right now it’s all kind of a blur ah stayed up too late talking to people in the bar as is my want.
11:35.28
jeffekennedy
Um, yeah, oh and also this was very cool. Um, the one of the great things about the location was it was the Chicago. Oh Hyatt Regency downtown and it was right on the riverfront and. Chicago this downtown was just amazingly beautiful. They have done so much to make it gorgeous and so you could go down and walk along that riverfront and I walked all the way down to the lake which wasn’t very far saw the marina and navy pier and all of those things. Um, they had the architectural boat tours leaving from like right in front of the hotel and I really wanted to go on one I went on 1 in like 2015 at RT we like took a cab downtown to take the architectural boat tour and it’s just one of the best things ever and I really wanted to do that. And just ran out of time 1 thing for me about being at conventions and I think I’ve mentioned this before you know, a lot of people go out and do touring around and see the city and that sort of thing and I always feel like I’m at the convention to talk to people that that’s my reason to be there and so. Going on the architectural boat tour wasn’t talking to people but I did get to go on a long walk along the riverfront um almost every morning all but 1 morning and then um, the final morning I got to walk all the way down to.
13:08.38
jeffekennedy
A beach one of my friends – Alex, a different Alex – had found this beach and so we went down on Sunday morning and went swimming and that was really great. Ah it was um. Yeah, it’s so cool the way lake shore drive divides downtown from the lake and they had closed lake shore drive. It was Sunday morning of labor day weekend and there were all of these bicyclists going up and down lake shore drive. They’d closed it traffic and that was so neat to see. Um. And it was kind of a stormy morning but we had timed it well before it started to rain and so we went swimming and then I walked back in time to clean up and see ah it was funny because I know I have this phrase from my mother. But I I used it twice ah to different response I should tell the story in order. So I had said to to Kelly ah, when I met her very early for breakfast one morning. Ah like. Six forty five she picked me up at six forty five and we went to this place at 7 that opened at 7 which is the um only morning I didn’t walk because of that and but we both had stop later that morning so it was like you know go have breakfast and so we can get back and I said okay well I’m not going to be cute.
14:41.26
jeffekennedy
And she said untrue and I was like well I’m not going to be fixed up for the day yet and and I’d said something similar to my friend Alex when we went swimming because I said well ah he kept track of how long it took to walk down there which I really appreciate it and I said well I’ve just padded you know, allowed enough time to to get cute and he said you are cute and I was like yeah so maybe I need a different phrase for me. It always means you know cute-ing up is like doing the makeup and hair thing right? getting. Putting the nice clothes on ah and I know but that my mom says that that we always say that you know like oh well I were going to be cute for this? Ah so so that was all was all good I’m sure I have thoughts. Ah, right now. My brain is still a little empty I flew back late Sunday night it was a little bit of a um, you know, grueling drive back after landing I was a little tired but got up yesterday morning did not podcast I just didn’t have. That much energy. But I did get some words written I have to finish shadow wizard this week people um I’m I’m actually in okay is shape on it. I’ve got about 17000 words to go but I really want to maybe get to the end.
16:15.17
jeffekennedy
This week there goes um, waffling on my determination right? The thing is let’s let me tell you about the thing. So let’s see I am at 72000 words 72,155 I’m guessing it’s going to come out around 89K um I’ve only got a few chapters left which is interesting because I haven’t gone back to revise from the beginning right? Longtime listeners will know that usually by now I have ah I would have done that and I haven’t which is interesting interesting to me. Process always changes. So I think I’m going to write pretty much all the way to the end. Um, but I don’t need to necessarily hit that 89 k because then I’m going to go back and revise from the beginning and as always I will undoubtedly add so I need um. About a week six working days to revise I’ve gone wood. Ah um, and then a few days to do my out loud proofing for the final pass to get it uploaded by.
17:29.40
jeffekennedy
What’s my drop dead date to upload.
17:39.12
jeffekennedy
Um, to to down September Twenty fifth so right now I feel like I’m in okay shape twenty days nineteen days um a little bit less because I I need a a day to format so three weeks think I can get this done. Um I’m thinking of ending it in a slightly different way. Ah, which I don’t feel like I could talk to you all about and get feedback because it might be too spoilery I might ask Carien I think I got a mosquito but on my forehead did i. Alas, so um, so yeah, just that’s the big focus now finishing this book and if I had another thought there that I may have lost to the mosquito bite. Um, yeah, it’s been an interesting book to write. There’s a lot of lot of layers to this 1 layers like a parfait. Ah yeah, so that that was about all I did yesterday I also took. Ah, nowp slept for like two and a half hours which I’m not typically a napper but it was funny because I finished writing it was like I got a little over a thousand words and which I thought was pretty good for my empty brain and then ate lunch spend a little time with David chatting and then.
