Speaking to the Shadows

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

So, several people read my post yesterday and pinged me in various ways, asking if this meant I wouldn’t be posting to the blog.

Which is such a gratifying thing to hear.

Part of being a writer is this odd phenomenon of feeling like you’re speaking to an empty room. Maybe it’s like standing on the stage with the spotlight blazing into your eyes. You have this good notion that there’s a bunch of people out in the audience – sometimes you can hear them shuffling or murmuring to one another – but you have to keep going and trust that they’re listening.

A lot of writers like blogging because it can provide immediate feedback. People comment in the blog itself, tweet about it, say things on Facebook, email about it. But not always. Sometimes they read and wander off, taking your words with them, which is always the reader’s prerogative. I do this a lot. I read blogs and don’t comment. Sometimes I don’t know what I think until days later and then I have to try to remember which blog it was and how long ago.

But people do let you know, in various ways, that they’re out there, valuing your words. This was one.

Thank you.

On Not Writing

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I love the Mexican stars people have down here. A different kind of Christmas decoration.

As of today, I’m on vacation from the day job. I think it’s also vacation from the writing job. I’m feeling the need to wind down and do non-brainy work. I’m planning to do some baking. Today I should finish all my gift shopping. I’m feeling pleasantly lazy and mindless.

And it’s good.

For all my “write every day” mantra, I do find that there are times to let it go. To let all the swirling bits settle, like a blizzard lifting from the valley, leaving a blazingly clear day behind, sunlight glittering on pure snow.

I’m mainly thinking about concocting a recipe for brownies with peppermint frosting.

(See, Veronica? It’s not ALL about the cookies!)

Investing in the Writing Business

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog


The house is officially all decorated now. Lovely to see it all fixed up.

I remember one of my very first jobs, I was required to wear a uniform. Just white blouses and blue navy skirts or slacks. Not a huge deal, but these were clothes I didn’t have, so I had to go out and buy them. I needed money, which is why I got the job, which meant I didn’t have money to spend. Then I found out, because of where I was in the hiring/pay cycle, that I wouldn’t get paid for about six weeks.

I was young. I was naive. But I was frankly shocked.

Before that, I’d mainly done babysitting, and that sort of thing, where you do the work and bam! people hand you money. I’d had that idea firmly lodged in my noggin that money followed work.

Which it does. Eventually.

I’ve been thinking about work lately, because I’m suffering the effects of overwork. I’ve come to realize part of it is that I’ve been working a second job for a really long time now. And it’s really only recently that this second job has started to pay. It’s like I’ve been working this part-time job for 15 years and they’re just now working me into the payroll system.

Writing is the part time job you have for years before anyone pays you.

People who start new businesses hit this, too. “They” say not to plan on making money for the first several years. That’s why so many businesses fail in the first year, because many people don’t adequately plan for this.

Being a writer means investing in growing your craft over time and also starting up a small business: you.

What this means to me is that, moving forward, I want to remember that I’m running a business. I’ll be working various “jobs” with income that fluctuates wildly. It will take a lot of balancing and managing to wean myself from my lovely salaried job and move into the self-employed world. Good thing I love spreadsheets.

And hey – at least there’s no uniform to buy!

Changing the SFF World, One Boy at a TIme

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

And now, my gift-shopping is not done. It’s only partly begun. I’m thinking about it though, making my lists, and I have high hopes for the weekend.

So, I’ve been noodling what books to get for my nephew. He likes a lot of fantasy, so I’ve been introducing him to my old favorites for Christmas and birthdays. On the last go-round I gave him Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. My nephew really liked them (of course) and, amusingly, informed me in a serious tone that I have good taste in books.

Yeah, kid, listen to the master.

For this year, I was mulling how what he might like, and might not have read already. With Anne McCaffrey’s recent passing, I thought I should give him some of her classics. My next thought was, oh, those might be too girly.

Which brought me up short.

Over and over I see discussions of how women will read both male and female authors, but men tend not to read female authors. This preference is often blamed for further imbalances: male authors receiving more awards for their books, lists of “classics” and “bests” that heavily favor male authors. All of this despite the fact that female authors outnumber male authors by a rather significant amount.

(No, I didn’t go Google the statistics, but I’ve seen them repeatedly.)

Subjectively, I think this phenomenon is even worse in Science Fiction and Fantasy, which seems to be the last bastion of the boy books. You know what I mean. Lots of sword-swinging and female characters present mainly as cardboard cutouts, with no discernible personality. (Jim Hines writes about this very well. Here’s one example.) It just kills me when I see the SFF canon listed with maybe two female authors. No, I won’t post links to those, because they annoy me. In my annoyance, I think, “if these guys would just read the female authors, then this would change.

And here I am, not wanting to impinge on my nephew’s masculinity by giving him Anne McCaffrey.

Totally part of the problem here.

So, I’m going to give him books by female authors this Christmas and we’ll see what happens.

After all, I have really good taste in books.