First Cup of Coffee - October 7, 2019

Talking today about the five-stage cycle of creation, how we're better at some phases than others, and how this plays out in our lives, including writing books. Beginnings - especially finding the right place to start a story - can be difficult. For others, it's the middle, or the end. Also a bit about how rising to challenges can be done with Delight & Gladness, too. 

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Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Today is Monday, October 7th. A brisk morning here in Santa Fe. I have been um resisting putting out Halloween decorations. Although I I don't get the people who start putting them out in September. You guys will know who've been listening to my podcast for a while or who know me, that I am something of a purist on holidays. And I believe that the joy of the holiday is intensified by limiting the amount of time that you celebrate it. And so like I won't do anything Christmas, like not even Christmas shopping, unless it's a real rare exception, until after Thanksgiving. So I don't put up Halloween decorations normally until like a week or two before Halloween. And I've been seeing all the people on social media posting their Halloween decorations since mid-September. But I'm also finding myself kind of resistant to doing it this year because I'm feeling like I want to hang on to summer. And it's been such a beautiful fall, beautiful fall weather. My all my flowers are still blooming so beautifully. But uh we're supposed to get a pretty hard freeze on Friday. Uh it looks like it's gonna get down to 27 Thursday night. So thus it begins. And I think I um so I'm gonna have to bring in all of my potted plants on Thursday. I have a considerable number of plants that you know I keep inside during the winter and trot out during the summer to enjoy the natural air and sunshine. I need to decide I've got all of these impatience, you know, that I planted in the grape arbor. You guys know about them because I've taken photos of them. And I think the impatience don't overwinter well, but maybe I'll try them. I'm not sure if I just haven't taken care of them properly or you know, some plants just don't do well indoors, and it's mysterious to me why that is. So we'll see. Maybe after there's a freeze, uh then I'll suddenly feel the urge to do Halloween decorations. But so far I'm not feeling the the Halloween vibe in the air, not feeling that all hollow s thinning of the veil, as it were. So we'll see. There's leaves are definitely coming down off the grape arbor from the top. Leaves all over. Although the crabapple tree, it's starting to get a little bit of an amber look to it. But you know, without the freezing temperatures, we don't really get that fall color yet. Haven't killed off the green chlorophyll. See, that's my biology background showing. I think that's really interesting though, that that's why the leaves turn color in the fall is because the the green chlorophylls, the glue the green phyto. What is it? Phyto. I want to say phytotoxin, and that's wrong. Some of my biology brain is just like in deep, deep files. I always imagine the person running down to this sub basement saying, where is that file on botany? I don't know, we haven't pulled that out since the AP exam in 1984. Well, anyway, uh the the green chlorophyll in the leaves is more vulnerable to cold. And so it gets packed away first, leaving the yellow and orange and red pigments that are in the leaves all the time. They're just normally drowned out by the green reflecting ones. So there's your botany lesson for the day. And that's why different plants have uh different colored leaves, because it all depends on what kinds of chlorophylls they have in their little cells. It's just like people having different skin colors, it's just different combinations of the pigments that are in the cells. It's why we um you know lose color as we age, too, because we stop producing so many of the of those pigments, of the melatonins, and you know, so we lose the color in our hair, um which is the one that people most notice, but we also lose color in our skin and in our eyes. Older people have much paler eyes in general, and our skin tone gets lighter. It's all part of that uh very similar process. I always think that's so interesting how you know, like what the plants go through in the fall is similar to senescence in you know, like a higher mammal. All interconnected, right? So unexpectedly philosophical this morning. Let's see. So this weekend, I did get uh good writing done on Friday, and so Fate of the Tala is moving along. I have, however, been making um additional notes over the weekend. The story's coming to me now more and more, and I've thought of things that I need to layer into that first act. So I have been this morning. I went back to the beginning and I'm layering yet more, layering in yet more things. Um, you know, and and I I guess this really is where my process is at these days, that I spend a whole lot of time um building and layering that first act. I did get through to the end of the first act, yay! So I'm at about 25,000 words on the book now. Um now I'm going back and getting that first act right, and then it picks up speed. So hopefully that will happen, the picking up speed part. It's you know, it's interesting because I don't have trouble actually starting a draft, but finding where the story starts and getting the beginning solid is always um a fair