Tag: The Expanse

First Cup of Coffee – February 25, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.80
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. So delicious. Ah so today is say it with me Friday woooo boo. Beginning of the weekend for some of us always worthy of celebration. February Twenty Fifth last Friday of February February went fast didn’t it. Time is just really speeding up again. I think ah, some storm has broken here along with morning we can catch Stevens and it’s um, it’s not. Actually warm but I went out to put water in the fountain for the birds and it’s um, you know feels very springlike. The sun is nice and warm. It’s um, you know like a real field of 33 but the sun is intense. Worming and spring like and the birds are singing. David says you can’t trust the birds that they don’t know but they they definitely think it is so um. Yeah. Ah, ah, how are you guys. But I’m definitely um I’m not going to write today still so that will give me a whole week. Well more or less. It’s a week off of drafting I did spend Wednesday you know doing copy edits and.

02:12.12
jeffekennedy
Polishing those final pages of grey magic um, and yesterday I was tired I did not get through all the business things I thought I might I had cut through a few so today’s just gonna be a businessy day and kind of kick back day I also do not have obligations this weekend. Well 1 meeting but it’s a regular Saturday meeting. So not a lot of things and on Sunday I’m going Megan and I have church. My friend Megan Mulry have I told you guys this it’s but I probably haven’t because I don’t mean to be offensive but we started calling that calling it that um well back in the pandemic probably like a year ago when things were on lock down here and the only places we could meet up were outside and so we would bundle up and go to places like um santa fe h q santa fe brewing headquarters where they had the fires I’ve talked about it before that cat fire is set up outside and we could drink champagne by the. Camp fire and it would inevitably be on Sunday because that was when we could that it was just a good day for both of us. Um, and we would usually meet for like you know at like 11 or 1 or something like that and a lot times we’d eat. You know we do brunch or that sort of thing. But um, we just start calling it church because it was always on Sunday we’d like um you up for church this weekend’s like yes buying awayfuse some people? Um, but you know what do you expect from. Ah, Daoist my church is outdoors and yeah I don’t know how lawsu felt about him spirits probably did not like them. He’s not racing and hunting maddened the mind I can imagine what he thought about wine. Have to look back through the surus. So anyway, looking forward to church on Sunday I’m gonna get some laundry done and I’m gonna get a bunch of stuff done. In fact let me write down something I need to start putting my taxes together I thought I’d better. Write that down.

04:46.76
jeffekennedy
Ah, so yeah, um, one of Amazon’s things and again this is like only Amazon is they flag errors. What do they call it quality. They call it something like um. Ah, quality issue brought about by the fact that so many people were throwing up absolute garbage and to like I’m sorry kindda unlimited I know some of you get mad at me because you feel like I don’t love kindle unlimited and reader. I do not love kindle un limited I think there’s a lot of problems with it but because so many people are putting out so much crap because you can kindle unlimited lets you just row, whatever well actually to be fair kdp allows you to throw up whatever crap you want so Amazon decided well they’d better start. Putting out start doing quality notifications. So and so if I go to my bookshelf I get this thing saying 1 or more of your books has quality items I need to be addressed and then you view the items that’s so gray magic because I uploaded it yesterday. Um, they even have on here last audit on and its bots it spots doing the audit they found that one of the links isn’t working so we’re actually gonna fix it and Karrene researched and the link is weird like sometimes it has the series title in it. Or not on my website. Whatever the other one is one from fire of the frost which I’ve been trying to ignore all this time. But since we’re going to fix this link I said well would might as well fix this. And it’s a typo in Grace’s story um which a reader reported I know a reader reported it because there’s like a suggested fix. Um, readers darling lovely readers. Please don’t report these quality control these quality issues to Amazon I know that people feel like they’re being helpful I know some people are compulsive editors. Um, it’s not helpful because and so this one in particular I closed it. But I could tell you what it is and when I sent it to Carine. She even said people really need to get lives. So if this was you I’m sorry but you do need to get alive. It’s not that we don’t love you but tell you what this correction is so it’s a typo.