19:12.85
jeffekennedy
Lay down slept for two and a half hours and I woke up at like a quarter to 5 which so I was like oh I napped all the way till happy hour so it felt like um Regency lady I’ve been reading more Lisa Kleypas and so that’s a. How that felt so um, on that note I’m going to see if I can have a more productive day today and oh ah, next week September Thirteenth bookbub featured deal. For Dark Wizard and it’s going to be free, free download to sort of goose goose the sales ahead of shadow wizard coming out so tell your friends tell your friends your family told them to read it and then buy the rest of the series right. And be ready for jadron and Cellie’s story all right hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday ah tomorrow I’ll be blogging at the SFF Seven so I won’t be here but I’ll be back on Thursday you all take care. Okay bye bye.
20:30.47
jeffekennedy
And it would help if like I can actually activate the button goodbye.
Why it annoys me that people are using Taylor Swift’s August on reels about romance books – and people not listening to lyrics in general – and other thoughts on details and what we want from our careers as authors.
Why it annoys me that people are using Taylor Swift's August on reels about romance books - and people not listening to lyrics in general - and other thoughts on details and what we want from our careers as authors.
Transcript
00:01.95
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. It’s good today is tuesday. August Thirty is almost the last day of August ah, for all intents and purposes here on first cup of coffee. It is last day of August since ah I won’t be podcasting tomorrow so you’ll have to celebrate the end of August without me.
00:41.38
jeffekennedy
Speaking of August I think it’s funny. This is like a mini mini rant. Ah, it’s a little bit um, cool and cloudy here in Santa Fe this morning not as cool as it was yesterday morning but the clouds are coming in and we may get a little rain. They say by 9 so which means that the mosquitoes are gathering I do have my mosquito candle going here. But yes here in the secret garden it’s ah um, lush but also lush with mosquitoes.
01:23.54
jeffekennedy
If you’re on video you saw that I just paused because I had something in my eye and I dealt with it and then right as I was unpausing I got something in my other eye started to pause again. That’s why I left anyway August many of you know, um, or. You should know by now if you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time or know me at all is that I am a total Swiftie. I love Taylor Swift and have for quite some time now and ah to my delight I’ve turned on a number of my friends to Taylor Swift which is not usually me. But um I feel like. There are a whole lot of people out there including like my assistant who sort of buy the um some of the cultural dismissiveness of Taylor Swift and so they’d never really given her music a chance and once I’ve turned them onto. How amazing she is then they um, discovered the genius that is Taylor Swift so Taylor if you ever listen to this podcast because I do feel like we could be besties I want you to know that I’ve gained you like at least. I don’t know 5 fans and I I feel like this is worth something a drop in the bucket to someone with ah her massive audience but still so anyway Instagram keeps Instagram knows that I’m a Swiftie they show me Taylor Swift clips which
02:56.90
jeffekennedy
Reels which makes me happy I like watching those and um, but they also send me suggestions which I don’t like so much where they say umpty million people have made reels with Taylor Swift’s song August and do you want to do that too and let me be clear. I love the song August I think it’s beautiful. It is August it’s the end of August I mean like all of her music. It’s got beautiful refrains and um, wonderful turns of phrase August sipped away like a bottle of wine. It’s great, right? and. But no first of all I I don’t really want to make a reel which I know I should but I don’t want to and if I were going to I probably would not use the song August and then I saw that one of my umpty friends. Ah a romance novelist did a reel. It came through my feed she yeah and I follow her and she did a reel of like and her upcoming romance novel using the chorus to August so people I know I’m a purist about these things I’m I may be whatever. And might be an extremist about these things I’m perfectly willing to to cop to that. But August is not a love song it not in the typical sense. Um August is told from the point of view.