amount of work for me. And I think it's really true that okay, so the the Chinese perspective is that um there is the cycle, the cycle of life, which is um birth, growth, maturity, decline, death, and that corresponds with the five elements. And after death, you come around to birth again. And you know, without death you can't have birth. And this applies to many, many things, so that like in order to create a new thing, first you have to kill off an old thing. And that depending on our constitutions, and you know how the the Chinese believe that we all tend to be very strong in some elements and weaker in others, and that that affects many things in our life, our health, and so forth, that we all tend to be uh better at some aspects of this cycle than others. And like you know, we all know people who can never start a thing, or the people who can start a thing, but then they can't grow it. They like start it and then abandon it. Uh some people can start it and grow it, um, but then the maintaining it, the maturity phase, knocks them out of the loop. Um and I think that this applies to writing very often, that different writers have an aspect of the book that does not work for them. A lot of people get stuck at the midpoint, which I think of as the maturity. It's they get to the midpoint and they they stagnate and they can't figure out how to push it forward. And I think a lot of times that has to do with um, as for all of us, fear of the decline and death phase, because that seems like such a um, a lot of people have a hard time embracing decline and death, especially Americans. I think other cultures tend to be a little bit better about it, but we have this kind of um programmed fear of endings. But in order to deal well with the midpoint, in order to deal well with the maturity, the midlife, you have to be willing to accept and face with courage that the next phase is going to be decline. Uh wrapping up the book is taking it into decline, the the climax of the book, the everything going badly. Um, and then the ending is a death because you finish it. Uh death has a lot of different meanings, you know, sort of like it with uh in Tarot, you know, drawing the death card doesn't isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means an ending as all. So I think that we carry these things with us. I think occasionally people change and what you were once good at uh falls apart, and then you get better at something else. Um I think I used to, I'm much better at endings now than I used to be. And I've I've figured out a lot of things about endings, but now I spend a whole lot of time on beginnings. Someone uh who used to be George R. Martin's critique partner was telling me the other day, well, writer gossip, right? Um, and she was saying that uh George has always had a very hard time landing the plane. She said, you know, like way back when he was, you know, writing in the 80s and 90s, even then he had a really hard time ending a story. And it's funny because that's exactly where he's at now with a song of ice and fire, you know, that it's you know looking nearly impossible for him to finish that saga. He keeps growing it, right? He keeps growing and expanding it, but he won't prune it back, he won't go into the decline and bring it to the conclusion. Uh instead, he's going back and writing prequel stories, right? He's going back to the beginning. He keeps going back to birth and to growth. It's interesting. And I don't mean that with any kind of judgment. It's just easy to see because he's so high profile. But we all have this. We all have that phase that's more difficult than others. And it could be that I spend a whole lot of time at the beginning, but that my weakness is actually in a different part, you know. But my endings are much better than they used to be. I used to not pay much attention to the ending. I would just wind up the ending too fast. And then I figured out um one of the best pieces I ever of advice I ever got, and it's a common piece of advice, but you know how it is, like sometimes things just hit you at, you know, at you're ready to hear it. And I think I was at the RWA conference, but someone was talking about how at the end of the book that the end needs to mirror the beginning. And so, like, if you're doing Hero's Journey, you start the book with the life of the protagonist before, and then there's the call to action. Well, the ending needs to show the life of the protagonist after. And I would always end, or when I was first writing, or and quite a few of my books that you all have read do this, I would end with the triumph, everything's done, but then I wouldn't show that piece of life after. And once I started doing that, people were much more satisfied with my endings. Amazing when you learn these tricks. So that was all a tangent from Friday. Saturday, I went down to Albuquerque and did the signing with Jane Linsgold. A lot of lovely people turned out. It was uh very interesting. All it was all the science fiction fantasy crowd. None of my Lyra gals showed up, none of the romance people showed up. So I don't know what this means. It's like a uh me moving into a different trajectory, perhaps. And I listened to uh cut up on Leslie Penelope's last two podcasts on the drive down, which was lovely, um, especially because she gave a shout-out to Orchid Throne release. Thank you very much, Leslie. And she acknowledged our asynchronous conversation, which I think is very funny. I she made a point