RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//Sorting reasons to be a writer, how you CAN make a living at it, and what it means to treat this profession like a business. Also, why age and dry wit isn’t an excuse to insult other authors and genres.
//My weekend at Bubonicon: great conversations with other writers and coming home ready to put a new project into motion. Also, how some members of the SFF community treat Romance like antimatter.
//A story about how Romance continues to be treated like antimatter in some parts of the SFF community. Also, exciting news on ONEIRA, and a bit more about agents and being careful who you pitch to.
//
This week at the SFF Seven, we’re asking: “Do you read in the genre you write?”
What’s funny is that my answer is absolutely yes – but that I didn’t always write in the genre I read. Does that make sense?
I have always read Fantasy and Science Fiction, since I was a little kid, and I’ve been reading Romance since I was old enough to walk to the used bookstore to buy my own books, as my mom wouldn’t let me read “that trash.” (Because she thought Romance was low-brow and anti-feminist, not because of the sex.) But when I started out as a writer, I wrote Creative Nonfiction.
Some of this was timing and coincidence. When I decided I wanted to be a writer instead of a scientist, one of the first classes I took was “Essays on Self and Place,” from a visiting writer at the university. I fell easily into writing essays and had success with them. My first book was an essay collection. And, sure, I read some essays. I read a lot of essay collections and memoir. But I was always reading them as research and reciprocity.
All that time, what I read for pure enjoyment? Anything with a paranormal/SFF element and plenty of Romance.
It was only after my first book came out that a friend – a bookseller who knew my tastes and sold me hardcover releases of JD Robb, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer, and Jaqueline Carey – asked me why I wasn’t writing in the genres I so clearly loved to read.
Funny that. It simply hadn’t occurred to me. But then I started to, I wrote this Fantasy Romance* (not a genre then, but what did I know??) that was SO MUCH FREAKING FUN TO WRITE. I couldn’t believe how much more fun I had writing my crazy tale about a scientist who falls into Faerie, becomes a sorceress, and ends up in a bargain with a fae lord to bear his child. I even got a really nice rejection on the book from Stephenie Meyer’s agent! (Though it took a long time for me to sell it, which is another tale.)
The rest is history. ~ Waves at catalogue of Epic Fantasy Romances ~ I haven’t looked back. Writing what I love to read has absolutely been a great decision.
*The book that became ROGUE’S PAWN
//A dive into genre today, along with a discussion of whether there’s an identifiable plot arc for Science Fiction or Fantasy (hint: there isn’t), and what I’ve recently discovered about writing a Romance.
//What to do when an author’s editor leaves the house, the one question to ask career authors, studying movies made from books to understand theme and what subplots/side characters aren’t important.
//On writing cross-genre and pushing the boundaries of fantasy. Does fantasy necessarily mean non-tech/medieval culture? And other thoughts on tropes, reader expectations, and making art.
//Musings on the amount of romance in fantasy romance and romantic fantasy – and how I seem to want more lush romance feels than many books in the genre deliver. Also squees on reading a Lisa Kleypas historical.
Transcript
00:00.90
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I am here with my first cup of coffee.
00:12.88
jeffekennedy
Excellent.
00:18.71
jeffekennedy
Ah, today is say it with me Friday! August 19 beginning of a long weekend for me flying to Tucson tonight celebrate birthdays with the family.
00:38.44
jeffekennedy
Ought to be fun. Um, writer coffee yesterday was a lot of fun. Ah, it turns out that one of my writer coffee peeps the fabulous J Barton Mitchell – Jack – um, who’s got the wonderful podcast. Should pimp his podcast hang on yeah that said it’s called Derelict um, during the second season of Derelict I interviewed him on here a while back. Um, and it’s doing amazing. He was telling us yesterday that they just sold the french. Translation rights for the podcast. So go Jack so anyway, it turns out that Jack’s birthday is on Sunday the twenty first as is the fabulous Darynda Jones she is on Sunday and then I’m on Monday so we’re our little cluster of ah. Leo writer babies. Although I am on the cusp Leo Virgo so I have been described as a meticulous volcano and I mentioned that when. Jack was thinking are you on the cusp of… and I said yes I’m a meticulous volcano and they were both like that’s actually tracks like thanks guys.
02:04.90
jeffekennedy
I guess there are worse things right? Grapes grapes are falling my grapevine kind of came unraveled too. That’s why it’s sort of dangling in screen if you’re on video I need to wind it up again. But it’s not going to happen till I get back. We should harvest grapes too. But I eat them occasionally. They’re quite delicious. Sweet so sweet. So anyway, writer coffee was lovely. We had a great conversation. Jim Sorenson had just gotten back from a Transformers conference. In England where he was a headliner and so he was telling us about that and so he was pretty high on that It’s always fun when you get to be treated like ah a fancy person I did come out here early this morning and like the mosquito candle. But it’s. Cooler today. In fact, I was wondering excuse my hand you all pause. Yeah, it’s only ° we had kind of um, cold air come in last night so there’s a definite definite autumnal feel this morning. Um, oh. Um, might sneeze there. We go ah longtime listeners at least from last year may remember the debate about autumnal.
