RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//Why I fell off the face of the earth (or at least, the internet) this week and what I’ve been doing. Also a peek at the gorgeous box and hardcover edition of BENEATH THESE CURSED STARS by Lexi Ryan!
//A round-up of the wonderful weekend at the Jack Williamson Lectureship, including connecting with other authors, sharing advice and stories, and how all of that refills the creative well.
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Happy New Year!
On this New Year’s Eve day, I’m busy crunching year-end financials in preparation to go to quarterly tax-reporting. Author finances, however, are not the topic of the week at the SFF Seven. Instead we’re discussing a much happier topic: sources of inspiration.
The two are somewhat tied together for me as I’ve spent the last two weeks refilling my creative well. I finished my revision of ONEIRA (final title to come) on December 15 and sent it off to my editor. Since then, I’ve taken a break from writing work – very unusual for me. The time has been consumed largely by Christmas prep, travel, visiting family, and doing business like the above crunching of year-end financials. Looking at this, I’ve realized that I’ve been relying on passive well-refilling: hoping that if I simply leave the creative well alone, that the vast water table of the universe will seep in and top that puppy off for me.
And, to some extent, that’s true.
However, I’m realizing I haven’t been following my new tenet of aggressively refilling the well. That would mean finding ways to actively pour juice into that well. And that’s where inspiration comes in. What are my top three?
Media
I’m putting a lot under this heading, much like my sibling-under-the-skin, Murderbot. One thing I have been doing is a full re-read of this excellent series by Martha Wells. Reading books – particularly brilliantly written ones by authors I admire – is a great source of inspiration for me. I also include listening to music under this heading. While road-tripping, I put my music library on All Songs Shuffle, which unearths interesting stuff I haven’t listened to in ages. A Cat Stevens song – The Wind – turned up, so now I’m diving into a full Cat Stevens song shuffle. What an amazing songwriter, to communicate so much in so few words. Finally, I love watching movies for inspiration. I got a great idea just the other night from a movie and now I’m sizzling to write this series. Though it will have to wait, the sparkle of that excitement adds to my overall feeling of creative flow.
Nature
I’m fortunate to live in a beautiful place. My desk overlooks a spectacular view and my morning walk with the dog is replete with huge skies, distant mountains, and beauty of all kinds. I say I’m lucky to have this – and I am! – but I also sought out this place, because being outside in a beautiful place is super important to me. Just living here refills my well.
Silence
Longtime readers probably know that I’m an advocate of silence for creative flow. By this I don’t necessarily mean the absence of ambient sound, though it sometimes means that for me. I’m talking primarily about the silence of the mind, the emptiness that allows creativity to flow in, that enables us to hear the voices scintillating through the veil, telling us their stories. Taking time off from the “noisier” parts of my life has been invaluable for that.
Huh… Turns out I’ve been doing better at aggressively refilling the well than I thought!
Best wishes for an inspiring 2024 for us all!
//Why being selfish is good, refilling the well, and other thoughts on the variety of people who listen to this podcast, why Cats & New Mexico Weather is a thing. Re-reading DEERSKIN and realizing not everything must move the plot forward.
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Exciting news!!! For all of you who have been waiting waiting waiting for the audiobook of ROGUE FAMILIAR, it is liiiivvveeee! Just on Audible for the next 3 months, then it will be wide. If you’d like to review, I do have some free downloads available. Comment here or email Assistant Carien via the website contact form.
Amusingly enough, our topic at the SFF Seven this week is self-care and burnout. I say amusing because this has been a topic of discussion in Jeffe’s Closet, my Patreon and Discord, these last couple of weeks. One thing I love about that space is that people can ask me questions and it gives me the opportunity to mull answers I hadn’t previously given thought to.
One gal asked me about advice on getting through when you’re faced with deadlines and your well is empty. I talked about this on Monday’s podcast, too, but I’m going to reiterate here because I think our group mind hit on something really important.
We often think of refilling the creative well as something lovely, peaceful, and largely passive. Self-care often carries the sense of similar calm. We think of leisurely strolls, hot bubble baths, a glass of wine, gazing at the sunset with friends, lingering over moving art at museums and galleries. All of these things are lovely… And not terribly useful when you’re facing deadlines, dealing with crises, and you’re already short on time with a well so empty you’ve got nothing left to put out the fires, much less create something to meet those deadlines with.
So, what do we do then?
The thing is, burnout is something we must take very, very seriously. I’ve been there – and once you hit full burnout, the bottom of the well is dry as a bone, then it can takes months or years to recover. It’s easy to put off our mental health, to decide that refilling the well can wait until this family member is doing better, or this deadline is met, or after some future date when we have time to deal with it. Except that mental health and burnout don’t obey our schedules. Taking this approach is like deciding that an infection can wait until we’ve finished some other projects – by the time we’re ready to deal with it, we could have blood poisoning or lose a limb.
What’s the answer then? This was my advice to her: cut out everything that is not actually on fire and aggressively fill the well.
I was concerned that this was too vague, but it worked for her! Sometimes we need permission to ignore everything that is not a crisis – to ask ourselves “is it on fire?” and set it aside if not. As for aggressively filling the well – an image that seemed to amuse everyone – I can’t tell you how to do that. We all have to find what refills our own wells. But as for going about it aggressively, that is the key. That means you’re prioritizing those activities, going after them with gusto, rather than waiting for the water to seep in. Muster your army of brooms and aggressively fill that well!
