Tag: ego

First Cup of Coffee – August 1, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

I’m back from Apollycon and giving my full review of the conference! Also discussing it in terms of cons that take advantage of authors, the importance of keeping in mind why authors invest in this, and more!




Transcript
00:01.16
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Well, that’s good. That’s my first at home cup of coffee in a number of days so I’m back home today is Monday August first and I returned home from Apollycon yesterday. And it was. It was truly a wonderful convention. It was fabulous. So I have lots to say about it. Um, ah quite a few take homeme messages I pretty much ah called Grace Draven bestie as I was leaving the airport and we talked my entire 1 hour drive home. Ah, like as I was leaving the parking garage I called her and she picked up right away and I was like want to hear the breakdown. so um so yeah nice to be home nice to be back. Ah, it’s good to go places. It was really productive conference but I’m also happy to be back in my garden and now for for several weeks couple weeks anyway, no like 3 almost 3 ah. So um, astute and dedicated listeners among you may be surprised that I am podcasting today because you may have remembered that I was supposed to have jury duty today but they called me on. Friday afternoon and said that I was no longer needed I’m still on call for jury duty through the end of August but um, that thing got canceled. So my theory is is that they like settled out of court on Friday they called me. Well. It’s maybe they settled out of court on Thursday day. Ah because they called me fairly early in the day eastern time on Friday organized of them huh I really appreciated that they called and let me know so early so that I didn’t have to ah truck down. To the courthouse. Um I would have had to be leaving about this time. So I got a day back which is good I did get writing done when I was on site but I didn’t get a lot done. Um.

02:44.34
jeffekennedy
I wanted to get my 2000 words a day on Thursday and Friday I did get 2000 words on Wednesday before I left so that was good but I ended up getting a little over 2000 between Thursday and Friday I got like um. Almost 600 on Thursday there were a lot of distractions on Thursday and I got in very late. So ah I slept in some and then got up and I was rooming with Jennifer Estep so we were chatting. And then we went for a walk and found the Starbucks and got back and sat in the lobby and did some writing and Jennifer is very good about um you know sitting quietly by but of course that’s what you get for sitting in the lobby you’re asking for it. So you know. Lots of distractions people talking and then agent Sarah arrived and she took me out to lunch so that was nice. We got to have a good conversation and um, yeah, and then on Friday I did a little better I got. Like 1488 on Friday ah Jennifer had panels to do and I did not so I walked to the Starbucks and did an hour of writing there and then another hour once I got back to the room and I was hoping to get those last 500 words, but it um it didn’t work out that way we were setting up tables. We went ate lunch things but that was pretty good for being on site. Um, and now I got today back an extra day. Which is good because um, the other thing that happened Friday was David’s movement disorders specialist called the office called reminding him his appointment this afternoon at two fifteen in Albuquerque and I was like did we know about this Ah I don’t think it was on the calendar anywhere. So I’m going up to talk to the nurse about that because it’s just fortunate that it worked out. Um, if I’d had jury duty still. Don’t know what we would I guess we would had to cancel and re schedule so things work out a lot of rain while I was gone the rain ga had over three inches in it when I got back.

05:29.53
jeffekennedy
We got some last night but I don’t think anything measurable I could go look. But um, it’s definitely good for breeding Mosquitoes If you’re on Video. You’ll see me whacking the Mosquitoes So I Even read um some notes on the airplane things that I was thinking about. On the back of my hotel bill which was actually quite reasonable I Really do have to hand it to a polycon. Um, if you’ve been listening to me for a long Time. You will have heard me talk about um. Conferences and other events I Guess that don’t pay authors and how it’s a problem. So.

06:22.97
jeffekennedy
Um, this is leading me into many other thoughts that would that’s the long pause. But so I heard a story while I was at Apollycon about um, another conference. That’s a writers conference actually I’m not going to tell that story here I’m sorry sorry to tantalize you um to fill in for those of you who have not been listening for a long time. Ah I had resolved some years ago to stop going to conferences that ask authors to pay. Ah, registration fee that is equivalent to or more than what the attendees pay and there are a lot that do that? Um, because basically they’re building their reader conference on the backs of authors wanting to get promo and. Um, our t had become a big offender that way. It’s bastard child story con is doing the same thing if not worse asking authors to pay a very high registration fee and then tosquito. Ah, and then to do all sorts of sponsorships in addition. Ah, there are other conferences where they would just like charge the authors substantially more than the reader attendees. And it was aggravating to me because you know basically you’re being their content and you are paying to be their content. Um I’ll be right back there. That’s better. Sorry. So anyway, a lot of that stuff grew up around the rise of self-pubishing where so many authors were willing to invest in promo which there’s nothing wrong with that. But. Especially some of the smaller cons and I went to a few of them and I paid my money and they tried to extract more money from me and I watched them go after authors. Um like Darynda who is very kind and has a hard time saying no. And who they saw as having lots of money and they would ask her to pay more and more and more which she did and which drove me crazy. Um, and now I know that some of them don’t like me because I got in the way of them.

