First Cup of Coffee – March 21, 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 is actually not all that satisfying. It’s green tea this morning and I didn’t get the water hot enough. Alas today’s Monday March Twenty first was my stepdaughter’s birthday today. Happy birthday Lauren ha. So um, how was your weekend. Mine was good. Mine was good. Um, rejuvenating I did stay unplugged almost entirely yesterday I did plug. Turn on the laptop in order to set up a Zoom call with my husband’s siblings and so we did a cocktail hour with them. What was fun. Oh I take to. And went ahead and made some coffee and I boiled hot water and tried rejuvenating my grain tea so going to let that steep. Ah all right? So let’s dry that first cup of coffee. Ah, that’s so much better. All right? So Monday Monday Monday I’m going at it with renewed vim and vigor. Hopefully um I didn’t quite get. Two k per day every day last week I actually did about the same as I did the previous week which is interesting. Um the previous week I got eighty nine sixty and last week I got 87 64 so not quite as good. And that was the previous week was going for three k per day which I still didn’t do. But I think I’m going to do another week of trying to do two k per day and see what happens. Um Thursday i.

02:27.81
jeffekennedy
Hit tired and didn’t get much and then Friday I did better but I still got just 1500 I was I don’t even remember Fridays feels like a long time ago. Um I was not getting many per hour on Friday. Well no, what my problem was. 4 ah 2 6 15 and 5 ah two were my 3 word count averages. Oh although I that’s right? So for that third hour I actually went back and revised the prologue in chapter one because I sent those off. To the romantic fantasy shelf is organizing a benefit anthology for ukraine and they had asked me if I would contribute something but they wanted like a 5000 word short story and reader I do not do 5000 words short stories and I didn’t really have anything that I could give them um and they so they said well um Miranda Honfleur and Jessica fry have been organizing this. They said what we’re asking some of our authors to do and they were very flattering to me so that that always works where they said something about me being like a leader in the field and I don’t know what? All. Ah, but it was like oh you know? and besides I wanted to help but they said you could give us the first chapter of your work in progress and then it’s a sneak peek for the readers and I was like oh because you guys know I just don’t normally show stuff until I’m done. Especially since sometimes my first chapter changes. So but they’re putting the caveat in there and I think that this first chapter won’t change that much of course now I’m totally paranoid that it sucks and everybody will hate it. But. When I went back to revise and I spent an hour we’re revising the prologue in chapter one which together are pretty close to 5000 words. Let us just see what they are. That’s why I love excel. And knows that excel is telling me now that I can ask it to analyze my data without all those troublesome complicated formulas which I think is kind of funny. It’s like I know how to use formulas. Um 4500 words between the 2 so so yeah that’s what I did I didn’t want to send it.

05:13.20
jeffekennedy
As is and so I went and revised and I didn’t end up changing a whole lot. So for what it’s worth.

05:27.80
jeffekennedy
I could have put a little dollop of cream in this and it would have been better zip terrible if I pop off and fix my coffee yet again, it’s a Monday I’m gonna do that. Okay. And guys will be relieved to know that I’m finally happy now so much better that even if I do just a tiny little spoonful of cream. It just helps take the edge off. So um, yeah. Was kind of a different weekend I ended up running a lot of errands. Um, for those of you who watched the podcast on Friday you will know that our car is probably totaled David got rear ended. Um, we haven’t gotten the. Final word yet, but that’s what that’s what everybody is predicting so we shall see I suppose there’s possibility that it will be repairable. But I I think we’ll probably find out today. Um. So on Saturday David was feeling I mean he was sad. You know he goes out and drives for uber a lot on the weekends and he was so he was kind of feeling at loose ends and kind of. I mean it is a loss right? I mean I I know that like a car’s an inanimate object but he um went out Friday morning and got all his stuff out of the car and he said it looked kind of sad being there in the tow lot left. Left alone. He said you know we’ve had that car for 5 years and he’s spent a lot of time in it. So um, so Saturday I had a board meeting for a SFWA at 11 so we kind of hung out in the morning. Took it easy bread and stuff and then I did the board meeting and gave them notes for the one o’clock nebula conference planning meeting and instead I skipped out with David and we went and looked at cars we went out for lunch that was very nice and we. Went to carmacs the inevitable stop and we went to Toyota to look at their came rays and we went out to the Tesla dealership because we were thinking maybe of going electric or hybrid. Um, but.

08:09.92
jeffekennedy
The cost for the car is probably yeah like even a used tibrid car is probably going to be a lot more expensive than what we want to spend so we did a lot of number crunching. We do have a jeep. And he’s going to see about maybe being able to drive the gp if we don’t have the car payment. The camera was almost paid off. We would have had it paid off by like November of this year so that’s it that just figure. Um, the good news is we don’t know much on it. But. We um, you know if we’re not paying insurance and not the car payment then that frees up some money each month and he figured out that it cost him something like ¢13 a mile to drive. Camera and it’ll cost ¢19 a mile to drive the gep so it’s not terrible difference. So we’re going to see how how that works we’re going to see if he can drive that for uber he has to get it inspected and everything. But. Probably have to put a new battery in it. But we’re going to see how that works for a while and then maybe see if we could save up cash for a hybrid. So so that’s the plan. Um, we could finance it maybe. 1 of the things about and I don’t know if other people talk about this so you know David and I are both basically on freelance income at this point in time with him driving for uber he does get a small retirement stipend because he took early retirement and he gets and he has his social security. Which is also not a lot and I’m the major wage earner now. But one of the I know the downsides one of this odd parts about being a writer, especially if you’re self publishing is people don’t want to give you loans It’s hard to get financing for stuff and Grace Draven and I were talking about this. Not long ago because she’s looking at getting another traditional publishing contract for a standalone. She said she’s not going to do a series again. But she does have an idea that she gave our agent because we have the same agent and possibly go on submission with that and the major reason for her to go and I was surprised because Grace was like I don’t want to go tread ever again because she hates the externally imposed deadline. She doesn’t.

10:51.66
jeffekennedy
Feel like she makes as much money. In fact, she’s calculated. She doesn’t make as much money on tried. But if you’re getting paid by somebody else if you have a contract like that. It’s easier to get credit to get financing for stuff isn’t that funny. Whereas if you have freelance income where you’re just making money you know like from Amazon selling stuff you know selling your books on Amazon They don’t even care how much you’re making each month they don’t want to give you a loan. So I guess it makes you go to? um. More of a pay by cash which is good. Um, but yeah, funny thing so we shall see on the cars. Um, we we did have 3 which is arguably one too many for 2 people. Ah the ah thing is is is our other car is my. 96 jag convertible which doesn’t do great on snow and ice. So it’s a bit of a limitation there but the car’s in great shape. So somebody the other day called it. My vintage jag. Were saying Jeffe drives a vintage jag and I thought you know this is one of the things about you know and I and I feel like I you know I’m middleaged but you know it’s like getting up there in years. It’s like when I bought the car. It was not vintage. So it’s just um, funny how things in your life become vintage over time and I was trying to think about how old my stepdaughter is today and I think she’s forty I think she’s turning 40 rty today so and and when we were having the cocktail hour with David’s siblings last night it was um, you know we were just talking about the ages of the various grandchildren and so forth and Kathy his older sister. Her granddaughter. Is they’re taking her to blackcock Colorado to to the casinos for her birthday and I said yeah but is she old enough to to go to a casino and I was joking but you know they’re like yeah she’s 25, but so anyway, ah so it was. It was fun going out and looking at the cars and seeing what was available and we do have a couple of salespeople looking for something good for us apparently hybrid cars are moving pretty fast with the gas prices. So no surprise there and let’s see what else um.

13:43.95
jeffekennedy
Oh and then Saturday night I did the live stream the Youtube live stream for the group that is doing the campaign to combat violence against women be a w and they have I will include the link in the show notes because. They have um, part of their fundraiser I’m giving away several things so you can get a tuckerization from me and I forgot to talk about this before the live stream because I suck but you get a tuckerization is something that you can purchase and that means that you get to have your name. In 1 of my future books as a secondary character. Although um, what’s funny is Karyn Hardie in The Arrows of the Heart. That’s her book. She started out as she was a tuckerization that guide. Bought for his wife from another fundraiser and so that was that was her name and so that’s where when I she was originally a very minor character I thought she was probably only going to be mentioned and then I thought she was only going to have a cameo and then she ended up having her own book. So you never know you also I’m also offering a um, a 30 minute Zoom chat coaching or just to shoot the breeze and also a critique of first five thousand words of a chapter or some such. So I will put that link in the show notes but really great group. They’re pretty awesome and well worth bidding on those things. So so yet we ended up staying up late Saturday night which is just kind of funny for me. Um. That’s like a big deal. But after the live stream I hadn’t wanted to eat before it because we’d been out like running around. We’d had lunch outright and I wasn’t hungry before I’d just be there for the live cast by like six thirty so David made this dinner afterwards. So we ate late which is also very unusual for us and we watched the truman show and I was enjoying watching that I hadn’t watched it for a long time so we ended up staying up and watching the whole thing. So I stayed up to like 11 I know right. And then slept in Sunday morning. So that was lovely and then as I mentioned I stayed offline all day yesterday. So that was restful I got a lot of things done I went and bought my sweet pea seeds which I am going to plant today the tradition in my family.

16:34.27
jeffekennedy
At least it comes from my grandmother I don’t know if my grandmother got it from anyone is that you soak the sweet pea seeds in buttermilk overnight and you’re supposed to plant them on St Patrick’s day I didn’t do obviously I missed planting on St Patrick’s day but I figure as long as I observe that. Particular timing the magic still works. It’s funny because um, some of you who have been watching the podcast for a long time may recall two springs ago in March of 2020 when I could not get sweet piece sees I looked. Everywhere for them and I was planting them late because we’d been in lockdown of course and and and oddly enough my little local neighborhood hardware store which has a whole lot of stuff that we need. Um. They had tons and tons of seeds and they had 1 pack of sweet pea seats only 1 kind and I even asked the guy who owns the store and he’s like I think there’s there’s you know it’s like they buy the collection but the collection did not contain sweety sees so I went out to the nursery. My favorite nursery here in Santa Fe Newman’s and they had tons so there is not a sweet piece shortage I want you all to be aware that we we’re okay so I’ll get those planted today on one of my writing breaks and. I got some of my pictures framed and’s see the the little witch that krene gave me and you probably there’s too much glare on the one above from the window. But that’s ah, a new piece I got a a unicorn had to pause to sneeze. There are tree pollin is now high officially high. So. So it begins and I also framed the piece that you gave me for a Christmas mom so that’s hanging up so you know like lots of little things I got a lot of that kind of stuff done. This was my to do list from yesterday because I wrote it on paper. So I wouldn’t have to go turn on my laptop to look so I got quite a few things done. You’ll notice quite a few are crossed off not everything. But so anyway, um, yeah I guess I don’t have a whole lot to say today. But the. 1 thing that about doing the Youtube live cast is one of the girls said that she really liked listening to the ah the first cup of coffee and she was like it’s just like having a little chat over coffee and I said that’s exactly what I’m going for so I hope that it was.

