Tag: Dark Wizard

First Cup of Coffee – February 17, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Well ambrosia today is Thursday February seventeenth one day from deadline not that we’re counting. Okay, we’re totally counting. Ah yeah, getting there on gray magic I’ve got. About 50 fty-five hundred words to go I passed a hundred thousand words yesterday. Um, yeah, and so I like I’m down to the last couple of chapters and we’ll see how they go. Um. Yeah I I did get over three thousand words on it yesterday and I hope to get at least that many today so that I can have wind it up tomorrow and have a little bit of time to revise before I send it off. I only have to revise I’m guessing. Well let’s see that’s that’s how much it will. It is at this moment I know a lot of you don’t know worktown you know a lot of authors we work by work count because it depends you know people will ask me how many pages is that. And so I work in word and I use like standard one inch margins 12 point times new roman double space industry standards people will try to argue with me that those shouldn’t be industry standards and it’s one of those things like okay. Yeah, and there are a lot of things in this world that necessarily shouldn’t be but are so that’s still industry standard. That’s how I turn in all my manuscripts. Um, so that’s three hundred and seventy pages and I am guessing. That I will have in the neighborhood of 400 pages total when I’m done and so that means that I could go back over I mean do we know I guess we can see it’s. Guessing what it would cut it also depends on how much white space is on the page right? How much dialogue there is or as opposed to like really dense paragraphs. That’s why page county isn’t a really great mark for progress although readers of course use that. Ah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

First Cup of Coffee – February 11, 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 iridescent cup of coffee.

00:19.58
jeffekennedy
We just gotta take a moment to say for that today is say it with me is everyone ready. It’s Friday Woo Whoo um whatever day of the week is an actual Friday for you. I hope that you can take a moment to celebrate the existence of fridays.

00:47.12
jeffekennedy
Ah, today is 2/11/2022 lots of twos and ones today seeds and soil we’re working them hope 2023 really is the manifestation right. Ah, so um, yeah here we are here we are then I I have a little bit of a tired at this point it was funny Lexi Chantal hi Lexi who often listens to this podcast. Messaged me last night and asked me a question about something. Um, what date I preferred for an event and I was like I had absolutely no, no fucking clue what she was talking about frankly and I said remind me what this thing is. And she said you know this thing that you asked me to put together that you assigned to me for SFWA so I was like oh that thing my god had totally dropped out of my brain although I will argue that that is um, successful delegation. And successful trust in your volunteer that you can hand something off and never think about it again until they ask a question about it which unfortunately I told her that I would participate in this thing not unfortunately I’m happy to participate Lexi. It was just funny. Because right now I’ve got I’m trying to get better at compartmentalizing because I am fighting this ah you know what? our deputy executive director Terra Lemay calls it the curse that being president of SFWA makes you lose a book a year whichever whatever that means. Ah, book for every year that you are president a book. Um each year that you would have write written and didn’t I don’t know anyway, I’m I’m fighting this particular I don’t want to call it a curse. What is it. It’s a um. Dire prediction I’m trying to fight this because since I write full time I should be able to do this. But what I find is that it it has to do with mental bandwidth because you all know that I I always go back to the. Picking cotton thing. You know that writing isn’t picking Cotton running an organization like SFWA isn’t picking Cotton um, and and I have family who picked cotton my.

03:35.86
jeffekennedy
Great grandparents were sharecroppers in North Carolina Scottish um known and even my grandparents didn’t pick Cotton but you know my my grandfather worked in a furniture factory. So I mean there’s hard labor and and I will often freely invite it or not tell people that the hardest job I’ve ever had in my whole life was being a cocktail waitress that was the worst that was the most grueling work and I am so glad. I have the education and intelligence and privilege and all of those things that I was able to make my living in ways that was not being a cocktail waitress because I got paid way better for doing way less work. But. Ah, it’s one of those fundamental unfairnesses of the world. Tip your cocktail waitress as well people. Um they they seriously deserve it anyway. I probably went on a couple of different tangents. There. So let’s see not picking Cotton ah, but. There is a thing of mental bandwidth that mental bandwidth is a thing and one of the things that I’ve discovered is especially the way I write a book I mean I I know I’m fortunate in that I write a book pretty much from beginning to end and then I hold the whole story in my head. But. Holding out entire book in your head especially as you get into the final week of writing it is um it it takes up a lot of mental bandwidth right? It takes up there. There’s a little finch that just landed on my window ledge and is peering in at me. Ah. What that was a sign from the universe little redfinch and the blue birds of happiness are outside so all as well. But 1 thing I’ve discovered is that being president of SFWA. Does require a certain amount of of mental bandwidth as well and I’m trying to get better about compartmentalizing and I was talking about this with Kelly Robson the other day because she was talking about. Ah. How much of she feels like writing occurs in the back brain when she’s not actually writing and she’s had a very difficult several months here and she’s been grieving and she said she thinks that maybe grieving was taking up a lot of that. Um you know that back brain and she wasn’t um.