03:34.67
jeffekennedy
And a tu no feel to the air. Ah so yeah, it’s um, cooler and so there are not nearly so many mosquitoes this morning. In fact, I haven’t seen any even though I came out and lit the candle early to try to create a. Dispersing my asthma cause it was very funny yesterday if you’re on video you saw me constantly batting them away and Youtube when I upload the video they pick 3 Stills to be like the cover image and I can choose between those 3 but. Otherwise I can upload an unrelated image. But if I want an image of me sitting here yapping then it has to be 1 of the 3 that they pick and they tend to pick things that are movement. They they like things that are bigger. Movements. So I have to remember to like not. Mess with my hair because otherwise that are all 3 b me raking my hair back from my forehead which my characters do all the time for a reason people because it’s clearly one of my personal ticks. But yesterday’s were all me. Waving mosquitoes away. Um sorry to pick the least absurdly waving of mosquitoes image. Yeah, so it goes right? Ah so yeah, let’s see what else i.
05:02.64
jeffekennedy
Did get my 2000 words yesterday I’m at something like 62000 on the book I’m enjoying writing this book. That’s always nice and but it took me a little while since I was at writer coffee for a couple of hours and. Then I um I reader did not go to yoga I know I ended up canceling I just got hit with the don’t want us. Um I have to get back in that habit. But it’s so much a thing that by. Yoga class the one that I like to go to on Thursday afternoons is at 4 and by the time it starts rolling around to three o’clock and I have to cancel an hour ahead. So I have to make a decision by like around two forty five and at that point I’m just feeling like all I want to do. Is not have some fun until the sun goes down on Santa Monica Boulevard because that’s all the way over in California but what I really want to do is like sit with my book. Um and relax and so that’s what I ended up doing ah. Bad yoga person but I it was a nice evening and I and I hit tired yesterday afternoon. That’s the other thing is like by Thursday afternoon I’m hitting tired so my other options are to go um in the morning.
06:33.95
jeffekennedy
Um, there are some like 10 am classes I could go to which means I would have to like interrupt the writing for something other than writer coffee. But maybe I’ll do that I don’t know.
06:52.16
jeffekennedy
Ah, what was me I know I’m such a a ritualized person here’s my that’s the meticulous part of meticulous volcano. Ah you know I Just don’t like my schedule to be interrupted and now that that’s no longer part of my schedule.
07:10.67
jeffekennedy
Yeah, So anyway, um, the other thing I’ve been doing interestingly enough I I find it interesting. Do you guys? Do you all ever worry about this like I read this thing a long time ago that people who. Think that they are interesting conversationalists um are not whereas people who think that they are not interesting conversationists actually are most of the time I think I’m not that interesting, but every time I say that I. That something is interesting then I then I worry it’s like oh is it actually not but it’s a way to really freak yourself out. There’s hummingbird behind me oh over here. She’s getting the ah.
08:08.30
jeffekennedy
Get that naturally made nectar. So Oh and now have I forgotten the thing that’s it. Oh okay, so it’s probably not interesting but I’m going to tell you anyway. So after several reads that. Ah, ones that I enjoyed for the most part one? Um, ah I read book one and really loved book one and went on to work book 2 and ah I I hated book 2 Um. The characters seem to have like the original. The main characters from the first book. The POV characters ah seem to have like totally changed into different people and doing things that didn’t feel like they were part of their character motivations and the. People who had taken over the pov I didn’t care about them and and I got part way into it and I thought it was feeling like a slog you know and and I read it for pleasure I don’t read when I’m not having fun and so I went and looked at the reviews just to see. Like if it was going to get better if it was just me and there were a lot of reviews saying exactly the way I felt about it and and then complaining about that. The ending was so disappointing and I thought okay I’m bailing So I bailed on that book and the first book.
09:41.75
jeffekennedy
Part of the recent was disappointing was I had liked a whole lot of stuff about this first book. But then it had not really paid off on the romance in the way that I want um and I know that I’m probably different this way because I did come up out of romance. But 1 thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of fantasy romance. Romantic fantasy um YA fantasy even when there’s romance in it. It tends to be pretty romance lite and I want to spell that l I t e ah. It is um, does it dig into the romance feels and I think that maybe a lot of writers writing fantasy hesitate to dig deep into the the really lush parts of romance. There’s sex sometimes. These books did not have sex but I thought that book 2 would then like take me further into that romantic arc and give me the feels both physical and emotional and so it was feeling very um.
