First Cup of Coffee - August 9, 2019

More musings today on YA vs adult fantasy, with a bit of feedback from Emily Mah and L. Penelope. Also musings on book brain, how to approach a convoluted revision, and why I like on-the-page sex scenes. 

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Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. And I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Truly my first cup of coffee, which I just now made and I'm pouring, which is ridiculous, really. I'm looking for my yeah, have to get my little rubber, mini rubber spatula to get out all of the foam, you know. Um it's already 9.30 here. And where's the morning gone? I couldn't even tell you. I must be a little discomlobulated from being traveling and on vacation still, because I have been losing track of time. You can capitalize all of those words. We could even call it TM because it is definitely uh well within my skill set to lose track of time. It's been true of me my whole life. Um my mom would kind of despair of me sometimes with me when I was a kid, you know, that I would get to reading or working on some project and hours would pass and then I would be late for something or have failed to have done something. So I figure it's part of why I have good concentration for being a writer, because when I'm writing, certainly the hours go by uh fleetingly, but uh it's not so good when I'm like dorking around, which is what I was pretty much doing this morning. I I couldn't even, I mean, I was awake by like 615, 630. And then I know that I started chatting with Kelly Robson on the Cepha Slack at 7:30, because I have a timestamp for that, and then we kind of went down a rabbit hole because we started talking about characters. She has this whole theory theory that characters should either know who they are or what they're doing. And so then I started thinking about that, and we talked about that, and I checked the comments on my website, and uh Leslie Penelope, who had who writes as L Penelope, had commented saying that she'd been thinking about the YA fantasy thing too, and that that was going to be the topic of her next podcast. And while I vaguely knew that she had a podcast, it it's sort of like I don't know, there should be like rings of awareness, right? You know, like how much you really remember about a person or no. So I had on an outer ring of awareness, knew that she was doing a podcast and had idly thought to myself, oh, I should listen to her podcast, because I know she listens to mine. And so I thought, oh, I should listen to her podcast. So I listened to her podcast, which is way more professional than mine. Uh you all should go listen to her instead. Um, yeah, she's all uber organized with the good engineering, and she like has her, you know, like who she mentions and the links, and but I think she's also uh doing a good job of making it be uh paying its way because she's you know got like her affiliate uh disclaimer on there and everything. So good for you, Leslie. I'm impressed. Of course, I do mine more often. I I just couldn't put that much um work into the the after. I don't think any of you really, well, maybe occasionally people listen because of the particular topic, but I think most of the time you guys just listen because I'm the lady with the relaxing voice, right? So so what else did I do? I mean, I I emailed with our house sitters, they're coming Monday while we're in Ireland. Oh, the other rabbit hole was last night I asked on Facebook. Uh, there's a Facebook page group for WorldCon, and it occurred to me that I should ask on there for local input. Um, excuse me, why am I froggy? I don't know, because I haven't had coffee yet. That I should ask for input on I really want to see like old Celtic ruins. So I posted on there and said, um, you know, looking for ruins. We don't mind walking because we love to walk, we're in good shape, and you know, more pre-Christian the better, older the better, more pre-Christian the better. And overnight, like magic, all these people replied. And so then I started clicking on links, and that's always deadly, right? But it turned out to be really smart of me to ask that. I've got um no, I was gonna adjust my mic position. I've got a little bit higher today because of the dress I'm wearing. But you guys have probably all compensated for that. Uh by the way, Corinne, I know that you listen. Your podcast is a little too quiet. I keep meaning to tell you that because I turn my volume up all the way and I still have trouble hearing you. So I know that you are like David, a quiet talker, but you know, get us give us a little bit more sensitivity there, baby, because your podcasts are great too. I listened to it yesterday afternoon, mostly to hear what you were saying about me. I have to check on that. So, anyway, it was great hearing uh the different recommendations. Of course, there always has to be that guy who mansplains how to Google, you know, and so one guy on there was like, well, you know, you could just get on Google and and uh search for ruins or archaeological sites more than 2,000 years old in Ireland. I was like, oh, golly gee whiz. There's a thing called Google. You know, and I replied, and I said, Yeah, I was just hoping that maybe some of the locals, he said, because you'll get hundreds, maybe even thousands of hits. I'm like, yeah, that's why I was hoping the locals could help winnow it down a little bit since I've got like nine days to look. I want to hear what's the good stuff to go see. So, but then he gave me possibilities too. So there have been some some great suggestions. Uh, you know, we really didn't want to necessarily go to the stuff that's on the uh we've been looking at different lists and stuff, and it seems like it's the same things on every you know, top ten list of things to do in Ireland. So I I hope that by asking my science fiction and fantasy tribe that they would have input on like the places that have a nice sense of power. And I did get some answers like that. So yay me. But it's unusual for me to post that late in the evening. David um fell asleep fairly early, and there were beautiful thunderstorms all around the valley. So I went and sat outside for a while and just watched the lightning, and my head was very full of the book, um, very full of the fiery crown. I spent a lot of yesterday reading. I reworked that one. Well, it's I keep saying that one, but there's really two. It's two