07:36.36
jeffekennedy
And it says um, her shyness is but a shield once she lowers it you will understand why I love why I love her as I do only it says one she lowers it one. She lowers it instead of once she lowers it so this person. Corrected it reported it to Amazon as a quality issue all virtuous like and now Amazon has been pinging me about it every time I open my bookshelf even though I try telling you I wasn’t goingnna fix it. There’s an option to say we’ll not fix and give a reason and I’m like because it’s not worth it. To reformat the whole book for 1 stinking typo a really minor typo I told grace about it and she was really aggravated so we’re gonna fix it now because since we have to fix. That other link which Amazon did not catch interestingly enough it’s it’s random which ones they catch. But um, yeah I know that a lot of authors have started putting a note at the front of the book saying basically typos happen. Errors happen apologize for any if you notice something please contact me at this email address. Please don’t report it to Amazon because apparently if you have too many in there which doesn’t happen to me or hasn’t yet. Crossing fingers knock on Wood Amazon will actually take the book off sale I’ve um, seen people having their like their mayup fantasy words. Be reported to Amazon as misspelled words.

09:28.85
jeffekennedy
Craziness people craziness along those lines though I did see um the passive voice reported that Amazon is suing a couple of the big companies that provide fake reviews on Amazon. That interesting. It sounds like and I will link to the article in the show notes if I remember but it was on the passive voice so you can find it. Um, it sounds like. I thought at first maybe it was gonna be like some straw broke the Camel’s back but it sounds instead like Amazon has been investigating for some time and apparently they now I’m gonna have to find it so I can share. Okay I found it. So. It says there were a couple of interesting things in here. Um their lawsuits aim to shut down 2 major fake review brokers app Sally and rebatist. Um. Who helped mislead shoppers by having their members try to post fake reviews in stores such as Amazon ebay walmar epsey this legal actions one of the Amazon’s comprehensive and proactive efforts to ensure a safe and trustworthy shopping experience. Bum Pom bum bum um so it says um Amazon strictly prohibits incentivized or fake reviews which we knew and uses a combination of machine learning technology I e bots and skilled investigators to detect and prevent and remove them. Old investigators. Um says in 2020 Amazon stopped more than 200000000 suspected fake reviews before they were ever seen by a customer 200000000. That’s unreal ah, nefarious industry has emerged in recent years in which fraudsters facilitate fake or inflated reviews in exchange for money or free products. Amazon’s legal action comes after an in-depth investigation into these review brokers which taken together. Claim to have more than 900000 members willing to write fake reviews fake review brokers attempt to hide their activity and evade detection of course because it’s illegal and against terms of service. For example, the fake review site app Sally sells fake reviews for his lose $20.

12:07.14
jeffekennedy
And instructs bad actors to ship empty boxes to people willing to write fake reviews and provide apppsalally with photos to be uploaded alongside their reviews. The fraudulent scheme run by Robbaist will only pay people writing 5 ive-star reviews after their fake reviews are approved by the bad actors attempting to sell those items. So and we know that there are authors out there who’ve done this too. Those books that have like all 5 star reviews and they and they all sound weird I mean. That’s why I kind of laugh at skilled investigator because it’s pretty easy I think it’s easy to spot a fake review because first of all a book will have entirely 5 star reviews which nobody gets up. Even Stonehenge has like 1 ne-star reviews for not enough rocks with this is true. Um, sorry I’m still amused by Stonehenge. The fake reviews will say things like um. And don’t know if I can even recapitulate it but you can just tell that the person hasn’t read the book. Well they’ll say things like you know this book captured me from the beginning and is an excellent story. Yeah I mean it’s just you could tell that the person is written. Thousands which they have of these reviews. It’s um, yeah, a nefarious ecosystem has sprung out but it’s just amazing people. People will people right? so. Um, yeah, that happened I was going to talk about something I’ve had this little note out for myself for a little while I noticed I think I mentioned a while ago that I had been watching the expanse and I’m into season 2 now I’ve slowed down recently. Guess because I didn’t have a lot of brain cells. Well I’ve been out of town and all of that but I was noticing because it I think they brought them in at the end of season 1 but anyway in season 2 there’s definitely a storyline about the the martian marines because the expanse. Tells the story of like an intra-sollar system war and so the big players are earth Mars and the asteroid belt. The people who lived there and the martians have marines and I saw.