19:21.18
jeffekennedy
Ah, good little trap for you guys too and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care Bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 18, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.67
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:16.73
jeffekennedy
Sometimes you just have to take a moment to savor the coffee. Um today is say it with me Friday woo March eighteenth kind of a darkish morning here in Santa Fe we from. Been getting a lot of sort of rain snow very springtime in the rockies around here. Great moisture. Did I tell you guys I don’t think I did I’m supposed to let go of this and I haven’t let go of it yet. We had a substitute postal carrier and he ran over my rain gauge I have. Had bought a rain gauge and put it out. We have sort of we have like a circular driveway with this cactus garden in the middle and I had it like two feet inside of the rock border of the cactus garden and this guy who was obnoxious anyway and I I woke. I won’t bitch about all the ways in which he was invasive I only saw the 2 days like our regular guy who’s fantastic and we tip in generously every year because he’s fantastic must have been on vacation or something how dare he and so there’s a substitute guy and he’d like. Clipped so far over into the cactus garden that he ran over my ringage and shattered it and I know I’m supposed to be letting go of it. It was not an expensive rainage. But I have no idea how much moisture we’ve gotten in the last few days because ran over my rain. Gauge I am bitter I haven’t complained about I considered it but he hasn’t been back so anyway. Ah yeah, so ongoing rains. No sleep. Little bit of accumulation. Not a lot. Not super cold either. It’s like hovering right around freezing. But yeah, very um, winterry kind of wintry press lots precipitations March which is good. We want it? Ah so. Yesterday yesterday was a day. Ah I did not get my 2000 words I got a little over a thousand. Um I I hit tired I I did my first couple of hours and I was gonna do my third and I still had like 900 words to go and i. Really hit tired I I wonder if it was partly from having the stuff done the day before like my body was still recovering from anesthesia or you know just like being poked at and all of that. But yeah I felt tired and so I um finished out some stuff.

03:03.13
jeffekennedy
You know, handled some SFWA things that I needed to approve and so forth and then I knocked off early and started watching snuggled into my chair and started watching Severance you guys been watching Severance? It’s on Apple Tv um I saw one gel I follow Regina Small who used to be with RT and was like when the first people to love my books so she obviously has fantastic taste and she had posted a funny set of pictures because they she’s got a little boy who’s like for and. She and her husband had a date night and so she had photos of her and her husband in New York with their wine and she said um, yes, your mom and dad had date night so that they could drink went out to pick oh that we was um. Splurched spl fliurched on a babysitter so that they could go out drink wine and talk about severance and I thought huh what is severance so I start watching it and there’s um, 6 episodes out so far. The sixth 1 comes out today and some it’s kind of a freaky show. And like especially after that episode 5 I’m like now I want to go out and drink wine and talk about severance with somebody facto I should tell Megan that so that she will um, put that on her schedule. Ah, yeah, it’s it’s one of those shows where I’m I’m so intrigued and it keeps getting twistier and twistier and I hope they won’t like make it so Twisty and weird that it ends up making no sense anyway. So I was watching my show and then. I had watched an episode and it’s pretty intense. So I bounced off and my mom had told me to watch a 60 minutes thing about Ted Lasso because I’d got my mom to watch Ted Lasso so I went and found that on Youtube and I was watching that mom and it had a fire going on the fireplace and I thought. You know, as soon as that was done. It was like a 15 minute segment I was going to get up and feed the cats and pour some wine and put some lazonia in the oven because David had decided to go out and get a few rides he drives through uber and so he said he’d go out and get a few rides before. You know evening the afternoon flights coming in and so forth. So about four thirty David text man he got rear ended so I will put picture on the show notes everybody was fine. Our car may be totaled. It’s.

05:48.90
jeffekennedy
It’s hard to say the the rear end is really missed up. Um, kicked off the muffler and the whole exhaust train pipe underneath I’m not a car person and ripped off the back bumper and kind of jacked up the trunk I mean it’s a. It’s a Toyota camera that’s got over two hundred thousand miles on it. 225000 so I mean it’s had a good life. It’s served as well. We’ll find out if it can be repaired so I drove into town to get David he had passengers at the time 2 really nice guys. Polish guys. From Denver originally from Poland I guess Polish accents but have been in Denver for like 20 years and they were just down here touring and they just wanted to get to the Plaza. They just wanted to see the Santa Fe Plaza and the cops had kept them there for a long time keeping everyone’s id so. Um, what had happened was I I won’t go too into the weeds for you guys because you don’t know Santa Fe streets and stuff. But this gal was in It’s a fairly busy street. It was on serreos for those of you who do know but serreos on the plaza side of St Francis so they had crossed st francis it was after the railroad runner train had gone by so over they surging forward. Leaping forward to get out and you know be ah free at last and this gal in front of David was in the left hand lane and he was right behind her in the left hand lane and. This other person came zooming up on the right cut left in front of her and across traffic to turn into this street where la shows is if you know Santa Fe I said I wouldn’t get into the weights and I did sorry and and so she hit the brakes and David. Stopped and had his foot on the brake and he was making sure that he didn’t hit hurt which he didn’t and the gal behind him slammed into him so but fortunately the gal in front of David got the plate of the person who pulled that shit because they. Toward left in there. But then there was traffic and they weren’t able to Zoom off. So apparently the cops had told David that they had already located that person so we’re David’s fine he seems to be doing well he’s had a couple hot bas. But so far now. Ill effects and I think they um you know didn’t hit terribly hard despite the the damage he says he got a little bit of Whiplash. So we’ll see how he did so it was a good thing I hadn’t started.

08:34.94
jeffekennedy
Drinking my wine I had to figure out how to put out the fire I’d won those fire logs and I to put it out because I thought all we needed was for me to come back and have the house be on fire. It was fine so went got him and then gave his passengers a ride dropped them off to the pla I’m like do you want me to. Drop you off at our favorite bar. That’s like a block from the plaza so you guys can get a drink and and they’re like no we want to get to the Plaza. So I was like all right, take it right to the plaza and drop them off so at least they achieved their destination but only at like an hour’s delay more than an hour. Probably. Ah, the 2 cars had to get towed off. Yeah so that was our excitement. We’ll see what happens with getting another car if this one’s totaled. We didn’t owe much on it. So maybe we’ll be able to get something else. Although David was saying I really don’t want to try to shop for a car in this market and that’s like you know it? So so hard to get cars right now. But maybe we can get a good use. 1 David’s really been wanting to get an electric car. Which would be great for you know, doing stuff around Santa Fe so maybe we’ll look into that that’ll be nice. So um, that’s what we’re doing and I’m going to the nice thing about. My new schedule is that I only need 2800 words 28 61 to hit 10 k for the week so I am going to try for that today because it’s less than 3000 math and. We’ll see if I can get that and that way I’ll be back on track and if not oh well that’s just worth worth shooting for right um. Yeah I’m closing in on the act 1 climax so I may be slowing down slightly on that because I I do need to get the stake set up and I’m still not entirely sure how this is gonna go I even asked doranda about this the other day because this is um, The Storm Princess and the Raven King last book in Heirs of Magic. Um, this is Salena and Rhyian’s story and I set this up in the prequel. Novella The Long Night of the Crystalline Moon and I knew from then kind of what.

11:15.77
jeffekennedy
At least what trope I wanted to use for this fourth book and and and those of I don’t some of you have been reading. Others have not but they have ah a huge problem. With their love affair and I think I could tell you because this is not spoilery because it comes out at the very very beginning of the prequel novella and book one so that Salena and Rhyian were lovers when they were teenagers first. Love beautiful and all of this and Rhyian screwed it up by cheating on her. And I know and in an unforgivable way. I mean is there a forgivable way to cheat. But um, you know basically he panicked she told him she was in love with him and he panicked and he screwed it up kind of on purpose because Rhyian is a messed up boy. So. Now. They’ve sort of been trusting each other’s company on this whole quest and fighting with each other for those of you keeping up with it and so now comes great resolution and so I’ve known kind of how I want them to come back together. But. Now I’m not sure how it’s going to dovetail with the external arc of the quest of what they need to do to resolve the quest and so I’m I’m overthinking I’m thinking too much. We’ll see how it goes but I’ve got like 18000 words on it so far eighteenth eighteen four 60 so and I’m shooting for around 95 so it’s not terrible. Um, we shall see him. So um I did make a note that I wanted to talk about cliff hangers which. This is a term that’s getting thrown about in reader stuff yesterday and some of this comes from responses to what I talked about yesterday with the readers really going after Jennifer L Armentrout which I am am reliably told Meghan Ciana Doidge commented on the Instagram post. That she thinks readers are reading it wrong and you know what do you do this happens I remember when I was teaching at community college teaching writing and I was using best american short stories and we were. Talking about some of the stories and one of the gals in the class said this story sucks. There’s there’s no nothing redeemable in this story and I said well the story doesn’t suck.

13:58.27
jeffekennedy
Story isn’t a bad story because obviously enough people thought that it was a really good story for it to get best americans short stories. So there are things that you don’t like about it. But it’s not objectively bad and she said no it is bad. She said my opinion matters. And I and I find that very interesting because I do think we’ve moved that way as a culture where everybody’s opinion has equal weight and it’s like well yeah I mean you get to say whether or not you like a thing you know and as a reader. Yeah, absolutely read the thing that you like and if you don’t like a book. Yeah, you don’t like it. But you don’t necessarily get to say this is what the book does ah because that is your subjective opinion and what happened with Jennifer is that apparently she tried to explain. That readers had misinterpreted some things about the book which Megan says yeah they misinterpreted but it’s it’s a balance right? because as I mentioned yesterday readers take in a book and make it their own. We all read things to our subjective lens. And I’ve talked about numerous times on here about going back and rereading books. Ah you know thirty years later and reading it in a totally different way because I bring a totally different set of experiences to the story than I did when I read it when I was younger. So this is something that really happens. Um, do readers read things wrong probably I mean there are times when people bring their own experiences to something and so they say well this is bad and it’s like well it’s not bad. And and and we can go to the other end of the spectrum on this because you guys have heard me rant before you know like um, Stephen King said that Stephenie Meyer was a bad writer you know and and people talk about like twilight being badly written and it’s like no no, no. People don’t read 5-800 pages of a book that is badly written. It may not fit a particular aesthetic that you have but that doesn’t mean it’s bad so cliff hangers. 1 thing that and I get this all the time too. People will say that a story ends that my stories end in cliffhangers and the thing is is if you are writing a series you are going to have open ended threads at the end of the book and.

16:47.44
jeffekennedy
Different readers have varying tolerances for how open endeded that ending is so let’s talk about what a cliffhanger actually is a cliffhanger is a deliberate device that was developed in serials I think from like melodramas. Where it was literally. The story would end with a person hanging off of a cliff. Okay, you know like we have the whole joke about um, you don’t like those old melodramas where the heroin is tied up on the railroad tracks and here comes the train lone game jones there is a song. Um, and they would end with the character in grave peril hanging off of a cliff a cliff hangar that is what a cliffhanger means it’s it’s a non ending well readers really throw this around now. That they call anything that doesn’t have every any story that doesn’t sufficiently tie up everything that they want to know by the end of the story. They tend to call a cliff hair and as my assistant Karine will say you know she says I don’t think they know what this word means and it’s like yeah. It’s it’s being misapplied and the thing is is that there are a lot of authors out there doing the serial cliffhanger style approach. It’s being used a whole lot in. Kindle unlimited ecosystem right? I even listened to a class taught by 1 gal who said that she’d built her career off of cliffhans and she said make them the cliffiest of cliffhangers make those cliffhangers sharp. She said those readers will. Write to you and they will bitch at you and then they will read the next book and so she was leveraging that it. It’s a method. It’s a way of doing things hydrop pause to sneeze there. So and I read. 1 of her books and it did end with the hero and heroine in grave peril you know it was like they were surrounded and it looked like they’re going to get killed I can’t remember the specifics but it was something like that and it ended and it’s like that. Is a cliffhanger if you have someone writing a series and you know it’s a series in particular if if a book doesn’t claim to be standalone then you’re going to have dangling threads at the end you are going to have some things that are open-ended.