04:30.93
jeffekennedy
And you know this if you listen to the fucking lyrics sorry I feel strongly, it’s told from the point of view of a woman who seduces a guy knowing full well that he has a girlfriend and ah the reason that she has the line on there saying because you were never mine is because. He wasn’t hers. He belonged to someone else and he was cheating on his girlfriend with her and I’m sorry people this isn’t the romantic song that you think that it is just putting it out there. Ah I had an argument with another friend of mine who I did turn on to Taylor Swift and has become um, a fan but she doesn’t like the song look what you made me do and I said well how can you not like this song and she said well you know that’s the kind of thing that abusers say and and this is somebody that I I love. Very much and I normally love that she has these strong feelings about you know abuse and fairness and so forth and she said but you know that’s what abusers say they say you know look what you made me do – you make me do this. You know it’s not me. It’s you and I’m like yeah but that’s not what the song’s about. And I said if you listen to the lyrics then you would and she’s like why I didn’t listen to all the lyrics like okay, but and I was talking with my assistant who has become a Taylor Swift
06:07.18
jeffekennedy
Fan because of me and now part of her assistanting duties have turned out to be following the Taylor Swift Reddit and then she feeds me informationally Gossip which I figure is absolutely part of what I pay her to do and I say that in all sincerity because she was. Telling me interesting information yesterday because we were talking about the album Reputation and as one does and I was saying that I felt like I needed to make one of those unpopular opinion Tiktok reels um, not only ranting about the misuse of August but.
06:45.41
jeffekennedy
Talking about how you know apparently Reputation is one of her least popular albums which I didn’t know until recently and maybe it’s not true, but I saw something saying that and I love Reputation I Think it’s Great. Um. But it is an angry album and look what you make me do is on there and but you know that album’s all about I tried to be a nice person and you all fucked with me and now you’ve awakened the dragon and I am not going to take it and. You know that’s probably in keeping with my personality but I’m on board with that sentiment all about being a nice generous giving loving person until somebody stabs you in the back and then it’s game on.
07:43.89
jeffekennedy
So something else I wanted to talk about of remaining notes from Bubonicon over the weekend. Ah I think this is a fairly short topic. So I’ll handle it first is that we were doing a panel on. World building and several of the panelists had been talking about the idea that in some stories with well-done world building that the world actually becomes like a character in the story and that there are even stories like John Varley were literally. It’s the world is an actual sentient character and but that also the world serves as a character in other ways and other stories and at the end during the q and a this one guy put up his hand and I was the moderator. So I called on him and he said well. He said if thinking about the world as a character since characters have to have agency wouldn’t the world have to have agency in order to be a character and I it it was um, it was an interesting question because. Several of the panelists immediately disagreed with his premise that a character has to have agency and then another disagreed that the world doesn’t have agency because she said I’ve been in the mountains that were actually trying to kill me literally trying to kill me.
09:16.66
jeffekennedy
Which someone else when I was I ended up having this conversation several times over the weekend asking different writers what they thought and someone who tends not to be a very fanciful person said um, Worlds absolutely have agency they have you know. Weather patterns and they have all sorts of things that they do, Um, you know and that’s like if you not even if you buy into like the gaia hypothesis right? which is that the gaia hypothesis is that our world The Earth um. Is in a way a sentient being that is always trying to bring itself back into balance that it has a place it wants to be and that if we push it too far environmentally that it will wipe out the humans So that. It can get back to where it needs to be. You know I heard much about Gaia hypothesis in a long time I feel like we need to bring that back was all of this. Um the climate climate dooming I Don’t think that necessarily comes in as much So Anyway. Ah. The idea of character agency and for those of you who I you know I’ll define. It. Ah, it’s basically the idea that it’s taught to writers a whole lot. Um Editors bring it up often.
10:45.13
jeffekennedy
In order to keep your characters from being flat or being props where they simply exist for other characters or the world to act upon them. It is not my favorite term I don’t really like talking about character agency in part because my very first book Rogue’s Pawn. Recently re-released. Um my when I was shopping it and even up through the developmental edits with the editor from the press that bought it ah kept giving me grief about how my heroine didn’t have enough agency and and it was frustrating to me because my heroine was a scientist who um, ends up trapped in ferry and she is able to do magic. In that everything she thinks manifests and she has to learn to control her magic but she’s very much a fish out of water and she’s amid the fay who um, do everything by bargaining. And she doesn’t know the rules of the game and she gets herself into several very bad bargains very quickly. Um, and so this whole thing where my editor kept saying oh well she doesn’t have enough agency. She needs to have more agency. You know, like which.
12:15.60
jeffekennedy
To many means affecting her own fate making choices of her own and that’s like it was really hard in that situation for someone to have agency and it got to be very annoying to talk about So anyway, discuss among yourselves. It’s It’s an interesting thought. Um. I Don’t think a character needs to have agency I think that’s one way about of talking about characterization. Oh The sun is breaking through Oh ah, hello thrasher.