09:09.63
jeffekennedy
Tapping money for a Darynda I’m happy to be mean that way. So. Sorry that that would like lead into a whole nother ramp. Um, but you know I feel like this this whole community that grew up around tapping authors for money. Um, in the name of readers. Getting to do things or um, these other industries that were growing fat off of it. Um, it was it was bad scene and worse some of these smaller cons like I went back to 3 years in a row and it was exactly the same people. And not only was it exactly the same readers it many of these were having fewer and fewer actual readers at them including Rt and more aspiring authors which it’s fabulous to have aspiring authors there. We love having aspiring authors involved. Ah. But when you are paying as an author to go to a conference in order to expand your reach to new readers then that’s ah you know, not necessarily a good thing. Yes, writers are readers too. But you really. What to reach the power of readers. Ah, and that’s that’s important to some of the things I want to say about why I found a polycon. Really excellent. There were a couple of problems I hope we’ll get to do a feedback form but um. The buy-in for a polyon is very inexpensive. It’s $150 for an author to have a table. There were 3 3 hour signings which was a lot. Um and we were tireded afterwards. Um this is sponsored by Jennifer L armintroub and Jennifer ended up I heard from other people that she skipped on Saturday skip lunch and skip dinner and she was still signing at Eight o’clock at night trying to get through her line. So I’ll be interested to know how she re-jiggers it for the future.

11:31.21
jeffekennedy
She’s gonna have to figure out um a way to to maintain her health and still give the fan service. So it’s a cheap buy-in you know, otherwise we pay our travel costs and hotel and food and so stuff. Which we would have to do for every other conference right? Um, so the investment’s inexpensive investing and having your books there your swag and so forth, but the apolykon readers the way that Jennifer set this up. Is Jennifer and her team and the apolllyon team were really great too. Like I said a couple of problems things I think were probably not entirely in their control. Ah some of this might be like first in-person event coming out of pandemic. But. This crowd of readers was so refined and so exactly wanting the kind of thing that I write um and that Jennifer writes and so forth some of the Ben Diagrams got a little you know tangential. But it was um, you know 2000 readers and I think something. Like 100 authors? Maybe I don’t think I know the exact number so the ratio was fantastic and these were power readers. These were the people who um. They were there to see their favorite authors and get signatures. But then they were also looking for new to me authors and they were um, ready to to spend money and they bought books like crazy I have never sold books at an event like this. Um, it was incredibly well worth it. Well worth my time and the best part is is I really reached so many readers who are like I said power readers. Love to read enthusiastic parts of the fandom and. Who had never heard of me and so this sort of brings in an interesting question because and you all have heard me if you listen for a while you’ve listened to me talk about the competing of and I say demands and that’s not right. Reward system may be goals of being a career author because there’s a lot of reasons to try to make your living as an author. Um and the first and foremost should be love of story I think if you don’t love to write if you don’t love story. Um, then.

14:09.38
jeffekennedy
It’s gonna be really hard for you because that’s what carries you through the hard times and there will be hard times. So If you’re not doing it because you love it reconsider but love of story then there are other reasons um making money. You know, keeping the lights on ah and and as with I think probably all human professions. There’s a sense that the more money you make the more successful you are and the more you can feel good about it. That’s not ah, a straight line. I Know some really amazing tret pubbed authors some I was talking with over this weekend were making very little money and we were kind of talking about why are they not making more money. The simple answer to that is that the trad traditional publishers. We’ll get away with paying authors. It’s really a mosquitoy morning. They’ll get away with ah paying authors as little as they possibly can and um, yeah, enough sad. But you know so there is making money as one thing. Um. And so reaching new readers is kind of of a double-pronged thing because you want to reach new readers because part of the whole point of writing a book Is you want people to read it. It connects that circuit between the creator and the consumer of the creation. Um. I’ve known writers who say well I write only for myself and I’m happy that way and it’s like oh well, great. But you know why? Why would you write something that no one will ever Read. It doesn’t make sense to me. That’s some part of the sure there’s that creative upwelling. But. Circuit is completed when somebody receives the creation and reacts to it but then also reaching more readers means more success more money enables you to do more things enables you to not worry about paying the mortgage. In some of our cases. But then there’s always the ego thing and the ego thing isn’t entirely bad. You know and I know I talk down Ego I talk about fighting ego and ego being a problem and ego can be a problem but Ego is also what. Gets you through the hard times. Um, believing in yourself believing in your work having that strong enough belief in yourself and in what you’re doing that you can I don’t want to say ignore the rejections.

