Tag: NINC

First Cup of Coffee – May 9, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:01.38
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:15.63
jeffekennedy
Today’s Monday may ninth and death sorry for the incredibly awkward intro I’m so in a slightly different position and I realized I couldn’t quite crane back to reach the chimes. Alas. If you’re on video you might be able to see behind me this light might not be great. But I have my clematis is blooming beautiful pink blossoms. Yay.

00:45.73
jeffekennedy
Yeah, so everything’s bright and shiny here a little bit cool breeze blowing this morning but um, getting the cool in supposed to warm up later today wind again today. Alas, the wind. Um, hummingbird battle little Hummer um I don’t remember what I was going to say the hummingbird distracted me what’s something to say it. What was it. Who knows it’s gone thinks bird.

01:26.79
jeffekennedy
But so yeah, like all thoughts have fled my head I’m trying to think of what’s going on here wendy oh I know what it was I’ll share it on the show notes I posted it to social media before but I think social media hates me have you guys been noticing this. Like I post stuff to Facebook and Twitter like even pictures and original content with no links all the things I’m supposed to do and like I get likes but nobody’s commenting maybe nobody has bandwidth to comment. Maybe we’re all just so fricking fed up with everything that’s going on. Um. Like trying to relying on law from the seventeen hundreds to inact current law I haven’t ranted about that on here I feel like we’ve all heard enough elsewhere anyway. It was the um fire incident report from the fire that’s up near Las Vegas New Mexico about an hour north of here I was looking at it just to see because they they may have to add back to weight the city of Las Vegas New Mexico not Las Vegas Nevada but still the fires coming real close and they’re. Having to evacuate people from the surrounding towns. So in a way. It’s not funny. So it’s one of these funny, not funny things but I was looking at the report and it said that the drought exasperated by the high winds and warm temperatures I think that maybe not everybody who saw it got why I thought it was so funny because it should be exacerbated. Not exasperated. Um and I thought was really funny. Who knew a drought could become as exasperated as we feel so um, yeah I don’t know take humor where you can a lot of people have had to evacuate. It’s really not wonderful. Alas. Um I had a good weekend felt like a busy weekend I I had 3 SFWA meetings on Saturday publications team nebula planning board meeting. So ah. That sort of took up the middle of my day before that I just hung out though and read.

04:03.73
jeffekennedy
Um, I’ve been debating about whether or not to talk about what I’m reading because I am oh see even if I hint about it. You guys will guess. And I just don’t know if I want to say anything on here I know that’s coy if I shouldn’t bring it up at all I’m gonna set that aside and think about if you’re on video you might see my cool new barette this is exciting stuff right? Look it’s like a a phoenix or a heron. Got in at a local story here in Santa Fe so um I don’t often buy myself little treats like that and that was a nice nice little gifty for myself. It’s important to reward ourselves I don’t know if I’ve talked about that in a long time when you’re. Especially when you’re working your creative self very hard and wanting to um you know make the money to buy like groceries um paid mortgage and rent or all of those sorts of things I had a um, a. Ah, decent, wake up call yesterday I was um, insensitive to some newer writers in a way that I really tried not to be and it didn’t occur to me but 1 of the girls was saying that she hadn’t been able to find any good writer conferences in Florida and I said well what about NINC? Novelist incorporated which has their conference in St Petersburg and she was like what that’s 20 minutes away from me and she ran off to get it and then she set back a picture of her face when she read the membership qualifications for NINC because ah. Desert Ravens are busy this morning too. Ah because you have to be a member of NINC to register for the conference and and I’m a member and it was it was like a no big deal for me to become a member. But the membership qualifications are steep. She’s like I just published my first book I have nothing yet and it’s um, they they are they are steep There’re lots steepers than so than SFWA’s. But NINC was formed by kind of a spinoff group from rwa that felt like there were too many um wannabes in the organization and so they made it steep because they wanted it to be.