12:50.77
jeffekennedy
Thrashers are still busily feeding babies.
12:57.41
jeffekennedy
So I moved a little bit so the sun wouldn’t be in my eyes. Um anyway, interesting thoughts and and I said that we could have had a whole panel on whether or not characters need to have agency I think it’s just one way of talking about characterization and and really not the best way to talk about characterization. Um, why that sun’s really coming through there I scooted more fully.
13:34.48
jeffekennedy
So um, yeah, it would be interesting to do a full panel on discussing whether or not characters need to have agency so the other thing that I wanted to talk about is I took a um I took I attended a class that. Connie Willis taught ah called the devil in the details and I really admire Connie Willis she’s a SFWA Grandmaster she’s been around for a long time celebrated author um, and also.
14:15.81
jeffekennedy
I lost track of what I was going to say um Connie Willis so Connie is really a wonderful person. So I find her utterly delightful. She’s incredibly supportive of younger writers. She’s been personally great to me. Um, love love lover and I love her stories to love her books so she gives this very interesting class and I had um, attended something of it before at the Williamson Lectureship but ah.
14:52.61
jeffekennedy
It was um, less detailed than less detailed than what she talked about at bubonicon which was just her for an hour and I always get something out of hearing her talk so she was talking about the importance of details in the story. Obviously. And giving lots of great examples of um people. But again. So so here we are looping back people paying attention to small things. Ah and she was talking about how readers who are not close readers tend to get very foiled by unreliable narrators. Because they believe everything the narrator tells them and she was using the example of Nabokov’s Lolita because she likes to ask people what happened to Lolita’s mother and she said she finds out that’s kind of a litmus test of who they are as a reader and as she said that I was thinking. Well. Obviously he murdered the mother so that he could get to Lolita and Connie was saying well a lot of people say oh but you know she she died in an accident and she said well how do you know that and they said well it says in the book. It’s like no the narrator tells you that the narrator who probably murdered the mother. So that he could molest this young girl ah told you that and she was talking about how there’s ah justice 1 bit near the end where he mentions how Lolita cries every night cries and cries and by this you know that.
16:28.70
jeffekennedy
Everything he’s done to represent Lolita as being this temptress who seduced him it’s it’s all a lie It’s all part of his elaborate lie. So this is like on a different scale perhaps but like people not listening to the lyrics of of August and not knowing that. This is not a romantic song. Well not in the way that they think it is I think so but I did take some exception and that because Connie is coming coming out this from a very particular viewpoint right. And she was holding up you know and she was talking about Shakespeare and Nabokov obviously and looking at things from that lens which I think is fine. But. She was using for as a bad example, um of metaphor that Nora Roberts used and she mentioned with a shudder that she just does not like Nora Roberts writing and. It thought well okay, you know which is fair. You know we’re all allowed to like or dislike and and the metaphor she picked out which was not one that I remembered I often very much enjoy ignore Roberts metaphors. Um, and this one was clumsy. But.
18:03.82
jeffekennedy
You know Nora Roberts is enormously successful. And yeah, it’s ah something that I contemplate often that you know if you listen to this podcast is like what what are we trying to do what are we trying to accomplish. And when I do author coaching that’s one of the things that I ask aspiring authors to think about when they want to you know? How do I plan my career I ask them to figure out. Well, what do you want from your writing career because. If you want to we we all want everything right? We all want to be the best selling author making lots of money. Um with a passionate fandom admired by our peers given awards and.
19:00.97
jeffekennedy
Remembered for all time. Ah, these are those are generally the things and we want to love our work and tell the stories that we love to write and and be happy every moment and have bon bons and kabana boys to wait on us I think that covers it. So. The thing is is not many authors get to have all of those things. Yeah like the authors who are well remembered for being brilliant. You know like Jane Austen’s one of my favorite examples of that Jane Austen was not wealthy in her lifetime. She wasn’t even all that recognized in her lifetime her recognition as being an author ah being a genius um came long after her death. So you know, maybe it’s still worth it. But I think um. For many of us being able to make a living at it being able to write what we want to write and being able to make money is is important too. You know? So um I would take Nora Roberts career in a heartbeat right? so. For thought and on that note I am headed to world con tomorrow I will be in Chicago if you’re going to be in the neighborhood say hello I probably will not be podcasting for the rest of the week but I will on Monday which is labor day in the United States but um.
20:34.94
jeffekennedy
I should be here. So hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week. Um, hope those details are ones that are important to you and you all take care Bye bye.