06:18.92
jeffekennedy
You know it was like the well wasn’t refilling and I can see that I don’t think vine’s the same way because it’s not grieving but I told her I’m really trying to figure out ways to not think about SFWA stuff when I’m not doing SFWA. Or getting distracted by birds now. There’s a ah flicker out there. Very beautiful flicker big bird I like looking at the birds because they are merry you get points if you get that reference. So. Um, compartmentalizing. It’s a big thing because the and in some ways I’m doing better because the book is edging everything else out so yesterday. Oh I haven’t even opened my um oh well I won’t but well hold on. I don’t have to tell you to hold on but I do anyway pause. Okay, so yesterday went faster than Wednesday did Wednesday I only made it through 32 pages though I added over 2000 words Yesterday I added 1300 words and I made it through 59 pages which was better. But that means I’m on page two forty One of 3 34 they have gone up you alert readers will notice. So I’ve got 93 pages left on this revision I’ve got. Ninety Thousand four hundred and seventy nine words so 15000 words to go which theoretically I can get done next week 15000 en thousand work week 3000 words a day does it give me any time to revise so I may do some work over the weekend. Sort of see how I feel but yesterday required you know some adding of words and still some pretty intense mental work and there’s still 1 thing that I’m trying to decide even woke up this morning thinking about it which is that. Back brain working on the story. You do want that to happen but I was thinking about where I could if I need to put this thing in if it’s important to the cascade of the story. I’m not convinceded yet. But I won’t sit here and think about it while you guys are watching and listening I’m I’m gonna let it go for now I’m not gonna revisit it this morning I’m going to come back to it and decide. It’s breaking me that I’ve got like this.

09:03.49
jeffekennedy
You know what? this is this little poofy thing on my sweater for those of you on visual. It’s because I don’t ever lay flat to dry right? when you wash your clothes when you’re supposed to lay flat to dry I put them on hangers and hang them. We have a big 4 poster bed and I hang them from the struts on there but everyone’s want to get like this poofy sleeve thing. What I’m wondering is I know my mother lays some stuff flat to dry but does anybody else in the world actually lay stuff flat to dry I mean if I had everything that I’m supposed to lay flat to dry. When I do Andrew was actually laid flat to drive and it would like I would have to have them I anywhere’t know all over the floors and stuff where does this come from who has a place where you can lay stuff flat to drive I know that that’s a total digression but I’m wondering these things. Let me know if you have an answer very important question. So anyway, um I did get that work done yesterday and then I was just depleted I was brain dead and I more or less took the entire day off of. Stuff with stuff I answered a couple of emails but I just had to have an afternoon of doing not much at all I mean like I emptied the dishwasher and we went for a walk. We went for a walk in the outside it was. It was nice enough to go. Walk outside so that was pleasant and I don’t know I didn’t do a hell of a lot else I’m reading I’m reading um J D Robb’s Abandoned in Death which came out on Tuesday and that’s really fun because I fintished – fintished? – I finished a work. Um, um, we’ll just see how this comes out on the transcript I’m doing a pretty good job of not editing too much although I do have to go through and fix names because it’s not right if names are wrong. There is some profound wisdom for you. It’s not right if names are wrong, but you could. Mark that down make a tattoo of it ofsh my brain my brain is empty you guys ah so anyway, um, what was I even saying fit to oh I finished reading Intisar Khanani’s Thorn and I loved it. I really did it is um, especially because the romance is not only slow burn but it’s.

