Tag: secret garden

First Cup of Coffee – June 13, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING is out today!!! FINALLY! I’m talking about that, my busy and productive weekend – including a tour of the secret garden – plus special appearance by Jackson.

(Apologies for the failure to stop at the end…)

     




Transcript
00:00.97
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:39.45
jeffekennedy
So today is Monday June thirteenth and very exciting day. It is the release day for THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING!! I feel like we need extra – Let’s do an extra ringing of the chimes for that. Because a long time coming right? I originally planned this book to come out in like freaking I don’t know November what was my first I bet I could tell you what was my first plan my. Sadly benighted plan that got completely derailed. What was the one that I had to cancel I know if I must have it on here somewhere. Okay. I know this is boring but I’m I’m going to look sorry surely I kept it recorded somewhere. Yeah well now I’m just hitting the wrong buttons a new. Well it doesn’t matter. It was something like. November but didn’t exactly work out. Jackson is out here with me this morning. He’s been being a good kitty. Um, we’ve been letting him out in the secret garden with us without harness and he’s been not going over the wall. Was very funny when my friend Megan Mulry first moved to Santa Fe and she house sat for us and I tried to teach how to use the harness how to put it on him and she even called me and I was trying to walk her through it and she couldn’t get the harness figured out and I said um. I’m noticing. Somebody’s been digging one of my plants I know this because I cleaned everything up yesterday. It’s a little disconcerting have to put rocks in these plants to keep the rodents like to the mice like to dig into them and bury themselves. It’s for their sleeping spot. Anyway, um, so I asked her we were like in Tucson for Thanksgiving I think it was and I asked her if she’d gotten it figured out and she said oh I realized that I could just put him out in the back garden because it has walls. It was like um, you might see if he’s still there and she’s like why can he go over the walls and it’s like someone who has not been around cats. It’s like yeah there are not walls who can keep a cat and all right hold on.

06:13.41
jeffekennedy
Now right? I put some rocks it. It was a different plant than what I thought but um I poked and no mouse came jumping out which is what they do sometimes which can be alarming at least temporarily and by put some rocks in. I feel better film anyway, release day for storm princess on the Raven King um I even queued up my photo to show you guys and I’ll put on the show notes. But um, oh and of course we have. This is the problem with using phones because then it’s all fingerprinting over the image and cleaning off my screen and then we’ll probably get glare anyway. But. Ah, ah, ah, all right? So I’m very excited. Um I don’t love the cover model. We ended up out and with this one and it took a lot of work to find the right cover model and he’s twice. He’s on this one and then on long night of the crystalline moon because they’re the. Sort of bracketing couple and I ended up putting up a picture of to Monte Charlemagne instead that’s what ah Ryan looks like so so yeah. Great to have this out great to have that series finished um plans for today are to do release day things. So I feel like I don’t have many to do and then um work on rogue’s pond. If I can get that revision done today. I’ve got a lot to do since I leave early in the morning. Um I did ask the person involved about the yeah sorry I started looking at my email to see if they had replied and they had not. And then um, yeah Karine sent um a question so that got involved with looking at that? sorry. Must be a little scattered this morning I actually feel great. It’s good to have that book out. Um I’m heading off to do this fun thing tomorrow. Oh that’s why I started to tell you was that they said they were going to craft a social media policy because I asked I said you know what can I say on social media about this because I feel like.

11:45.71
jeffekennedy
Part of why I’m doing this is because they want to spread word of mouth and yet there are other aspects that I know are preferred to be kept confidential. So anyway I have not yet gotten that social media policy so we will see I don’t know if all podcasts for the rest of the week it’s um I think I could say this bunch is that it’s a writer’s retreat and it’s kind of an experimental thing and it’s um, right now by invitation only so look how snazy I am ah no, it’s it’s a friend. Um, and yeah, so it’s gonna be great and I think that. Ah, one of the people hosting it also as a podcast so I might ask them if they would like to do a podcast with me have a cup of coffee and chat so we’ll see otherwise I think I might try to embrace the writers retreat thing and um. Actually retreat and just do that. Ah, ah yeah I don’t know I’m fussing with my hair this morning I probably do this a lot on the if you’re on video. Um, so yesterday I I ended up taking a shower last night and I did wash my hair. But. Just let it dry naturally and it’s kind of my today I should’ve done some with it. So that’s why fucking around with it. Ah I had um had a great weekend. It was really nice. We had a board meeting on Saturday that was very quick. That was really great and then um, then David and I went to a party that Emily Moth through I got to meet some of her family and we ran a few errands and that was nice to get done and then we um. Yeah, had a very quiet evening. It was really beautiful weather hot but still and um, wonderful and then I yesterday did massive cleanup in the secret garden.