10:55.48
jeffekennedy
Emotionless interrupt us as it were that I had not gotten the the full I don’t know I didn’t get my climax people I did not get my romance climax and so I was in Las Vegas hanging out at the cabana with Megan and wanting something to read I picked up another one that was in my tbr I was very good I cleared out my tbr and read that book because it did give me some nice sexy thrills. But again. Not the full out romance and there are more books in that series and I was not feeling compelled to go on. Yeah so I thought well what I need to do is I need to read ah a romance romance capital r and so I had had Lisa Kleypas on my Kindle for a long time in my tbr. So I am being dutiful clearing that out and she um it was called Then came you and I had read the second book in this It’s just a 2 book series the gamblers so I had read the second one with Derek Craven which is called well let’s find out – Dreaming of You I love – I mean how much you guys love that I can.
12:28.80
jeffekennedy
Googled the character name I googled Derek Craven and it came right up as dreaming of you Lisa Kleypas um my agent and I were arguing about how to pronounce her name because when I had lunch with Sara at Apollycon.
12:45.21
jeffekennedy
Sarah said I think she referred to us Lisa Clypus and I said is that how you say her name I mean it wasn’t really an argument and she said well I think it is and I said I’ve always said clypus. It could be that I think that’s how the argument went because I have it my head that’s claypus and she said well I guess I don’t know. But but so correct me if I’m wrong. We could look I’m doing a lot of pausing and looking today. So I was right? It’s CLAYpuss It’s funny when I googled her one of the things that im automatically filled in I’m always entertained by those things was um, what happened to Lisa Kleypas?
13:23.38
jeffekennedy
I believe she’s still publishing books. So anyway, for whatever reason I don’t remember why it was like in fall of twenty twenty I had read dreaming of you really liked it and then I had bought book one then came you because those characters appear in the second book and I thought oh. Like to read that one and then I never did so I just read it. Um, finished it last night and now I’m doing a reread of dreaming of you and it ah it gave me all those romantic feels that I was dying for It was great and then I was just really noticing. What an excellent author Lisa Kleypas is I mean she’s just such a polished author and I really don’t read a lot of historical romance anymore I think I got glutted on it. Um regency england.
14:22.11
jeffekennedy
Yeah, but wow she is just um, she gave me exactly the ride I wanted she it was delightful. Absolutely delightful. So I all know. Will I go on a Lisa Kleypas binge? hard to say but I I wish that I could have more fantasy romance that has more dense romance in it like this. So as a result. Well I think dark wizard. Was this way I think all 3 bonds of magic books are a whole lot about Nic and Gabriel’s relationship tell me if you disagree but ah shadow wizard. There’s a lot of Jadren and Selly and.
15:18.25
jeffekennedy
I think um, some of that lushness and passion from Lisa Kleypas are leaking into it and I feel like this can only be a good thing. So um. Probably I will not do podcasts on Monday and Tuesday ah maybe I will but whenever I say maybe I will it turns into no ah so probably a little bit more vacation. Um, and then. Otherwise I’ll have I’ll be here Wednesday Thursday Friday next week probably just blogging on Wednesday Bubonicon the following weekend if you’re local to New Mexico which I know most of you are not and then the following weekend labor day weekend. How is it labor day weekend already or will be in Chicago for WorldCon. Doing a bunch of programming. Um, so I should probably post my schedule at some point I always wonder about that you know like when you post your conference schedule I see people putting on social media. But it’s like um, does anyone really care because the people who are going to the conference. Are going to look up the program right? and do people who are not going to the conference who would see it on social media and not in the conference program or are all like okay so why post it the social media I don’t know but I am giving a workshop.
16:49.79
jeffekennedy
Worldcon if you are going. Um I’m teaching ah world building from a character driven perspective so that should be fun and participating in several panels doing a reading and a assigning so I might like pimp the reading. Just so that more than 2 people show up. It’s always the danger with readings at big conferences like that you know if you’re up against someone else like at Bubonicon they do these things that are like 50 minutes with which is essentially reading but you could also like answer questions and stuff. But I’m up against um, 50 minutes with Walter John Williams and then also ah a panel with during the jones and Connie Willis and some others talking about humor. So it’s like um.
17:47.53
jeffekennedy
Just keep saying that for the 1 or 2 people that come to my 50 minutes with I’m just gonna say how about we go over to the humor panel. We’ll have more fun. We’ll see what happens. so um so yeah busy day for me today. So I’m going to go get to it. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend I hope you get to have some fun. Um, let me know those of you who read? Romantic fantasy fantasy romance. Are there ones that have really blushed dense romance in them or. Maybe it’s just not something that most people in their genre. Want now. Um, ones I haven’t read. Yeah I know you don’t necessarily know who they are but um, yeah, all right? You all have wonderful weekend. And I will talk to you later take care bye-bye.
//Why I don’t think of storytelling as lying, conversations with writer friends about process, achieving Inbox Zero, fitting things in, efficiencies with To Do Lists, the story muscle as a visceral thing, and why I love Romance.