11:47.94
jeffekennedy
Barely there but it’s really earned by the story. Um I appreciated that the way that the story flows and it’s really one of the big divergences between the way she did her goose girl retelling and I did because mine of course has sex. Because my stories always have sex and hers. Not only doesn’t but it barely has that romance it’s it’s implied that the romance will come later. There’s the beginnings of it I guess. And but I do feel like the way the story goes that’s some you know it I do think that it makes sense and I I think it’s a gorgeous book I think she did a beautiful job of writing this book. I loved it. Um I do think it’s funny that um one of the. Faro fep gals Lisette Marshall like her books a lot or was it her that that some these gals have conversation Stephanie Prater SL Prater and Coleen Crowley, Vela Roth, Maria Zuniga – hope I got that right? anyway. Ah they were having this conversation about authors who have sex in their books also address other bodily functions whereas other authors who I you know I I don’t like to use the learn word clean because it drives me crazy. But. Ah, have off the page sex or no references to sex at all also tend not to reference bodily functions which I think is an interesting insight because and they were I saw it because they mentioned me I think lizette mentioned me. Because they were joking about how dark wizard opens with Gabriel and his aggressive peeing. You know he arrives on the land of his enemy and the first thing he does is is pee on it and and I think that’s funny because my characters do. Have bodily functions of all kinds and I think that’s very interesting that those of us who write on the page sex also are more willing to embrace more willing or we’ll leave it at more willing that that within text we also. Discuss the body in all of its many functions. It’s enticing or not whereas in a book like Thorn. There’s um, almost a.

14:35.50
jeffekennedy
I’m trying to think of what the word I want is the the characters become you know I mean they’re very rounded and real characters. But they become almost avatar-like in a way in that they don’t seem to have human bodies other than where. Injuries are concerned. There’s not much else about their bodies and even the injuries were I don’t know like a step removed and I think it just has to do with like where we where we root ourselves. It’s it’s more of ah of an intellectual. Approach. It’s more in the head or in the spirit even as opposed to being rooted in the body I know that Grace Draven writes much more rooted in the body like I do that something that we have in common. It’s. Just an interesting thing to think about so let’s see oh. So then I finished thorn fat I should do something I realized I hadn’t noted that I’d finished thorn. And started reading abandoned in death on my spreadsheet and I don’t like it if I get my dates behind very important things. so um so yeah it’s really It’s always fun to read Nora she’s she’s good for especially when i’m. Drafting this intensely It’s really good for me to have these really competent writers in my head.

16:16.12
jeffekennedy
Sometimes people ask me if I worry about what I’m reading leaking into the story and I don’t I think I’ve talked about it here before once or twice but you know people who plagiarize other works are doing it on purpose. The. When they say that it’s subconscious or inadvertent. That’s an excuse we we are what we take in It’s a way of refilling the well. Um, yeah so I read abandoned and deaths quite a bit yesterday afternoon. Did a few things. Not a lot. Not a lot and we watched oh you know what? we watched Little Miss Sunshine had not seen that I think since it came out back in 2006 and I did not remember that Steve Carell was in it I mean it’s ah it’s a great cast. Um, you know Alan Arkin and Toni Collette who I love I think she’s amazing and I’m not gonna be able to think of his name. He wasn’t as good as it gets it might come to me but also Abigail Breslin she got you know was nominated for best supporting actress in that movie. She plays a little girl paul danow is in that but Steve Carell plays Tony Collette’s brother who tried to commit suicide and I was thinking. Well how did I not remember that and it turns out that Steve Carell was kind of a nobody and. 2006 he was a relative unknown in hollywood and but that same couple of years and it took him 5 years to make the movie and it it said that the producers and directors were a little hesitant who cast Steve Carell because he was so unknown but then by the time the movie came out. He had just won um maybe an emmy for his first year in The Office season. 1 of The Office and and also 40 year old virgin had come out and so he’ had like rocketed to superstardom. So I just think that’s really funny. I have to figure out the name of the guy Greg Caner you guys probably all knew this you were probably all shouting it at me all right? So ah yeah, I’m just going to get back to revising today at least now I’m into the stuff that I wrote more recently let’s just see. Yeah I am I am now into the stuff that I wrote three weeks ago so it’s much more alive in my head which is good and bad. Ah, it’s good to have that distance get that distance from the charm of recent composition right? But also it.