14:53.51
jeffekennedy
A couple of reviews on it bitching about how the leader they call her gunny. What is it I’m not good with military titles. Um, it’s like what if she’s the leader the gall in charge. Um, anyway, there are like male and female. Marines right? and the the leader gunny I think it’s like technical sergeant something like that is a female and I saw people bitching on there about female marines and it put me in mind of this writer I used to know a guy. Ah, guy who had been in the military and was writing about military things and he was writing about soldiers being in um, suits what’s what’s the word I want here people you know the um Mechanized suits. So basically. They were fighting aliens and so they were inside big shells I Want to say avatar type things but that’s not it. They would actually put the soldier the person inside the suit and they would operate it and they would have much more strength and yo shell kind of thing and they were talking about how? um. The smaller guys would fit better in the suits than bigger ones and so it had kind of shifted things because of you know it was no longer the brawniest guys but the ones who could better fit in these suits and so I’d read this and I um I asked him I said well why don’t you have any. Female Soldiers. You should you know why aren’t there female soldiers in these suits and he said oh no, that doesn’t work that way and I said well but it would work that way because women tend to be smaller than than men overall and you could put female soldiers inside the suits or you know by or. Not by um, androgenmous I’m not I Still not my words are not backup. You know, but anyway you could have people that are not very large, very masculine soldiers who are inside these suits and I said you know why? not female soldiers. And he said well because you can’t take women in combat and I was like excuse me and he said yeah you you know women aren’t able to withstand you know, just physiologically physically are not able to withstand combat and I’m like yeah but you’re putting them inside these big metal suits I mean let’s just leave that aside you know the whole strength thing. Um, you know you’re you’re putting inside these big metal suits right? It doesn’t matter what kind of physical frailty you have and he said no, you don’t understand the reason that you can’t have females in combat is that the men will not will be distracted because they’ll be.

17:43.77
jeffekennedy
Totally focused on protecting the females and not on the mission objective. Let’s just take a moment. Okay so the men are so just like biologically driven to protect the females to the point where they ignore. The mission objective I just I can’t even with this reasoning and he was very sincere about it and he got kind of aggravated with me you and he said well you know I’m not the guy you think I am I’m not that guy I was like well you know that walks like a duck and quacks like a deck i’m. God saying um yeah I want and there were so many things that you know how it goes you want you sort of continue these conversations in your head and this happened several years ago and I still continue in my head you know like the things I wanted to press him on which I wasn’t gonna do because. Didn’t want to get everybody else aggravated but it’s like um why why aren’t your soldiers better trained to pay attention to the mission objective. Why don’t they trust their fellow soldiers who are in these big mechanized suits to handle their own ship this whole thing of. Males protecting females is so obviously wrong I mean it’s it’s a wonderfully idealistic and romantic notion. Sure yeah it’ll be great if males protected females but the reality of it is is that’s not the case. Um. Did you know that a woman is far more likely and I don’t have the percentage at my fingertips to be murdered when she is pregnant than at any other time in her life. There was a recent study on it where they went back like over the last hundred years of data and they showed that pregnant women are. Disproportionately likely to be murdered and almost always by the father of their unborn child. So yeah, don’t tell me that men are biologically programmed to protect women. Don’t tell me there can’t be. Female marines in space I’m just I’m so tired of this I’m just so tired here I am in my weak feminine shell and ah so anyway, that’s my rant. The day. Um, and now I’m going to go off, get some things done I’m excited to crunch through this list. Wish me luck I would really love to get a bunch of stuff off my list here. Um yeah so I hope you all have a wonderful weekend whether it’s time off work or not.

20:35.70
jeffekennedy
And I will be back here on Monday we will be having a partee. We’ll be having a party um for release of grey magic yep if you have ideas of something you’d like me to do on the podcast for release day I’m happy to do it. I read I never nobody ever says I want me to read makes me think that nobody wants me to read but I don’t know it’d be fun to do like q and a I don’t do this live I don’t know if you have ideas send them my way. And I will talk to you all on Monday take care bye-bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 4, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:12.75
jeffekennedy
Today is say it with me today is Friday um, February fourth I knew that why did I look I knew what it was but look anyway. Um yeah, chill me here. And Santa Fe this morning we were in the negative digits when we woke up, but my our outdoor thermometer is showing ° now but the sun’s shining on it. Everything here is about sunshine people tend to be confused that it’s cold in New Mexico but we are high altitude. Um, my house is at about 6 60 8 hundred feet and we get snow and we have mountains and it’s not all hot desert quite a lot of New Mexico Northern New Mexico is like foot pills and mountains. It’s always surprising to me that people don’t know that. But of course there are people who also think that it’s Mexico so there you have it? Ah so happy that it’s Friday um I ended up not going to the dinner last night I wasn’t feeling great I was feeling a little. Rundown on headache and you know in this new world. It’s like well if I feel not wonderful if I feel ever so slightly sick like my glance felt a little sore and I thought well I don’t want to give covid to george r um, so. I stayed home. Also it was really cold out and I was um, you know I’ve become a wimp I’ve become a deliberate wimp after living in Wyoming for 20 years when we. Forged through all kinds of terrible weather when we dealt with um, you know, drove through white out on black ice. Um everything I mean basically living where we especially where we did in Wyoming but I think it’s true of a lot of Wyoming. You know if you let the winter weather stop you. It’s going to stop you from doing anything at all, you know you go out like two or three months of the year so you know you get really tough about it. But it’s not fun. David and I often talk about the sort of the Wyoming. What’s I want to say aesthetic and that’s the wrong word. Um credo manifesto value.