16:55.62
jeffekennedy
But um, you know that sort of that idea of having a thick skin nobody really ever has a thick skin but especially as a creator you tend to have a thin and sensitive skin. But that ego is what will help bolster you so that. You can get through the rejections and the scathing reviews and the various slings and arrows of working in a creative industry so you have to have a healthy ego but not an overweening ego but at events like this ego can really come into play. Because of course you have someone like Jennifer L Armittrout who’s enormously successful and signing. You know as long as she could stay on her feet and so it’s easy to be that success. Although a bunch of us were like sitting around in the bar. We found this great back nook in the bar and we’re back there. Eating and drinking wine because we were all so exhausted after 9 hours of siing and and that was where we were hearing that Jennifer was down there still signing and it was eight o’clock at night and she was still signing and had people in line and they were restructuring the line and all of this. And we were all like you know it’s easy to envy Jennifer’s success and at the same time we were all so grateful that we were not still in that line. Um, so it’s great to do this fan. Service. There were other author authors there who were ticketed authors and. Grace and I had even discussed ahead of time like why were these the ticketed authors ah where they could predict who was going to have the really really along the lines and I was interested in how did they predict it and some of the fallout from that was. Is they they didn’t always predict well I don’t know if they had any authors who were ticketed that they predicted incorrectly but there were certainly other authors there that ended up with huge long lines that they had not predicted would um and those authors they. Actually did a great job as soon as they saw a huge long line forming and it happened with um Danielle Jensen’s table was like a couple up from mine I was right next to Jennifer Estep and almost immediately in that first signing this huge line started forming and it was snaking in front of our tables and I was thinking. Oh. This is going to suck because no one’s going to be able to see our tables because we’re going to have this line in front of us which happens at signings it does and you just have to be zen about it. Although you’re muttering to yourself. Oh this sucks? Um, but apolllykon people jumped on it I mean they were.

19:34.51
jeffekennedy
Within minutes they were there and they were laying the tape out on the floor and getting the line to snake so it didn’t block. Anyone’s table and I was super impressed by that and then they were handing out wristbands for people. Um, at the end of the line so that they could come back later when their number group was called so. You know so it was like well why didn’t they predict Daniel Jensen would have a long line because she’s certainly very popular. She’s blown up recently blown up I love that we use these terms. So um, what was my point I know I had 1 oh. That it’s easy to to succumb to the envy. Um and the proddings of ego and be like well well I just don your gentlemen have such a huge long line and I don’t um but I had steady flow. And it was really cool I had people showing up with like old copies of the mark of the tala or the pages of the mind which I did not have copies there with me. Um one person showed up like first thing Saturday morning she was like on a trajectory. And she came in she brought her whole stack of like all of the 12 kingdoms and the unchartered realm’s books and that was so cool and it was. It’s gratifying to to meet those people who have been reading you for a long time but I realized that. It’s slightly loud at the garbage trucks going by on the street if you’re hearing that but it’s um, for me I had so many readers coming to my table saying you’re a new to me author tell me about your books. And I realized that the authors with the huge long lines they weren’t reaching new readers necessarily maybe they got some but for me I reached so many new readers and that was like Jeffie this is the point this is why you’re here. Um. And so that was so productive for me with this with this convention. Um I will be back in April for the Twenty Twenty three one and it’ll be interesting to me to see how it goes will there be a certain point at which. Reading new readers taps out and as you’re a very successful author like you know Jennifer L Armentrout has this huge audience now. So maybe she doesn’t need to reach new readers. Although I know it’s something that Darynda thinks about all the time. Ah, but you know like for Danielle Jensen

22:20.21
jeffekennedy
Um, how do you do that balance between making sure that your fans get to see you but then also reaching new readers. It’s ah it’s an ongoing question right? But anyway great convention for this. Um. And I think it’s important to remember that there’s just like different circles of readers because Jennifer Estep like I said sitting next to me has this huge huge platform in urban fantasy and some in fantasy romance but she did not have a long enough line to be ticketed and I think at times was like well you know. It’s easy to just you know to feel a little sad about that. But I think it’s because this set of readership. We should keep track of how many mosquitoes did I kill during this podcast. Um that you know this readership was slightly different enough from her usual platform. She did have readers showing up with like all 19 elemental assassins books. But then she had other people wanting to know who she was and what she wrote so so you want that balance all right long podcast today. But that’s my cheese. That one just dive bomb straight for my nose. Um, that’s my assessment of Apollycon thumbs up I don’t know if you can still get on for 2023 but it’s worth a try right um. I’ll I’ll see if I can put the author interest form in the show notes just in case all right I hope that you all have a wonderful Monday and I will talk to tomorrow morning you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – May 19, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.99
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:35.41
jeffekennedy
Ambrosia.

