Tag: The Essex Serpent

First Cup of Coffee – June 30, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

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.

First Cup of Coffee – June 28, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

I’m exploring a topic that’s been on my mind lately: the delicate line a creator walks by including racist, misogynistic, or other kinds of hate in a work and still make it clear that they don’t agree with it.




Transcript
00:02.97
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Um, who ambrosia today is Tuesday ah June 28 almost done with June ah halfway through the year right? hope that it is um. That that feels good to you I think I’m all right with it. It seems soon. But I think I’m also all right with it. I am also all right with the fact that it is not raining which I feel bad about saying oh if you’re on video. There’s an Isabel siding behind me. She’s out here with me in the secret garden this morning. Poking around is it. She pretty. She is a blue smoke Maine coon cat and I really wanted that coloring and she has lived up to it. She’s our sixteen year old girl. So yes, um. Being grateful for the rain happy to have a sunny morning can coexist right? I can I can be both things. Ah, the rain’s been fantastic. It has also been amazingly nonstop. Um, just not like us at all. Ah yesterday I had to record inside because it was pouring rain and then I muffed up the recording so apologies for no podcast yesterday. Um, so it goes sometimes right. so um so yes it’s wonderful. Free water falling from the sky. It’s it was cold. It was downright chilly and um and yeah, no sun for it for days which is unusual for us. So. I can I can be in this happy place of happy that the sun has come out happy to be back out in the grape arbor if only temporarily because we’re to get more rain and my Tucson family is envious that we are getting these monsoons. So I will continue to be appropriately grateful. So um I had a busy few days. My friends being here visiting we had um, just some wonderful.

02:41.33
jeffekennedy
Touristy type escapades doing all the things they arrived right on time on Friday so um, everything went smoothly and I took them american shopping for. Them being canadians that’s what they wanted to do was go to a department store I took on Saturday I took them to Kohl’s so they could go American shopping which I feel like is not one of the sights of Santa Fe but they were very happy. Oh and I should say for those of you on video you may have noticed. This beautiful globe. Um, the the staff at SFWA um, Kate and Terra sent me this beautiful Mova globe with the irises in it. We should move this up so that you could see it. Oh. That’s probably a little close but give you a little if you’re on video you can see the irises isn’t that beautiful excuse me.

03:54.10
jeffekennedy
Yeah, so they gave me this beautiful globe. Um, it moves with the earth’s magnetic field makes it turn. It’s like magic. We’ve. Given them to other people like at the nebula award ceremony. We gave one to Mary Robinette Kowal in thanks for her past service as president and gave her the moon but I didn’t know that they had non-planetary ones and it’s incredibly thoughtful of Kate and Terra knowing that I don’t necessarily care about the planet ones. That they gave me this beautiful ah irises and I’m just I’m just thrilled and they also sent me a treat box full of um things from Hawaii Terra who lives there sent me that so I got things like. Macadamia nets and um, little pineapple candies and all of that and so they’re very sweet and I was I was incredibly touched. Um, excuse me still dealing with allergies I think it hasn’t helped that it’s been so cold and damp. But um, they’re finally working out of my system just getting the drainage out now. So um, things to tell you oh one thing that I did with my friends AlYx and Kelly was so on Sunday morning we went up to Ten Thousand Waves which is this gorgeous japanese spa. And we ah in Santa Fe sort of on the mountain above Santa Fe it’s a great place to go. It’s just um, the peacefulness in the air and we soaked in the hot pools we were rained on but it was still ok. I’ve been there when it was snowing being rained on in the pools is. Less romantic but it still worked and we had wonderful massages that melted our bones and it was um it was it was a lovely day very relaxing and we ended up canceling the party I was planning to have that night because rain it was just too much deluge even though it did clear up a little of that evening. It was just too wet everywhere and it was cold. You know it was like in the 50s so we um I knew everyone would want to be crowded inside.