//Creativity and vacations/holidays, moving from writing as a hobby to a career, taking your mental health seriously, maintaining writing productivity, meeting deadlines, and methods for aggressively filling the well.
//Today sees the re-release of my Kinky Christmas Caribbean Vacation, FIVE GOLDEN RINGS! I’m talking about where I’ve been, what a writing retreat can do to clear the mind, refill the well, and provide a creative reset.
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Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.
00:12.73
jeffekennedy
Ah, so it’s been it’s been a thing ah I had a great weekend I kind of finished off with a bang. Oh I should say Monday today Monday bla blah blah it is monday. May second we are fully into the merry months of may which means um, sexy things for those of you who know we won’t get into it even though we are hardly Pg here at first cup of coffee. Yeah, whatever. Ah I did get this secret garden cleaned up if you’re on video you could say it’s looking much better I did not quite finish the vine behind me that needs yet to be done. Might be able to see that I have the hummingbird feeder up I’ve actually spotted hummingbirds. It was so nice to have them back again. Um, and everything is leafing out ah in cleaning up the yard yesterday. The garden I got a really. Nice surprise and I don’t know if I mentioned it here on the show last fall but I was looking back at old pictures of our garden and Laramie, Wyoming where we lived for 20 years and we had had this beautiful. Bleeding heart by the front door of the first house we bought together and it was in the shade east facing and it was gorgeous. It was like a couple feet tall and. I don’t know I might have seen 1 in someone else’s garden but it reminded me I was like oh I love that bleeding heart I wonder if I could grow out in Santa Fe was a little bit of background on this is I do love to garden you guys probably know that already. Although this was here when we bought the house. It is however changed over enough that I think I can start taking some credit for it. But um. Um, I yeah I’ve I’ve always really loved garden and in we had 2 different houses in Laramie where yeah, we really created some some knee gardening type stuff.
02:44.69
jeffekennedy
We put in ponds and waterfalls and my garden at 1 of them the first house with which had the great bleeding heart was actually on the town’s ah, garden tour one year which is not. Ah, fantastic accomplishment probably because um it was a small town but I was proud I was proud and and I put took flowers and plants to the garden show and won prizes so there you go my grandmother loved garden. And my mom says it skips a generation that’s her excuse. Although my mom loves to do potted plants and she’s amazing at design and I just splashed my coffee everywhere. That’s not good. It’s a Monday somebody has a kiss on the Mondays. So um, last fall I thought well oh I should this was the other bit of backstory is that when we moved to Santa Fe I thought oh it’s going to be so much easier to garden there because we always. Joked about gardening and laremie as being an exercise in building character because the environment is just really very harsh. It’s high altitude and it’s cold. A whole lot of the year we had a shorter growing season than Fairbanks Alaska that was great detail to share with visitors. Ah. 1 of my friends a poet had a ah a chapbook of poetry that was entitled hope in zone four because we were the zone 4 which was we were like teetering on the edge of zone 3 and maybe not. Not even that sometimes but that summed it up I thought that was a great title hope and zone for can’t remember her name right now you could probably look it up Alice oh well. So um. When we moved to Santa Fe I thought here is my chance I will be able to um garden without having to build so much character and it’s interesting because yes in some ways it’s easier. The growing seasons much longer. There’s the warmth of. Water becomes a big thing and it’s too hot for some things. But anyway last fall I thought huh I wonder if I could grow bleeding hearts here. So I got 3 bare root plants and I planted them at 3 different locations of the garden and yesterday and properly forgot about it. That’s 1 thing about gardening is.
05:32.78
jeffekennedy
Um, are there gardeners out there who like remember absolutely everything they plant. This is an interesting corollary to the fact that as a writer I consider myself to be a gardener. Um, and I totally don’t remember everything I plant until it grows it pops up. So yesterday as I was clinging things out I found a little bleeding heart and it was already starting to bloom it so I’ll put a photo off that because I know you’re dying to see and then I was like okay where did I plant the other ones and I found one other and right behind me and it’s also about to bloom and. The other one I think is hunted the crab Apple I’m gonna have to go look for it. Um, for a while I did have these markers like these copper markers that you could use a special pen to Mark things on um, it it didn’t last you know the garden doesn’t love. Having things really neatly laid out at least mine doesn’t um, one of my friends in Laramie who was also a writer and was also a gardener. We shared a great deal that way she said that she had read an interesting study on that people with. Really well ordered gardens tend to have have well-ordered gardens because they have more chaotic lives and people with really organized lives have more chaotic gardens um behold my chaotic garden. She always thought that was really funny that I was like I never know where I’ve planted things. And some things don’t come back I mean that’s the thing about Santa Fe um we things just don’t always over winter um rodents dryness sometimes it gets really cold but we had a lot of things over winter this year um so yeah. And the lilacs are starting to bloom. You probably can’t see it very well. But I’ll turn the video in case, you are on video. You could see that the lilacs are starting to pop so that’s cool. Um, so yeah I got that all finished by yesterday afternoon and. Showered off and was enjoying the grape arbor and got a call from my stepsister that my parents were in a car wreck. They’re both okay more or less okay totaled the car this kid going really really fast. Um. They were going through. They’d stopped his stop sign and we’re going through the intersection and my mom keeps calling the kid. We don’t know how old he is but he was going really fast and slammed into them spun them around stepdad had to stay the night in the hospital. Ah, he’s.