00:43.21
jeffekennedy
Lovely morning here in Santa Fe today on Thursday May nineteenth yes I was just wondering if I titled the podcast correctly because I always titled with the date and um. Fortunately I did ah so um, lots going on here tonight. We kick off the events for nebula conference mentoring happens this evening. Everything is in place. Everything’s come together I believe um, yeah, events tomorrow. How’s the book coming along. They say who they ask? Jeffe it’s coming. It’s coming. Um I have got of 83600 words and um, so I’ve got like None to go. Um, doable. See how much time I have for that out loud proof. Fortunately I do write pretty clean. So if I have to upload a penultimate version I could do that and fix the commas after.

03:49.51
jeffekennedy
Knowing that I’m not going to have it proofed I have been paying more attention to like instead of punting on Lay Lilade I’ve been actually checking. Although I think I have it right now the one that I don’t. Get is each other and one another and I’m not sure anybody actually cares.

04:39.50
jeffekennedy
Other than the grammarians. So theoretically I can finish it right now. Things are an other disaster and I don’t know how they’re going to get themselves out of it. Ah, but there’s a possibility that the book will just end with them all dying and then they all died I mean I can understand why Shakespeare did that sometimes it’s like yeah and then they all died. So what she’s here. In fact, I well I’ve said this before but I think that the people who go for the tragic ending instead of trying to figure out how to make a romance end happily when they think that they’re being so terribly clever and like oh I’m going to write a romance except it ends tragically. Like actually the tragic ending is the easy ending. It’s um, super easy to have everybody die or everything not work out. It’s much more difficult to figure out how the fuck are they going to get themselves out of this situation. So I guess we’ll find out won’t we um, there’s a panel I want to see tomorrow at None my time. The none sequence of panels for the conference. But then I will um, actually there’s 2 at None but they’ll all be recorded so I can watch them later as well. It’s fun to watch stuff in person because of the chat role and everything you could talk to people and I see my peony is about to bloom. Oh. It’s so pretty glowing pink. So so yeah, quite a lot going on the next couple of days. Did you guys see I might link to it the trailer for the nebula award ceremony. Amazing, amazing people worked on that and it just gives me a shiver of delight because I can’t take any credit for the actual work. But you guys you have no idea what I went through to get that to happen the way that it happened. And I don’t feel like I can talk about it necessarily but Neil Gayman me I got him there other people helped me many thanks to the people that helped me and connected me. Um.

10:08.33
jeffekennedy
But for for reasons that are too arcane and absurd to explain and besides which it would be impolilitic I had to fight to have Neil Gaiman be our toast master in the way that he is. And it’s gonna be awesome and I’m just so happy. So happy without it turned out so that’s often I find the role of people in leadership. Um, which sounds kind of funny for me to say in leadership. But you know is that if you’re doing it right? You step back and and you don’t trumpet your credit like I’m doing right now but you know it’s it’s the other people who do the actual work but sometimes that work of being the one. Determined to have a thing happen and fighting for it and fighting people who don’t want it to happen that just takes a lot sometimes and it’s work. That’s not always noticed by people which is fine. Um, but it is an interesting thing to me. To show. You guys have my nebula nails. Oh here’s a little Ray of sunshine if you’re on video I am got. There’s sort of a deep blue purple with gold sparkleys nebula nails um, anyone else was I going to say on that. Oh on the the leadership thing. Ah so I had 1 funny. You guys know that if you’ve been listening to me for a very very long time because I don’t think I’ve brought it up recently that I think that as human beings. 1 of the things we have to combat is ego is the overweening ego the dominating ego. Um, and that’s partly my taoist perspective ah taoists are very much. Um. Anti-ego. You can’t be None with the dow if you are filled with ego and I think ego drives a whole lot of negative behavior. So I work very hard not to be egotistical. Not to let my ego take over and it’s funny in some ways because it’s this balance between not letting the ego run everything but also taking credit for stuff so quite a long time ago.