Transcript
00:00.76
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Um, delicious today is Monday July Eleventh we’re full of perkitude here at Chez Kennedy Hope you are too. Um, yeah I ah. Good weekend I had a restful weekend had some good conversations with people not with all the people I meant to I reached out to a couple of friends that I owed food and conversations to say we could talk on Sunday I’m getting my life back and one said okay that should get back to me with the time. And then she never did and the other one I’m going to talk to this afternoon. Um, so I’ll keep pursuing the former and hopefully talk to the latter and then I did get to talk to another friend yesterday. Um, we had a. Virtual well I was trying to explain how it was because I told my mom that I’d had a glass of wine with my friend and she said um I assume you mean a virtual glass of wine and I was like well the wine was real but the the interface was virtual. But it was funny because my friend is also a writer and a very busy person and she was showing me a new kind of scheduling system that she’s using ah sort of an online calendar. Um, because that was partly how I had scheduled to. Have like social time with her and I I want to set up my mind the same way. Um I was using callendly before and I should do that again. So that people can like schedule social time to chat as me because I did like doing that and she was glad that I did and so were like okay. Keep this going I think she was intent on reciprocating which is very nice. So but so she’s showing me this other scheduling system that she’s using which would probably be a little much for me. It’s really cool, but one thing I’ve discovered about myself is that if I am. Too heavily scheduled I I start to feel pressed and I don’t like it but you can pick the things that you put in there. It’s kind of a cool system and so one of the things she was showing me on the sidebar she was sharing her screen on the sidebar.
02:43.81
jeffekennedy
You know have like lunch exercise you know email you know, along with scheduled meetings and an attempt to like handle daily things like we all do and um and it showed for that day for Sunday and on exercise it said couldn’t fit in and I started laughing. I don’t think she thought it was as funny as I did because I was like isn’t that just the way it’s like exercise couldn’t fit in even our Ai driven scheduling systems can’t figure out a way to fit in some of those things I was very amused by. She not so much it could have been that she was more focused on like trying to explain to me why the calendar couldn’t fit in exercise on that given day but I was I was going for the um, the the universal irony of the thing could not fit in it’s like writing right it’s the thing that although I hear it much less now I don’t know if it’s because where I’m at or where aspiring authors are at but you know for so long. It seemed like I would hear from people you know oh I want a book. But I can’t find the time you know what? I wonder if pandemic changed that people were like well I definitely have the time but maybe so that’s an interesting thought isn’t it anyway. Yeah writing could not fit in um because. And and that’s how this calendar is is you could set things as being um, immovable appointments and then it would shift other things which it is a cool system. You know so like if you end up having if you usually schedule lunch for noon and you end up having a meeting that goes till twelve thirty it’ll shift lunch down. Um, so I mean I could see that I could see that I I kind of do that on my own scheduling. Some things are more flexible than others. So on the one hand I’m I’m tempted and interested and on the other I think ah. Is it really doing anything I can’t do for myself I was in a meeting the other day and somebody was referencing their to-do list and they said that they had read that you should never change the order of your to do list. That you shouldn’t spend any time rejiggering your to do list because then that you’re just using time that you could have been using to do the thing which I can see but all of us on the call kind of groaned.
05:34.49
jeffekennedy
And we’re all like I spend a lot of time rejiggering my to-do list and and the person said well that’s the point and it’s like yeah but it’s important to rejiggering. Um I’m not sure I want to I don’t know. You know it’s sort of like the other efficiency advice you know like you only pick up a piece of mail once which now translates to email that you only look at an email once and you respond to it then I’m happiest when I’m in that place I am not always in that place. It would be interesting to try to do that with the to do list. It would take quite a bit of rejiggering for me to get it to a place I could do that because I do always have more on my list on any given day than I can get to which I do know is a problem. Um, and so I I do think in terms of if I move things to particular days and really commit to on this day I’ll get this thing done and I can’t move it will that help I don’t know. But I did get um I got to inbox 0 over the weekend whoo which is great because ah, especially my SFWA inbox had gotten up to like 42 emails which I know is not a lot compared to other people run their lives. But mine was at that because they were all things I had to deal with and and it had slid back to um the beginning of June that there were things lurking in there in my defense we had had a little bit of an. Email server hook hiccup and a whole slew of emails that sort of came through like to the general president email had gotten stuck and so they were all liberated at once and they were all things that I had to consider in some way or another. So now that I’m back at inbox 0 hopefully I can keep keep going. Um, but my friend and I were just talking about one of the difficulties with inbox 0 is that there are days when you simply can’t face. Opening your email I was glad to hear her say the same thing. It’s like you know that after you get traumatized a few times. It’s like oh I don’t want to open my email but but yeah, so I actually have notes today I was thinking about.