06:43.32
jeffekennedy
Like writers who were more advanced in their career and so I did say to these cows I said you know it took me a long time to to and I forget I do forget how much water is under the bridge for me. You know, maybe that’s part of the champagne problems. You know you get to a point where you you’re focused on what you’re you know eyes forward what you’re trying to achieve next what you’re trying to do and you don’t always or at least I don’t. Always take that moment to look back at how very far I’ve come and and I think it that’s ah it’s a good reminder for me, you know that those um those membership qualifications were easy for me to make they’re not easy for everybody. Especially when you’re first starting out but it it that reminds me of a conversation that we’ve been having at SFWA and and I feel like it’s okay for me to talk about this because I’ve been talking about it openly with a bunch of people but there is um in. I can’t maybe I’ve even talked about it on the podcast before forgive me forgive me if I’ve forgotten. Um I should say I did spend a couple of hours revising on the book yesterday I’m getting a little bit worried about finishing it on time. This is probably also right on schedule and. Yeah, so my brain is really focused on the book which is like really great that I’m like trying to finish this book at the same time that nebula conference is ah coming to a peak but everybody else is doing way more work than me at this point so that’s pretty awesome.

08:34.89
jeffekennedy
So yeah, there’s an interesting thing in the science fiction and fantasy community where they talk about um, being a professional writer which is very important. That’s part of our mission I’m totally behind that and then they talk about stuff being fan based. And it’s interesting to me that the science fiction and fantasy community. Really they talk about fan run conventions fan awards the romance community doesn’t talk about fans in the same way even though like the Rt convention was all about readers. And there are other conventions that are reader conventions but we don’t say fan in and the same way that science fiction and fantasy community does and there is occasionally someone will say things. In Sifwa like we want this to be a professional panel. Not something that seems more fan based and and 1 of the frequent. Um. Disparaging remarks made about Rw a that confused me for a long time was they would say well Rw a allows fans to be members. They don’t it’s not a professional organization like Siffa is because they allow fans in and I was like everybody in our w a is I mean you. You want to be a writer That’s why you join.

10:14.14
jeffekennedy
So this finally struck me the other day. It was like you know when you enter a community and you um, don’t always know the jargon and 1 thing about sifway is that it’s an old enough organization that there is arcane lingo. And there is a lot of stuff that are like unwritten rules and ever since I’ve been on the board I’ve I’ve been the force for no unwritten rules and there are other people who are fortunately on my same team with this but it’s like um if it frankly in in my world. If a rule is not written down It’s not a rule. You can’t expect people to abide by unwritten rules if it’s such a god damn fucking important rule write it down. You can see why everybody loves me. Um.

11:11.20
jeffekennedy
So we’ve we’ve run into this before where we’ve had like people violate unwritten rules and then everybody’s like oh censure them. They’re bad and wrong because they broke this this rule I’m like how were they supposed to know it was a rule and they’re like well everybody knows. I don’t know. It’s like this insular community thing part of the things we’re working to change and it has changed a whole lot just in in my type. Um, but so this like suddenly the lingo was illuminated for me an epiphany. Now I understand scrambled eggs! If you don’t get that joke you haven’t been listening to this podcast long enough. Ah, um, if you want me to you can ping me and I’ll explain it. But. It yeah I will explain in here. Um, but I was testing my theory out with someone else. I said you know this has occurred to me that when people say in SFWA say that something is fan-based as opposed to professional they’re referring to aspiring writers. As opposed to established writers and and she looked at me and she’s like well yes why god so that’s why when they were like hurling this accusation at RWA a allowing fans in what they mean is that they rwa has no bar for membership. And if you’re an aspiring writer with no cred whatsoever. You can join so somehow I don’t know it would be wouldn’t you sociologists out there I would love for you to retrace this history of how this became a thing of calling. People who want to become writers fans I mean in some ways I could see the trajectory right? because all writers start out as enthusiastic readers right. So okay, I’m gonna touch on this thing that I’m reading. Ah I don’t I don’t want to annoy certain people is my hesitation here. Um, somebody yesterday when I we were talking about something else entirely. But when I was chatting with some of these girls.