15:47.55
jeffekennedy
My very favorite professor from college professor David Hadas who was the one who is the non-practicing orthodox jew if you get that joke my religious studies professor amazing man. Huge influence on me and. He was he was dying. He got colon cancer and he decided and this was very true to who he was that he would not get radiation or chemotherapy. He had the surgery but he didn’t want. To have any of the other treatment because he wanted to spend his last days in the classroom um to doing what he loved best what he was so good at and so oh I’m gonna get over for clem talking to about him. So. I organized a thing where we had a kind of a memorial service for him while he was still alive and I worked with my University Washington University in St Louis and a bunch of my old friends. And we worked with the alumni office and contacted as many people as possible who had been as students. You know they gave us the records and I emailed everybody. It was early days of email you know and invited people to come and say nice things about him and. It was a really cool thing to do and the university dedicated this um one of the salons. One of the I don’t know teaching halls to him they put that put his name on it and it was just we all went back to St Louis it was really lovely weekend. It was funny because like some people that I emailed. Got so mad about me emailing them almost. Everyone was nice but a few people were like take me off of this mailing list. It’s like did you even read the email dip shit anyway, early days of email it would probably be harder to do now only illegitimate spammers or. Don’t to email people anymore. So ah, this one gal did um I don’t even remember she was a reporter and she was doing an article I don’t think it was for the student newspaper. It might have been for the St Louis Post dispatch I don’t remember what paper. But anyway she called me up ah to interview me about the event and so we talked about what was going on and everything and she was asking me about me and she said um, she said well I understand that you organized this event and I said well um.

21:21.61
jeffekennedy
A great many people worked on this event and she said oh okay and then there was like no mention of me in the article at all. It was like I very effectively erased myself which was actually fine. Because I wanted it to be about him and I’d said that to her several times you know that this is to celebrate professor Hadas. Um, but at the same time I was like oh note to self about giving away all credit. Um, you know it’s ah. Because people people will let you do it? So I don’t really remember how I got off on that whole thing. Oh just like leadership credit stuff and that sort of thing. Um, yeah, a lot of things with nebula conference and ceremony were things that I that I masterminded. Or such intermotion. But everybody else did all the work and they were fabulous and everybody will be very glad to have the work done with because it’s been a lot and then next year we will be doing the hybrid conference. Ah, that’ll be exciting moment. Back in person. So ah, the other thing I wanted to talk about is this funny thing about people not being aware of of the order of things of the precedence of naming and the reason this came up was um. My friend posted a picture of purple Columbine blooming in her garden and None of her family members who lives across the country said oh I love those purple and white flowers and I messaged my friend and. Because it made me laugh and I I said it made me laugh that she called the columbine purple and white flowers. So and I totally get this as a regional thing you know like that people on the East Coast may have never seen Columbine but I’m a Colorado girl by births or not by birth exactly but certainly by a nativity. Ah, my mother was born there stepfather was born there I grew up there hometown of Denver Columbine is the State Flower Purple Columbine ah and so it was funny to me that somebody would not. Recognize the flower and big I mean maybe just it’s so pervasive here. But also you know it’s like people who know nothing about the your american west right? and it is a pretty flower.

27:05.89
jeffekennedy
So and she replied back and said yes that um, when she and her son were skiing that there was a trail called Columbine and her son who’s a teenager said. It’s really sad that they named a trail after that town where all of those kids died. So this is the perspective partly of youth and partly of people who’ve grown up in a digital world that they’re not aware of the order of history. So in case, you don’t. Follow that whole thing probably most of you do, but he was referring to the massacre at Columbine high school which took place in Denver it was not a town but Columbine high school Columbine high school of course named for the state flower of Colorado and. Lots of mountains around here have Columbine this are that because it’s a flower that grows everywhere here right? I have none of yellow columbine in my garden blooming right now I should take a picture and of None of them put it on the show notes. Because the peony is not ready for full viewing anyway. So it’s just it’s it’s just a really funny thing and I’ve noticed it happen a lot and I can’t think of the books but like when people pick an older property. And say oh and ah I don’t think this was the exact one but um, like the one that I pulled out in the example for her was wizard of oz like when people complained that the wizard of oz rips off Harry Potter or some of these older fantasy works Rip off Harry Potter and it’s funny because when I none read Harry Potter I thought it was incredibly derivative of previous fantasy works. But once something becomes very large. It supersedes everything else and and there’s also the wherever someone none encounters. Ah, piece of information a story a name then that becomes none in their mind regardless of precedent. It’s a funny thing. And this was making me think too which is just sort of a sideline but I was ah thinking about how someone had asked me a long time ago. Um, and it was someone who was young and they were asking me about your song.