19:10.53
jeffekennedy
Feels more um, alive does that make sense I’m not going to search for more words I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to think of or maybe it was the day before what is time who am I trying to think of what’s the word for like if you leave school. And it’s like well not ditching and is it. It’s was it dropping out or was it skipping um being delinquent I was really having a hard time if only you guys were there too. Yeah, a little speaker on my desk and tell me these words when I need to think of them. But anyway so we’ll see we’ll see how far I get today. We’ll see how I feel I may work over the weekend to give myself buffer time and then I will probably take the following wake off see like I’m learning. Um, trying to learn anyway. I hope that you all have a wonderful Friday I hope that you have a wonderful weekend whether it’s time off for you or not I hope you are productive I hope that your brain delivers the words that you need when you need them. And I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye-bye.

A Year Ahead with Jeffe

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog
This week at the SFF Seven we’re taking a look at the future! We’re asking: “What does your writing life look like for the upcoming year?” That includes book releases, WIP’s, retreats, cons, signings, etc.
I just had my annual planning call with my agent, Sarah Younger at NYLA, yesterday and my year ahead is looking pretty damn busy!
Book Releases
First release of 2022 is the audiobook of DARK WIZARD, Book #1 in Bonds of Magic. This is Baby’s First Self-Published Audiobook (TM) and I couldn’t be more delighted about it! Book #2, BRIGHT FAMILIAR, and Book #3, GREY MAGIC, will also be releasing in audiobook this year, probably in March for both. Whee!
Next up is GREY MAGIC, the current WIP, slated to be out February 28. After that, the long awaited finale, THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING, Book #4 in Heirs of Magic, will be out in April (I hope!)
Those are my only slated releases at this point, but there’s lots more coming!
WIP’s
GREY MAGIC, then THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING, as mentioned above.
Does it count as a WIP if it’s out on submission? I have one of those out.
I’m going to finish a science fantasy I started two years ago. Super excited to get that out!
I may be doing a ghostwriting project 😀
I’d like to begin a new trilogy in the Bonds of Magic world.
I have a new shiny idea that I’d love to write, that Sarah is excited about too!
If this sounds like more than one person can humanly write, it probably is. Ever in motion is the future!
Retreats
I don’t do retreats because I do my best writing at home.
Cons
I’ll be attending SFWA’s Nebula Conference in May!
Also the Jack Williamson Lectureship in April, Apollycon in July, maybe ChiCon in September and possibly World Fantasy Con in November.
Signings, etc.
Dependent on in-person events – cross our fingers!!

       

FIRE OF THE FROST Fantasy Holiday Romance Yumminess

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven we’re doing a little winter holiday self-promo! Many of you know we had to push back the release of FIRE OF THE FROST, but it’s coming soooooon! We are on target to release on December 22. So if you are someone who celebrates Christmas, this should hit your eReader just in time to relax and enjoy some holiday downtime. 

And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, there’s lots of midwinter, romantic holiday goodness for you, too! Only Amanda’s story is literally Christmas. Everyone else’s is a fantasy midwinter holiday. Mine includes a magical sleigh race and elemental festive lights. It’s a story that takes place in the Bonds of Magic world, roughly after DARK WIZARD and semi-concurrent with BRIGHT FAMILIAR. It takes place at Convocation Academy and you just miiiiigght see some of the characters in GREY MAGIC.

The delay means you have just that much longer to preorder the anthology for the special preorder price, before it goes up on release day.

Here’s the official (still in progress) blurb:

A midwinter holiday fantasy romance anthology…

From Darynda Jones, a standalone novella set in a world where vampyres are hunted for sport. The only thing standing between them and total annihilation is Winter, a warrior bred to save them from extinction. Forbidden to fall in love, Winter cares only about her oaths… until she meets the devilish prince of the underworld.

Of Fate and Fire by Amanda Bouchet

The Kingmaker Chronicles meets modern-day New York City! Piers, an exiled warrior from Thalyria, finds himself in the Big Apple just before the holidays. The world and everything in it might be utterly foreign to him, but that won’t stop Piers from helping to complete a vital mission for Athena and protect Sophie, a French teacher from Connecticut who’s suddenly knee-deep in inexplicable phenomena, danger, and henchmen after an Olympian treasure that should never have ended up in her hands—or remained on Earth after the Greek gods abandoned it.