13:41.81
jeffekennedy
To answer entertain me that they always make me happy and they um, we’re talking about something I’m not even gonna I’m gonna dance around it as much as possible tippay tap. And I said um yeah, and I said I try to keep my mouth shut about that and this other girl said um well that she had she had gotten in trouble with with somebody for saying something and you know and she said that she was you know afraid for her career that they could really hurt her career. And I said well I’m not afraid but I do try to keep my mouth shut on some things because I am aware you know and they said well if we you know unless people like you tell us, then? how are we supposed to know and I’m like yeah I know I try to walk this line but sometimes I just. Give my opinion and say yeah I don’t think that you need to be involved with that. Ah, and then I do my little zipper face. Um I am aware that my babblings here are anywhere that in so that I am. Even though I say opinions my own that I do also representative what to some extent and I don’t want anybody to think that. My opinions are Sifwa’s opinions and so I I try to be careful. Also I’m careful about what I say on record and I said that to these scos and it’s hard because it’s been pandemic but you know I said you know it’s a standing thing. Buy me a drink you even wouldn’t have to buy me a drink because odds are I’d already have one at the bar. Um, and I will tell you in person anything you want to know it’s just I don’t want stuff in print where somebody can come back and say you know did you slam this person. You know? because even though I’d say well I think they deserve it. Um, some things are with it. Some things aren’t so so anyway I’m doing a reread of a series that I read first. It’s it’s pretty extraordinary. Really this was one of the first books I ever bought on my brand new kindle back in the day and I’m not going to give a year so you guys can’t sleuth out what I’m reading but um because I know how y’all are, but and I loved this book.

16:28.70
jeffekennedy
Love this book and I love this series until I felt like the series kind of went off the rails so that could be any number of series right? Um, but yeah I I remember I got that Kindle for Christmas from my mother. They were very expensive then. And thank you mom and I bought 3 books and this was one of them. You know, bought them on my kindle you guys it was like ah the angels were singing. It was the best thing and 1 of the best things was is that at the end of this book I had to read the next book and I could read it immediately and all your kids out there who don’t know what it was like when we didn’t have remote controls. Um, there were so many times when you. Had to wait so long to get the next book in the series and and not because it wasn’t out because you couldn’t find it anywhere. Um, you know doing things like in our library alone. There was no online ordering of any sort dinosaurs roamed the earth you had to watch out so that you didn’t get. Eaten by the tyrannosaurus rex on the way to the newsstand you know you could ask your local bookstore to order it but sometimes they couldn’t get it sometimes they wouldn’t get it if it was romance sometimes they would be like yeah um, so. So it was a miraculous thing. Ah and I’m sure younger people get really sick of older people waxing on about the amaze mean amazing things about technology. But I think I’ve told you guys this that i. Said to my grandson he was doing something on his phone and I said you know there was a time when we only used those to make phone calls and he goes ah I know everybody tells me that was like you okay, fine kid that’s but it’s true. Ah. But yeah, being able to buy that second book was yeah angels wept so now I’m rereading the series and it’s just interesting to read it with my lens now because when I first read that I was not writing fiction or I was just. Beginning to dabble in fiction. And yeah, it’s it’s interesting to reread it? Um, yeah, and that’s all I’m going to say at this point I’m not Goingnna talk about what my trigger was to start reading this or other thoughts. Maybe I will later.

19:10.80
jeffekennedy
And no know um did I have a point in bringing that up now who knows who knows Jeffe do you have a point about anything question and well so let’s see god so this week’s going to be intense working on this book. Getting it done. Um, the revision going fine. That’s weird. Ah this is a weird book doesn’t do I say this every single time don’t I um, but yeah, this is a different kind of book. I don’t even know what more to say about it than that I mean the revision is going fine but I keep worrying that I don’t even know what I’m worried about on it. It’s just um. Not following the trajectory that I expected I ah somebody asked if my last week I made the reference to the Groundhog day loop no I’m not doing that with lean on right I had I almost wish I had it’s too late now. Because that would have been an entertaining thing to do but no, it’s more that they they’re making incremental progress but it is you know how when you’re trying to figure out a relationship like that. You know you just do a lot of retreading and falling back into bad habits. So anyway, it’s moving forward I’m I’m making progress on this revision I think I have something like a hundred pages still to revise and then. Maybe be longer. That’s this is my concern is it’s looking like instead of being the 95000 words I wanted right now the beats are looking more like 102K fuck me. So yeah I could always push the date out I could. You know, extend the release date by a week but I really want this release in may get that money in may um, maybe that’s not as that important we shall’ll see so anyway I’m gonna go get to work instead of babbling on about it. Hope you guys are ready to kick off your Monday have a good week and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 1, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