19:38.23
jeffekennedy
Even a book that finishes a series or is a standalone may not answer every single question because sometimes there are things that can’t be answered. So. Maybe we’d need a different term I like open-ended. You know we could call it something else, but it’s not a cliffhaner and you know I actually don’t pay much attention to when readers complain that my book ends on a cliff hanger. Maybe I do pay some attention because I it irritates me because I actually don’t do cliffhangers I don’t do the literal definition of a cliffhanger I may have unresolved threads but not cliff hangers. So um. Just thoughts on that you know if you guys don’t if if you guys you know if readers don’t like open-ended endings then then maybe don’t read series. That’s one way to do it. And I know that there are some readers who deliberately look just for standalones. There aren’t a lot of those anymore. That’s true. Although um, dorda and I have been talking about wanting to have cliff hangers or not cliffhanars sorry wanting to have standalones. Just because we do get kind of tired of the cliffhaner accusation and also writing the last book in a series as heart. So it would be nice to skip that. So anyway, I’m going to go write mine. I hope you all have wonderful Friday I hope you have a great weekend and I hope it’s uneventful. Let’s go for uneventful, right? You all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 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.

00:13.81
jeffekennedy
Delicious. Today is Thursday March Seventeenth St Patrick’s day so I’m a wearing the green. Yes I am irish – irish and scot come back from a. Long line of irish and scottish immigrants I know the scottish isn’t relevant for ah St Patrick’s day but some of the things I am wearing like the earrings my green celtic knot earrings I actually got in Scotland but. I am drinking coffee today out of my green Jameson mug which I did buy at the jamison brewery distillery gift shop in Ireland. Was kind of funny because David and I went to the Jameson distillery which is now located outside of Dublin and I forget the name of the town that it’s in but we he had been fishing that morning and we’d gone to this really cool remote beach where he’d been fishing and it was a. Very gray and rainy day which it seemed like it always was in Ireland at least the whole time we were there and we went to the distillery on our what you know we thought oh well we might as well go do a distillery tour since it’s all gray and rainy and of course the cruise ship. Tour buses had chased us even there but we were there at a pretty good time but the tour was like $30 a person I mean to tour the distillery and we were like well fuck that shit. Didn’t want to say it that badly. So instead. We went to the gift shop and and we spent way too much money in the gift shop but we had cool things I know some people talk about ah you know like it’s for I don’t know if it’s still a thing I haven’t been invited to a wedding in a while. But there was a time where like the young people getting married had these things where they wanted experience stuff. So sorry I got a phone call the clinic from yesterday following up to see how I am I am fine. Um. So what was I saying about shopping at the gift shop jamison distillery game them I lost my train of thought. But anyway we bought things there. Oh the experience thing that it’s um, you know that there was.

02:52.60
jeffekennedy
Like there was this one couple who got married and they like went to his particular website where instead of buying them plates or you know, whatever on their wedding registry. You could buy them parasaling or something like that and they were all you know we want experiences more than we want things which. You know, fair enough? Whatever but I thought this was funny that we kind of traded things for the experience. It was like now we did not need the experience of touring the jamison distillery but we did buy whiskey and my coffee mug and. Got gifts for people and I got an amazing jamison umbrella which I almost never get to use here because I live in the desert and it doesn’t rain all the time it is snowing a little bit this morning bright light snow. So anyway, happy St Patrick’s day to you all. Always find it a good um celebration of irishness. It’s not much of a party thing for me but enjoy the the nod the nod to the ancestors. So. Um, my week is going well the revised schedule of going for 2000 words a day you guys it feels downright luxurious. It’s just it’s amazing. How luxurious it feels and i’m. I mean I’m sure I’ll get used to it but I almost feel a little bit at loose ends because I’m not exhausted when I’m done so now I may be able to just start getting to some of this business stuff. But I think I’m so used to not getting to some of the business stuff that it’s it’s kind of unusual. No writer coffee today because all of my people are busy doing other things which people are out of town and taking classes and I don’t know what all they’re doing. But. So I’m trying to think if I have much to say today. Um, yesterday was kind of a funny day because you know I I think I mentioned on Tuesday that I’d go get the colonoscopy Darynda and I were laughing about it because I told her. My joke that you know I was saying you know a girl never forgets her first colonoscopy and Darynda was laughing and laughing and I was saying you know at least she gets me because other people are just like well I I guess you wouldn’t but and durantda thought it was so funny and she told her sister when she got there and k neverters.

05:39.27
jeffekennedy
You know she told Netters the joke and net is is like well yeah I guess you wouldn’t forget, you’re you know, getting a colonoscopy and it’s like during it’s like no you joke get the joke so you know at least we get each other um finished book 5 of the 7 waters series and started book 6 I guess I start today say that yesterday was kind of a funny day because I did log out by about one thirty and went on my way to to get my first colonoscopy and then afterwards just you know, got home around four thirty or 5 and kind of. David got takeout from harry’s roadhouse for us and I just kind of veged and I generally feel pretty good that that was actually the phone call I got oh I said that that the clinic was calling to follow up. So I guess that was nice. They said drive questions. It’s like what questions could there be. And everything’s fine. But so I do feel kind of bad segueing into the medical stuff. But then somebody out there commented saying that it was timely on hearing about the trials and tribulations of the medical stuff too. So I figure. All fair here at first cup of coffee. We talk about writing we talk about getting our colonoscopies. It’s that everything’s out on the table here. Yeah oh and I just remembered something else I need to do hold on. So yeah I’m getting closer to committing to. Setting a preorder date for storm princess and the Raven King since I’m feeling so much better I would set it for doing this at the two k per day schedule at my current rate. If I can sustain this which so far it’s feeling pretty sustainable. Um I could yeah have it out by the end of may which is a bet since it’s mid -march now it that I would make it a nice luxurious end of may date like may thirty first possibly except that’s the day that st martin’s releases all their paperbacks. There was considerable debate yesterday among a couple different groups of Jennifer L Armentrout

08:20.78
jeffekennedy
Massively successful author of fantasy romance started out in paranormal romance and then like many have sort of segued more into the fantasy romance. Um, and I’ve I’ve met Jennifer and she’s ah she’s a delightful person that. For those of you who haven’t been around for a dinosaurs age which I’m starting to feel like um Stephanie Prater high Stephanie a very sweet person I believe her nickname is the care bear reminded me that it was my author birthday yesterday. So these girls celebrate. The anniversary of their first publication and I couldn’t even remember what I had officially said was I was trying to figure out what my author book day would be and so I went with the publication of my first book which was wyoming trucks. True love and the weather channel. Which turned out to have an official publication date of March Sixteenth ah two thousand and four which is a funny thing because I actually had copies of the book I remember this that I had copies of the book in like November and I did. Book signings. You know what I should put a photo I’m not put a photo on the podcast of me you could see baby Jeffe um I’d look so young to myself now signing that book at my book launch event in Laramie Wyoming at my favorite local indie bookstore where. My best friend was the manager and all of our friends came because it was a small town and it was winter and there was nothing else to do. My mother came up for it. She gave me a beautiful necklace as a celebratory celebratory gift and then we had a party at a bar afterwards. We didn’t. Like have the bar totally closed off but it was mostly us I don’t remember it was a week night and winter and we we catered in food and it was such a fun party. It was you know like all my writer friends and other friends from around town and it was a great time. But anyway I know that that was well before March maybe it was January I wonder if this photo says let me look well interesting. It looks like that signing was on March first two thousand and four so we did a little ahead of the release date but not as much as I thought but. Ah, tell you what you guys Laramie Wyoming March first might as well have been I mean that’s dead of winter still one of the reasons why I don’t miss living there. You’ll see in that photo though that I’m wearing a ah long gray cashmere dress.

11:07.71
jeffekennedy
Which was one that my mom gave me there used to be a store. Do you remember that mom. There was like a store that was like all cashmere stuff I don’t remember what it was called and it it was very expensive I loved that dress. Loved that dress. Um, it was way too hot. To wear in Santa Fe I remember wearing it all the time me and moved here. It was like it was way too hot and the thing about living here is we have mots and if you have something that is 100 % wool or something like that with no acrylic in it at all even a little bit acrylic will save it. But the mas will get to the wo and I’ve got like cedar things everywhere and they still get to it and they put holes in it. It broke my heart I have a couple other things that the moths got to and yeah, once once you get those gaping holes and stuff I don’t think there’s much you can do about it. So now. Let’s see what date. That was I mean day of the week I know I don’t have to tell you guys I’m pausing but I don’t know have it. Okay, it wasn’t monday did I say that already I think the photo properties even said that it was a Monday I just I didn’t register that properly. Yeah. Monday March First two thousand and four so um author birthday on that March Sixteenth being the official book release eighteen years and so yeah, they were joking about. Whether or not my writing career could drink it and they’re they’re really wonderful and it’s you know I get I get asked a lot how I celebrate things and it turns out I don’t celebrate things enough so it’s cool to celebrate that. Although I was noting that my very first publication was in 97 and I meant to look for the exact date of that so hold on. Oh it didn’t pass. Did you see that. But.

13:16.59
jeffekennedy
Make sure it unpaused since it was being I don’t know I think if I pause too many times it gets sticky. Um, so first publication wyoming magazine and it says winter 1998 but this is the weird thing about magazines is. Because I know it came out in 9097 because I have that written down what’s interesting and I did not remember this is that it the byline is Jennifer Kennedy which is my actual name I mean Jeffe everybody calls me Jeffe but there it is. Wyoming Trucks, True love, and the Weather Channel which I then it titled the essay collection after this. So this was the very first publication. So in that case it means it would probably be sometime late this fall probably November or December I don’t have an exact date for this one. Will be 25 years 25 years and then this was my first like more this North Carolina literary review this was in 1998 but I don’t have an exact date on it and this was um. And know as I share pages with Lee Smith that was pretty cool. Ah. Yeah, but this was I was looking for the exact story was um, inheritances and I don’t know what they put it under oral history in North Carolina because this was about oh there it is inheritances poetry and prose and this is Jeffe Kennedy I think that Jennifer Kennedy was a mistake I think maybe I sent stuff out under that name says it was my legal name and I think I learned my lesson. Just not even to offer them Jennifer because they would like go to that. Oh I even had it marked huh with my mom’s this is this is a blast from the past I won’t show it because identity theft type stuff but this is a card mom. Um, will take a photo of this and send it to you that says for Kathy and Leo Kennedy and their address and home phone number and ah an email address for both of them. My mom still has this email address and a.