08:20.63
jeffekennedy
He’s generally okay, his blood pressure is high and my mom sent me pictures of the car and the air bags had gone off and on his so he was driving on his side. The blood is on the air bags. He got a big hemotoma on his arm and his leg and had to Lancet and. We’re having trouble stopping and bleeding and all of that so stay tuned. Um, my stepsster is funny because a couple of times that something like this has happened she calls me which she almost never calls me. We usually text she calls me and she says so if you talk to your mother. Lately yeah and the second time she’s asked me that and I know I laughed at her for it later because I and she said well I don’t know what you already know and I’m like yeah I know I understand why you’re asking it. It’s still funny because now I know if hope calls me and says have you talked to your mother that means that something has happened. So so that was our big thing. Um I talked to my mom this morning and she did get good sleep. So that’s something she’s was really shaken up and so we’ll just see how things go I asked her if she wants me to come to Tucson and she said not yet. So. Um, but if you’re listening to this mom I will a couple other things. This is just like back to our usual programming. Um I’ve started listening to poetry. This is a new thing. And it’s ah amazingly immensely gratifying and well refilling I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before so some of this came out of ah the rabbit hole of reading this biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning I think it’s funny because the transcript always makes browning lowercase I have to go in and fix it I don’t catch them all but they um obviously were poets and married to each other and it was fascinating. To read and there were some excerpts of their poetry but it mostly focused on them and talked about so like their works in context of what was going on in their lives at the time and their relationship and so forth. So after I finished the book which I think I finished on friday. Something like that I looked up a few of the poems because I wanted to see what? um you know, just get the context for it. Some of them I knew already some I did not I was of course familiar with how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Although I don’t know that I’d ever really.
11:09.61
jeffekennedy
Read the whole poem and paid attention to it. So as I was looking that up googling on my phone I got suggestions for hearing people read and so I’d I’d read the poem. Um, it’s it’s not called how do I love thee. But I can’t recall what it’s called right now but the actual title is and I listen to um, a famous actress Helen Mirren read it. And it was lovely hearing her reading it and then you know how it is when you start googling things I got the very helpful suggestion of did I want to hear my bestie Tom Hiddleston read me some poems and I thought that that one was going to be in it. But. It was um, it was not that was like a red herring on the keywords but still delightful and I listen to this 30 minute thing and I’ll I’ll try to remember to post it in the show notes because it’s well worth listening to It’s a collection of poems. Read by Tom Hiddleston who does a great job of reading. He’s got a lovely voice too and and it was some poems that I was familiar with from school and so forth and other ones that I was not and I was getting ready in and the morning you know like doing my skin care routine. And all of that. It’s a little breezy this morning you can kind of see my hairs flying around supposed to be Wendy today alas, which at least keeps the smoke off. We do have a fire up in the ymaz mountains which transcript will not get right up up near Los Alamos and Saturday are. Air was listed as unhealthy. So I just stayed in on Saturday but then fortunately wind shift to direction and it moved out so I was able to be out here on yesterday. So that was a positive. Um, what we’re saying oh the poems. So I was listening to these poems and just found it really stimulating and invigorating and I never thought of that as being a thing for refilling the well and when I was on http://poetry.org looking up some of these poems that pop ups and I reflexively close pop ups because I hate popups and I hate that we can’t stop them anymore but they did ask me if I wanted to receive a poem a day in the mail mail email and I you know like said no write as I was.
13:56.49
jeffekennedy
Reflexively closing their fucking pop up and now I kind of think maybe I do want that it would be interesting. 1 thing about poems is and you guys probably learned this in school too that they’re almost always better read aloud and I learned to read a poem. 3 times right? you read it through um just to get the poem in once and then you read it through much more carefully parsing it for sense and then a third time again faster and and one of those. And I’ll usually the last time read it out loud or is the first time even if I just get poems much better if I read them aloud so listening to other people read them is great and I one of the ones that Tom Hiddleston read was The Love Song of J Alfred Proofrock from which I recognized many many lines and I’m sure I had to have studied that at some point in school. But I’ve never paid that much attention to it and again this is something about you know what? we bring to to a work. Ah I never knew probably because I was. Ah, dense teenager when I first read that poem or studied it I think people may have done it for like poetry competition and speech and debate because I did do poetry one year I read um, an and Sexton Poem you do not do old black shoe. Now that I think I did it like way too dramatically with a blue star on my forehead anyway I’m sure people did j alfred proof of love song of but I never picked up on. All the reflections about growing older and how do you feel about love later in life. Um, and it was really enlightening and delightful and I recommend the listen my coffee got really cold. It must be chilly out here. Chilllier than I thought but we’re almost done. Um, so we watched another episode of winning time the LA lakers story last night and also another episode of Julia about Julia Child which I think I’ve also recommend enjoying both of those shows very very much in the episode last night there is this point at which they’re talking about how basketball is only a game and Jason Segel who plays Paul Westfield says you know why are we even doing this.