02:57.93
jeffekennedy
More maybe it’s a more of this um of being tough. You know like you’re very tough and you put up with all of the difficulties of the weather and not having some things not having conveniences and it’s ah it’s a measure of character that you. Put up with all of this stuff and and people kind of compete with each other for like how terrible something is. It’s like oh you know let’s live. They’re like oh I just came up this road with black ice and it was white out and I couldn’t see. I was having to drive by the delineator posts which are the posts along the side of the road. You know that have the little reflectors on them I have driven by the delineator posts more than once because you can’t see the edge of the road or the line on the road. So you’re marking. You know hoping you don’t go off the road in between delineator posts. That’s why they’re there and so oh I had to drive by delineator post to get there and someone else be like oh well that’s nothing I had to go over Togwotee pass and you know blah blah blah blah blah it’s um, it’s a weird kind of competition for who’s overcoming the most. Difficulty. So when we moved to Santa Fe it was just ah, almost an indescribable relief to live somewhere that was not so harsh where the ground. You know, like even if it’s ° here and ° in Laramie Wyoming it’s a totally different ° because the ground stays where we’re here and all of our house plants started growing larger I mean it’s just um, just amazing. But we have snow occasionally. But rarely enough that like when it is really bitter weather which you know last night there was a wind chill advisory out I don’t think they ever give maybe they do maybe they do now but like in Wyoming they didn’t give wind chill advisories because you were just gonna tough it out but you know like here they give a. Ah, windchill advisory and that’s like why go out why leave my house if I don’t have to I don’t want to so funny funny stuff so let’s see um so yesterday yeah I don’t know what was my deal yesterday. Um I did not get my 3000 words reader. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth I got 578 words although I did see somebody else proposing a challenge saying um, who wants to you know, try to get at least 500 words today.

05:40.75
jeffekennedy
And I and it made me feel better because I thought well at least I already got 500 words so I got um it was a very slow first hour of writing 530 words and then the second hour I got 48 words and I admit I did start dorkking around because I just um, either the manuscript is pushing back or I was tired or both. But anyway I hit something of a wall I meant 86000 words I’m guessing this manuscript is gonna be 106000 so um, I’m gonna see what happens today I’m gonna poke at it I am at a penultimate climactic scene. Obviously if I’m at 86000 words I’ve still got that I’m expecting 106000 we can do that math right. About 20000 words to go and I just have to have it done by February eighteenth so my cheerleaders are all like you can do this. You’ve got this I do need some time to revise it. So. So yeah, I’m I’m kind of at my climactic action scene and. Ah I don’t know how they’re gonna do it I don’t know how they’re gonna do the thing they need to do I kind of know what happens after this I’ve got an idea for a number of things that will resolve after this and even Darynda was saying you know it’s too bad. You don’t write out of order. And and I said you know I was even considering that I was feeling stuck enough that I was considering maybe I will skip this scene get to the outcome write the rest of it and then come back and figure out how I get to the outcome. But I think I’d have to rewrite it. I think I’d end up rewriting too much of it because too much changes as I write. Do you know and like the emotional arts changes. That’s that’s 1 reason why I don’t write ahead because it just um, it doesn’t blend later. So. Thinking hard about that and I think I I don’t know it feels like um you know it’s this interesting. It’s probably not interesting to watch me sit here and gaze off into space. But I’ve sort of been um, doing this for about the past. Not quite 24 hours but 22 hours mulling over this There’s something that needs to happen in this scene and and I may be overthinking because I feel like it needs to be more actiony you know, like yesterday.