15:47.20
jeffekennedy
Number that tells you something. Okay and so then there’s Inheritances and it seemed like I was going to show you guys 1 other thing. Oh I’ll I’ll show you one other thing since we’re doing show and tell. Okay, so this is the big milestone one two thousand when I had an essay in Redbook. Me and Faith Hill and so this was my story that was in there Ambushed by Love not my title they didn’t even clear that title with me but they paid me a dollar a word. $3000 for one essay I have books that have not made that much money. Those were the days. So. So yeah I have all of these magazines I have like a copy of like all of the stuff that I had my short work in. So. Author birthday dayss I guess that’s how I got off on that. It’s it’s not clear to me how to measure that and I guess that was why I picked the publication of the book because you know magazines you wouldn’t have an exact date that those came out but yeah 25 years since um. Got those first publications and decided that but it was longer ago than that that I decided that I didn’t want to be a scientist and wanted to be a writer so you know it’s interesting because the the girls were all being lovely and congratulating me and. Saying you know mad respect for a long career which I’ve come to appreciate is is an important thing because there are so many people now that I look back friends who were writers over these last twenty five years that fell away that did not stick with writing. It’s not easy to stick with. So so there’s that I didn’t finish talking about Jennifer L. Armentrout that was how I got started on this because I knew her forever ago and there was this whole thing for a while there because there was another Jennifer Armintrout who was published at the same time I think she was m I n. Um, ah Armintrout and she changed her name to Jenny Trout and she even had like this big essay that she put up about how like Jennifer L Armentrout stole her career because they were published at the same time and had the same name and and then she became Jenny Trout and I think Jenny Trout is out there still but I would remember when they were still Jennifer Armintrout I would remember them because Jennifer L Armentrout was love because she’s delightful person and every time I met her. She was wonderful to be around and.

18:37.46
jeffekennedy
So she came out with a book on Tuesday and her wildly wildly successful series that I forget it’s like I tell you what you guys I can’t keep these titles straight you know ashen something courts and blood and whatever. And I started to read the first book I didn’t really get into it. But you know I wish Jennifer? Well she is. She’s you know deserves every bit of success. But apparently there was a big pile on that people were readers were disappointed in some aspect and Jennifer. Holds them and this is all like third hand at this point I think because I heard it from other people who I think heard it from other people. Some might have heard it seen it happening but like in her fan groups and stuff people were complaining about. I don’t know like emotional infidelity between the characters and that they were upset by that which romance readers will get very upset about and she apparently said that they were reading it wrong which you just don’t get to say that as an author you can think it. And you can vent to your friends and you can be like how stupid are these people but because sometimes it is frustrating because readers will be like well obviously it was this this and this and it’s like no actually you read that wrong, but you don’t get to say it. Ah and. Is there such a thing as wrong. Arguably no I mean once you release that creation into the world. Ah you know readers take it in and transform it and make it and knock over their coffee cups I did not it was close. So. Still some coffee in there. Um, you know you kind of have to let go of it. But anyway, um, you know there’s a thing that happens when authors become very very successful where people somehow stop regarding them as being human beings and. Reader um, um, I’m not getting burlint I don’t know why it’s and but nobody stops being a human being nobody reaches a point of success where they no longer feel. The. The slings and arrows right? Um yes, you can be disappointed in a work totally prerogative as a reader certainly has happened to me like I said I didn’t get into this series I can think that Jennifer is a lovely person and not love this particular series.

21:20.72
jeffekennedy
But you know try to keep that in mind you guys that especially if you’re tagging authors on stuff or doing very high profile things. It can be this big pile on and everybody loves the attention clicks and all of that but remember that this is a human being. And think about whether you would actually sit there and say these things to her face and that she might cry because because we feel it you know that’s that’s part of being a creative. So on that note I’m gonna go be creative. Do my thing. Hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.

Shoutout to Ravven, My Brilliant Cover Artist!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven we’re giving a shoutout to our favorite book-adjacent creative! (Be it cover artist, free-lance editor, web designer, etc.) I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout to the heavens about the talents of Ravven, my cover artist.

I swear, sometimes I think I wouldn’t have an indie career without her! 

Ravven is just a hugely talented cover artist with the phenomenal ability to simultaneously nail genre, find exactly the image that’s in my mind, and create a brilliant work of art.

These are the two most recent covers she’s done for me, and they’re just fabulous. All the love to Ravven!

First Cup of Coffee – March 15, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.14
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Oh that’s so good. Today is Tuesday March fifteenth if you’re on video you will see that I actually have a latte if you’re on audio only you probably heard how much happy I have that made no sense. How happy I am to have my latte I am um, doing things slightly out of bounce today because I am in my health marathon finally getting all of these things handled like a responsible adult. Ah, usually don’t go in for the adulting thing but this feels very much adulting. So um I get to have a colonoscopy tomorrow afternoon a girl never forgets her first colonoscopy. um yeah it’s um I don’t know if it’s even a funny story but I feel like it’s a funny story I may tell you guys this story? Um, but it’s not writing related but the the short the tl tl deal. Tiol didn’t listen. Is that I um have to do the fasting for the colonoscopy these rituals of getting older. It’s just one of those you know you’re supposed to do it when you hit a certain age and. So I can’t eat anything solid after 10 a m today and my appointment’s not till three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. So I figured id better go ahead and have my breakfast if I were doing my sixteen eight fasting thing I wouldn’t get to eat till like noon. So I figured well. Last solid food for more than 24 hours I’ll take advantage so I figured that means I get to have my latte small reward make you sure I didn’t smear my lip pencil. There. So.

02:30.88
jeffekennedy
So I’ll I’ll tell you this this story because I think it’s funny so I’m seeing this new general practitioner he had ordered you know all these things I had to do mammogram bone density colonoscopy you know, joy joy and. Yeah they’d said the physician’s assistant when she gave me in New Mexico we get doctor’s orders you have to have like an order from a gp to go see a specialist. Maybe they do that everywhere did we did not have to do it in Wyoming so it was a real adjustment when we came here that was like you have to have a doctor’s order to do anything. So when she handed me the order she had said um I guess they’re not very good about getting back to people so just keep calling I was like oh okay so I call get their voicemail and I’m you know ready to leave a message and. Their voicemail is incredibly long. You know and they say leave a message with your you know referring physician and your name and your date of birth and the reason for the procedure. It’s like gestural enterology associates and. And they said do not leave more than 1 voicemail only leave one voicemail and we will call you back in within five business days I was like wow five business days okay so I leave the message with all of the information as instructed. And Mark it on my calendar for like five business days later and I even went business days took out the weekend and any relevant holidays to tag back reader. They did not call me back. So I even gave them a couple extra days I think because I didn’t feel like. Calling you know how that is right? and it’s like oh I do and can’t make phone calls today. So then I called them back and I get the same message. So I say I left a previous message. No I’m not supposed to but nobody called me back in the five business days and I noticed they also had something on there when they said or you can stop by our offices at reader. They did not call me back so I was like okay yesterday afternoon I had to go in for my fiscal and I thought since I’m going to be in that kind of general neighborhood. It’s not a big town I live outside of town but it’s still only like fifteen twenty minutes but you know I treat it like I’m going on an arctic expedition once a year coil are out there this morning. So.

05:21.31
jeffekennedy
I Go to the doctor and actually everything’s great. My blood work is great. Everything is wonderful. Much much Physician Love which surprised me because I thought I was I don’t know.

05:40.78
jeffekennedy
That’s actually another story off to decide if I’m going to tell you guys that so he says you know any trouble with any of the other tests and I said well I said to gastroenterology people. I left them a couple of voicemails and they’ve never gotten back to me and and he’s kind of a serious gentle guy and I could see behind him the I don’t know what to aid I’m not sure I don’t know if she was a p a or what but she said she was very sweet but she was in there because I had to have a. You know pelvic of the examined papin stuff so she was she was like I’ll be your chaperone today. But so I could see her behind him when she kind of closes her eyes and shakes her head a little bit and I I just know that this is a thing right? They’re just never calling anybody back ever and he’s like oh. Yeah, he says you know they’ve had trouble since the pandemic and I’m thinking this is not pandemic. This is like something else and he says but you can’t stop by in person and I thought and I said actually that’s what I’ve planning to do today I had my order in the car and I’m just going to stop by there. So. So I do I stop by there and step in the door and there’s a sort of a receptionist and there’s 1 guy gal talking the receptionist and she says um, hi ma’am do you have an appointment and I said ah. No, and she said are you here to schedule an appointment and I said yes and she said okay, sit here behind the divider and you know so like our mask mandate is lifted this place acts like we are you know, major height of pandemic thing. They sta the dividers up they have the. Caution tape across the every other chair. It’s not that I’m against it. But it’s sort of like everybody every other place has opened up a lot more. You know like the the doctor’s office I was just in doesn’t have the social distancing on the chairs anymore you have to. There’s a little screaming machine that you have to like verify that you don’t have covid and haven’t been around anywhere from that covid and you put a sticker you know, verifying that your visitor for the day but you know and they have some of the dividers but this place is like crazy right? so. So I go and sit behind the divider in my chair next to the caution shape take chair and displaces like tomb. You guys. It’s empty and and they have big signs like on the outside too saying procedures are not done here and I’m like what do they do in this office. So the receptionist this other gal comes out.

08:20.90
jeffekennedy
And she said do you need to schedule an appointment and I said yes and she said I can help you with that so she takes me back so we sort of wents through this cubicle farm which is empty. She’s sitting at her desk and there’s a gallot another desk and I can’t there’s like There’s not phones ringing because clearly it’s all going straight to boysmail ah guys I I don’t know what anybody in this office is doing right? I mean this might be a cream puffed job if you need a job in Santa Fe where you don’t actually have to do any work. This is the job. So but so she like gets in the computer and she gets my information and she said how soon do you want to do this procedure and part of their voicemail message has this whole thing about if this is an emergency procedure ordered by your doctor. Have your doctor call directly and all this kind of thing and I said well whenever you know I don’t really care and she said well she said we could get you in this week I have openings on Wednesday Thursday and Friday afternoons this is when I stare into the camera. They have openings Wednesday Thursday and Friday afternoon I was like okay and she offers me like 6 different times 6 different openings now it’s occurred to me now that I’ve read the instructions and it’s like no eating after 10 a m today for my 3 Pm appointment tomorrow I can have clear liquids broths that sort of thing nothing purple or blue and you know you have to do the purging and all of that I was like well I’m sure most people don’t want to do those appointments in the afternoon because you know people want do it in the morning so they can eat but still I mean. It’s not like they’re so slam jam packed that they can’t be scheduling people right when David had his ah difficulties stomach stuff before Christmas. Had suggested that we also go to the gastroenterology people. So I I kind of left out that bit of backstory that I had heard this voicemail was before and they had never called back and David decided he didn’t need it so you know we didn’t pursue but ah so I was like well let’s do it Wednesday afternoon because this is a. Ah, much more relaxed week for me might as well get it done with I just I just can’t even but ah so um, you guys aren’t here to hear here to hear about my um.

11:03.64
jeffekennedy
Antics with the medical establishment. Um, yes, so yesterday I did get my 2000 words it felt it felt really good to only go for 2000 words it felt incredibly relaxed. I did have it my head that I needed to get to this doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. Um, which is a really funny thing and I’ve I’ve talked to a lot of people about this who have you know we’re we’re very lucky and blessed and privileged to have these. Kind of unscheduled lives where we work from home where we work for ourselves where we don’t have a really structured schedule and some people do fine with a really structured schedule. Other people do not and you I think that’s part of. Knowing what your process is and owning it I I think you have to know what kind of worker you are some people simply simply do not self direct and that’s it’s not a. Negative I mean I think it’s so tempting to think of this stuff as a negative but it’s it’s just what it is. It’s like if you have brown hair or you know, maybe you can learn to color your hair but maybe you just have brown hair. You know, maybe your hair is so dark that it doesn’t bleach out when I got my mammogram back to medical stuff the hispanic gal or the nurse was an hispanic gal and she really liked my hair color and she was and she said i. She said I don’t want to be offensive but can I ask if it’s natural and I said oh no honey was my stylist. Thank you and she said my hair doesn’t bleach out light enough for me to get that color you know and it’s hard when you have that really really naturally dark hair. Although it’s you know I I colored my hair black for a long time and I really wanted that. Glossy, rich, black like the hispanic ladies have but it sometimes you just have to take the cards you’re dealt. You have to take what you’re born with and you learn to work around it I spent a long time in my day job. Being kind of mental management for a team of people who worked across the country all working out of their homes I’ve been working out of my home for a long time even when I had the day job I started an office and then they closed that office and moved me home.