 

Transcript:

00:00.46
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:14.32
jeffekennedy
Pretty good I’m getting used to it today is Tuesday I was going to say Tuesday seven forty of Tuesday february first we are now officially into the second month of 2022 Tomorrow will be 2/2/2022 but I’m not going to podcast so we have to take note of it today. Um, you know all that fertile soil right? Keep prime in that soil year of the tiger to happy Chinese New Year um yeah what does it mean? What does it all mean it’s like we can’t predict anything anymore. It’s who knows who knows what the year will bring.

01:03.30
jeffekennedy
Um, so let’s see um I am trying something new. Um I am doing the I I record this on Zencastr every once while someone asks me what I use to record this and. Um, it was Leslie Penelope who gave me the recommendation. It’s been a great recommendation. So I use Zencastr to record both the audio and the video and it’s great because when I have guessed which I haven’t done for a while I guess but when I do have guess I can just send them a web link. And interview them and so forth and Megan we should have you on I should interview you you should come on the show sometime and then you could see how Zencaster works too because she was one who asked about it so they have a um I use the free plan because hey. You know I don’t make money on this podcast though you can contribute just I never remember to say these things there are other people who are much better about this than I am yet like they have their whole spiel at the end saying remember to click like remember to subscribe um, donate to the podcast. Send me your money I not that great at it every once’s while someone donates to the podcast. You can find it by. Um there’s like a little heart if you’re listening or I think it’s some like in the show notes on Youtube but anyway. I already pay for the buzz sprout side because that’s what I use to upload to all of the podcast places but Zencastr I’ve been doing the free version and it’s um. I could go up to pro which is like $20 a month which would make my total out lay $38 a month between buzz sprout and Zencastr which I mean it’s not a lot but considering that I don’t really have any direct income that comes from this i. Just try to be aware of that anyway, the pro plan offers a transcript option where I will automatically transcribe the podcast which I know you guys are asking for and yes I want to be accessible I’m hoping that there’s a fourteen day free trial. So we’ll try it out if you look at the podcast or I’m at the transcript I mean let me know what you think I’m going to try not to edit it because that’s where I got bogged down when I tried it before I tried otter ai and it was pretty good. But.

03:49.36
jeffekennedy
Way I talk because I change subjects a lot and I change topics midsentence and I have run on sentences I’m sure this is like 1 big run on sentence if I looked at the transcript. As a writer. It drives me up the fucking wall I just cannot look at this and not edit it. So for like a 20 minute podcast when I tried the transcript before I was spending an hour editing it at least. Which reader this is not time well spent not for me so I’m going to try the free or not free the free trial but the free transcript option and see if it. Works well enough because I figure $20 a month is probably worth it to be accessible min nervous spencer I am looking at you. You do not need accessibility. You just don’t like listening to stuff just putting that out there. But. You would benefit also so we’ll see we’ll see let’s see what else is going on. Um I’m glad you guys were amused by yesterday’s podcast um yeah it was a comedy of errors. It was the bloopprint podcast and I don’t know what the deal was although today I very cleverly with the wisdom of experience moved my keyboard and put it aside so it’s not near my coffee. So at least we eliminate that factor of bloerness see now I’m thinking about this transcript and I’m thinking what is it going to do with words like bloerness. It’s gonna I don’t know make it something german I’m not going to obsess. I’m really not going obsessed about this I may be obsessing a little bit. Ah so anyway, yeah, yesterday was funny I’m glad I could give you a laugh hit if. Inadvertently.

06:24.89
jeffekennedy
So let’s see yesterday I did get my 3000 words it was a slower day. Um, it took me longer longer and slower those 2 things go together. We are on sesame street. Um, true. Oh I can look on this screen Jeff Eighteens so it was a total elapse time of nearly five hours and it took me 3 hours and 15 minutes so about half an hour longer I don’t know why I was feeling. Well clearly discombobulated yesterday that I like couldn’t figure out the podcast recording thing that I’ve done you know guys know how many podcasts I’ve done now I guess I passed like the 500 episode Mark. But what. Could tell you because I actually I’ve done 593 podcasts. Can you believe that so you would think one would think that I would know what I was doing by now. But now although I have changed. Technologies a few times over that this this is 5 years This is my fifth year of doing the podcast. Um I started it in well we can answer this question too. Um.