08:22.37
jeffekennedy
And I’m sorry I didn’t talk to about it till the end of the podcast but I find it very interesting watch I’ve completed the first season of the expanse which adapts about the first half of leviathan wakes. Except to make sure to put my s on the right part I don’t know why I want it to be leviathan’s wake does not mean the same thing maybe Leviathan’s wake should have been like the last book but tying Daniel didn’t ask me and it would have confused everybody. It’s a terrible idea Jacky um. In the wake of the leviathan will be my next book. Dear Leviathan is not asleep. Ah, okay, so so yeah I I guess I’m feeling I’m really noting the ways in which the. Dance series amped up the action and the tension making things much more 1 thing after another and I know some of that is the visual medium because and and people say oh, it’s such an exciting show. And I’m not someone who normally looks for excitement. Um, but oh by the way you know it’s I’m I’m almost certain I’m right about season when ending halfway through Leviathan wakes they did take in some stuff from. Later books in the series like I was reading this in the trivia anyway, um I am Db Trivia is my friend so they took some stuff and characters from the second season and added them in ah to because it was like context that was only revealed in internal monologue. And good for them. They did not resort to the much loathed voiceover I really do not like the voiceover as a of solution I’m not sure anyone does sometimes I suppose it can be done well. But for the most part it’s like and then. I wrote you know ers was thinking this I don’t know it was it was neat to see the visualization of stuff that occurred only in internal monologue like um, Holden’s family and I do like the addition of alma of the ambassador. Um I’m not sure exactly what her. Don’t remember what her title is but it does give that perspective of earth and I think it does help connect people to give them a frame of reference since we are currently earthbound as a species. So.

11:09.39
jeffekennedy
But I’ve I’ve know that where it season one ended was I noted that it was midpoint in the book as I was reading because I thought it was an interesting choice for midpoint. That’s the author brain doesn’t to quite kick off and I almost always notice midpoint of the book I notice. The first 25% is what they’ve put is the climax and what stakes they’ve set by then and then I noticed the midpoint those are the 2 things that no matter how caught up I am I always noticed that part and it’s always interesting to me when neither one is notable I was like oh but. Leviathan wakes midpoint was like okay this is turning point in the story I know that they also worked with Melinda Snodgrass who is really great at 18 react structure and does plot breaks according to it so she’s going to have a little session for us. In a couple of weeks and I’m very interested to learn from her. So yeah I guess I’m I’m thinking because I feel like this needs to be a more action-y scene that I’m making it because I always I don’t know why I always try to make things be Maybe it’s because of who I am as a person you know it’s like I always try to I always do the Taoist approach email the what? ah you know, asking myself. What am I really trying to win here but in fiction. There is a real stake and something that they’re trying to win and I think I know need to I know what needs to happen. It’s just funny. You know you would think that it’s like okay I think it needs to be boom boom boom point five five action action. This is what I need to write and then when I try to write it. It just goes new. Ah, ah you think I could just make myself type the words. But for some reason it just doesn’t work that way I guess maybe because spinning the story is more than typing words. There’s a take home message for you. You guys can that can be my tagline so anyway um yeah so I’m teaching the workshop tomorrow I mentioned that yesterday there is a link to register in the show notes. Um, transcript is working so I’ll do that I noticed that um on my free trial of this pro version of it that there’s like things I can do. There’s like an intro and outro or I could do like dramatic piano.

13:56.30
jeffekennedy
Or drums. Oh It doesn’t let me do it while I’m Recording. Ah or I could do the ballpark the drums not funny I feel like this is not on brand for Me. Could do Traumatic piano.

14:21.46
jeffekennedy
So anyway, maybe who knows if I do the pro version. Maybe I will actually become more pro. The transcript is probably worth it right? $20 month yeah ah but but pop up. So I’m forging on right when I go back and revise I tighten up the tension too. I I tend to add in more conflict and more ticking clocks. So I don’t know if I’ll talk about that in the workshop tomorrow. We’ll be live streamed a couple people will be there live on site but otherwise it will be live streamed I will try to answer questions. It’s kind of funny because I do have a talk planned but then Twigg. The beastly books manager. He’s so funny I could tell you like what he texted me I mean I’m just there for like it’s an hour long talk right? and then have an hour for questions and stuff just in case and um. He says I’d love to hear about your process examples who you read for information for inspiration how you got started etc. These are simply suggestions and I fully trust your expertise on how you want it to flow and it’s like well I can talk about all of that stuff. But it’s actually not the topic of the workshop I could. Spend a long time talking about all of those things. So anyway, um I will try to start out with that frame of talking about how you weave romance into sf f and then if you have questions out there. You can let me know ahead of time I’ll say. If I can incorporate it along with twigs long list of things and yeah, yeah should be fun I have a very busy day tomorrow I have like wall to wall meetings tomorrow culminating in this workshop. So. Will attempt to be full of perqutute. Um and we’ll see how I do I’m moving this book forward. Yeah, all right? So let’s see do I have anything else to report to you guys I think I don’t um. Ah, can’t tell you that things are looking up for Grace and her husband he should be discharged from the hospital today and they have a plan going forward. So the the worst crisis is over at this point cross our fingers.