16:44.27
jeffekennedy
It’s only a game and the older man 1 of the team managers starts talking about when he was a young man and he says he graduated from high school on Monday married his sweetheart on Tuesday and shipped off to the navy on. Wednesday night so he has to be referring to world war two I would think and he says you know here they were a bunch of kids on this boat and the on like once a week they would stream a game baseball basketball football. Whatever and they would all. Watch this game and become totally involved in it and he said here they were in this life in death situation and it yes it was only a game but it was also this much needed distraction and and that really hit me because you know i. I’ve been disdainful of sports in the past and and a few of my friends have called me out on it and I think rightfully so because there there’s nothing wrong with being into sports any more than there’s anything wrong with being into romance. Ah it is. Not I don’t want to say it’s a distraction. It is something that allows us to look away a little bit from the very difficult things we’re dealing with and there’s. There’s just um I think there are people who want us to make want to make us feel that there’s something bad about that and there just isn’t apparently this woman and I don’t know who she was but she tweeted something a couple of weeks ago saying um, ah she. She even started saying I’m probably going to get in trouble with this for this which if you start your tweet saying that you should probably seriously rateconsider whether you really want to tweet it. But she said how can any of you be reading fiction at a time like this. We all need to be reading nonfiction so we can understand what’s going on. There are always these people in the world and apparently she later deleted the tweet after getting thoroughly shouted down but you know these people who. Think that you have to be totally focused on the brutal reality of the moment. Um, you, you don’t especially when you know we we now have the curse and blessing of being able to know all of these things that are going on around the world.
19:26.29
jeffekennedy
There isn’t an escape for from it unless you give yourself the escape and so my permission wand is inside but I shall wave it nonetheless in absentia ah, you do not have to watch the news. You do not have to read nonfiction to understand what’s going on. You can watch your sportsings games. You can read your escapist romances. You can listen to Tom Hitddleston read you poetry because all that you can control is right here right? Your your internal environment. So. You do what you need to do to create your own zone of happiness because then that gives you the the energy it refills that well and it enables you to go out there and then make changes in the world and on that note. I will talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.
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Transcript
00:00.89
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Ah. Had to take an extra sip there today is they haven’t done this for a while say it with me: Friday! Whoo, um April Twenty second so it’s 4 twenty two 22 and it’s beautiful morning here. Crab Apple tree is in glorious bloom and I’m realizing. However. That I need something on my little arms because we’re go have wins again today but today and tomorrow shall be the last for the big wins and then we get nice again? Um, but I’m going to go grab a jacket I shall be right back there I put on a pink. To match the crab Apple but you probably can’t see all that well because of the rising sun but um and I grab my notes because I made notes today. Um I think I haven’t given a writing. Update. And a while I’m still working on The Storm Princess and the Raven King I am well past midpoint I’m closing in on scene 5 and I’m at um, little shy 55000 words I I think it’s going fine. It’s funny because lately ah, several people have asked me how the writing is going which I guess people must ask me all the time and I’m just noticing it lately because I actually don’t have a good answer to it I think my head is so caught up with nebula planning and stuff with SFWA. Yeah, I’m actually not I don’t know I’m I’m not um, what is the word I want people. I want to say kvetching and that’s not right? Um I’m not all caught up in the book I’m not having my usual emotional turmoil over writing this book I feel like I’m circling in the book I thought that after the.
02:26.60
jeffekennedy
Break over Easter in Tucson with the family where I didn’t write it all for a few days that I that would be a great time to come back and revise from the beginning and I didn’t feel like doing that I felt like going forward with where I was on the book I keep wanting to turn the laptop but I want you guys to see the crap Apple. You probably don’t care. But. You get to see it anyway. Um yeah I wanted to keep going and and I feel like and I do think I’ve mentioned this before you know this is Rhyian and Lena’s story and they’re kind of caught in something of a vicious circle in their relationship. So I can’t tell how much of this is them circling and how much it’s me circling but to some extent I am oddly sanguine about it. How often do we get to use that word in daily conversation? I am I have a good plan I have time to revise and I realize that I may end up like doing a lot of cutting and streamlining by the time I get to it maybe I won’t I often think that I am and then i. I don’t so so we shall see um but so far I’m feeling fine about the book. Maybe that’s a bad sign. Ah, coffee tastes good I am also am on something of a rabbit hole I don’t know if it counts as a rabbit hole if I’m not lost to it but I’m doing so I started reading something unusual for me. And I do blame Connie Willis. Okay now I am turning the laptop so I can sit back a little bit here because she in her great epigraphs. Do you come epigraphs if it’s just like a little forwardy thing to her stories in the collection Firewatch. She mentioned the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the courtship between her and her husband the poet Robert Browning with stuff that I didn’t know um because before this. I think I knew about them that you know it’s like the result of of this education I don’t know maybe we could scathingly say american public school education which only gives a glancing overview. Also my um.