07:55.75
jeffekennedy
Let’s see is this right is this was I keeping track season 2 here season 1 oh I didn’t really keep track that first season of my episode numbers I’m not sure why I only started keeping track of those. And um season two. So I did 80 episodes in season one and I know I started somewhere around July I could probably look up the actual date. So amazing when I was having lunch with my friend who writes is Katie Lane cowboy romance the other day she was saying very nice things about the podcast and saying that she admires my consistency on this and I’ve mentioned this from time to time. But every time someone gets me to try to upgrade what I’m doing on this podcast I dig in my heels because. This is how I established consistency. She said that she felt like you know consistency is what you really need to do in order to establish a podcast and have it be successful and she asked how my numbers were and I said well they increase all the time which is great. Um, but. You know doing it for 20 minutes 4 days a week with pretty low tech where I don’t edit I don’t revise the transcripts. We are not going to revise the transcripts. You know it keeps it low effort. So. A lot of people who are doing podcasts. You know are really going for that. Let’s monetize this let’s make it hugely successful. Let’s make all kinds of money. Um I already admitted that I make no money on this podcast I bake money. Everyone’s well not just donating. But. It used to be you know like Kensington would do those ad spots but then they stopped. So I guess I feel like not everything in life should be about making money and and I’m touched on this briefly yesterday when I talked about um that not ah. The idea of monetizing creativity I don’t agree with Elizabeth Gilbert that’s whose name I was trying to think of when she says in big magic where she says that you should not that you should keep your day job.

10:30.20
jeffekennedy
Because if you connect money to your creative work then you’ll stifle your creativity and I think that’s pretty nice thing to say if you’re Elizabeth Gilbert and making huge money on. Appearances and so forth I mean it’s really easy to say once you’re making big money on your books and it’s it’s a place of privilege right? I mean you keep your day job because you need to pay your freaking bills. Um, but if you want to make a living as a writer you. You are attaching money to to your creativity. There’s just no way around it right? You’re creating this thing that then is a source of money for a whole lot of people which is cool about it because there are a lot of people who get money from what I’m doing I mean. Jeff Bezos is making money off of me right? not that he needs his percentage of my books but he gets it right? All those people who work for Amazon who work for Google play and bars and noble kobo ah smashw words I’m helping to pay their salaries I pay my. My cover designer I pay my editors I pay my formatter. They’re all making a living off of this thing that I’m making out of nothing. So yes, it’s monetized that said. I do think that there’s something to be said for having things in your life that are not monetized that are simply for the joy of it I remember meeting a poet laureate and I can’t recall his name right now. No surprise. He lived in the midwest and he was an insurance salesman for his entire career and wrote poems like did a thing they wrote 1 poem but a night and he ended up being the us poet laureate and wonderful poems but was interesting to me. He came and talked at. University where I was up in Wyoming he also painted and he said that he he sold his poems. You know he’d gotten to the point in his career I mean by the time you’re a us poet laureate. Hopefully you’re making at least something off of your poems. Um. But his paintings. He said he very deliberately refused to sell his paintings even though he had had offers that galleries had offered to carry his work and so forth. He only gave them away to people because he said he wanted to have a creative outlet that wasn’t monetized and I think that that’s.