17:00.27
jeffekennedy
Grace is very hopeful that this will not happen again. I’m hoping that for her too because she needs to get some sleep and retro books not necessarily. You know in that order. So if you listen to this grace darling. We are all thinking of you. You know that because I’ve been talking to her but ah. Other people are as well. So and wishing best Mr Draven so um so yeah I hope you all have a wonderful weekend I hope it is both restful and productive in whatever proportion you need that to be and. I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – February 3, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast



Transcript:

00:00.37
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Oh and I didn’t even sip from it because I started thinking. Ah, excellent today is Thursday February Third Twenty Twenty Two 2 3 two zero to 2 hope you’ll are working on those manifestations right Um. Love goes out to Grace darling this morning. She posted a Facebook that she’s dealing with medical emergency with Mr Draven and so far things are are okay-ish but sending her good thoughts and sending him. But that’s. I did talk to her last night and this morning. So um, she’s holding up. She’s holding up but she could use support. Um, so here we are. Thank you all for the kind messages about the transcript. I believe that it’s recording the transcript again today I don’t see it doing it I’m gonna pause. Well, it’ll be an experiment. It seemed to me like last time it showed me that it was going to do the transcript but maybe it just doesn’t automatically I may have to toggle the settings. So all in all, it wasn’t too painful. Um I did edit 2 things. First of all, it spelled Jeffe J E F F Y I noticed that the um auto captioning on Instagram does the same fucking thing. It’s not Jeffe with a y like family circus. Jeffe with an e thank you? What was the other thing. Oh it didn’t handle the numbers well because when I said something about it being 2 2 2022 it did like um T O O T O and then I don’t know it it barfed it up. So I had to fix that other than that I didn’t really read it. It exported it allowed me to export to text and I changed the text wrap. Um and for using the formatting and text editor and then I just pasted it into the blog post. So um.

02:33.10
jeffekennedy
So Yeah I know a few people read it and and seemed Happy. So Apparently it was at least Semi-coherent. It doesn’t add as many periods as I think there should be so something about the pacing of my speaking. Does weird things with grammar which is not surprising to me at all because like grammar is just so not my thing which is probably surprising because I I do write very clean I should be specific. Punctuation is not my thing. Um. I Do not have strong opinion opinions about Commas Periods Semicolons colons most of them I do know how to use most of them I choose not to I know some people have like a passionate a love affair with semicolons I don’t understand. How you can have emotions about punctuation Frankly I like to sneeze there That’s God punishing me for not having emotions about punctuation Apparently Commas Commas I Actually do not believe there are real rules about commas people try to make up rules about Commas. I Think that’s why people and love the Oxford Comma because it’s like a Comma rule that they understand It’s my opinion I know that a lot of people don’t agree with me but it’s like all the other Comma rules seem to me optional because it’s always like well except and when and. Some people say you just put a comment in whenever you would have a natural break when speaking and other people say no, that would be wrong. Um, like I said I don’t care I almost never argue commas with copy editors unless it’s a situation where I really want that. Brief break before the next phrase.

04:32.67
jeffekennedy
So um, what else What’s going on. Got my three thousand yesterday it was really nice because I got a thousand before I met up with Duranda we start meeting up again. Um, she’s logging through that book you guys. She’s working away on it. Oh I did successfully um, move the release date for gray magic it is set now for February Twenty Eighth I can’t move it again or Amazon will come to my house and. Take away my cats and paint a big scarlet letter of some sort I was trying to be with either there but I I don’t know what letter it would be. It would be like um shirker or something a scarlet s on my garage. It’s funny because and and I’ve mentioned this but Amazon is the. Only retailer that punishes us for not for moving our release state when we have a preorder and they’re like to main turn or good customer experience. So they’ve backed off on the strictness of it so they let me move the release state for gray magic to February Twenty Eight and I did get the scolding notice saying we let you do it. You pushed it again. Oops you did it again and but we are not going to punish you this time. But if you do it again. You won’t be able to do pre-orders for a year and you’ll lose your pre-orders which is. Point that dund is in and she says um that she does not care because she’s not gonna do any preorders for which I don’t blame her for some people you guys I just looked at this and like it stopped recording again and I have no idea. When it stopped I’m gonna have to like glue my eyes to this countdown I don’t know if there’s I don’t even know what I did this time. It’s weird it’s weird I don’t know why it’s doing this and I I have no idea. Where I was what I was saying um so we’ll just bullet point. The recap here. Ah I wish it was an easy way for me to look back at what I was doing without like having to stop and splice. But I can’t. Um, anyway, you’ll hear me talking about it but storm princess I’ll set that new release date I realize for gray magic I have to still do the description and get the tagline to revven.