13:46.55
jeffekennedy
And 1 of the great take-home lessons of this was that some people do great working from home and other people do not there was this one guy who had been in the military. He’d been in a couple of branches in the military. Very sharp. Um, really. A great dynamic worker in many ways except that you he could not deal with working from home. He would slack off and we found out much later like he would log on to our company chat and then. So it would appear he was there and then he would go take a nap and then he would come and if you messaged him and he didn’t answer. He’d come back and say oh you know I was not I wasn’t looking at the chat I didn’t have you know I’ve had my head down in this document he got shit done working from home. Um, he was great when he was with a group of people. He could not make him sit down and work. You know I found out later that he was like going out and having long lunches with people. He was just like fucking around all day but that was his kind of personality. He did really well in. A more military situation which is incredibly structured where someone is telling you what to do all the time and there are many many people like this who if you want to you know if you do better in an office environment. A lot of people prefer going to an office and being there and. Now we’re all working I think some of it has to do with you know, like how gregarious of a person you are if you’re an extrovert versus an introvert I think one of the reason that so many writers and other creatives are introverts is because. We don’t need to be around people if you want to be particularly a writer I think but probably other kinds of creatives too. You spend a lot of time by yourself in your own head and introverts are happy with that. Extroverts are miserable but you can also be an introvert and still need structure. So if you are finding that and this is something that lots of writers talk about you know, even if they have the time to write. Ah, somehow they just never quite. Do you know? There’s always something else. There’s a lot of procrastinating dread and procrastination. Ah, there’s there’s just a difficulty in creating that structure. So yeah.

16:36.44
jeffekennedy
If you are struggling with that and I know many many people who do then you have to find a way to create that structure. You might need somebody else to tell you to do it. That’s 1 reason why Darynda and I meet on Zoom and work together. Because she really needs that I have to meet jeffie at Nine o’clock and so I can’t screw around I have to get there and I need to be there and be ready to work. It’s just something she knows about herself and she’s willing to admit about herself. So you know again, it’s not a good bad thing. It’s knowing which things in yourself. Um are not optimal for producing what you want to produce and finding ways to correct for that.

17:31.16
jeffekennedy
so um so yeah it did make a difference for oh that’s where I started on all this was that 1 thing that we’ve noticed for those of us who have these kind of unstructured lives where we don’t have fixed schedules. Is if we have something in the afternoon and these days I almost always have some kind of appointment in the afternoon usually an online meeting but leaving the house is worse that it creates a sense of pressure. It creates this deadline I need to get my stuff done by then even if I’m normally done by them. You know because I always tell people. I’m available after like two o’clock mountain time which gives me plenty of room to get things done theoretically. But I’m also fighting with the clock right now because of daylight savings time. So I’m a little better today. It’s um, it’s just 8 53 right now. So. I’m ah I’m working it backwards. So hopefully I’ll get um, a little bit earlier. But yeah yesterday duinda and I didn’t start writing until like nine forty five which is latish but I did get the 2000 words it felt good. It felt more relaxed. I mean do that this whole week and then reevaluate so we shall see so on that note I am going to get this uploaded and get to work I hope you all have a fabulous Tuesday and I will talk to you all on Thursday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 14, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.39
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 is actually green tea this morning see how I am just. Getting healthy all over the place today is Monday March Fourteenth Pi Day three fourteen three point one four I don’t know why people think that’s funny except that they like to post pictures of Pi which has nothing to do with pi pi but. Such is the internet. Ah so um, hope you all had a good weekend I had a um I had a very unstructured weekend I had 1 scheduled meeting counted one and. It only lasted like 20 minutes so I actually did not do a whole hell of a lot I was trying to figure out what I actually did with my time David was out driving a lot and I just kind of I don’t know I hermited. There were. It was not great weather I mean it was sunny and so it was nice inside the house but there was a ah sharp cold wind blowing. Um yesterday I did go out and start raking out on the east side of the house pulled out the dead getritus from the winter there. Consider doing it out in the secret garden because the daffodils are starting to come up but I did not do that. Um I did not have a a strong plan and so not a lot happened I read a lot I’m now on the fifth book of. Juliette Marillier’s Sevenwaters series and it was funny because David left yesterday morning I did laundry I washed all the clothes and David was very appreciative of that. Um.

02:18.18
jeffekennedy
And I cleaned up the kitchen but it was funny cause he came home I don’t know around 5 or so and he asked me you know he asked me if I had a good day and I said yes, it was nice and relaxing and he said what did you do and I’m like I’m not sure, but that’s sure what I did I got. A couple of things off of my to do list. You know those things that sit on your to do list and sort of gain gravity with every day that you slide it down the to- do list god I hate those things. Ah, ah, you know and then they don’t take that long to do I don’t know what is to deal with those It’s that dread and procrastination right? Just hard to get to that stuff I almost feel like I should have written down what I did all weekend but I’m also ah but. Since like my warring selves right? I’m also was trying to relax and forcing myself to relax. That’s an old joke David and I have from back when we taught Tai Chi classes there was this because Tai Chi you try to let go of force and you relax and so you. Get into these standing forms or postures and movements and you try to do them in the most relaxed way possible and so we would do a lot of exercises with like heavy arms. You know where you would try to you know, let someone else take the weight of your arm and give it out and you would give it up and it’s it’s really not easy to do. There are a lot of um, it’s part of that practice of of giving up control and relaxing letting things go and there was this one young guy who came to take the classes and he was just um. Not the kind of guy who gave up control easily and David was working with him and saying um and the guy is like oh a hair and David’s like okay you you you need to try to to let go you know? don’t don’t force it and the guy so says. Um. Says I’m forcing myself to relax, but not how it works reader. Oh my ts hot. so um yeah so I was definitely I was going back and forth especially yesterday because Saturday I was getting more things done yesterday I was thinking I could do an unplugged day and then I didn’t and I kind of regretted it I I should have stayed unplugged I was not sticking with my resolve very well.

05:04.95
jeffekennedy
And I have not been sticking with results very well lately. So I don’t know what my deal is I’m trying to ah I did a yoga class yesterday. Um, and that was funny because you know I did it on the the Vimeo at least it wasn’t zoom. It wasn’t live. My favorite yoga teacher and I thought okay I’m gonna do this in class and you know because I really need to get back into the in yoga and and she was talking about. Um you know, like settling into it and letting go and listening to. Yeah she’s my favorite yoga teacher. She’s great, but she was starting out with saying um you know to ask yourself a question you know to have a a question for your practice and I thought I don’t know what my question is so I’m like can my question be what is my question and I decided it could and. She was um, you know, just encouraging us to sit with it and stay in it and all of this and I was not doing a good job of staying in it and I thought and oh and she was saying you know to listen to our bodies and what. Bodies need and I got halfway through the class and I thought I must don’t want to be doing this so I stopped and I thought well you know at least half an hour you feel good was half an hour more than I had been doing. Um. So yeah, I’m just trying to listen to myself and figure out what it is that I need to be doing what makes me happy to be doing and sort of to restore this equilibrium I have been doing some financial stuff and that makes me happy to like get the numbers in order. Been moving some money around and doing a few things that I’m excited about that are going to put us in a better financial place and so that’s part of what I’m thinking about and I am excited to try this um lower word count goal and see how it goes. Um. Megan Ciana Doidge commented that that she does the wax and wane thing too and and I think that’s very true that um. And and I do I follow that same pattern when I’m starting a new book in particular, especially if I’ve had a couple of weeks off or I’ve been doing a lot of editing it does take a while to ramp up in those words again and so maybe reducing my word count goal.

07:49.92
jeffekennedy
Isn’t the right thing to do because when I was figuring out and I talked about this on Friday that you know my average is a little shy of 10000 words a week that is the average overall and it’s not um. And the thing to remember about averages math is that it’s a combination of the highs and the lows and so if I reduce my word count goal overall will that drop the average down. That’s the question or is it more sustainable and I think that the difference here is. Is that little birdie on the porch caught my attention that is looking at those weeks that I’ve actually gotten 15000 words a week um or ah, yeah, 15000 words a week so 3000 words a day and early twenty Twenty one I was doing a little bit better but still there are not that many weeks where I have actually hit 15000 words a week. So I think that’s the difference. I do think that there’s something to be said for yes at different points the the book will go at different rates of speed and Megan was saying that towards the end sometimes she’ll get four or five thousand words a day and. And I certainly have days like that. But I don’t I don’t do them I I don’t let myself do that unless I’m like seriously behind like I was with gray magic I don’t know it’s it’s an eternal push pull isn’t it. Trying to figure out the difference between what we the disciplines we impose upon ourselves and and when we need to listen to what we organically want to be doing um and I think that’s um, you know it’s pertinent today because. We just switched to daylight savings time in the us I think europe does it like maybe did it two weeks ago or does it in two weeks I forget I know there’s like two weeks where my assistant and I are off sync. Um, you know and so for me. It’s one of the consequences of having you know that I don’t wake up with an alarm clock I do not require myself to wake up at a particular time and that was something I decided a whole long time ago when I first went stopped doing the day job because a long time ago. Very long time ago now.

10:39.70
jeffekennedy
I did ah a writers residency at u crosss if you get a chance to do one of those things I do recommend it. It. It was um, it was extraordinary for me and a lot of voice. it was early on in my career and it was the first time. That anyone knew me primarily as a writer that introduced me as a writer like at the moment I arrived they took me around and introduced me to the other residents and they said this is Jeffe Kennedy she’s a writer and I was like I am? but um, but that’s amazing. Especially for you guys when you’re first starting out deb someone identify you as a writer first and foremost now I’m used to it is that sad that I’m used to it. Maybe it’s not sad I think it’s pretty wonderful. Um I’ve been reflecting on that how how fortunate I am um how you know my relative success. You know it’s one of those things where I’m not I’m always striving for more. But I’m really having to reflect on the fact that I do have a really robust career and that’s been growing and doing better all the time I don’t want to lose my train of thought but I do want to share and I put it on social media yesterday I went to look at the Amazon listing for gray magic. To grab the link or something I don’t remember why because I don’t normally go look at my reviews and I was startled to see that there were 108 reviews on Grey Magic already and it’s just been two weeks that it’s out I think that’s the fastest that any of my books has ever accrued reviews I remember this one time. And bank camp. Yeah sorry ah juvenile humor for the win. Grace Draven my bestie when we were early on when we were friends and radiance was still climbing the charts and all of that I remember her posting that. Radiance had a thousand Amazon reviews and she was so excited to pass that milestone and I was like that bitch Bitch! Ah but now Dark Wizard has like 350 something so I’m thinking I’m going to pass that milestone. And I’m gonna throw it in Grace’s face actually Grace is so generous. She’s always I said her my thing about my hundred and eight reviews that she was like that’s fantastic. She never says to me. Oh you, you poor sweet summer child. Ah so anyway, um.