05:03.53
jeffekennedy
Private Liberal Arts College education get this shallow overview of everything every once while he was like people especially the experts the experts of I put that in their quotes. Ah complain about that sort of thing. And and I always think whatever I think of that word I think of when I was in graduate school and one of my favorite professors had a poster up that said experts don’t know more than anybody else. They’re just better prepared and have slides. Guys it is so fucking true and those are words to live by. So ah how the experts I I think this is a theme with me I I circle back around to things about experts and people knowing stuff and. Putting a lot of pride in what they know anyway, I will admit without hesitation that I had this very um, shallow understanding of the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning which I suspect many of us have. Um, and I can quote the 1 poem. How do I love thee, let me count the ways but I did not know a lot about their courtship I did not know that she was a famous poet before I knew she’d married later in life I didn’t know that she was 40 that he was 9 years younger that he fell in love with her poetry and courted her because of that that she was basically an invalid and a shut-in fascinating things about her family. So I do get interested in biographies. But this was a little bit of a departure for me because I was reading about this while I was at my folks house in Tucson and impulsively bought a couple of books one on Kindle and 1 on paper of all things that are biographies of her and so I’ve been reading this book and. I could actually give you the actual title and I can link to it and be responsible by I’m reading a book called Dared and Done: the Marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning by Julia Marcus and it’s very interesting and I i. Enjoying it a whole bunch. Ah, it really feels like it’s feeding an unasked question. You know how the universe sometimes does that it supplies you stuff that you didn’t know you wanted to think about.
07:48.76
jeffekennedy
And there’s great stuff in this book that I didn’t know I wanted to think about. And and there’s going to be a lot here I think this is going to become a book slash series slash new world someday I try not to teach you guys with secret projects because you complain and I know you complain with? Love. Ah, um, yeah, this just gave me an idea with a capital I so but it’s far down the road I have um I mean I have I caught you guys up on stuff lately doesn’t matter. After I finish storm princess on the Raven King that ties off the heirs of magic series that’ll be done then I’m going to write another book in bonds of magic series for all of you wondering if there are more books after gray magic that’s what I’m writing once I finish this then I have 2 more books planned to write. 1 is one that I started that I think of something like a hundred pages on. Let’s see how many pages I have on that. Maybe it’s not so many I might be um, ah, overly optimistic there. Oh yeah. Well, but sorry at disneeze might be just the one I no, that’s not so bad I have 87 pages on it. 20 a little shy of 24000 words I want to finish writing that book and then I have another new shiny idea that I promised to write. For agent Sarah in the fall for possible submission. Our other thing is still out on submission and she Sarah wrote me an email the other day and actually let me find this because you guys will be interested. And think she won’t mind me sharing this but it’s very interesting industry wise so you know we just don’t have much going on with that secret project that’s been out you know since last fall genre departure and Sarah says she gave me a few updates. There’s really nothing much to say but she said. All submissions are going slow and to give you some perspective I’m currently out with 8 different submissions spanning all genres from historical to sweet contemporary to paranormal Rom -com all are going slow and I think this is more a symptom of publishing at the moment versus your book.
10:24.16
jeffekennedy
People are just hitting bandwidth walls and they need something. Oh oh I’m sorry and until they need something or something heats up. It’s going slow but going to be trying to as my dad would say kick the tires and light. The fires. Resubs and see if we can get some good news. She’s very sweet but and I am hearing this from more people than Sarah um, and it’s interesting even like with nebula planning. You know we have people just dropping out of doing stuff. Um, just. Like suddenly hitting overwhelm I think it’s just where we are bandwidth bandwidth is a real thing for people right now. So this feels like a good time for me to be contemplating new things. So a lot of. Writers talk about and I hear writers say this all the time that they won’t read anything in their genre while they’re writing a particular book which for me because I’m all always writing I don’t that wouldn’t be possible then I would never read in my own genre. But I also think that that’s a. It’s a consideration that’s not that important because and I know I emphasize this all the time that people who plagiarize are doing it on purpose and putting stuff into the stew of your creative mind is. That’s just partly how we refill the well so so I’m reading this stuff about Elizabeth Barrett and kind of storing it away into this stew for this story I want to write. But it’s also giving me interesting. Food for thought and one of them is is that she was as I said famous as a poet. Um, as as an invalid basically a shut in she didn’t leave her room for many many years and there’s. Different stuff about like what was wrong with her but we won’t go into all of that you can go read the book but this fine I mean it’s a great love story and it’s exactly the kind of thing that I write about and that I love in romance. Is that when she fell in love with Robert browning that gave her the impetus to take control of her health and to leave her room for the first time in I think you know in something like a decade and she ended up marrying him and running off you know of.
13:11.56
jeffekennedy
Avoiding her tyrannical father evading escaping running off to italy and lived and she lived there married deliriously happy for 15 years before she died still too young around my age. Ah.
13:30.28
jeffekennedy
And it’s some the part that ah the book that I’m yet getting into now is and it does as the title indicates really focuses on their marriage the book that I got on paper focuses a whole lot on her early life. But she continued to be a prolific poet and wrote a whole lot about the political events going on in italy at the time which is another big lacuna in my public school education that I really didn’t know much about what was going on in the middle eighteen hundreds in italy did you. Um, giving you all the inquiring look maybe it would be a little much to expect and and actually what this book is saying is is that even at the time very few people in England or America knew about the politics of italy and. Where the you know the period in Paris when all the writers were there. You know really made parisian politics very familiar to people Elizabeth was writing about the politics in italy and so was Robert browning but people weren’t interested. They. Just so didn’t care and another fascinating thing is is that once she was married and had a child which isn’t that cool I mean she had a child after she was she was like 41 or 42 I I think it’s interesting because. When I was 36 this gal that I knew I don’t know if I would color a friend but we were sort of it in the same circle but she she asked me one day kind of out of the blue if I had regretted never having children and I was 36 and I It took me aback and I said I didn’t think I’d never had them yet and and she was flustered and was all like oh I didn’t mean and it’s like well why do you ask somebody a question like that for the record I never tried to have children I I always use birth control I never. Woke up one day thinking that I needed to have a baby I kept thinking I might you know like that ticking clock would suddenly go off and I would hear the alarm and I didn’t but I also acquired 2 stepchildren when I was 24 and that kind of sucked up all of my. But little maternal bandwidths I apparently have um douglas either anyway after she was married her poetry got dismissed as being like Robert browning’s wife’s and it sort of.