about uh that I've been talking about sort of the delight and gladness in work lately, and saying that even though she talks about the headaches with her work, and I was really laughing at the whole thing about um she's using note cards to keep track of her plot, and she was I really did laugh out loud when she was trying to figure out how to number them because she was worried about what if she tripped over the dog and dropped the note cards and sent them all flying, and then she wouldn't know what order her scenes were in anymore. Uh I recognized that this is a legit fear, but it the image made me laugh. I also had an idea for how you could encode it. You've probably figured this out since because she was trying to figure out how to notate her cards to reflect both the order that the scenes had been in originally and what she wanted them to be in. And I thought, well, if it were me, what I would do is just give each scene a name, a title, and then put them on a spreadsheet in two columns with, but then I'm the spreadsheet queen, right? Um, in you know, with the names in the one order and in the second order, and then you wouldn't have to worry about keeping the cards themselves in order because you could just reference your spreadsheet. That's what I would do. But um, yeah, so she was saying that even though uh she talks about the headaches and wrestling with the story that she still feels the delight in the work and that that's not a difference. And I I absolutely agree. I think um we tend to talk about the the problem solving, and me talking about like going back over and over in the over the beginning, but that doesn't mean that you're not taking delight and gladness in the work. I think it's it's really a good point that sometimes the um the challenge of the work is a big part of the delight and gladness. It's saying, okay, yeah, I want to meet this challenge. You shall not thwart me. Stubborn story. And let's see. Oh, so then the other thing that's going on in my life is I've been watching Pull Dark. And um I always want to say it pull dark because I'm an American and I always want to put the emphasis on the first syllable. Um, but it's I've been noticing that the characters on the show always say a pull dark, pull dark, uh, which it's interesting, um, you know, takes place in Cornwall. Jave and I keep joking that they, you know, like set up the cameras for hours and get the shots of the sunshine on the ocean and on the house, and then just recycle those shots over and over again. And there are always clouds looming in the background about to swoop in. But it is beautiful landscape, just not as sunny there all the time as the show makes it out to be. We know now. Um, and even though there is a wonderful romance in the show where you know Ross Poldark uh marries the girl who is his kitchen maid, so it's uh somewhat of a star-crossed romance, and they get married in the first season, and they're I'm in the second season. Now, there are a lot of things that violate the romance contract, so I felt like I should uh mention that in case any of you are thinking that you're going to watch it because I love the romance in it. The thing is, is I do love the romance in this. Um, and Demzel, who is the wife, is really an amazing character. She's a fantastic character, and I really just love her. But um Ross is an excellent brooding hero, but he's also kind of an ass. I mean, he does not always behave well. So uh be forewarned that there are tragic things that happen, and I am anticipating that things are going to get worse soon. That said, David and I are both very much enjoying it, so which does not always happen with every show, as you all know. Um, but he's it's it's a very good balance of male and female gaze, because the books were written by a man, but the screenplay, the showrunner, is um done by a woman. So I think that it does, it has a very nice balance that way, that we are both equally uh drawn into what's going on and invested in the show. So it's it's very interesting storytelling, too. We're we're having a good time trying to predict what's going to happen, and and I don't always predict, so that's fun. Um, and I think that's about all I have to say today. Yeah. I caught up on business Sunday, did a couple of crit reads for people. Um another author, another one of um Agent Sarah's clients, she's having trouble with a new book. And you and I I meant to mention this before, her beginning's not right. And I she sent me the first three chapters, and I said, okay, send me the whole book because I'm gonna have to keep reading, because it's not starting in the right place, and I'm gonna have to read and figure out what it is. So I know I keep coming back to that, and I've revisited this many times, but you know, I've heard authors say take umbrage when somebody suggests that their story starts in the wrong place because they're like, I'm an experienced author, and I know God, finding the right place to start the story, I think, is one of the biggest challenges. It seems easy, and like many things that seem easy, it's actually very, very difficult. When you get it right, it's spot on imperfect and feels effortless. Um, but you know, like the ballet dancers, they put a tremendous amount of work into making it look effortless. So that's where we are. I'm moving along. I will talk to you all tomorrow. May you embrace many things today with delight and gladness and rise to the challenge that they present. Take care. Bye bye.