13:23.27
jeffekennedy
1 thing about being on that writer’s retreat at Ucrosss was it was my schedule was totally up to me and so I decided that I would not set an alarm and that I would go by natural calendar. And just see what it was and I think it’s one of the first times in my life since maybe like summers and high school or something that I had not set an alarm clock and there’s really something to be said and and I’m sorry for those of you who have schedules where it’s not something you can do. But there really is something to be said for waking up on our natural rhythm because our sleep cycles are slightly different every night and the alarm clock disrupts that but waking up, you know at the natural cessation of a cycle is um, it’s so much more restful. Ah, so the downside of it is when daylight savings time occurs like this my sleep cycle is still attuned to to me to my natural place rather than of the clock. So I didn’t start this podcast till nine o’clock which is eight o’clock in real time and so now I’m feelinging a little behind and I’m having to work breathe through that I’m not behind the clock doesn’t matter. Although. My appointments in like the afternoons and stuff haven’t changed so in some ways it does matter I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. Oh Joy. So um, so yeah, that whole figuring out I remember when I was younger and I would like take the weekend off or something and I never thought of it that way but where I would end up screwing around all weekend. And the time would just kind of vanish and I didn’t feel bad about it in the same way. Um, but I was really kind of trying to do that really kind of. Do you hear me. But I’m I’m very torn I was I probably should have unplugged yesterday and just. Given myself over to not doing anything at all on the computer but I did do some things and then I started fretting about the things that I didn’t do so.

15:56.33
jeffekennedy
But yeah, what’s interesting during that yoga class and thinking I don’t want to be doing this anymore. That’s enough maybe that was a real thing that that was enough. Yeah, so I don’t know what else. It’s been interesting reading these books I’m reading Seer of Sevenwaters which the author puts at the front that she was writing this while she was receiving cancer treatments in like 2007 I’m going to sneeze. I’ve learned how to pause and not sneeze in your ears. Um, and it’s still very good. She’s an excellent writer and I love these stories. It’s interesting that this fourth book and fifth book have started kind of a new cycle and she. Says on the fourth book. Heir of Sevenwaters that she thanks her agent for helping her brainstorm the novel and it’s very interesting because it feels like the first three she had very definite ideas for and this next set. Um. Are much closer together in time which is what I’d said originally that I was surprised by book 2 that she did a generational leap and now she’s staying very much within a much shorter timeline I don’t know it’s almost It would be interesting to talk to her. Because I feel like she had an idea for the first 3 books that was kind of this epic sweep and these next books don’t have quite the same heft and it could be that she wasn’t feeling good. It’s hard to write books when you don’t feel good. But I’m still loving it and and to be fair. There are very few authors who can stand up to being glommed in this way to having one book after another read and it. You know and and especially when I’m reading with my writer brain because I do notice repetitions and 1 mistake and I always worry about people doing that to my books so so yeah today is the first day of trying for the 2000 words a day. And we’ll just see what we get and a noble experiment right? And yeah, but in that guess not a lot to report I think we’re just always trying to find ways to.

18:44.14
jeffekennedy
To be kind to ourselves and still produce the things that we want to do right? Um, special shout out to Meghan by the way who she posted to social media. So I’m sure it’s fine. Had a hysterectomy and I told her that. Every woman I know who’s had a hysterectomy says it was best thing they ever did so I hope it is for you too. Mehan and I hope you are at home now and recovering well um, yeah, suchha life right? but. Hope you recover and you’ll be back on your feet because Megan also uses walking desk walking in right and again and all the rest of you get out there on your feet, get some exercise, be kind to yourselves if you can get on your feet and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care. But bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 11, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.30
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:15.75
jeffekennedy
That’s actually pretty wonderful.

00:22.59
jeffekennedy
So um, do you know what today is say it with me. It’s Friday whoo. Um, March Eleventh and snowy day here in Santa Fe a lovely snow. It’s like being inside of a snow globe kind of snow with the constant sifting. We got a fair amount of cuing accumulation I don’t know if we got the 4 to eight inches that they said that we might probably depends on how one measures it. Ah. Seems like we got a fair amount of moisture in it though. So that’s awesome and it’s um, very cozy weather very curl up and sleep weather then I slept a lot last night slept in this morning did not want to wake up so been moving slowly this morning. It’s eight thirty as I record this which is late for me and my mother must be still sleep because she has not replied to my good morning yet. So maybe it’s sleepy all around and I think that’s. That’s an okay thing I’m trying to let this be okay so that’s my um sort of what take home lesson from yesterday. Um I did go back and look and I I know I keep doing this so I’m sorry if you guys get sick of hearing me do this. But. I do think that you know what? I always say you guys could probably even say this with me figure out what your process is and own it and I think that that’s something that we don’t stop doing that’s it’s an iterative process. It changes over the course of our lives it changes with each book. I think that we are constantly learning ourselves and I mean that’s the point of life right to refine ourselves to try to become better at what we’re doing all the time become a better person. Strive for those goals that are important to us so I did I did a little better yesterday writing I have an open my progress count. Yeah, but I definitely. Got good words going yesterday. Um, and came out with a total of eleven fifty I mean not not anything to write home about I guess it’s enough to podcast about well.

03:10.20
jeffekennedy
Whether it is or not is debatable but I was happy to get the eleven fifty and I looked over you know I’ve really been trying to take a good look at what I do over time. And actually I’m gonna check something here and I won’t make you guys listen? Okay yeah I just wanted to check some math on that um from having been pushing pretty hard in the first couple of months first few months of 2021? Um, and not so much in or at least trying to find different ways to back off in 2022 I haven’t I’ve actually written more words so far in 2022 so someone that was pushing hard with gray magic. So we’ll see but. Going back over my productivity over all time I decide to go and look at and see how often did I really hit 15000 words a week because I always say that I figured that out a long time ago that I thought 3000 words a day was pretty sustainable for me. So I went and looked to see if this thing that I’m always spouting 3000 words a day five days a week how often do I actually hit that and you know what I haven’t hit it all that often I’m somewhat chagrined to report that I really don’t. Get that? Um, every once in a while I do but for the most part I don’t and if I look at my overall averages since however long it’s been. We know how? well it’s been. Jeffe. It’s 2012 so 10 years now right we’re looking at 10 years of data. Um I write about look at this I wrote it down Nine Thousand two hundred and forty six words a week and this shouldn’t come as. Ah, big shock because I had previously determined when I was looking going through this before that and I’d even put this in my planning schedule for this coming year that I was writing closer to 1500 words a day. Spread over 7 work seven days a week so I could calculate it on a weekly basis. Um, and yeah so I am officially you heard it here first. Um I’m revising down.

05:56.91
jeffekennedy
I am going to try to write 2000 words a day that’s slightly higher than what my average has been but I’m going to see if I can write 10000 words a week and see see if that’s sustainable because. I’ve been kidding myself about the 3000 words a day clearly, it has not been sustainable because the average is so much lower than that. So um, that feels a little scary because I feel like I should. Pushing for more than that. But those of you who have been listening to me for a long time know that I always think I’m going to scale up and push for more and it doesn’t work and I think it’s been making me um I think it’s been draining me. Over the long term so I’m going for for that which seems kind of luxurious but I’m feeling like last year was a good year I’m met a lot of goals. We’re doing much better financially and. I’m a big believer in that we must reward ourselves for effort because if we constantly push ourselves then it can be um, well have the a negative effect. It has the opposite effect of what we want I don’t think I’ve talked about this. Recently but I feel like we have to treat our our internal selves. Our creative selves are so creative. Subconscious however, you want to think of it as um, as like a puppy puppy or a kitten and it. Puppy analogy works better because people go to a lot more work to train dogs I think you can train to cats. But most people have experience with trying to teach dogs to like pee outside and that sort of thing and if you’re training your puppy to do the work that you want it to do. You can’t be constantly. Pushing it. You can’t be haranguing it nonstop. You have to let it play you have to give it treats and I feel like we have to do that for ourselves too. Ah, you know, especially if ourselves you know delivers the book on time like we want then we. Then we need to give it a treat. You can’t just um, be working all the time and yes I am talking to myself I I do have a tendency to to work all the time and I know that’s um, not always a positive can be useful but I’m working on.

08:45.54
jeffekennedy
This year seeing if I can get a little bit better at figuring out what my actual creative sustainably creative output is um and I don’t even remember I should have I have to ask grace because you know we we do talk regularly and we strategize and for. 2021 our mantra our plan was to work smarter not harder and I don’t remember now what we said this year’s was gonna be isn’t that funny I’m gonna message her. Okay, we’ll see if she replies. Um, it’s funny cause I forgot. We’re we’re on slightly different schedules. She tends to be more nocturnal than I am so I forgot that I had sent her something last night something gossiping that another author was doing I was like look at this What do you think of this and she sent me back a bunch of messages later last night when she got around to looking at it. So I had to go down a bit of a rabbit hole and read it and of course she totally agrees with me so this is the the core of our friendship but ah so we’ll see if she answers she may not be around right now. But. I think that’s funny I’m I’m gonna bet you guys I bet you? Well I can’t bet you actual money. We’ll just bet virtual point with a bet bit coin ha n fts um I bet she won’t remember either. Maybe she will so anyway. Um, I am trying to back things off and it’s funny because I spoke with Megan the other day on Wednesday and I texted her in the morning and said I’m jonesing for our Las Vegas cabana because we had so much fun doing that that was last April a year Agoapril and I said I’m joing for that and she says I’m actually um oh I can’t say this nope sorry I can’t tell you because I can’t get hurt in trouble. But anyway I was saying how i. Said you know it’s funny even though I have total freedom to take the day off anytime I want I I don’t I almost never do and she said that she actually understood that because it’s hard when you work for yourself because it’s like stealing from yourself and I thought that was a really good insight. so um so yeah that’s that’s my plan. We’ll see how it goes um, it sounds um, luxurious, vaguely hedonistic to only go for 2000 words a day which I know don’t ah you know don’t measure yourselves by that.

11:34.96
jeffekennedy
Some people do way more. Some people do way less. Um, we’ll see how it works. It’s all about figure out what your process is your process and own it no reply from grace yet. So. Um, the other thing I was going to mention is one of the younger writers messaged me yesterday younger being a um younger in the career. Not necessarily I’ve never been her in person I think she’s actually younger too. But she referenced a um article that was a daily dot about someone being sexually harassed by a guy at a self-publishing conference which I had read. She asked me if I’d read it and I was like yeah I thought it’s been passed around. I’ll link to it so you guys can read it and it’s kind of funny because here’s another one of those consequences of the pandemic because we haven’t been going to conferences this kind of thing hasn’t come up for the last couple of years and like now that people are going out and about it’s like yeah. Just a long just like people are getting in car wrecks and getting murdered again turns out when we leave our houses. We also get things like sexual harassment and she wanted to know what I thought about it and I asked her if she was familiar with the concept of the missing stare and. She was not so I sent her a blog link to that and I’ll I’ll link to that for you guys too just in case but the missing stare was coined and the article will say who coined it. But basically it’s the idea that there will be lots of people in a community who know about problematic people and. Very often. It’s creepy guys and it’s the analogy is that like you go to a house party and that everybody who’s familiar with this house knows that on the staircase there is a stair that’s missing and everybody is so accustomed. To navigating around this missing stare that they don’t think to tell new people about it and then the new person falls to the missing stair and and they’re like why didn’t you tell me the stair was missing and everybody’s like oh yeah, yeah, that missing stare. It’s a real problem. So. This is what happens in communities like writing communities and the sff community has long had a real problem with it because it’s interesting my theory and this is just Jeffie’s theory of why this kind of thing happens is a particularly in this community.