16:19.90
jeffekennedy
Pens on the era and I found this fascinating because the author says that she refers to as criticism changed as as the critical community and critical in terms of literary criticism. Changed up through the 1950 s when they began to understand that a poem could also be and mean something that her her italian poems about politics were dismissed as being um, cheapened. By being about politics instead of being about like higher things isn’t that interesting and I know I touched on this the other day and Lexi Chantal made a lovely reel about it. Thank you Lexie ah, and. Reacted to it in a blog post on the SFF7 blog about whether or not we try to make our work outlive us whether we try to make it mean something and it was fascinating to me the idea that literary criticism evolves. Also. Which I mean I guess I thought I knew this but it was interesting hearing someone else say it because you guys hear me talk all the time about objecting to people qualifying stuff as whether or not it’s well writtent. Or is it a good book or a bad book and there’s there’s a great meme going around with Stephen King who personally pisses me off because I don’t know why Stephen King decided he got to be on a literary high horse that he gets to. Past judgment on whether or not other people are writing good books but I do think it’s interesting. The idea that how we view creative works changes over time. It makes sense that it does. But I’m molling this idea now that so much can be just what we see in the moment is very different with historical perspective right? Ah and 1 thing that the author who is a woman is talking about is how Elizabeth Barrett was she calls her describes her as being diffident and self-effacing. She was a very modest person even though she started out being hugely more famous than Robert Browning she was also a shutin she had a very very small world and.
19:07.42
jeffekennedy
She had many people who came to visit her and a lively correspondence. But she also just did not have a huge ego and so she would excuse herself saying ah you know I’m only watching this through my window and. You know I’m just as a woman and she used analogies after she married of being a wife and being a mother because of course she did this is going back to what I was talking about the other day with the pipes and how that colors the water that comes out of the pipes. What we are doing who we are at any given time. Is going to influence our creative voice. Well the critics damned her for her for it saying that again that she had made her work less important by using these womanly analogies you know and it’s like well you know fuck. Those guys. It’s just sort of like ah I want to say the more things change the more they stay the same. But I think we’re just still living out this same trajectory. So anyway, those are all the things that I’m thinking about right now. it’s it’s I really ah it’s a I call it a rabbit hole because I had not expected it all to be going in this direction and I’m finding it immensely rewarding and I suppose this is how we deepen our previously shallow educations. One of my favorite professors in college said that. Whole point of a college education is to teach you how to continue to learn for for the rest of your life and I think that is um that that has served me very well I absolutely believe that and this is an example right. I am continuing to learn about ah the politics of italy in the mid eighteen hundreds did you know that they were not a unified nation I didn’t know that and and about Elizabeth Barrett and Robert browning fascinating stuff. Filling that well, it’s really fun all right I’m going to head out I hope you all have a wonderful weekend I hope you find some delightful rabbit holes of your own and I will talk to you all on Monday take care bye bye.
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transcript
00:00.60
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.
00:13.85
jeffekennedy
Ah, excellent today is Tuesday April Twelfth for 122022 and it’s um, I’m looking at my thermometer. And it’s actually showing 51° out there which means I could be going outside I don’t know why I’m like not moving out to the grape arbor. The the wind is cold I think that’s part of it. Ah, but there we are.
00:48.55
jeffekennedy
Ah so um, update on the ah laptop screen Watermark I’m sure you’re all on tenterhooks to know. But I think it’s decreasing ah if I wanted to risk it I would trace an outline. That would be the scientific thing to do but trace an outline so I could see if the borders are actually moving but I’m not willing to risk it because I don’t want to mess up my touchsc screenen so I’m just excuse me. But. Don’t know what that was a little bit of frogginess. But um yeah it’s um I think it’s I think it’s different today I think it’s the borders are receding and I think there’s more open patches in the middle. So. Cross our fingers that maybe I didn’t fuck it up forever if you don’t know what I’m talking about you have to listen to yesterday’s podcast and get the whole story of Jeffe’s carelessness although this is it’s not nearly as bad as it could have been so I’m telling my blessings. Actually today is a counting blessings kind of day. It feels like a good day. Um, saw bobcat this morning young female. Do these bobcats have this sense to them that they seem to me like they’re smiling. You know she comes. I saw her as I was lifting weights, saw her out the bedroom window and called David and we watched her come around and she drank from the fountain and and she glances up now and then and kind of has this look on her face like it’s a great world. It’s a beautiful morning I swear she’s smiling at guys. And um I was ah dancing around to Taylor Swift’s I Think He Knows really love that song. There are a lot of songs on lover that I really like and I almost feel like we like lover kind of got a little bit lost in the wash. Maybe that’s just me. But um, what year did that come out 2018? Yeah, that’s why it was 2019 August of 2019 so we only got to enjoy enjoy it for I mean I guess it was a good six months before pandemic kicked in but I don’t know it seems like a lot of that stuff that happened at the end of Twenty Nineteen kind of got um, kind of smooged out like that’s totally a word and I’m not even gonna fix it on the transcript by what came immediately after and the.