08:20.80
jeffekennedy
Things this morning. My brain was clicking along which is a good thing. Ah I was talking to David because so we have this puzzle box for the cats that we got it off of Amazon you know and you put it together. It’s cardboard. It’s got like two levels. And got little boxes inside and you put their toys inside and you put treats in there and then the cats absorb their energies by digging the treats out of the box and at first only Jackson liked it. Um Isabel completely ignored it. But Jackson got tired of it. He I think it’s too much work for lazy boycat. Um, and then Isabel discovered it a few weeks ago I don’t know why it suddenly caught her attention. But. She loves this box she loves this box she like sleeps beside it she loves it so much. Sometimes she sits on it sometimes she lies next to it and gazes at it lovingly and she wants us to put treats in it all the time. And she is senior cat and she has started to decline and wait. So I’m not concerned about um, her eating too much sometimes I worry about her eating too many treats and not enough of her cat food. But I don’t know how much of a concern that is so. She yells at us to put more treats in the puzzle box and this morning I was making my coffee prepping to come out here and David walked through the living room and Isabel stared meowing at him rather strenuously and I said don’t listen to her stories I already gave her. I already refilled her box with treats and I thought it was funny that I say that and I recall that coming from my grandmother that she would say stories now don’t be telling stories as a way of saying telling lies. And it made me think about there are always some some writers out there who say things like I lie for a living I tell lies for a living. Um and I don’t like that and. And I could see probably where they come from culturally because it’s the same place. My grandmother came from right with that. Don’t tell stories. Don’t listen to her stories where stories are equivalent to untruths and I don’t really believe that.
11:03.37
jeffekennedy
Um I don’t believe that storytelling and lying are the same thing.
11:16.68
jeffekennedy
Incidentally and completely off topic Thursday and Friday I was not able to get Instagram to load this podcast I don’t know why I might have to go back to doing a clip. But if you missed the podcast at the end of last week this is why. If you watch on Instagram and I know a lot of you do so it just keeps saying can’t load or or can’t share I think can’t share probably Instagram changed their settings again. Alas so. Ah, just wanted to mention that if um, if it won’t load today I’ll try to do the snippet again and see if that works hello hummer.
12:06.70
jeffekennedy
Hammers coming in to feed off of the hanging lobilia very picturesque. So oh the other thing that my friend and I were talking about. I’ve got something fuzzy on my face. Sorry I don’t know what something floated down. Um, oh we were just talking about the storytelling muscle and what that feels like. And how for both of us. It feels like more of a visceral thing than ah, a floaty thing and I was saying that’s partly why I don’t really grok with people saying things like the muse or the spirit or the inspiration. Ah, you know the word inspiration comes from inspire to draw breath in it never feels like an airy breathy thing to me. It feels like a gut thing. It feels like a muscle and she was asking me about something I’d been sort of debating been waffling on in writing shadow wizard. And I said oh you know what? I I got to the point in the book I meant like um, a little more than 25K words now I’m closing in on act one climax and so I meant I mean we could see I lied to her probably and said I was at like 25K words and i. I don’t think it’s that many 21.4 give or take a few 3,500 words but it was good enough for the conversation and I said that I had gotten to that point where I started to do the thing I wanted to do. And it felt so good I was so happy that I could do that and she had kind of given me quasi permission waved the permission wand to try this new thing I wanted to do oh who am I kidding I’ve already told all of you ah that I want to write more than 2 povs in Shadow Wizard. So I’ve been alternating with Jadren and Seliah for the first part of the book and now I have switched to Gabriel’s pov and. And she asked what did I think about it I was like ah felt so good and she’s like that’s that visceral feeling is it like yeah yeah, and and we’re both talking about how it feels like a she said sometimes it almost feels like sculpting like you’ve got this big thing and you’re kind of wrestling it. So I find it interesting that we both.
14:45.74
jeffekennedy
See it the same way. Always fascinating to me how people see their process. Um, you know that I also wrote these notes on this and I’m tried to decide if this is like a whole nother topic and I’m probably not going to get to in the. Next 5 minutes but I can talk a little bit about about that first act. Um I’ve been reading several different books over the next last few days or the next few days um trying to. Trying to satisfy various obligations and settle in um, for something that’s going to feed me through writing shadow wizard and I haven’t quite found it yet. I was reading a book that ah. Kelly Robson recommended to me and she really really wanted me to read and it’s a fantasy, a new fantasy. It’s not romance though and and I do feel occasionally a little bit of chagrin about. When people will say well does a book have to be romance and it’s it doesn’t I read a lot of books that are not romance. But if I read a book that is I’m trying to explain what it is about this book without getting too specific um romance. Adds a level of of happiness and reassurance to a dark story for me so I can read a story that is nonfiction or that is um, even something that is like. I don’t know. Um, ah I’m not sure I can even say what it is but if there is a story like this one that was fantasy but where the protagonists are all really unhappy people and it’s. Macabre ah, in a way that is similar to and I’m going to mention this one um Gideon the Ninth I know a lot of people loved Gideon the Ninth I did not get through it and it’s I read it for quite. I don’t know I think I read like the none 25% and it’s nothing against Tamsyn Muir because I I do think that um Tamsyn is a wonderfully skilled writer and created a fascinating world and I loved that opening scene the opening scene was
17:35.33
jeffekennedy
Amazingly well done which kept me going but then it goes into this world where there is so much darkness and the people are miserable and they are all unkind to each other and I know that. Least people say that there is eventually a romance but I didn’t I didn’t believe that it was going to be a romance with a capital r because the people were already so unkind to each other and I thought it might end up being more of a um I don’t know. Kind of a gray romance if you know what I mean because it was really more of a fantasy or science fiction story and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s perfectly fine perfectly. Fine I should tell you all the story about perfectly fine but I won’t write now. Have to get permission. Ah no, but it’s it’s been become our new favorite hashtag so I’m totally distracted by perfectly fine perfectly fine as a way of seeing saying. I understand why people enjoy this thing and it’s perfectly fine for them to enjoy this thing but but I don’t get it and I seriously but I don’t get it because I see it so differently. Um, the. The hate hate relationship thing is just not something that’s fun for me and in this book that Kelly wanted me to read. It was um, there was a lot of that and it was. A very interesting magic system and an interesting world and setup. But I knew that I was not going to get happy emotions from reading this book and I think that’s what it comes down to is. And maybe that’s something that romance readers and writers have a difficult time conveying. It’s it’s not just that we want the romance or the love affair. It’s that I want that emotional satisfaction and that was RWA’s definition for a long time. Probably still is. Um, I’m really not sure what’s going on with RWA these days but you know it’s that emotionally satisfying conclusion and and that’s what you want? Yeah I mean they probably didn’t want to say happy. But there’s something to that you know that we want to come out of it feeling.