32:24.65
jeffekennedy
By Elton John and Bernie Toppin and they said why do you think he says um, but then again, no in the song. Why why would he do that and I said well it’s it’s meant to Reflect you know they’re like why why wouldn’t he just change that the song if he if he changed his mind and I said well it’s meant to be like this conversational tone and it’s meant to transmit his sense of of uncertainty and insecurity by having that in the lyrics and they said no I don’t think that’s it I think he just. Made the mistake and didn’t change it. It was like no I don’t think that’s what happened, but for some reason that song’s already that conversation’s always stuck with me and I was thinking about Jim Croce’s song. Where he says I’ll have to say I love you and a song and it starts out with I know it’s kind of late I hope I didn’t wake you? Um, there’s I didn’t look up the date on this one I well let me go back. I was wondering which of those came none and the answer is is Elton John and Bernie Taupin that song was 1970 Jim Crowie’s was 1973 um, lot of names I’m gonna have to fix in the transcript. Sorry if I don’t get them all and then there’s. Ah, what can I think of the band. Um I’m leaving on a jet plane has a similar thing. We’re addressing the person and the song where they say um, don’t now have to look.

36:09.97
jeffekennedy
It’s not letting me pause funny that song was written by John Denver I didn’t realize that I was thinking of someone else singing it. Maybe you guys will remember because I’m not gonna keep researching it. But anyway, ah. He says the same sort of thing in there as in um I hate to wake you up to say goodbye and what year was that oh Peter Paul and Mary that’s who I was thinking of um, singing it. Okay, hold on.

37:34.17
jeffekennedy
Okay, so that was 1966 which I should remember because that’s the year I was born. So anyway, this person who I can’t even remember who they are I want to go back and expand on the explanation and say that this was part of a songwriting trend. In the apparently late sixty s through the early 70 s of having kind of having lyrics that were more conversational and directed to a particular person we could probably do a whole essay on this and if you want to take that up. For your ah thesis. You’re welcome to do so so I’m going to go on my way and get some stuff done. Wish me luck. Um, if I kill off all the characters will you forgive me? Ah, ah. All right? Um I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday and I will talk to you tomorrow I’ll do my podcast tomorrow. What the hell it’s only it’s only time you all take care bye bye.

Watch What You Feed that Ego

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

For those who don’t follow me on Instagram or Twitter, this is our agave flower spike. It’s fixing to bloom any day now. Really spectacular!

Some of my friends find this monster spike unsettling and alien. More than one has compared it to the flesh-eating, massively growing plant in Little Shop of Horrors.

via GIPHY

I can see their (okay, pretty melodramatic) point. But there was something about that manipulative plant, whose hunger for human flesh could never be sated, that sticks in our heads and still gives us the creeps. 

We could say it’s that atavistic and animal instinct to avoid the predator. I’d go a step further and say that stories of this type warn us of another great peril of being human: the overweening ego. That’s our topic this week, asking each other “How Do You Keep It Humble?” aka “Great Cautionary Tales: the Enormous Ego Edition.” Come on over to the SFF Seven for my tips on how NOT to have this happen to you. 

 

Choosing Your Billing

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

How people bill themselves and their products fascinates me.

You know what I mean, right? The “best,” “tallest,” “newest,” “most.” Advertisers have been after this method for years, trying to convince consumers that this particular thing is special, unique, superlative and Must Be Purchased. Of course, there are laws that require Truth in Advertising.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main federal agency that enforces advertising laws and regulations. Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:

  • Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive

  • Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims

  • Advertisements cannot be unfair

However, it’s fairly easy to get around this sort of thing. “Truthful” is a relative thing. My “healthy” granola bars might be low-fat and through the roof on sugar and sodium. Depends on the definition.

Writers, of course, are faced with selling themselves to the world. Yes, yes – I know we’re really selling our stories, but the almighty BRAND is the author herself. Do you want to read a book by Crappy Author or Bestselling Author? Knowing nothing else, you’ll probably pick Bestselling, because at least that means a bunch of other readers liked the author’s work enough to buy it.

Theoretically.

See, it’s really great for an author to have a book make it to the New York Times Bestseller list. Or the USA Today Bestseller list. And now the Amazon Bestseller list. The best part is, a writer gets one book on one of those lists – even in the very bottom spot – and ever after you get to pimp yourself as Bestselling Author. Fair enough, really. However, now that there are so many digital presses and online bookstores, there are ever so many more lists to be on. And I see authors glomming onto the “Bestseller” title if they’ve made it on any list anywhere.

For example, when Sapphire came out, it was number one on the Carina bestsellers list for about a week. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t love this. I may have clicked on the link and looked at it approximately every ten minutes. I might have even made little gleeful noises while I looked. Okay, I have screenshots saved. And someone said to me “Now you can call yourself a #1 Bestseller.”

Erm.

Obviously, I haven’t done that. It just feels wrong. I know a bunch of you will snicker at this, but I’m a fairly modest person. Not that I don’t have a very healthy ego and strong self-confidence. But I really don’t like talking myself up. I run into this at the day job, too. Those people in the company who make sure everyone knows how wonderful they are? I’m not one of them. I’m wary. Wary of jealous gods and obese egos. 