07:19.94
jeffekennedy
Because the cover’s still temporary. You know it’s just funny. You know like all of these little things. All of this businessy stuff. It’s been great for me to finish my words earlier in the day because then I have the whole afternoon to do business and that makes a huge difference. Today. However, reader will not be 1 of those days because I overslept I slept till six thirty and so I have not written any words yesterday before I met Duran I think I said this already but I already got a thousand before I talked to her and so then I was done. Um. By like noon which is ideal. Yeah I was done by 1130 and that’s just um, checking make sure the clock is still going. Um, that’s just the best. Oh if I could do that every day I would be very happy. Um. But so it goes not doing rider coffee today because we’re doing rer coffee dinner this evening. Also we got a fair amount of snow and it’s very cold. So everybody’s tucking in this morning. Oh. And then the other thing is is I do have a link now to the workshop that I’ll be teaching on Saturday I’ll be teaching it at beastly books here in Santa Fe but they’re limiting the attendance to 6 in person people. Um. And I think I said this before but because I don’t like talking to an empty screen. It’s the worst I really like to if I’m teaching I have to be able to see pay faces and okay I’m pausing I wonder if my previous pause was when I sneezed and I forgot to unpasuse. Or it didn’t quite unpause. You know how like if you’re in a Zoom meeting and sometimes it like mutes without you realizing it because there’s the keystrokes I didn’t move the keyboard today I should have but we won’t keep pausing I’m getting too free with that pause button. Ah, but anyway the workshop will be streamed online live so it’s going to be at 3 p M mountain time on Saturday February fifth so if you want to um, join the in and watch it live then you can ask questions and stuff. And I am talking about writing cross on romance or crush on yeah romance with you know sff so I will try to I just got that link yesterday late yesterday I was gonna put it in the blog post by I didn get them time so please um, share share with your friends.

10:09.33
jeffekennedy
It’s free and could be a lot of fun. It’s always more fun if there’s more people there. So um, I’m going to make myself 1 more note getting free with that pause button resume fun. I swear I have got I’m not gonna pause this time but I will tell you guys on my to do list I have 1 2 3 4 pause 13 141516 17 eighteen I have 18 items under business. I categorize my to- do list in an an attempt to balance my day I don’t know how well it works. Um I have some things I put timing on I try to keep sifus stuff to 30 minutes to an hour a day um it doesn’t always work out that way I try to do like an hour on finances every day and then I have doing the blog post and pointing. You know when posting it and then I have appointments and and business. And then household I also have a household and then promo which I really need to I always end up like moving I’m supposed to spend 30 minutes on promo every day not counting podcast promo and I haven’t been doing that and I really need to um. Really need to get that a plus marketing figured out on Amazon I have like Tiktok videos to watch on how to do tiktok not participate in pick Tiktok. It’s um, yeah, just sometimes feels like more more than I can get to. However, the good news is is I got. All of the royalties crunched for January paid all the bills yesterday got those funds dispersed. So that’s always a good thing. Get all that stuff sent out but that is 1 thing about my unplugging on Sundays I could tell it’s really good for me. But. It’s like a lot of times on Sundays I was doing all that business catching up and but and I ended up having so many meetings on Saturdays now that I’m not getting all of that business stuff done on Saturdays but you know like last Sunday I didn’t go online at all and i. Went down to tomayall with my friend Katie Laden and we did spa and lunch and it was all very relaxing but it was like there were a lot of things on my to-do list that didn’t get done how how do you how do you handle that you know right.