20:15.99
jeffekennedy
Joyful and optimistic and believing in um, in a satisfying relationship. Whatever kind of relationship that may be and if I am in doubt about getting that and I’m not going to. Get happiness from the story in any other way than I’m unlikely to want to keep going with it and so I think Kelly was pretty disappointed in me that I wouldn’t keep reading this book and then she was talking about another book. She said well did I ever tell you to read this book and I said yes and I tried to read it and I didn’t like it. She’s so we’re we’re just um, doing perfectly fine to each other so ah on that note I think I will go on I know I didn’t finish talking about first 25% but I’m gonna talk about that more tomorrow because I’ve. Other things to say about that and yeah, but now I need to go get some work done. So I hope you all have a wonderful Monday and I will talk to you tomorrow I’ll take care bye bye.
//How I’ve been learning to use TikTok and other thoughts on keeping up with technology. Also damaged protagonists, how Romance treats them differently, & potentially selling Bristish rights to Prisoner of the Crown.
Transcript
00:02.42
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee.
00:14.58
jeffekennedy
Um, wonderful. Ah today is Thursday June thirtieth last day of June. It’s very exciting isn’t it so exciting I had to set up again. Um, yeah, so here we are at the end of June halfway through 202022 I probably said too many 20 somewhere there didn’t I no wonder the transcript can’t figure out my numbers It’s choking on my coffee a little bit there excuse me.
00:54.94
jeffekennedy
So here. We are um what do I have to report I don’t know. Ah my allergies are finally receding I’m feeling much much better and. Although occasionally still coughing a little bit much much less much less than I was and my voice is better I think so um, so yeah, ah. Been working on shadow wizard I nearly said storm princess and that’s not correct. Is it ah something that I have finally gotten to on my list is is the ticks on the talks the Tiktok. Um, you know it’s really hard when you get to be a particular age. A woman of a certain age so that awful that we even say that um and you become aware of like. how how much technology you have witnessed. Um you know and it’s funny to me because I’m you know I’m sure it annoys the young people. It is the job of older people to annoy young people anyway and one of the ways that. Is traditionally done is to talk about how things were different when you were their age but you know I find it very interesting I’m I’m somewhat absorbed by the fact that my beautiful mug this beautiful mug that I got for christmas. Handle is starting to detach at the top I picked it up this morning and it’s like crack through. So if I tug on it. It actually separates which I know the answer is don’t tug on it but can I trust it to hold um is there anything I can do. Um, you know there’s the which it feels like it’s become ever so fashionable to mention now the japanese art of Kintsugi ah where you repair breaks and fill them in with gold and or make the the breaks decorative. Um, another way to look at it is visible mending. Um my friend Mary Robinette Kowal is really into visible mending and posts about it occasionally where you fix things but you don’t attempt to conceal the fact that they were broken instead you make.