The King of Hel by Grace Draven

A novella-length expansion of a stand-alone short story in which a cursed mage-king from a frozen kingdom is obligated to marry a woman of high-ranking nobility but meets his soulmate in a lowly scribe.

Familiar Winter Magic by Jeffe Kennedy

It’s holiday time at Convocation Academy, but best friends Han and Iliana are finding it hard to celebrate. As a familiar, Iliana is facing her assignment to a life of servitude to a wizard, very soon. And Han… despite being tested by the oracle daily, he is still uncategorized. As Iliana and Han face being separated forever, they at last find the courage—or desperation—to break the rules and acknowledge their deeper feelings for each other. But it will take more than true love to save them from the laws of the Convocation…

 And here’s a little snippet from my story, Familiar Winter Magic:

Once the races finished, Iliana let Han talk her into more dancing. With the excellent whiskey warming her blood, not to mention the heady glow of Han’s undivided attention, she could hardly resist. She loved him so much and he was right: this was their last Founding Festival together. Rather than try to hold him at arm’s length, in anticipation of their imminent parting, she decided to enjoy his company while she could.

Han at his most charming was impossible to refuse. Which would be a major problem when he manifested as a wizard, but she wouldn’t think about that tonight. Since it was a holiday, the thought-seekers gave everyone a break—and were celebrating themselves. The festival was a rare excuse for everyone to loosen up.

A little bit tipsy, the lights and dancing making her feel giddy, she danced with Han until she was so warm she had to shed her cloak. Among his many skills, Han was also an excellent dancer—far better than she, but he was so skilled that he made his partner look good—and they found themselves more than once in a circle of cheering spectators as he whirled her through the vigorous dances.

Then the music slowed, and she fanned herself, blowing out a breath, and headed off the dance floor. Han caught her hand. “Hey, where are you going?” Expertly he twirled her under his arm, then snugged her close, a hand on the small of her back as he led her through the dreamy rhythm.

Iliana braced one hand on Han’s chest, his heart thumping rapidly beneath her fingertips, his blue eyes lambent in the starry light. “We never dance the slow dances,” she breathed.

“A grievous lapse of judgment on my part,” he murmured, gaze traveling over her face. “You feel perfect in my arms, lovely Iliana. I want you here forever.”

She tore her gaze from his heartbreakingly beautiful face, focusing on his throat instead. That wasn’t much help, as his skin begged to be kissed and nibbled. “I don’t understand what’s changed between us, why you’re being so…”

“Seductive?” he suggested in a warm purr. “Devastatingly handsome and charming?”

Snorting, she made a face at him. “Aggressive. And annoyingly persistent.”

 

GREY MAGIC Postponed Release

Jeffe Kennedy / / News

Hi all! If you follow my podcast or blog, you already know this, but I’m having to postpone the release of Bonds of Magic #3, GREY MAGIC. Many apologies, but it has to be done, alas. I’m predicting that the new release date will be February 15, 2022. Possibly sooner, but not later. I’m changing the release date to 2/15/22 everywhere *except* on Amazon, who will only let me push it to 30 days out. If you preordered on Amazon (thank you!!!), you’ll get a notice saying the new release date is January 19. I might be able to push it out again right away, or I might have to wait. We shall see! At any rate, thank you for your patience and understanding.

Black FaRoFriday Fantasy Romance Readathon!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Love romantic fantasy and fantasy romance? Because it’s U.S. Thanksgiving – and Black Friday, the apparently now global celebration of our worldwide religion: consumerism – the FaRo gals are sponsoring a readathon!! Details here, with reading lists and templates for participating. As a bonus (and sacrifice to the deities of consumerism) all of these books are on deep sale!

My DARK WIZARD is on sale for only 0.99c!

This is a great time to grab this first in the Bonds of Magic series as a standalone novella in the world, Familiar Winter Magic, will be out December 22 in the FIRE OF THE FROST anthology, and book 3, in the series, GREY MAGIC, now has a cover and will be out in January!