14:27.72
jeffekennedy
Is that the people who write science fiction fantasy are usually not the people who were the popular kids at school there’s exceptions but you know mostly we’re nerdy people we’re into fandoms, we’re smart, we’re into reading. Books um, you know and in general the people who were glomming star trek and Firefly and reading all of Lord of the rings were also not the people who were playing football or on the cheerleading squad. Oh Grace is typing back. We’ll see if she remembers so when corollary to this is that a lot of the guys who become successful in writing books are also guys who did not get. Laid by the pretty girls in high school and of course I’m making generalizations. Ah she is so funny. She says considering how shitty 22 her 2022 has been for us so far I think my mantra will will be head down carry on.

15:44.10
jeffekennedy
I’m going to just say I love that you don’t remember what we decided.

15:54.51
jeffekennedy
Decided either. Okay I won’t make you guys pay attention to me. Um, messaging with Grace so maybe head down carry on is a decent mantra for the year I know we decided on something. Clearly it did not stick so probably wasn’t useful then if we didn’t so anyway, um, this guy up. Okay, we regain my um attention for this. She says I can barely remember what I said last week I center a heart okay I’m gonna I I’ll take her off the window here so that I won’t be distracted so um and i. Read a very interesting article that this happened in Silicon Valley also because a lot of these guys who are the computer nerds are also not the guys who got laid by the pretty girls in high school. So these guys finally get to a place where they are. Successful within their pond. They are finally a big fish and a small pond and whatever it is in that biological boy nature that affects some of them and I will you know, not all mend this because you know there are a lot of really wonderful men in this. Science fiction and fantasy community. They’ve been great to me. In fact, supportive and appreciative of my work in ways that I never expected them to be but there are these other guys who see this as finally this is their chance to be the big fish to be the herd bull. And they start hitting on the girls and a lot of them and it’s not an excuse by any stretch of imagination but they are not always with the best social skills and they do it badly and they. Sometimes do it. You know with twisted maliciousness. So what’s the solution to this and that’s what this gal was asking me. How do we know which guys are the missing stairs I mean that’s that’s really the question. And it’s something that we’ve gone round and round about because a lot of people have suggested that we keep lists and some women I know do keep lists of who are the creepers and the problem is is then the guys start getting upset saying that there should not be secret lists kept against them.

18:33.65
jeffekennedy
So it ends up being a whisper network thing because that’s the only way you know is by talking to other women. It’s like okay who do you need to avoid in the bar who has the grabbby hands at the publisher party who is going to try to get you alone in a corner. Um. And and we have to let each other know. So that’s 1 thing is talking to each other. You can always ask other women. Um, you know come to you know women like me established women in the field and if you’re going to be working with some guy. I mean you can’t really ask us for a list of everyone who’s creepy. But if you’re gonna be on a panel with some guy you can always say you know is you see a good one and we will tell me we may not know but sometimes knowing nothing is is a good sign because it means that nobody’s ever had. Cause to talk about them. So um, the other thing that you can do and I told her this and it’s a remarkably effective trick. Thank you internet is you can Google them and I’ve discovered that one of the easiest things to do is to. Google say Jo Shmo controversy and you will get hits and ah if there’s a bunch of hits that’s much more likely that you know it’s more than 1 person has been talking about it so you will find and I gave her 1 person that you could you know look up. What had happened with them. There was one that was a while back with Myke Cole Sam Sykes and Paul Krueger and if you google those names and controversy. You will see exactly what happened and what people were saying about them. So. It’s um, some people will counter. Some guys will counter and say well that those are smear campaigns and so forth. But you know if if it’s coming from several different points in a community then you know I mean we’re not, we’re not gonna take them to trial. We’re not gonna prosecute them but like. Those particular guys. Um, ended up getting dropped from their publishing houses and dropped by their agents which is the um the hammer that we have to deal with problematic guys like that you know it’s like well. You know, nobody’s gonna take you to court for being an asshole in the bar but um, but yeah, you also don’t have to be celebrated by the community and that’s the answer we have and I’m going a little along today. So sorry, but um.

21:23.56
jeffekennedy
In the indie space in the self-p publishing space. It’s still a problem and will probably continue to be a problem until we selfpolice the community because selfp publishing sphere is still kind of the frontier. It’s like the frontier town where there’s not. Not a sheriff and a lot of the people who are drawn to self- publishing are drawn to it because there are no rules. No leash on what they’re doing and some of them come into it particularly because they are of the. Nobody can tell me what to do kind of attitude which is true in self- publishing nobody can tell you what to do? It’s all based on you know, can you sell the book to anybody and so I think we’re going to continue to see problems with these people because there is no. You know what are we going to do get Amazon to remove their account because they’re an asshole on the bar. It’s not gonna happen. So all we can do is self police and 1 thing that a lot of the really upstanding guys in the community have done is. To really take it upon themselves to be the ones who say no I don’t stand back and you know let this guy be an asshole that they have to you know stand up for the women in the community too and not tolerate the bro behavior which you know is kind of that code. Sometimes and a lot of these guys are being really good about that and saying no, we’re not going to be complicit in letting these guys do whatever they want that if we’re going to have a safe and welcoming community then then we will stand up and we will call it out the bad behavior. So I think that’s what we have to look for is um, the more established members in the community who don’t care about whether or not Joe Schmo is going to somehow um damage their career if you don’t. Let him fondle you in the bar or be an asshole. Um, and you know you look around and you see who the the good guys are and and go to them for help and and that’s what you do is you know who who will have your back because. The majority of people will have your back. it’s it’s um we’re we’re just trying to get a lot better about acknowledging those missing stairs and repairing them so that’s me going on a little bit long today but that’ll hold you over the weekend.

24:10.91
jeffekennedy
Hope you all a wonderful weekend I hope you get to do some things that are relaxing and restorative and I’m planning to do the same so I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 10, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript

00:01.30
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 full confession. Um, first of all today is Thursday March tenth. That’s not the confession. But I’ve already been sipping on the coffee. So I sat down here once already to start the podcast. Staring at my face and the video screening here and I was thinking I look so tired I look so tired and washed out. What’s you know What’s wrong him? Well I feel a little droopy this morning but well I look really washed out and then I realize I forgot to put my makeup on I’d like totally skipped. Putting on makeup somehow so I had to like go back and actually put on the the up how is your day going but I don’t know why I’m spacey today I slept a long time last night. And woke up about 20 until 6 didn’t get out of bed until after 6 because I was just so sleepy I was kind of you know when you wake up and you kind of do the dozy thing kind of dreamy thing which I really enjoy. But um, yeah, feeling sleepy this morning and then. Like forgetting to put on the makeup. Don’t know how that happened the coffee is definitely pricking me up. We have a big winter storm coming in. It’s like this is we’ve had more winter in the last couple of weeks and we have all winter. Um, ah my bath is also kind of stiff I might have a little bug That’s what I get for doing things like going into movie theaters and being around people here. We are like figuring out the whole being around people thing again. Without masks because New Mexico lifted the mask mandate a couple weeks ago I don’t know if I mentioned that so yeah, everybody’s running around exchanging germs again of all varieties now. So. So it goes. Um I I don’t feel terrible just um, clearly not all together with it today. So yeah, we’re supposed to start getting snow around five o’clock tonight and it’s already pretty overcast I thought we were gonna have a kind of a nice day until then. But.

02:44.67
jeffekennedy
Yeah, the storm’s really coming in and they’re saying we’re going to get 4 to eight inches of snow which will be lovely and David is cooking cooking us vegetables. He’s playing with the the new. Food processor that we were gifted. It’s um I don’t know if I mention it’s this very fancy breel food processor and so like 1 of things has has on. It is an adjustable slicing blade. David’s been watching Youtube videos and making all kinds of great things. He make chicken pot pie. So now he’s slicing like cauliflower and broccoli and sweet potatoes very thin and roasting them so that we have healthy snacks to have around what a good man huh. So he’s been busy doing that and it smells good in here. So but I don’t mind the snow but I wonder if it’s making me a little bit. Um hibernatory that my friend Kelly Robson asked me the other day if I was hibernating. Ah, because I said I’d slept a long time like over the weekend and she said are you hibernating and I so I don’t think so because it actually feels like spring here. But now I’m having to walk it back because yeah, maybe hibernating. So. I did not have a very productive day yesterday writing wise I kind of tapped out early on. Um, it could be just still the ramp up because I’ve already written twice as much. Um, so far this week in the first 3 days this week then I wrote all of last week or the week before I mean you could see it’s like doubling each because I was editing and so forth. So you know like the I had um, 1392 and then. 33 17 and so far this week I have 65 16 so I suspect I’m in that phase of building up my writing flow again. That’s a thing about taking time off. I I recognize that it’s good for me to take that time off and refill the well and all of that kind of thing. But um, it sure does break up that flow.

05:30.64
jeffekennedy
I should like look at some of the athletic stuff some of the exercise physiology stuff when I was in grad school I there were a couple of people in our department one in particular who was very interested in exercise physiology it Was a zoology and physiology department was one of the great things about the department was that there were people working on all kinds of different stuff and so you learned the smatterings of things so I know a lot about like reintroducing endangered species and like managing wildlife populations. And so you know evolution of kidneys and also exercise physiology and this one grad student worked a lot with the olympic athletes down in Colorado springs and I learned a lot. From that you know this whole you know how do you deliver peak performance at the time that you want to? how do you manage the training and I think that there’s a lot of metaphors that are adaptable to that I think it works in the same way. I think that the creative flow works very much in the same way as the as the physical stuff. It’s never clear to me how much of what we do as writers or creators. Is directly linked into the physical but there’s definitely parallels. So so I know that I really pushed hard to finish gray magic. Broke some of my own rules and you know like rode over the weekend and did all of those things and got it done and maybe I didn’t take enough time off between because you know I’m definitely feeling this week like I had I thought okay I’m coming back this week and I’m coming back strong and I did come back strong Monday I got over three thousand words Tuesday I only got 24 23 but I still met my milestone goal so I was still on track for the date I wanted to do. And I’d had to stop early on Tuesday and then yesterday I don’t know yesterday I was distractible I did not have the focus again and I only got five seventy six so I’m just kind of wondering do I need to like take more days off just and not do stuff.

08:15.88
jeffekennedy
Or do I need to like maybe maybe I just need to start doing little bits. You know, um, like today go for a thousand words maybe I’ll try that. That’s something that I often recommend to people doing something like nanorimo national novel writing month. Instead of going immediately for like that 16 67 per day that you need to make it for all thirty days of the month start slow and ramp up and then go to more than the 66 16 67 I don’t know if anyone’s ever taken in my advice so I don’t know if that actually works we need to do a study. We really need to do some actual controlled studies. That’s the scientist in me wouldn’t that be fun just to see and and it’s hard to tell because everyone’s so individual. You know like my mantra find out what your process is and own it. Um yet I feel like I’m constantly reworking what works for me while finding out what my process is and so forth. So but clearly I’m not back to my. 3000 words per day schedule and I’m kind of revisiting and I’m sorry if I do blather on about this a lot because I think I do talk about it. You know how often do I really sustain 3000 words a day well de kuiller here. Bunch of them out there blue scaled coils what we have here 1 2 3 4 5 six seven and there’s the lookout coil. There’s always one that’s gets up on something high and plays lookout. We just bought a coil block but we haven’t put it out there yet. David picked that up yesterday. It’s like a block of compressed seed that we put out on the ground for them so need to get that out there for them. So anyway, um, I’m wondering how often do I really do I’ve been talking about that a lot this year how often do I really do 3000 words a day and maybe I need to revisit that that maybe I thought that that was a sustainable productivity for me 3000 words a day five days a week but I’m I think I’m actually not sustaining that level very well. And maybe I need to ratchet it down which um, nobody wants to decrease their productivity. But if my productivity decreases itself then I’m in the same place right.