So today I noticed a writer described as “World Renowned Author” and I tripped over it. What the hell does that mean? I recognized the author’s name, even read one of his books, but I would never have described him as world-famous. And then I thought, well, hell – Carien who often comments here, lives in The Netherlands and she likes my books. And @arzai lives in Malaysia and she likes my books. I figure, this makes ME world-renowned, right?

I’m low-fat, all-natural and healthy, too.

On Fires and Hubris

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Smoke in the valley today. There’s a 60,000 acre fire near Alpine, Arizona. The smoke and ash blew in on us last night. Our patio cushions have ash all over them.

Apparently it’s worse in the valleys. People in Albuquerque were calling 911 to report fires. They were broadcasting bulletins to tell people to knock it off, that the smoke was from Arizona.

Where there’s smoke, there’s not necessarily fire.

Not right *there* anyway.

It’s a funny thing, how what happens to our neighbors affects us. We forget that things are different for people just a state away, the weather, their politics, disasters. Until it spills over into our own lives.

A friend of mine is up in Yellowstone right now and it’s been snowing. She’d asked me for advice on the best route home. Then she found out that one direction isn’t a possibility because the roads are still closed due to snow. I lived in Wyoming for over 20 years and already I’ve forgotten that early June can still mean snow there.

How quickly we adapt, focusing on our immediate world.

I think it’s easy to fall into this pattern, thinking that how things are for us is how they are for everyone.

Maggie Stiefvater, who is a very successful author of young adult novels, and at quite a young age herself, wrote a blog post the other day that kind of took me aback. I agree that jealousy is a worthless emotion and something to be overcome. However, the relentlessly self-congratulatory tone is a bit off-putting to me. It can be a trap, I think, to believe that your own success is a direct result of your awesomeness.

Clearly, if the juice is lacking, you have little to go on. Still, success in any endeavor is made up of many factors. Timing, serendipity, personalities. It’s like wondering why one woman is able to have babies easily while another is infertile. Is it because fertile woman is a better person? Because she deserves it? Why does one guy develop pancreatic cancer and another live to be 106? We like to try to trace cause and effect, but there isn’t always one.

With producing art, we’re talking about something that necessarily grows out of the deepest parts of ourselves. Sure, a writer can try to target what sells, but if the story isn’t genuine to her in some way, it’s not going to work. Not everyone has the story that becomes a phenomenon. That’s just how it is.

We all follow different paths in life. Our joys and sorrows, failures and successes are part of that. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what hand we’re dealt, but rather how we play it.

Not everyone gets to be a bestselling author. Not everyone gets to live to be 106. Some people die young. Some can’t have babies. Some artists are discovered after they die.

I sometimes wonder if I’d take Jane Austen’s lot – to be so revered long after my death and never get to enjoy it myself.

Maybe so. Hubris is a poisonous thing. Not getting too excited about one’s own awesomeness can be dodging a bullet. Hard to control a raging ego, once its been overfed.

More and more I’ve come to believe the real test in life is not how well we do, but how we handle what happens.

Remembering that not everyone sees the same thing when they look out the window is part of that.

Art and Twitter

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How do you like where I hung our cow skull? I’m feeling very Georgia O’Keeffe.

It’s hard to say if I’m imitating her, or Santa Fe design in general. Sometimes you do something just because it looks good. We happened to have this cow skull – which is kind of a long story. Suffice to say that David and I are both biologists and we have a lot of different bones and skulls. In this landscape they become less eccentric and more fashion statement.

RoseMarie sent me this article about a “new writer” giving up Facebook and Twitter. I kind of hate to give it the dignity of a link, because it’s really very silly. “Article” is really a strong word. It’s only 434 words long (yeah, I checked), which is comparable to my shorter blog posts. Really it reads like “Hey, this one friend of mine, who got an MFA? Well she gave up Twitter and Facebook, even though she was really good at it, you know? And she thought it totally worked for her.”

I don’t think I exaggerate there.

The “premise” was the “new writer” who’s been published in Narrative Magazine, which is respectable but hardly earth-shattering, and is, um, exactly one publication credit, cut herself off from the social media to concentrate on her writing. (By the way, the phrase that she’s “hoping to publish her first book soon” can be translated as anything from “it’s not done yet” to “she’s pitching to agents” to “she’s working her way through the university presses. In short, we have no idea where she stands on it.)

But I digress.