16:07.49
jeffekennedy
I’m hearing suspicious wrestling noises and I’m going to jackson let me go see what he’s doing this is like the old days right? with the the cat wrangling if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time when I like actually walked. Jack’s during the podcast. Okay hold on false alarm. He’s just being a good kitty lying in the tall plants when the shade I thought that was the sound of him going over the wall. So um. Oh so hair in my mouth. What’s going on here pace all right? So anyway I did this big cleanup of the secret garden and I’ll do a little pan about for those of you on video. If you can see but actually I’ll do like a little walk through for those of you who are good people being on video so well, it’s not good I really don’t judge I don’t care if you’re on video or just audio but see I trimmed back this Lilac Bush a whole bunch. And I trimped back the grapevine so it’s all cleaned up and there’s now an easy way to walk through and now you could see it from coming the other direction. See how nice it looks I’m really happy. It was a lot of work. It took me all freaking day but much better. Sorry for the sun blast there. So yeah, that was my ah big project yesterday and it was um. Hot and my hair was like I sweated so much I had my hair on a ponytail and I sweated so much that my hair was actually stiff with salt you do and then I start doing this thing trying to. Fix David’s computer he got this laptop in like January and it was a cheap one and we thought well they’ll be fine because you know he doesn’t use it for that much stuff.

21:05.81
jeffekennedy
Sorry, all this possing this morning I just got a text message on something I’m trying to get tied up before I leave so it’s that kind of day isn’t it. so um so yeah I’m I’m really happy with the work I got done and. In two weeks my friends Kelly Robson and Alex Delamonica will be here. They’re going to house it from my friend Megan Moury so it’s like I’m losing Megan and Charlie as my playmates. But then I’ve imported other friends to be my playmates while they’re gone. Best of both worlds for me and we’re going to have a little party to introduce Kelly and Alex to the other local writers. So welcome to party central um, it finally looks like habitable for other human beings. So I have to clean up the front when I get back next Sunday but that’s um, otherwise I think I’m in pretty good shape I’m hoping to get as I keep saying I know over and over that rogues pawn revision done today. Ah if i. Focus on trying to get it done today I want to put a reader letter at the front and I want to delete that scene and then do a quick read through to see if there’s any ramifications from deleting that scene and I feel like there’s something that I want the. Male lead trying to say male lead instead of hero the male lead to acknowledge to the female lead at some point in the book and it could be that he does more than I think he did but um. Yeah I don’t know so I want to look for that so we’ll see if I can get all that done today. But I’m hoping having the restricted timeline will encourage me not to go into the weeds on this revision I have the preorders set up for all 3 covenant of thorns books I shouldn’t hold up 4 fingers. Why I just have pull None um, and it’s um I did that on Friday boy you know what setting up pre-orders for 3 books at one time and I had to write new backc cover copy for all 3 was a little much but it just took a long time. It took a long freaking time doing all the different platforms and I I sometimes am snarky. Mildly snarky to other authors who say oh well that they use something like drafted digital or they hire someone to upload because they don’t want to have to up to load to all of the different platforms and I’m like oh it’s not that hard. Well when you’re doing 3 books and filling it out for all the different platforms because I upload to.

26:47.53
jeffekennedy
I set it up on Amazon kobo barnes and noble and smash wordss. So for sites. They all ask for information different order had to grab my isbms for all of them betting white’s done um, and then after all of the ah. W Ringling I got the blueberry pie recipe to Karine on time and she forgot to put it in the newsletter because there was like a mini crisis with the website so that’ll be in the next one. It’ll be in the release newsletter coming in a ah day or 2 oh so I was talking about yesterday. Um. Once I got really hot I’d finished everything but I still my great big brush pile you know of leavings outside the the gate and I thought well I’m going to wait for it to cool down a little bit before I can do that because it was like 4 and the hottest point in the day so I went inside and. Tried to deal with this thing on David’s laptop this new laptop has never worked right. It’s just a funky little thing and by funky I am thinking of many other f you words which I know I don’t normally scruple to say but I’m just yeah. Um I ended up being on chat customer support chat for like 2 hours trying to fix this fucking thing. It won’t take the microsoft 3 65 subscription which I have. And I have the family version so I can share with like 5 people and I only share with David and it worked fine on his previous laptop. It will not take it’s just um, it’s so weird it does these. It’s almost like it gets caught in these loops and then it can’t get out of it I suspect the thing’s a limit because the customer support person was doing the remote control in everything and she finally she said have you tried taking this back to the store where you got it? Well unfortunately he got it at Walmart. Which I don’t shop at Walmart but he likes to go there and I think he paid cash and did not keep the receipt. This is what we get for me not doing it just saying so I think we’re just gonna buy him a new laptop. He’s gonna try. Reformatting the hard drive and see what happens? Um, but it’s um, it’s funky. It also has this thing where you cannot delete Microsoft Edge it will not let you delete it. It says that it’s um, critical to the operation on the computer which I thought.