13:14.35
jeffekennedy
Important um, now is that why I don’t monetize the podcast. No probably if I could you know make money off of this that that would be nice and I would but I also don’t want to get so into this relentless marketing. And that’s why I haven’t done really well with some of the podcast groups that I’ve been invited to and that kind of thing because they all talk about you know like things like grow your show and you know implement this and what technology you’re using for that and. How do you? You know? How do you advertise and how do you reach this market or that market and you know it’s like something for something I’m putting 20 minutes a day into just so I can sit here and chat with you guys? No I’m not gonna do that. Ah like. 1 of my friends said oh you should buy a ring light I’m like no I’m just not going to buy a ring light I’ll get sit here and look at my face on the laptop and it’ll be fine. Although I do get a facial did I mention I’ve never loved a facial as much as this one and now I want to go like get one every month or every other month. I might do it so vanity vanity all is vanity and chasing after the wind. Um, oh I actually have something actually have something of substance to discuss today. Oh I have 2 things of substance I’m gonna save this since I actually wrote it down. Um I think it’s funny because we watched a movie last night called drunk bus like a bus for drunks drunk bus and it was funny. It was ah it was a good movie and what was really interesting. Is that it had the same ending as the movie that we watched the night before which was called elsewhere and I know that some of this could be because David found drunk bus because he was looking at. We’ve really been using more of the if you like this movie. You might like this one I take their algorithms getting a little bit better so it could be that this was a similarity and I’m going to talk about the endings of these 2 movies. So if you don’t want to hear it you might you know, put your hands over your ears and do the la la la. But it’s not like they’re twist endings or anything. There’s nothing earthshattering about these endings. What I found really interesting was that they resolved the story in the same way for both and it was almost a lack of resolution. So cover yours if you don’t want to hear the ending. But.

15:58.33
jeffekennedy
Both of these movies were about ah a guy a white guy. Um, who is kind of hapless and both reeling from previous relationships with women and elsewhere. It’s his wife died 2 years before and he’s like still grieving. In drunk bus. It’s that his girlfriend left him and both of these are like that’s part of the plot. No spoilers there and so they’re both sort of haplessly finding their way through life and these places where they are one’s in a beautiful place and one’s in a miserable place. But. And the and the movies kind of like about them finding their way out of this morass of both of them are really grieving right? grieving loss and trying to figure out who they are and their friends yell at both of them for like not making decisions and not getting their shit together and the both movies and it. With the guy leaving town leaving and we don’t know where he’s going and neither one of them. Do we know where he’s going. It’s it’s completely unresolved that way but they’re both heading off at least they’re not staying where they were and I found that really interesting. You know like is this? um. I mean I think that they probably both are arguably millennial generation because they had like guys in their thirty s and so maybe that’s a metaphor for the millennial generation about you know, not making a decision but at least we’re gonna go somewhere else I guess. Found it really funny. You guys noticed this trend is this a thing. Maybe it I mean I have an n of two. So I’m not gonna obsess about I’m using the word obsess a lot today. Um, oh so then this is I dropped my sticky. But I remember what it says I saw through nik novelists incorporated I’m a member of that they’d sent out a thing saying that someone was looking to do ph d research on creativity and would we be willing to do an hour long interview to talk about our creative process and you guys know I like to talk about my creative process. So I thought oh okay I’ll do that so you know click on the link to get more information and it’s a study through a university and this gal’s you know, studying creativity. But what they would do is. Audio only you turn off the video but it’s through Zoom and for an hour you talk as you write you talk about your creative choices as you write I’m going to stare into the camera now.

18:52.41
jeffekennedy
I mean I can’t even I’m I’m almost wordless but not for long but what what I can’t imagine trying to talk as I write. Um i’m. When I’m writing I’m there typing away I’m type type type typing I’m I’m streaming the the world and the characters and I just yet like I said I’m sputtering. Um. I almost wrote to this gel and maybe I don’t know. Do you guys think I should because there was an opportunity to like email and ask questions but I want to email her and tell her your study design is really flawed I’m sure that’s what she would want to hear like from former scientist. A former neuroscientist turned. Writer of fantasy romance. But she’s gonna get a very particular kind of creative process by by going at it this way. It’s just um, it’s kind of mind boggling to me so those of you who are listening who are writers. Do you think you. Could do that is that something you could do is actually narrate as you are writing I could see how it might work if you are someone who does like research and world building that you could say okay now. I don’t even I don’t even know how that would work now I need to name this character so I’m going to go to behind the name dot com which is what I do and I’m going to search for this meaning. Ah I just can’t even can’t even but I don’t need to. So and I probably will not email this for ph e d student and give her my opinions on creative process. However I will rant to all of you about it because that’s what you don’t pay me for ah that was a good hook right? Okay, well. I hope you all have a fabulous Tuesday and I will be back to rant it you about creative process on to other things on Thursday so you all have a good week and I will talk to you Thursday bye bye.