The result of the grand experiment? Even in the full essay, she never mentions if she gets any more writing done. Of course, she comes from an MFA frame and one of the amusing things about that mindset is three months of “focusing on your writing” isn’t really expected to produce anything in the way of wordcount. Deep thoughts can be enough. Her conclusion was she felt she “detoxed” from Twitter and maybe she needed to. Most of her musing is about whether she’s abandoning her social media platform when she needs it most.

There’s this guy on Twitter I followed recently. He followed me first, for a reference I made, so I followed back – he looked reasonably amusing and I usually give anyone who’s not only posting links a shot. He’s looking for a job. So he takes other people’s posts and mentions that he wants a job. For example, someone will say “I’m a writer – I have the papercuts to prove it” and he’ll reply “I need a job – I have a ‘hire me!’ sign to prove it.”

He’s clever and makes me smile, which is what it’s all about. So, I bit.

I asked him where he is and what kind of work he’s looking for. This is the opening he’s looking for, right? If I could, I’d be willing to point him in some directions.

So what does he do? He replies, twice, about how he needs a job and how sad it is that millions of people don’t have jobs. He tells me a state and a vague kind of work and gives me absolutely nothing to go on. Oh, and he tells me he got on Twitter because he’d heard it was a great place to connect with people.

And yet – he completely failed in his opportunity to connect with me.

I think that’s the part people miss: if you’re going to do the social media thing, you have to do it because you enjoy it, to really connect with people, not to manipulate the medium to get what you want. It’s fascinating, really, how invulnerable the system is to insincerity.

I suppose that’s the difference, too, between imitation for the sake of status and repeating an idea because of the image it creates.

Can I help it Georgia had a brilliant eye? Maybe the cow skull is just my little way of connecting with her, in a cosmic non-Twittery way.

Riding the Ego Wave

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This is a stained-glass window in the Albert & Victoria Inn, where I’m staying one more night.

Isn’t it pretty? Apropos of nothing at all.

I thought about trying to wind it into a theme, but mostly I’m thinking about ego today and I’m not seeing how an antique rose window fits into that.

The problem is, I have a lot of complicated thoughts about ego right now. Probably a long essay’s worth, maybe even a whole book’s worth. So I clearly can’t write a succinct blog post about it.

But this is the core of what I’m thinking: A bloated ego leads to insanity.

By this I mean that, when the ego grows, it limits a person’s ability to see the world in a rational way. The larger the ego, the more distorted the person’s world view becomes until they reach a point where they cannot interact with other people in a sane way.

When people wonder how Tiger Woods thought no one would notice he was sending out for women to tend to his needs? Ego. He thought the rules didn’t apply to him.

How on earth did John Edwards think he could disappear, blithely mention backpacking in South America and that no one, not the national media would check? Ego. He said it, therefore it was true.

How can writers rant at criticism of their books, accusing the reviewer of everything from sour grapes to being fat and unattractive? How can they rant on their blogs about how people read their books wrong, because the books themselves are perfect? How can a writer blast contest judges for giving them a low score, saying that it’s just plain mean and they’ll get revenge?

Ego. Ego. Ego.

I’m not linking to all examples of this stuff, because, really, it’s enough for a PhD thesis.

The thing about ego is, it starts small. I’m thinking of a writer who just published her first book. It was snagged from the slushpile by an agent, sold to a publisher, movie rights sold. The book is doing well. I read it. It’s decent. A good read that I enjoyed. I think there are some serious flaws, but there it is.

The thing is, this writer is dispensing advice on how to get published. Offering up the rules. “If your book is good enough, it will get sold.” She’s proud of her achievement, as she should be, but I’m alarmed by her total lack of disregard for serendipity. Her book was EXACTLY the right theme at the right moment. I bet that two years ago, even one year ago, no one would have looked twice at it. A year from now it will be over. Great timing, super good luck for her — how can she not see it?

Ego.

The ego leads us to believe we do all this ourselves. “*I* am great and wonderful!” screams the ego. “Look at all I’ve done!”

I’m thinking that’s the moment you start to lose touch with reality, when the I is greater than the world around you. When a person doesn’t see how the world is working.

For example, it’s well understood in the publishing world that a writer simply cannot write to market. Even if you’re fast, by the time you draft the novel, revise, sell it, edit, and put it through the publishing calendar, the idea that was so hot and fresh when you started is now last year’s news, at best. What will be hot when the book hits the shelves? An entire industry wishes they could predict it and they can’t. It’s luck. That’s the deal.

So there are my rambling thoughts on ego for the day. I probably haven’t done it justice and will undoubtedly return now and again. Likely I’ll repeat myself. Possibly mumble in a vague way, from time to time.

Just remind me to give myself credit for the hard work I do, give thanks for the random blessings the universe bestows — and the sanity to know the difference.