32:18.79
jeffekennedy
Microsoft was not allowed to do that anymore. It used to be. You know they tried to make you know back in the day it was Microsoft explorer they tried to make you that you had to use that for your web browser and I thought they weren’t allowed to do it anymore. But they’re so doing not on this. So anyway, it was like later after it was like 6 – six thirty david even brought my dinner into me and then we finally signed off and the customer service gal even said, um, she said I don’t often get to to say this but it’s been a rare pleasure trying to help you. She was really sweet. Um I was. I was being good and not using profanity. But I was referring to the fing computer e f f I n g so I said I’m gonna go drink wine now and she said have some for me too. But ah so then you know we sat in 8 and. Started watching um one for the money with catherine hegel is she hegel or hegel. Ah from the jenna ivanovvi book I don’t know why that movie got so hugely panned it. It was funny. We we enjoyed watching it so we watched it for a little bit and I they’re like dirty and. Wet stiff hair and all of this to paint an image for you and I um I said and david was getting a little snoozy anyway which he often does right? after he eats. So I said well I’m gonna go deal with this brush pile and so that could be done and I clean the cat boxes too and then I could take a shower and be done for the night and so he came out and helped me move that brush pile that was really nice and yeah, so then I took a shower and it was a quick shower and my hair was so sweat soaked did I mention and snarled that I um put a whole bunch of conditioner in it. So all of this is a very long way of saying that I feel like my hair looks a little. Over conditions today but I had to be able to get a fricking comb throughout That’s the other thing about working on the grapevine is that you like gets your hair up in it and stuff. So anyway, everything looks really great I’m feeling accomplished. A lot to do today packing all of this my flight leaves at like six thirty in the morning so got to be up and adder ready to go but um, yeah, ah, release day for storm princess awesome and then. Hopefully starting tomorrow certainly later in the week I am going to be working on book 4 of bonds of magic I think we have decided that the new trilogy should have a new title for those of you who have been reading the books suggestions. Welcome I’m also looking for. Um.

37:57.69
jeffekennedy
Individual book titles. Ah should we call book one jet ah and it is going to be judgment and Sally for those of you wondering um, should we call book one sarcastic wizard spy wizard ah for those of you who may not have been listening for a long time. You know dark wizard was my working title. It was my working title excuse me from a long time back when it was just a concept when it was just a glimmer in my eye and I’d been thinking about this the dark wizard concept. Here comes Jackson you guys want to see Jackson prowling along there. He is. He’s so handsome Jackie Cat yeah are you a handsome boy yes you are are too. Yes, he knows he is what a good little. Posing kitty I was gonna call him a poser but that sounds wrong doesn’t it. He’s looking for lizards so um, yeah I I had just been calling it dark wizard and thinking I was gonna come up with a better title and Grace Draven was the one who said no you must call it this you I’m I’m ordering you to call it this and I said I cannot name a book dark wizard she said yes you can. So maybe I should ask Grace what should we call it. Spy wizard I kind of like spy wizard sarcastic wizard anyway, suggestions welcome feed them along please feel free to share. On storm princess and Raven King I’m hopeful that now that the series is complete that more people will pick it up I hope that you guys I’m trying not to say you guys anymore. We could talk about that I hope that you all enjoy it I hope that it’s um. Delivers on the promise I think I got it there. so so yeah enjoy and I will um I don’t know if I don’t podcast the rest of this week then you’ll hear from me next Monday you all take care. Bye bye.

Refilling the Well

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I finished THE FIERY CITADEL, book two in my Forgotten Empires trilogy with St. Martins Press, sequel to THE ORCHID THRONE. Yeah, it doesn’t come out until 2020 – maybe summer? we don’t know – but I completed the first draft and sent it in to Editor Jennie. There will be more work to come, but that’s the big milestone to pass.

I promised myself this time that I’d take some time off before heading into the next project. More than the weekend. As a full-time author, I write five days a week, going for 3,000 – 3,500 words per day. It takes me an average of 3 – 4 hours to get that, with an overall elapsed time of about 6 hours, including breaks. I usually have a pretty tightly packed schedule, so finishing one book has meant diving right into the next. But I track my productivity pretty carefully – I can’t control my creative process, but I can learn all there is to know about it and plan accordingly (which is part of owning your process) – and I’ve discovered that the week after I finish writing a book draft tends to be unproductive.