03:39.98
jeffekennedy
Fix be decorative in some way and I don’t know if there’s a way to do it on this? Um, but I really love this this mug and I’ve I’ve been handwashing it people which is a big concession. So I don’t know what to do. But it’s interesting because in the essex serpent which I was talking about the other day that I I gave up reading it like um, 62% because I don’t know it wasn’t making me happy I wasn’t enjoying it. I could kind of see where she was going but and I went and read some of the reviews and I would review this one myself except I don’t like to post reviews of other authors’ work. That’s critical instead I just rant about it here to you all because you keep my secrets. I know it’s like it’s not like this is it public but I don’t think Sarah Perry is going to seek out my little podcast and if she does it’s on her right whereas I feel like ah posting a review is a little bit more putting it in her lap I thought the book had a lot of early promise and I noticed a lot of reviews said that. Because I was compelled from the beginning and one of the things that I loved is the damaged heroine, Cora – is there anything more compelling than the damaged heroine or hero damaged human being and and she references Kintsugi um because she had this horrible sadistic controlling husband. Um, and and I almost kept reading to find out more about that except I was starting to feel like she was never going to tell me any more than that. Um. Which is kind of a thing that I think literary fiction does um as opposed to to romance that maybe romance will go to these places that that other genres won’t because it’ll go in and delve into. Um. People’s feelings and their scars and how they overcome them in a way that other genres sort of stay away from when I first was writing prisoner of the crown I was working with a critique group of mainly. Science fiction and fantasy writers which I thought was going to be just fine because in many ways prisoner of the crown is one of my few books that has no romance in it at all. Um, this series ends up going that direction but prisoner of the crown itself is more or less high fantasy.
06:26.63
jeffekennedy
Um, and for those of you who have not read it. It is about a young woman being forced into a cruel and sadistic marriage and she is also treated very badly by her mother. She’s basically groomed to be I hope this isn’t spoilery, but. Um, she’s basically groomed to be a victim ah from a very early age she is subjected to treatment from her mother who has long range plans for her daughters this political alliance to make her into. Kind of person who will accept what she later must endure and in some ways it was interesting to do because in some ways her mother. Um, while awful. Her mother is is simply repeating the generational cycle she is repeating what was done to her. And and in many ways she feels like she’s doing what’s best for her daughter because she’s preparing her to endure and she doesn’t see any other paths for her daughter but there’s some stark stuff that happens at the beginning of the book because I really wanted to show. How how these how a particular victim is created and I remember that the other people in the group actually all the guys one other woman in the group did not have this reaction but the other guys were all like whoa. This is really dark. This is really brutal and you know should you really show all of this. And it’s like you know this is what some women’s lives are like you guys. You know how how precious are we going to be I was frankly taken aback that they were so squeamish about it. They’re like well maybe have the mother be a little bit less cruel and. Okay, but so ah reader I did not take their critiques and I know that that book is hard to read for some people because it is um, does explore so much of that. I believe I have recently sold um u k rights to that book. Although Kensington didn’t actually tell me um because why would they tell me it’s only my book that is sarcasm in case, you need the sarcasm emoji I find it really irritating that publishers. Ah, don’t bother to tell us these things. Um, but they sent me money they sent me what appears to be a advance. It says. Um, it’s weird I shared it with doranda when we were working yesterday.
09:16.35
jeffekennedy
The sort of the check memo from Kensington says BristishAdvSign anyway those are all capped so it looks like british advance signing so like my signing advance only why is it bristish and and I asked Darynda what she thought and she said oh that um Bristish is near Britain. So. It’s not quite Britain but it’s bristish. We were amused. Ah thank you for the person who ah commented I believe on Instagram longtime listener and lurker Thank you explaining that, yes, an effort is being made lately to specify authors as being english. And they pointed out that we don’t refer to like welsh authors or scottish authors or Northern Irish authors as british so we should then specify english authors as english so. Good to know. So anyway, that was a winding path to get there. Um, so yeah, kind of cool that prisoner of the crown will be published in the uk in brist dish I have no I worked I idea on that. I was corresponding with the financial gal at the literary agency because agent Sarah is on vacation good for her until next week so Sarah will be able to exp explicate further. Um, so so yeah it’s interesting that that little trilogy chronicles of des area is seeing the translations because it’s also been translated into check and the checks gave it perfect colors. Gorgeous covers the covers. It should have had all along um, piss me off, no end. The way Kensington punted on those fucking covers and then tried to and then my editor who I loathed and is now gone. Um, she was awful. She would lie to me all the time she would blow sunshine up my skirt you know and she would by like flattering me flattering me in a way that um. I mean was obvious I mean she would just any time I questioned anything she would start telling me what a wonderful writer I am and it would be like okay am I supposed to just like fall down on my knees and start sucking now sorry you guys? um, show me crazy and she’s like well this is very expensive art.
12:08.17
jeffekennedy
And it’s like I can recognize clip art when I see it anyway. I keep um, diverting off topic here. So I was talking about technology and I got totally off on other things. Let me finish the thought on technology ah because I do talk about how when I was in high school I learned to program in dos and now the thing about technology is it keeps changing and my very first website I programmed my first website and. I knew how to do html programming but then it keeps growing and changing and after a while you either have to devote yourself to keeping up or hand it over to other people who have time to keep up. So. Every onces a while you know like what somebody says oh well, you know it’s so easy to learn this. You could do this yourself and I’m like yeah talk to me after you’ve been doing that for 20 years you know after a while you just you have to c seed certain territories. So I’ve been learning tick talk um playing with it. Which I do think is one of the best ways to learn things and it’s the way that we learn things when we’re young the way that kids learn things. Is you play with it because you’re not afraid of doing it wrong. You’re not afraid of breaking it and as you get older, you get more worried about doing it right. Which is unfortunate. So I’ve just been trying to take some time to play with Tiktok and share some things. So I think I’m clumsy at it. But I’m getting better and it’s been fun going and finding. Wonderful videos people have been making about my books and sharing this so that’s been a kick and if I lost other points along the way please remind me um, sorry. If I edited this podcast. We would catch those but since I don’t they are um, lost lost to the wind and the dregs of the coffee. So I can’t remember if I had a point how did I get on to prisoner writing dark things. Oh The Essex Serpent. That’s right and Kintsugi. That’s it um, that there’s I was very very intrigued by this marriage where the husband tells her he wants to break her apart and mend the cracks with gold and.