12:57.87
jeffekennedy
I guess you face the fact that some things on your list aren’t going to get done. Um I sometimes feel like I need a second assistant because Assistant Karine is very busy and so she hasn’t been able to get to everything anybody want to do anyone want to figure out Amazon fucking a plus marketing for me. That would be awesome who would pay you I would pay you anyway, let’s see what else Um, but but bu boom but boom I think I was not paused for very long because there hasn’t been that much elapsed time. Have a sifwa board meeting this afternoon. Um go sif what hasn’t been too bad but I I feel like I’m getting behind on that stuff too. But I don’t know. Got to prioritize the writing of the books right? That’s just just how how it goes. Um, that’s 1 thing that I’m thinking about with this new project Sarah was asking me about timing about it and I was like okay fortunately.

14:16.49
jeffekennedy
Fortunately I think that um if if all goes well it should be lucrative. It should be worth my time so that will be ah hopefully I mean that’s sort of that that will be the go. No go at this point I think is whether or not. They agree to what Sarah suggests we ask for because it will take a fair chunk of my time and if that happens then we will come up with a code name and and I need to talk with Sarah about how open I should be about. Um, um, and with this other gal with how open I should be about what I’m working on because we know I’m a blabber mouth right? I’d like have to talk about what I’m working on.

15:07.60
jeffekennedy
Dinner tonight I mentioned with the writer coffee people. It’s going to be with George R Martin will be there and there’s a gal in town whose name I’ve forgotten but I will know it tomorrow and I will tell you guys about dinner. So that should be fun even though it does mean leaving my house in the cold and snow sacrifices must be made so okay, well I guess I don’t have tons of stuff to say today and I do have tense to do so I think I will hop off. Slightly early apologize for like bloopers again, what is with this week I blame all the twos the twos and threes what do you think I mean well the first one was on January thirty first but clearly something is like. Going backwards or forwards retrograde or andterot grade or dorsal grade. Oh I should mention that um I have been watching the expanse and you know what? and this is a whole huge topic. So maybe I’m not leaving quite yet but it’s been very interesting to see ah a good instruction in storytelling. To see how the screenwriters adapted the book to the series and if you are interested in tightening your stories and amping up tension conflict and action. What I suggest you do is read Leviathan’s wake no I always want to do that leviathan’s wake it’s leviathan wakes by James I say Cory Ty Frank and Daniel Abraham read the book. It’s it’s a it’s a book worth reading. Ah. I could quibble some choices but you know we can always quibble some choices they did a great job writing this book it very interesting to me one of the things I objected to about the book is they went with this kind of noir tone and it takes place in the belt which is like a very blue collar place of that. Asteroid belt around Jupiter and saturn sort of in those outer planets maybe just around saturn and lots of miners and workers and that sort of thing and they call them the belters. So. It’s a really wealth out out world and very interesting that way.

17:46.83
jeffekennedy
But because I think it’s because of the duwar theme There’s like tons of references to prostitution and it’s always female, always female prostitution and I think it’s because like they have this very noirre detective and so they’re like sort of ran with that theme. But very interestingly in the adaptation to the series. Um day they took out a lot of that there are occasional references to sex workers. But it’s handled in a much more I don’t want to say woke. But. It’s handled much better and there’s references to both male and female sex workers and even a moment where which I aim why wouldn’t anybody tell me how adorable Amos is love that actor where he says it’s honest work. It’s good work and it pays better than other work and I thought oh yeah, but my point and I did have 1 all evidence to the contrary is that it’s fascinating to see I think I do think you should read the book first because then it’s really interesting to see. What they did putting it on the screen. 1 thing they did was they condensed characters and I noticed this happens quite a bit I think that happened with a song of ice and fire becoming game of thrones and I think it’s a good lesson for writers. It’s. You know why did you bring in this new character when you could have used this other character and that’s what this existing character especially secondary characters. In fact, almost entirely secondary characters. So it’s fascinating to see how the show did that. Also. It’s really interesting to see the ways in which the show created tension where there was not tension in the books. So like within the initial Crew Holden’s crew is pretty much a happy crew to begin with but the show. Has initial tensions there and I think it’s to keep that conflict and interest going to to make it exciting I’m learning a lot from it because I tend to want things to be happy in my books and I don’t introduce tension between characters as much as. Like these screenwriters do so definitely worth studying that kind of thing besides which it’s a really well done show and fascinating to fascinating to see very enjoyable so all right.

20:27.25
jeffekennedy
On that note I’m really gonna go start getting some my shit done I Hope you all are getting your shit done too and I will talk to you all tomorrow morning you all take care Bye bye.