11:00.80
jeffekennedy
So um, yeah, so we’ll see we’ll see um, it’s hard to tell like how much is refractory period and how much is just needing to build up endurance again. I kind of like this idea of doing maybe just sort of reframing my goals I think I’ll try that and report back see what you guys think because 1 thing that happens like a lot of people can do the 50000 words in in November for Likech. Na no rhymo. Ah, but then they crash and and that’s what I’m looking to avoid is is the crash I want that sustainability. No, so so let’s see what else is going on. Oh I should so back up a little bit and say that I’m also groping a little bit trying to find the threads for this fourth book of the series and that’s another thing too is that writing. The final book of an ark is just always harder. You’re just pulling all the threads together instead of spinning the threads out you’re bringing them together and I’ve heard somebody else’s you’ll use the metaphor of landing the plane you know that like taking off is. A lot of work. But then you’re flying flying and flying and that’s like relatively low of investment of effort. So says we who do not fly airplanes so we don’t really know but landing the airplane. There’s a lot involved in landing landing the airplane and getting everybody safely there. And you know like George R Martin very famously has not finished his series of um, a song of ice on fire and I don’t know if he will. Everyone’s well somebody asks me? Well I’ve talked about this before when I when I see George. Ah, at events here in town. No I do not ask him about it nobody does because we’re his friends and we don’t want to torment him. But when people ask me if I think he’ll finish I have to say I don’t know I mean I I do not know if he will. I think there are a lot of things in the way I think that there are reasons why for instance, some Brandon Sanderson very famously recently put up a kickstarter because he wrote like 4 novels during pandemic and put up this video about it which i’m.

13:43.38
jeffekennedy
I have complained in other places given my thoughts on on how he chose to do that and I will not say it here but I did have problems with it. No what I I am going to say something because he went. At it in this I think well intentiontioned way where he was kind of playing a joke and he was saying you know you know pandemic’s been hard and people have been asking how he’s been doing and that he’s been very close mouthed about it at. That he finally wanted to come clean and he pulls out this big stack of paper and says I wrote 4 novels since pandemic started and he does give some interesting data where he shows like what percentage of his time was devoted to various activities before the pandemic and. How much sense and like well for me, it was certainly true I’ve talked about it here that without traveling to conferences without doing all of that stuff I did not get tired from traveling and I had a lot more. Concentrated time just being here at home and focusing on writing and it did make a difference and and it did for him too. He ended up spending more time with family and you know a miniscule bit on conferences and stuff and he was able to write these novels and fantastic. Great for him and he is so popular that from this you know he said he was doing a kickstarter to publish these 4 novels this entirely new series I didn’t watch the entire video because I did get irritated with him and I’ll tell you why in a moment but you know he’s. Made something like $15000000 from this kickstarter to publish these novels. Ah, he hasn’t made it yet. That’s in pledges so you know with kickstarter you only get the money once you deliver the product. So but I mean he’ll probably deliver. And I wanted to add the caveat that Brandon Sanderson this is how I got there in the first place got his start because he finished Robert Jordan’s fantasies series wheel of time. So Robert Jordan had started the series I don’t remember how many books in he was. He was getting old I don’t remember if he had a chronic disease or whatever. But at any rate Robert Jordan picked Brandon Sanderson to co-author I don’t I’m I’m talking about something I don’t know tons about I don’t know how it worked I don’t know if Jordan had it outlined and Brandon.

16:29.35
jeffekennedy
Wrote it or whatever. But anyway, that’s oh graish bird hit the window ah startled me the cleaning ladies are so good about cleaning the windows. But now the the birds are hitting them It’s always this kind of light this time of year they get so um. The birds are so restless you know, excitable huh sorry about that hope it’s okay, I’m sorry act to check. Well it was alive but it’s really stunned so i. Wrapped it in a towel to keep it warm while it recovers and put it up out of the way. So a predator won’t get it. We’ll see if that makes it I need to get some of those window decals there I put it on my list to buy some I set it up on the. Bench outside the window here see if it’s gonna be okay, it might not I think it’s a Jubi too ha the cycle of life as my mother says the cycle of life is killing me. Okay, so sorry focus. Um, so yeah, that happens where people you know hire someone to finish their series for them and I kind of wonder if George won’t get to that point. Although I kind of don’t see George doing that. So anyway, ah my problem with the way Brandon and Sanderson went about that and I think that it was just not ill intentioned I don’t think it occurred to him how this would come across. I think it was just he was excited to share this thing and he thought it was a funny joke to play this way but it really fell flat for many of us because there are so many creators who have really struggled during the pandemic have struggled with the anxiety and the difficulty. Of dealing with all the things and there are a lot of people who have not been able to create and so for him to very smugly throw down his stack of paper and be like I wrote 4 novels was um, it was a little much. And so so yeah I thought that that displayed a um, a distressing callousness towards other authors. Um you know and that was probably just oh birdie’s gonna be okay.

19:11.92
jeffekennedy
It’s sitting up now. It’s sitting looking out at the little hood of the tall there. So yea. Yeah, all right must’s just been stunned a happy ending. We love happy endings excellent. So yeah, that was probably a lot of different stuff I’m feeling per year now. Coffee helps. Maybe maybe it was just ah, still sleepy. So anyway, I’m going to see about getting some work done I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday if you have interesting. It doesn’t have to be interesting if you have data on like what how you think this works with like getting back into producing and refractory periods and so forth I’m I’m interested send it my way. Yeah. So yeah, have a happy Thursday and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.

 

When It’s Time to Put New Covers on a Series

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven we’re discussing Cover Trends. We’re asking “What was, is, and will be “hot” in cover art/style for your sub-genre? If you have a say in your covers, will you chase the trend or will you stick with the image in your mind?”

There’s a lot to be said on this topic, too much for even a week of blog posts. When I’m asked for advice on covers, which is a frequent request, I tell authors to keep in mind that a cover has two jobs: to attract positive attention and convey genre. This has to be emphasized because authors – both in trad and in self-publishing – tend to get caught up in wanting the cover to adhere to the story. One first-time author who was very upset with the cover her publisher gave her and came to me for advice said “but the cover doesn’t illuminate the story.” I had to tell her that the story’s job is to illuminate the story. The cover does different work: attract the eye and convey genre.
It’s that second that’s most relevant for this week’s discussion. Because trends change and a cover that accurately conveyed genre six years ago may find itself conveying something else entirely to a current audience.
Case in point: I love the covers for my six-book Sorcerous Moons series.

These were among the first book covers I ever commissioned and I particularly adore the cover for book one, LONEN’S WAR. It does come straight from a scene in the book – a pivotal scene that was, in part, the genesis image for the story – and the artist (Louisa Gallie) exactly nailed what I had in mind.

I will always be grateful for Louisa’s gorgeous art and I will always love this cover.

But, recently, people have been pointing out that these covers no longer convey what kind of story these books tell. The fantasy romance genre has moved on. If I want to tell readers that this IS the kind of thing they’re looking for, then I should consider updating to match current trends.

So I did!

Behold: The new cover for LONEN’S WAR!

I contracted with BZN Studio Designs to design new covers for all six books. Right now the series isn’t available, but once I have all six covers, I’ll re-launch the series with some fanfare. I’m super excited to see how they do with the new covers. I’ve heard some people (including my own assistant!) say scathingly that these look like all the other covers out there in this subgenre, and there’s truth to that.

AND THAT’S THE POINT.

The content is what makes the stories unique. The covers are doing the job they’re supposed to do. Caught your eye, did it? I hope so! And I’m hoping you also know exactly what kind of story you’ll get.

First Cup of Coffee – March 9, 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 kind of put a comma there I’m here with my first cup of coffee today is. A very special episode of first cup of coffee because today is Wednesday March Ninth my mother’s birthday woo everyone say happy birthday Kathy’s to big birthday. We’re not saying which one. Um. And I am not with her today but I thought I would do instead a special podcast for her today. Those of you who listen regularly know that my mother is the reason I keep doing this podcast All of you are wonderful. You’re all amazing I like doing the podcast. Ah, there’s a lot of good reasons to keep doing it but my mom is the one who keeps me going at it because she would pitch a fit if I stopped in fact, she hates that I skip Wednesdays on the podcast. I’m supposed to blog on Wednesdays and so I don’t do the podcast on Wednesdays I blog at sff seven and on my own website I crosspost and so when I text my mama good morning on Wednesdays she will often if not always comment. Ah. Howsat today is Wednesday no podcast who knew that this podcast would be my mother’s favorite thing in the world and yet it is I think she thinks of it is spying on my life as all good mothers. Love to do and my mother is a good mother. She is um, a wonderful mother I am very blessed to have in my mother someone who is also a friend and when I say we’ve been together all my life which we have but I think we are unusually close because. After my father died when I was 3 plane crash we it was just the 2 of us for a long time and she remarried when I was 7 but for those 4 years although she dated some here and there a merry widow. Not so Merry. There were a couple of pretty bad years but I was young to remember it but she eventually remarried because my mother is a very resilient person. In fact I think that part of my belief in love comes from my mother although she and I do not agree on romance novels I have gotten her to read some over time.

02:50.53
jeffekennedy
And she does read my books or she pretends to she buys them all and that’s what’s important she sent me a photo last week on the release of gray magic showing. Ah the arrival of the print copy and she has a shelf of my books and her. Library and the guest room and so my mother has always been tremendously. Supportive. She from my earliest days told me that I could do anything I wanted to do and even though at times I think it was difficult for a. Widowed single mother to be ah saddled with a precocious child who learned to read when I was 4 from sesame street. She sent me to school a year early so that somebody else could answer my questions. It was a great call. Um, yeah, we’ve we’ve been through a lot together. She was married to her second husband for almost thirty five years I think that’s right and was widowed a second time she is now buried for a third time to a wonderful man. And I think it is partly my mother’s belief in in love in happiness in making a good life that has really informed my own life. She is someone beloved by many friends. Ah, source of joy to all kinds of people. And though I think the things that she has gone through would have made a different person more bitter less happy. She has never let anything get her down she ah she goes on. She keeps. A beautiful house with lots of art and she enjoys going out to dinner and she enjoys having her cocktail every evening. Um, we sometimes text each other at five o’clock do you have your cocktail in hand and it’s It’s a celebratory wonderful part of the day. My mother’s very good at making everything into a celebration. So although she was very firm about not wanting to celebrate today. Big birthday. They come.

05:24.90
jeffekennedy
And we say it’s better than the alternative but you know sometimes those big birthdays hitch a hard right? So I respect them I respect that she did not want to celebrate on this particular day but we will celebrate at other times in other ways. So here is a special podcast just for you mom coming out to you with love and with wishes for many happy returns. Love you home Take care and Happy Birthday Bye bye.