03:34.36
jeffekennedy
Stress and trials of that I’ve been going through the programming stuff for SFWA’s nebula conference and there are a lot of panel suggestions on creating well being under stress. It’s like. I wonder why this topic is on people’s minds ha and I won’t go into another rant on Brandon Sanderson but seeing how many writers wonderful writers out. There are suggesting. Topics like that just reinforces for me that someone being flip about making a joke about people not being able to create during the pandemic is just that much more annoying.
04:26.50
jeffekennedy
And if you don’t know what I’m talking about you would have to go find that podcast because I’m not going to renew my rant I have other things to rant about. Thank you? Ah, but no I’m feeling good today I’m dancing around seeing the bobcats feeling pretty good. Um, feeling like I’ve a lot to do. But theoretically it’s doable. Theoretically um, let’s see so oh I wanted to talk a little bit more I even made notes sticky notes. Yeah, to collect my thoughts collecting um I need like one of those waynes world moments blue do pu it’s not a flashback. It’s me collecting my thoughts. So. I talked quite a bit yesterday about um about the Jack Williamson lectureship and how much fun it was one of the things that I don’t think I really touched on I sort of did tangentially. But I wanted to come back to it to talk about what makes panels at conferences. Really fun for for the participants for the writers I think that it’s um, there is something indescribably wonderful. About being able to have conversations with other writers in a way that we don’t on our own so this is something for all of you readers or aspiring writers out there for when you go to conferences and you feel like. You you don’t want to ask the stupid question you know and people always excuse it. You know they’re like oh well can I ask a stupid question and and I really do strongly believe there’s no such thing as a stupid question I think that’s just people being snotty who say that there are. Because how do you get your question answered unless you ask it and and yes I have known people who are like you should go out and do the research yourself and they totally make that face and they use that voice. You should go out and do the research yourself and. Discover the answer to the question my idrate which like do you even know how they found out they like happened to stumble upon it. We did get a question at 1 of the panels somebody asking us about research and what was our you know did we prefer to ask people or.
07:12.96
jeffekennedy
You know Google or look stuff up and I was totally on the side of I want to ask people because you know until we get better ai the human brain is able to drill down to answer exactly the thing that you want and dorendda was talking about. Um. Doing research for her sunshine books and you know like talking to sheriffs and they would say well this is how it would go down and she’s like yeah yeah, yeah, but I can’t have it go down that way because it won’t work with the story I want it to do this How can how can I make it do this and still be kind of close to real life That’s what you need people for um, asking questions of other people is a wonderful way to get information and especially when you have the opportunity to ask other creators or ask authors you admire or what have you. To answer a question that you might have you know that’s wonderful and and it prompts us to think about things in ways that we don’t normally think about you forget what people don’t know first of all and. The conversations that we have just listening to how other writers answer the same question is I don’t even know I don’t have the words. Ah, it’s um, transcendent is that too strong of a word. It’s just really so stimulating and it refills the well and it just makes me feel good and there I so I’m just gonna come down on this full stop. You guys doing a panel in a room full of. Living breathing human beings with other living breathing human beings is just a thousand times better than the online panels. Um, and I know I’ve complained about this before but you know doing those online panels. Where you’re just looking at the other panelists and you don’t have any sense of the audience at all, you can’t see who’s asking questions. You don’t have that that energy in the room. It’s a real thing you guys if we have learned nothing else from this whole Zoomtastrophe there I Coined the word. It’s probably a terrible word. It won’t last stop trying to make fetch happen if we learned to anything from this whole Zoomtastrophe. It’s that that Zoom interaction doesn’t um replace human interaction.