Even when I schedule myself for my usual work week, the writing tends to feel like pulling teeth. My word counts are low, I screw around a lot, and I don’t really refill the well.

So this week I’ve been not writing. Yesterday I tackled the garage. We have this one corner with a built in workbench and set of shelves. When we moved in (lo, these ten years ago – sheesh), we stuffed a lot of stuff back in those shelves, especially the lower ones, and back in the deep corner where they form an L. The original plan was one side of the L (the long one) would be for David’s tools and the short side would be my garden bench. My husband, however, while possessing many sterling qualities, is almost pathologically incapable of organizing his stuff. So his workbench has been a mess since day one. In fact, it’s a more ancient mess than that, as he pretty much threw the existing mess of his workbench and garage stuff into bins when we moved and dumped it out here.

I keep a hammer and a few screwdrivers in my office, just so I can find them when I need one.

Not only is his workbench a nightmare, when he has no place to put anything – which is always – he’d stack it on my garden bench. It got so I couldn’t even get to my gardening stuff. So I ceded the field of battle. I moved the baker’s rack from our front patio around to the secret garden and put everything there that can safely weather outside. I’ve also pulled most everything out of that space – discovering numerous rodent nests in the process – and now I’ll organize it for him. I kept a lower shelf for my garden stuff that needs to be out of the weather, but otherwise my garden bench is now for his fishing supplies. I’m kind of excited to do the thing where you hang up the tools and draw Sharpie marker outlines to designate where they go. We’ll see if it works and how long that lasts…

Anyway, it’s been good to disengage my brain and simply lift and organize. I’ve been rearranging the patio and garden, too, and things are looking pretty. Plus, I found some cool garden ornaments I shoved back in that corner and forgot I had! Watch for pics of those as I get them put out.

Nourishing Creativity – an Ode to Polton Elementary School and My Mother

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

BGtv6rUCUAEdv_PWith the Phantom book finished, I spent time in the garden this weekend. Most restorative to work with my hands and body, to clear away the old detritus, coax the perennials into shape and plant new flowers. And clean up the gargoyle. She’s watching over the pansies for me.

And, as of yesterday, I started in on developmental edits for Rogue’s Possession. For those who aren’t familiar with the lingo, those are the first round of edits. My editor just sends me an email describing some global changes she’s looking for. Add tension to the beginning, tighten the ending. Here are some suggestions. That sort of thing. Some of you may recall she’d originally asked for April 3 on those (dies laughing), but now we’re trying for April 15. I think I can do that.

My mom complains that I make my childhood sound awful when I reflect on my growing up. I suspect this is because our painful experiences are the ones that really spur us to change – or, at least, that’s how we remember it.

Yesterday one of my crit partners sent me the TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on the creative spark. You might remember it from early 2009, when it was really making the rounds on the internet. My friend, however, must have been under a rock at the time and missed it. The talk really resonated with her – as it did for many of us – and I watched it again, to be able to discuss some of the finer points. Surprising to me: I heard very different things in it this time, after dedicating so much of the last four years to my own writing.

My friend had come across the talk because I’d sent her this one, by Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity. One story he tells is about Gillian Lynne, who was failing out of school at age 8 – until her principal recognized that she was a natural dancer. Her mother sent her to dance school instead, and Gillian became a success instead of an academic failure. My friend asked me if I thought my schooling had killed or nurtured my creativity.

Something I’d never once thought about.

I mean, I’ve mentioned my early schooling from time to time. How I went to an experimental school in the early 70s, with team teaching, no desks and open space classrooms. Mostly I have made fun of it (Magic Circle where we shared our feelings) or criticized it (the famous ordeal of my stepfather having to teach me the multiplication tables because I’d been pulled out into a special program and then plunged back into long division without knowing how to multiply). My stepfather was a vice-principal in a neighboring school district that was not experimental and he often complained about the gaps in my traditional education. 

But thinking back now… wow.

That special program that caused me to miss multiplication? (Which, by the way, took less than a week for me to make up.) I spent that third grade year with fourth, fifth and sixth graders, traveling around Colorado and learning about western history. Now I realize how much that year opened my mind to the range of human experience. Women like Baby Doe Tabor and Molly Brown became larger than life to me. That time instilled in me an appreciation for the concept of the frontier, of struggle, of the desire for wealth and success and the crushing effects of defeat.