chapters that are one right after the other. And I had reworked the one that I keep talking about and saying, well, that I think maybe there's something wrong with it that my editor's not saying what is not pinpointing what needs to be fixed. And then the chapter after that, I had worked in all of her definite suggestions, worked in or discarded her definite suggestions, but then she'd had this whole thing about that she wanted the heroine to speak up sooner. And and have and and really pinpoint her motivation. You know, and some of it is is that my heroine is obstinate and set in her ways. She's a queen who has ruled alone for her entire reign. She's been alone for a good chunk of her life now, since her father died when she was young. And she's used to doing things her own way. So when my editor asks why why she's being so difficult, you know, like, is it she thwarting you know their overall cause by being difficult? It's like, yeah, I know that that's not a good reason for her to be difficult, but but it is, it's it's a personality flaw. And it is something that she overcomes. But I did rework the scene so that she is clearer about her misgivings earlier in the scene, which is what my editor really wanted. And it does work. I was wanting her to hang back and sort of let them all, you know, give them enough rope to hang themselves, but that clearly didn't work for my editor, so I could change it up. Uh, but then she was missing a big piece of character motivation, which I realized when I reworked it in the original revision from the developmental edits, uh, I'd taken out a big chunk of text that I felt like didn't fit there anymore. And it addressed exactly the thing my editor was asking about. So I put that back in. But then, so I ended up having to totally change the order of this entire debate and conversation. And it was like I had a writer friend who used to print things out. Of course, this was back in the day when we printed out things a lot more, you know, probably 25 years ago. But she would write her stories and then print them out and cut them up and lay them out on the floor and change the order around. And for a moment I thought about doing that. And then I thought, no, I can do this. So, but it was, it was like um breaking, cutting the scene apart into pieces, different threads of conversation and changing the order of the debate, which then changes the emotions and uh how one thing triggers off the next, or triggers off the previous to be more accurate. So I was thinking about that. I, you know, I worked through that yesterday. I got that pretty much all revised, and now I'm going to let it gel while I read the rest of the book, and then I will go back and read these two scenes fresh. Um, I will take a tire lint with me because I'm not gonna get it done before I go, but I am working on it pretty intensely. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything else. Um, I was looking for something this morning, I couldn't find it, and then I found it in the dirty laundry basket, which is not where it belongs. So there's a sure sign of book brain, right? The other thing I did was I um got in bed last night after watching the lightning. I thought, well, I'll get in bed and read and see if I get sleepy. And so I lay there and read for a while, and I was reading my own book, reading the fiery crown and making notes on the Kindle as I did that. And David was sleeping beside me, and there was you know all the lightning flashing in the sky and a soft rain, and it was really lovely. And I ended up getting up to write down a few ideas, which is not something I often do, but I had some thoughts on the book, and I didn't want to lose them. And I know I often say that I think I had ideas don't get lost, but it felt at the time like I needed to write those down. So I'm going to be working on that more today, more of the same. I also have to run a few errands, I have to go get my nails done. Very important, Manny Petty, and also my hair color done, very important before travel. Uh, a woman's grooming is never done, right? Uh so I'm still waffling on whether to go to Lyra tomorrow. Uh on the one hand, it would be nice to go. On the other, I feel like I have so much stuff to do before I leave. And I can't decide if that's a real feeling of having stuff to do or if it's if I'm just manufacturing that. I'm also feeling like I should work on this book while it's burning at me. So we'll see. I'm just going to be spontaneous about that. The uh it was very interesting that Leslie commented on yesterday's blog post podcast about the uh YA fantasy thing. I ended up talking about it with Emily Ma at Writer's Coffee too yesterday, after I got there. They were still there. Yay, they don't hate me. Um and it's interesting because Emily and Leslie said the exact same things to me, that they were both like, yes, yes. I think they're calling fantasy that's written by women YA fantasy, especially if it is fantasy that contains, you know, that's heroin-centric and that has romantic elements or a full-out love affair. And Emily was was very strong about it, and I was glad to hear her say that, that you know, she felt like it's one of those things that if a woman writes something, people feel like, oh, well, that must be written for teenagers. And certainly there are exceptions to this. There are wonderful fantasy writers like Kate Elliott and N.K. Jemesson, uh, who write more what's considered to be adult fantasy, whatever that means. I don't know. It's almost like adult means literary and YA means commercial. That was something else that both Emily and Leslie suggested is the commercial element. And certainly YA fantasy is the one that sells well. So, you know, it's not that I would complain about being categorized that way. My my main concern, and Emily pointed this out, that she said that sometimes she sees NK Jemison uh categorized as YA fantasy, and she thinks that it's because Nora is a woman. And she said, but you know, Nora writes about very um hard-hitting issues like you know, sexual assault and and things like that, that we really, you know, you'd want to be careful how you introduce that to someone who is younger, right? My concern with my books is that in many people's minds, YA correlates to uh no sex. And I I should mention that Karina also messaged me about this. A couple people other people messaged me about this too. Um, you know, saying that other people had called what they're