09:57.41
jeffekennedy
So I just wanted to emphasize that how great it is if you were putting together a conference if you’re attending a conference being on a panel with other writers who have interesting things to say is um is the best. it’s awesome and it’s it’s always been. From the very beginning of my writing career. 1 of my favorite things and it continues to be 1 of my favorite things. There is something about that about that conversation about having observing how other people make things happen. That is endlessly fascinating David and I have been watching. Let me get the exact title. So it’s called winning time the rise of the lakers dynasty and I will link to it in the show notes. It’s on Hbo Max which is I think funny. It’s like the only Hbo there is now but like they had Hbo and then they added Hbo Max and I don’t know if I was like not the only one who was really pissed that they wanted me to pay for 2 channels but they merged them so it’s called Hbo Max now but it’s um, Hbo right so it’s um a series on Hbo Max sorry I already told you that and it’s ah about. Exactly what the title says it takes place in like starting in 79 I think with the purchase of the lakequors by a businessman I’d never heard of but who used to live in Kemmerer Wyoming of all places um, played by John C Riley who’s amazing Jason Segel is in it and it’s about how they sort of I so much stuff I didn’t know even though I lived through this era about like that and Mba best ball was not bringing in the money. It wasn’t popular. They I don’t know if I can even discre. You know they’re talking about Magic Johnson’s in it and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and they’re just talking about how they transformed this money pit into a moneymaking enterprise. And the creativity that went into it and I think that’s the kind of thing. It’s a good show for us because David likes basketball stuff. It’s very witty. That’s really cleverly done a lot of good people working on it like Jonah Hill
12:46.25
jeffekennedy
Say I could tell you like some of the John C Riley well he’s a star store I knows gent Jonah Hill Adam Mckay is like 1 of the directors some of these other names I don’t know people more savvy than I might. But it’s um, they’re they’re delving into the racism of the era in really interesting entertaining ways the development of I didn’t realize that the lakers were the one to create the whole. Um. The lakers girls the the sexy dancing girls as cheerleaders. it’s it’s just fabulous you guys and it’s I think endlessly inspiring to see how people do things how people created things and overcome things. And that comes back to listening to people talk on the panels and talk about one of my favorite questions to ask other authors is to talk about a time when they had to reinvent themselves because everybody has had it. It’s a treasure rich question because. Every single creator out there has had to reinvent andvent themselves and reinvent their career at some point and hearing what happened and why they had to do it. It’s um, really just ah so enriching stimulating. But. So this is I’m I’m sort of bouncing all over the place this morning dancing right? I won’t sing tempting though. It may be 1 of the gals I got to know at the lectureship is. Mary Ayala who is the Dean of arts and sciences at Eastern New Mexico University and she sat right by us at dinner that first night and she is um you know like my age Darynda’s age and. Super smart I mean obviously she has to be in order to be dean of a college and we just had a lot of fun talking and then the next day I saw her and she she stopped. We were walking from like 1 building to another and she was coming towards us and she stopped. Was walking with Dorinda and she stopped us and she said I just wanted to tell you guys how much fun I had talking to you last night. She said it was just like a breath of fresh air I think this is how we all felt that was just like we could finally take in some fresh air and talk to people. We didn’t already know.
15:30.64
jeffekennedy
In person. Ah and she was just she said I just feel so I woke up this morning just feeling tons lighter and feeling excited about things again and she even decided at that point she had been headed somewhere else. And she said you know what? I’m just gonna run this errand later I’m gonna come sit with you guys and talk some more It’s just delightful. So I know I’m sort of going in circles here. But I think we can’t underestimate the the stimulation that that kind of thing provides us and what. We can learn from other people and from what they’ve struggled to create and do so and I know I had another oh I also finished watching last night severance you guys been watching severance this is on Apple um. So yeah, it’s on Apple Tv and if you um, if you couldn’t watch Ted Lasso mother then you can’t watch this but I don’t know that you and would like it anyway, it’s dark. It’s very dark and unsettling. In fact, we watched I don’t know 1 or 2 episodes and David bailed on it because he said this is kind of depressing. He’s more sensitive to depressing stuff these days and I was like yeah it is kind of depressing but it was also fucking fascinating. It’s Adam Scott and directed by Ben Stiller of all people then Ben Stiller who is like coming back to dark in his old age David was telling me that Ben Stiller when he was in like film school. Ah. Got kicked out of class for writing a screenplay that the professor said was so unsettling that they wouldn’t show it to anyone so now like maybe he’s sort of coming into his own. This is also cool, right? You know where people are in their careers and you kind of get to that fucket point of your career sorry I should have like warned people that this is the 4 letter. Word episode but it’s on Rand here at first cup of coffee right? You reach this point in your career where you just want to do the stuff you want to do and and and you don’t care if anybody else thinks that you should be doing it or wanting you to go back to doing zoolander or whatever. Ah. So severance. The premise is that people have a chip embedded in their brains that divides their memory so that when they’re out living their lives. They don’t know what their work is.
18:15.30
jeffekennedy
And then when they go to work they ride in an elevator and this circuit they make it be like little sounds which they then use to really good effect later for disconnects with reality. But then it clicks out and it blocks out all their memories of who they are outside that place. And they are only awake and alert in their office world so that it’s it’s the ultimate work life separation right? and which is how it’s built. But then it’s it’s creepy because the people who live inside the office building. Who only have their lives as workers they that’s all they have right? They don’t know anything else and this affects them profoundly and so the the final episode of the first season came out last week and i. Wasn’t able to watch it because I was out of town but I watched it last night and David was cooking dinner and we sort of have that open plan open to the kitchen there at the pass crew and he was like why do they keep playing that really ominous creepy music. And I’m like because there are ominous and fucking creepy things happening. Um I was I did not expect the revelations in that final episode I knew that there were going to be questions answered and i. Of course not all not all completely answered. There is a season 2 but you know there’s a lot of times with shows like this where they set out with this premise that creates a lot of mystery and paradox and you really want to know the answers. And then by the end they fail to satisfy that it’s like they. They’re really good at setting up the question but not so good at the answer and this final episode was just amazing. Ah yeah, so we could talk about severance. So let’s see. Um I think I’ll call that good I’m thinking about setting up a Discord channel for conversations where we can have like spoiler conversations about books and stuff maybe through a Patreon or something let me know what you think about that and let’s see. Will talk to you all I’m flying out of town on Thursday but not till later in the morning. So yeah I think I’ll talk to you all on Thursday you all take care bye bye.