06:32.61
jeffekennedy
And my house is too small for that. Maybe next time I have to go check Isabel be right back she did want to go back inside so that was good. Um, so what was I saying oh so at town thousand waves they you know they have the big soaking pool and they also have a sauna and so I was sitting in the sauna to dry out my sinuses and there was another gal in there. Ah, who was very um. Was the right amount of talkative not intrusively talkative but invitingly talkative and she said it was the first time that she had shared a sauna with a stranger since pandemic which you know it’s like it’s funny how we note all of these little milestones right. So but she was interesting because we were just talking about various things and she said she works at the bookstore at St John’s which is the um I think it’s a liberal arts college here in Santa Fe unusual teaching method I’ve I’ve always been very interested in what they do at St John’s but she said she um runs the bookstore there manages I’m not sure exactly but something along those lines which of course they have a bookstore there and it hadn’t occurred to me to ever go there but I was like I should go there. And she said she also runs a bookstore part-time in Berkeley seems like such a very interesting person and I said well that I approve of approve then I like bookseler type people because I’m a writer and I’ve talked about this before like how do you reply to. People who say things like as soon as they find out, you’re a writer they’ll say ask what do you write which is marginally better than have I heard of you. Um, and and I’ve learned to reply to those questions by saying are you a reader so that that way I can kind of drill down to what conversation are we having here. Um, because most people are not readers and they just want to know if they’ve met somebody famous which in my case, according to their bubble of the world. Not so yo it was funny I’ve talked some about all the really cool people that. Megan and Charlie’s wedding ah one of the gentlemen there who was really just um, delightful to talk to as soon as he found out that I was a writer that that was how I knew Megan and that I’m current president of SFWA he said so he said so you’re famous and I said.

09:22.87
jeffekennedy
Within a very narrowly determined bubble. Yes I at least am my name is recognized and you know like what is fame what is art who am I and. And he said yes, but within that bubble if I told people I was sitting here with you. They would be impressed and I was like I don’t know about impressed but they would know who you were talking about always working against the ego stuff. So this gal. Just said that that was really cool that I was writer and I said yeah that um, you know that I’m making my living doing now which is something I you know feel very blessed to be able to do. There. We go. So um, yeah, it was so a nice conversation and so then later as I was getting ready to leave the pool she was soaking again and she waved at me and she said um. What’s your name so I can look you up so I told her and I thought that’s a nice way to handle it and I don’t get that response very often. But I said to David I thought that was part of her being professional and he said no I think it’s just her being an aware human being. Was like well maybe so but I thought it was interesting. A note right? So I’ve been both reading and watching The Essex Serpent which is a 6 part mini series on Apple Tv um recommended by Megan and Charlie – Kelly and Alex had also started watching it and tapped out but after episode 3 – and they told me I would see why and I understand why they did I’ve only watched through episode 3 and I’ve been reading the book at the same time. Because I was intrigued. Um, author is Sarah Perry who’s an English author. So as an aside I’ve noticed lately that people have been saying English like um Neil Gaiman they say English author and Sarah Perry They say English author whereas I would have knee jerks said Eritish um is this a change or is this just me not being very aware before? Just curious. You know it could be that it’s a a clarification because.

11:58.63
jeffekennedy
You know like United Kingdom what does british mean maybe it’s um, you know one of those language shifts we’re saying are we not saying british anymore or are we saying british only in particular circumstances I need to ask somebody who is English. Why that is so anyway. Um I’ve been reading this book and I am conflicted I’m I’m at 62% so I like it well enough that I keep reading it but I’m also not. Exactly enjoying it. The author has made certain choices. Um that I that I do find do I want to say problematic. Um, one thing that she does because it’s set. In Victorian England is that she uses a lot of references that would have been in common use of the time and I know this is something that we debate about that we don’t want to whitewash the past and pretend that. People didn’t speak in certain ways. But for instance, she uses the phrase multiple times multiple times like it 3 at least now. Um, and I think it says something if you use a phrase more than once.

13:30.24
jeffekennedy
Well want us I was trying to spare you my coughing but I think I can spare it for you spare you from it anyway, um, she uses the phrase. Chinese whispers. So. It’s a like a game of Chinese whispers whispers which I can see that she can’t use telephone which we would say today but I feel like that that is is is racist right? You know it’s um. It’s it’s an uncomfortable phrase to use and yes, accurate to the era. But do you have to put it in a book written in 16 is when it was published and I feel like no there are other things that she does that she wants to show you know like the. Position of women. Um I saw an interview with her where she says that um feminism didn’t begin in 1970 it began in 1870 which I thought we all knew but you know maybe that’s an english perspective. Um, and I don’t know it’s so so here’s a thing and and this has been an ongoing conversation I’ve been having with some of the writer coffee people too particularly Jim Sorensen and to the point that he and I have been texting examples back and forth to each other as we encounter them that there’s a great difficulty in portraying an attitude that we do not sympathize with. Accurately or vividly while at the same time somehow communicating that we don’t agree with it and something that I’ve seen a lot of newbie writers do um and I recall one vividly from like a contest or um, critique. Where the book began with a very racist character saying really terrible things and none of the other characters called it out and and several of us tried to explain to this author that you can’t just have. Ah, character saying these things because it sounds like it’s being put out there as truth and she was saying well she’s trying to show that this is a bad person and it’s like yeah, but then you have to show that they’re not a good person and it’s it’s a delicate line to walk interestingly enough.