14:49.10
jeffekennedy
I wanted to know more about that and I finally decided I probably wasn’t going to find out more and that it wasn’t worth it shen a lot of themes in there I think um and this is probably uncharitable. The whole review is uncharitable. Um, you know she got to this whole thing about. Housing crisis in London and I don’t know I felt like she was trying to make it be an important novel you know with capital letters and trademark and I don’t know I wanted to know more about the woman whose husband tried to break her apart. And men the cracks with gold and what that made her into and I felt like at 60 to 65 I hadn’t found out nearly enough about it and I was finding out way too much about the housing crisis in London and so. So I bailed I don’t this all came from trying to mend my coffee mug. Um or thinking about mending it. Alas.
16:04.17
jeffekennedy
So um, I had another thing I wanted to talk about and I was trying to decide if I had time time to address it. Okay I thought about it. Um. I’m not sure I have complete thoughts on it. That’s why I’m not sure how long it would take and I I do remember it from last night even though I didn’t write it down I went out with my friend Kelly Robson and we did some shopping and I even found a birthday present for me which is not till the end of august. But I texted my mom about it and said what if I found a birthday present and she said get it. So I got it and have it set away so that she can wrap it up. We have to talk about how you want to do that mom but um and we had drinks and we got takeout and took them back to her wife, Alyx, and sat and had pizza and then I got home and David had been watching five hundred days of summer which I remember vaguely seeing the first time I liked it well enough that I bought the soundtrack but I think a lot of us went into that movie thinking it was going to be a romance. And it is decidedly. Not I did not remember it was Joseph Gordon Levitt in it which is why David was watching it because he really likes that actor I remembered it was Zooey Deschanel I remember how that whole thing about the manic pixie dream girl came from that. And I understand the criticism more because um I would like to watch it from the beginning again because David and I kind of came away from it disagreeing on it I felt like she had been kind of unkind to him. Um, that she had let him on and and David said no he wanted her to be something that she couldn’t be interesting so we don’t often swap like swap sympathies gender wise that way. So now I kind of want to watch it from the beginning again, but the script I was reading in the trivia. You guys know I’m always ah scrolling the I am db trivia as I watch your show. Um that the screenwriter had written it. About a specific woman that he even calls out in the credits Jenny Beckman bitch um so it’s always questionable right? when you.
18:52.98
jeffekennedy
Write about something that is a deeply personal experience and I think that especially as new writers we have a great tendency to make the protagonist be an avatar of ourselves. Um, maybe it’s because it’s like. That’s a story. We have to get out or we just don’t know better. It’s interesting releasing Rogue’s Pawn now because that was um, out soon right? Thank you all for all the preorders I should include those I think it is in the show notes. Um, but that was the none novel I ever wrote and the ah I mean the protagonist is a neuroscientist who accidentally ends up in Faerie and was absolutely my avatar. In fact, I even gave her my name and a lot I gave her my dress I gave her a lot of my same characteristics and I felt very clever at the time not realizing as so many newbie writers. Do. Is we think we’re very being very clever and we’re actually following a very well-trod um, unfortunately so path. Um, it’s like we have these blinders on and we don’t see how many people have tried this path and the other writers going. Don’t go down that path. Which is why I don’t totally hold things against Sarah Perry because she’s still a new writer. So even if she says things like I want to create the first female monster villain. Um I just. Shake my head and say oh you sweet summer child because she’s thinking of her predecessors as Daphne du Maurier and Mary Shelley and is apparently oblivious to the entire world of genre fiction because literary writers think that. Those books don’t count. There’s a grand tradition of that too. Um writers like ah Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro thinking that they have invented genre. Because somehow all the other genre being written is beneath notice and that they’ve come up with something really interesting like Ian McEwan talking about that he was going to write about artificial intelligence but he wanted to write about how it was affecting society not in terms of like ah.
21:38.25
jeffekennedy
Space Boots with rockets on them. It was really that Bad. It’s like you have no idea how much thoughtful, really wonderful and entertaining stuff has been written about artificial intelligence Anyway, I’m running out of time. So I think I’ll just stop there if I had a point I probably didn’t make it. But you all will forgive me and feel free to poke me about it because I will definitely talk to you all tomorrow you all take care Bye bye.