My teachers were good to me at that school. They let me read in class when I was bored with the assignment. They gave me special projects to work on. Instead of smacking me down for being a smart ass (because, oh yes, I was one even then), they encouraged me to channel that energy. I found it funny, often, that they were always concerned that I not get bored, but now I see – I was never bored. My teachers found ways to challenge, stimulate and open my mind.

And my creativity.

I sometimes joke that I have such an eclectic approach to life. In college I double-majored in biology and religious studies, with enough credits to minor in theater. I ended up in grad school for neurophysiology, work as an environmental consultant and now write fantasy and romance novels.

I’m realizing now that this is their gift to me. That my early schooling did nourish my creativity. My mom bought a house near this school so I could go there and it made an amazing difference for me.

What a wonderful gift this was.

Anger Management

admin / / Blog

This is a Cinco de Mayo rose. I just love the subtle lavenders in with the brighter shades. I bought this rose at Santa Fe Gardens, which is the local bricks & mortar presence of High Country Gardens. If we weren’t on water restrictions that forbid new plantings, I’d go every weekend and pick out just one new friend to take home.

It feels good to me to garden again. To spend some time with the earth and the plants.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote on Word Whores about how I’ve given up so many hobbies, to make time for writing. I don’t regret that choice, by any stretch. The last couple of years have been very productive for me. You folks out there might not be able to tell, because it’s mostly going to yucca juice right now, but I’ve been writing these fabulous novels that will be published ANY SECOND NOW. I’ve got a good root system of several series going. When I look at my portfolio, it feels good.

Hell, I feel sexy just saying I have a portfolio.

Yesterday, I mentioned to the fabulous author Laura Bickle that I’m trying not to be angry that I’m going to RWA this year with the same novel I pitched last year. She told me she thought I should be angry. That it’s healthy to express that anger, rather than tamping it down and seething over it.

She’s right.

I am angry and that feels good, too. It makes me mad that no one has fallen in love with this novel like I feel it deserves. It pisses me off that so many agents tell me they love it, the premise, the writing, the characters – and ask me to send them the very next thing I write. I’m angry and that fires me up.

Yes, I know I could self-publish. Or submit to a press directly. I’m choosing not to at this point.

I see so much dithering in the publishing world right now. So many of the industry professionals are hunkered down waiting to see what will happen. I hear many editors have been instructed not to acquire anything at all. I see agents making what seem to be desperation moves, selling clients’ work to epresses with no track record. Established authors are turning down NYC deals to self-publish. (Courtney Milan is the latest news that way.)

We all want to make the thing happen. To get the stories to the readers, to make a living doing what we love. Everyone seems desperate to get rich and terrified of going under.

So, I’m coming back to the idea of balance. I’m spending more time in the garden, hand-watering and adding mulch to retain moisture.

I let myself be angry and it felt good, too.

It’s good to want things.

Settling In

admin / / Blog

Yes, we are.
To answer all who’ve been asking.
There’s been particular concern over the kitties. It’s true: kitties have a major rep for hysterics over this kind of thing.
Not ours.
Yes, the three-day stop-over at my mother’s was traumatic. Ted and Isabel stayed at her house in Denver from Thursday to Sunday morning. A plan intended to avoid the more intense kitty trauma of having to See Furniture Being Moved. But they hated being separated from us and were apparently convinced we’d abandoned them forever.
But within hours of arriving here, they’d already established patterns. Teddy has her morning nap room and evening nap room. And Isabel is LOVING the secret garden. Here she is, crashed out after a morning of leaping after bugs and spinning among the flowers as the hummingbirds dart overhead.
We have been similarly finding our patterns. Cocktails on the patio watching the sunset is a no-brainer. We’ve managed to have five meals at home in a row — that were not pre-prepared in any way.
And the food is so good.
If you haven’t lived in a rural, dare I say, underserved, community, you don’t know what I mean. I remember when my writer/photographer friend, RoseMarie moved from New York, she had a fit because she couldn’t get lettuce that wasn’t wilted. She even bullied the Safeway produce manager into telling her when the produce truck would arrive, so she could be there to get her lettuce fresh off the truck. “It ARRIVED wilted!” she wailed to me.
You get inured over time. Accustomed to making do. To buying one of the two varieties available. You don’t expect much. No one up the highway from you expects more, so the good stuff never comes into towns like that.
Not so here. Last night I made Shrimp Newburg. The shrimp were succulent and tasty. The skim milk was organic, fresh and came in an adorable bottle. They have spelt sandwich bread! Am I sounding silly?
That’s the thing about low expectations: it makes the new world that much brighter and tastier.
Having a wonderful time — Wish you were here!