16:18.60
jeffekennedy
This particular author. Um I found out later is a Trump supporter and therefore I’m I’m sorry you know if you disagree with me but I feel like this goes this is a truth ah therefore is racist or at least. Believes in the supremacy of white people. So it’s like well so all of that protesting was actually just protesting and not real right? which is which is another thing right? When people. Want to put things in their work that is racist or misogynistic and pass it off as being oh that’s just what my character thinks. It’s not what I think and it’s like well then you have to show us that. So one of the things that Jim and I have been talking about in particular um and I did not know this was that the Rolling Stones song Brown Sugar is about slavery and apparently I just never listened to the lyrics I am. Ah, very very late to this party but Jim told me that and you know because basically I only listened to the chorus right? You know it’s brown sugar. Um, and it’s a Jaunty song and it’s a sexy rowdy fun song. Well apparently the Rolling Stones have taken it out of their rotation now and. Ah, Mick Jagger wrote it in the mid 90 s and it’s um, but if you look at the lyrics. They’re awful you guys it’s um I’m trying not to say you guys people they’re awful people um they are um. You know about whipping black women and white men having sex with black women who are slaves. That’s what the brown sugar is it’s not loving black women. It’s black women as slaves. Maybe you all knew this I you know one those things that song had always been in the background and not. Something I’d listened to so they’ve taken it out of their rotation Mick Jagger says he wouldn’t write it the same way today Keith Richards who co-wrote it says he doesn’t understand what the big deal is and that he thinks they should still play it I think Keith Richards is also notably an anti-vaxer It’s so weird to me how these things just March along hand in hand so we were talking about this like Mick Jagger said that it was supposed to be um.

19:04.71
jeffekennedy
Speaking against slavery against Black slavery. But there’s nothing in the song that that shows that the narrator of the song disapproves of it. Ah, and there’s nothing in as Jim pointed out nothing in the melody that it is a very jaunty happy. Sexy song so that makes it seem like the narrative is okay and we were comparing it to or I brought up the comparison jib wasn’t familiar. Um Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit which is about Black people being lynched right? and the strange fruit hanging from the trees and so we were using that as a comparison that strange fruit makes it abundantly clear that this is a terrible awful horrible thing but the song’s written all in these minor chords and the. Lyrics make it clear that this is a terrible awful thing. So I think you have to be really careful when you want to show that something is terrible. It’s ah it’s a delicate line to walk. If you want to put a character in your books who is like a tyrant or so forth. Um, you have to make it clear that everybody recognizes that they’re a tyrant and that they’re awful and sometimes. You know, like readers might complain that it’s over the top I think I would rather go on the side of over the top than um, then let it be thought that this is okay so um. This is the thing I’m thinking about a whole lot lately when you show a society and and this is something Sarah Perry is doing a whole lot. She’s put a lot of themes into this book and she said in this interview that I read with her that she wanted to show. Um. Boundaries between faith and superstition. She has a vicar in it who is played gloriously by Tom Hiddleston in the show but that he is also a rational man. Um I’m not sure it’s working. The other thing that’s not working and I’m going to get into Spoilerville and then sign off. So if you don’t want to know now it’s a good time to sign off but they call it a romance and she’s kind of fallen into the syndrome of authors who think that they’re smarter than.

21:49.72
jeffekennedy
The bulk of the genre. So she’s said things like um oh that she doesn’t really believe in the strong female character. Ah which you know that can go either direction but she’s also said that she really wanted to write um, a female monster because there had never been a titular female villain. And I was like never really? But um, yeah, but that’s not having an awareness of what’s being done in other parts of the genre other than like literary right? and you know she’s talking about. Daphne du Maurier and Mary Shelley you know and ignoring the fact that there’s a whole lot of stuff being written out there. That’s maybe like not important enough to notice stuff that ah you all read and write. So. Where was I going with that. Oh the spoilery thing the romance the vicar is married happily married and the wife is in the book and I find the love affair between the vicar and the ah main female character. Ah very compelling and and that may be part of what’s. Ah, drawing me along is that I’m very interested in the merging of their personalities. The friendship that they’ve built. But yeah, it’s um, you know the wife is dying of consumption and it is a it’s a violation of the. Of the romance tenets. It’s walking a line that that she probably is not aware exists because she’s clearly not a romance right? or right? she’s a literary fiction person. So. That’s a lot of thoughts for today. But that’s ah all what’s been on my mind. Let me know what you think I always enjoy it when you guys let when you all let me know what you think and I will talk to you all again on Thursday you all take care bye bye.