reading YA dismissively. You know, people are always tail sniffing and it drives me crazy. I just hate the tail sniffing. You know, like I gave up the idea a long, long time ago, if I ever had it at all, uh, that I did not care what whether or not I impressed people with what I was reading. I read for me, not to impress anybody else. Um so anyway, I diverge there a little bit, I know. But so let's see, where was I? I know you're all shouting at me. Okay, wait, hang on, I'll think of it. So, oh, the thing that's problematic for me, right, is that many people think YA means that there's no sex in the book, which many people will argue and say, no, this is not true. Stop saying this, people. YA does have sex, but I know that this has happened to me because, you know, like when the Mark of the Tala came out, the very first in the Twelve Kingdoms series, all sorts of people were putting that on their YA shelf on Goodreads. And I got reviews from people saying, this isn't YA. I was like, yeah, I know. I never said it was. Nobody ever said it was. We don't know why you think it was. In fact, that book I had originally titled The Middle Princess, which is still a title that I love and I think is very apt for that book. But my editor and publisher had wanted to change it because they felt like the middle princess was too YA. I was like, okay, well, I could see that. And so we changed it. But then they kind of gave it a cover that was YA-ish, which may have contributed. But you know, like there was this one early review that was a video review, and this girl was sick, with like snot dripping out of her nose. She kept sniffling throughout the whole thing and apologizing for it and saying, but she had to get online and record this and warn everybody right away. Uh, warn them that this book was really good, and it was a great YA until page 191 when it all went to hell. And uh, she about said it like that too. It was kind of funny. Um, you know, and of course, page 191 thereabouts, I you know, we we know this now, is when the wedding night happens. And yes, there is sex, and there is as I always I think I have in all of my books, um we we could see if there is a book I've written that doesn't, but I always have sex on the page. Uh I believe in having sex on the page because to me it's an intricate part of the character development. But I don't want somebody picking up my book thinking it's YA and that there won't be sex on the page. Uh, you know, and to me, maybe that's a definition of adult. In some ways, I buy that more than anything else. That's how we define the difference between children and adults. You know, the so you know, the whole idea of being consenting, you know, that you have to be a consenting adult because children cannot consent because they don't have the mental mental and emotional maturity to consent. Where we get into a huge gray area, of course, is with teenagers, right? Um, everybody matures at different rates, both physically and emotionally and intellectually. You know, there are 40-year-olds with the emotional maturity of 12-year-olds. We won't go there. But with teenagers, it's like what is what they can write, what they can read and process in healthy ways is I don't know. You know, it's it's not easy to draw those lines. And that's what genres attempt to do. Genres, you know, putting a genre label on something attempts to draw a line. And human nature is a complex biological system, right? You can't really put a boundary on it. So I don't know. In some ways, it doesn't matter because writers almost never get to control genre definitions. Even if you self-publish, you still have to use Amazon's categories, and you want to use those categories that the readers are going to look for your book in. Uh, so I mean, you sure you can create your own category and own keywords and call it that, but then nobody finds you. I um I think I just yeah, I'm better I'm gonna walk this backwards before I even say it too. I was gonna say that I mind women written female written stories and female-driven stories being relegated to young adult because it implies that they are somehow lesser. And yet I immediately started to walk that back because uh YA readers and sales are robust. They are the ones that, you know, that's where things are happening. And, you know, when I mentioned to Agent Sarah about the whole YA vibe thing about Orchid Throne, she said, yeah, but we we want those YA dollars. And she's absolutely right. You know, it's um we're I'm supporting our household pretty much at this point on our on my writing income. And some months it's uh most months it's a little tight. It would be nice if it was a little less tight. Uh after all, I have my my kitchen remodel, right? Um but yeah, it's I don't I don't mind at all being uh positioned as something that would appeal to YA readers. I just want people to understand that that doesn't mean no sex. So, you know, and I suppose, you know, all I can do is be clear about that. Uh Corinne saw one review of Orchid Throne that did go back and forth on the, but I didn't like there being sex on the page, or did I? I didn't read it. But um it's like uh I I don't like that it's okay to have tons of violence, but then people cringe about sex. I I just feel like there's nothing wrong with sex. It's um it's a healthy expression of of our humanity. I think everyone should be able to have or not have it in exactly the way that they want. But I think that it is um, you know, that sex can be a transcendent experience, one of the one of the few that we have that comes from a purely physical source, or begins in the physical and then transcends to all levels emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. And there we are. So thus endeth the sermon. Uh today, oh, I never said, did I? Uh today is Friday, August 9th. And I'm leaving for Ireland on Monday, so and I'm deep in this revision and have book brain. So all bets are off, people. Uh I will podcast again on Monday. We'll see what happens on Tuesday. I'm not sure how I'll do that because on Tuesday I will be on a plane overnight and then landing in Dublin. But we'll see what we can do. I will keep trying to podcast, but it will be um it'll be spotty, occasional and a touch of podcasts, much like the rain in Ireland, according to the forecasts. All right. You all, I hope you had a great week. Happy Friday. Uh enjoy this beautiful summer, and I will talk to you all soon. Take care. Bye bye.