Award-winning and best-selling author of fantasy and romance, Jeffe Kennedy shares her first cup of coffee of the day with listeners, giving a daily insight into the realities of being a career author.
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. It is Wednesday, November 6th. Not my usual podcasting day, but here today since I'm doing every day this month for Nano Rimo. It's interesting because one thing that this podcast forces me to do, because I've made the commitment to be honest about what it's like being a career author and what it's like sort of in the trenches of what I preach is that I feel compelled to confess things that I normally would not want to reveal. But yesterday was a sake writing day. And it was the kind of day where I began to doubt my process, which happens a lot. But when I'm thinking about, oh, how am I going to tell everybody that what happens is I occasionally hit these points. I hit a point where I realized that the next phase of the story wasn't making sense. And I really started thinking. I'm at a very thinking point in the story. And it's I even pulled out a sheet of paper to start charting what might go from this point. Sort of laying out all of the various players where they're at and trying to sort through the logic. And I started to do it, and I thought, yeah, but it's more important that I get this book written right. And if this is what I need to do, then I'll just say that's what I needed to do. So I started to do that, trying to sort out. And you know what? It did not work. It did not help me sort out the all the moving parts any better. Um and I thought, okay, well, the advice I give is just to keep going, to keep writing. But one thing about hitting that wall is sometimes laying down more words doesn't get you past it. So I threw in the towel yesterday at like 1200 words. And fortunately, I was still ahead of my writing goal. It's hard to explain. I go for 3,000 words a day, but then I have a minimum number I need to get to keep me on my on track to finish when I want to. And I'd written enough words, I'd been enough ahead that my daily goal to keep on track was just like 500 words. So I was in good shape for that. And so I threw in the towel and I worked on some other things. I took care of some financial stuff, I took care of some business stuff, and I let put the problem in the back of my head. And I think that's another piece of this, is that sometimes you have to just let it mull, let it simmer a while. And so I just closed up the story, did these other things, did some reading last night, watched, we're up to season five of Pull Dark, and we just finished episode two, and I think I'm gonna bail on it. Um this last season has just taken such a sideways turn. Kelly Robson, who turned me on to the series in the first place, commented that her feeling is that they expected a season six and didn't get it, so they had to try to cram everything into season five. But I could tell that I'm not happy with how this is going to end up. Yeah, it's a lot of it just feels really contrived and forced. They could have done such interesting things, but the characters feel like pretty thin foils. You know, it's like all of a sudden we're acknowledging that there are black people in the world and that there is slavery and it's a problem. And we have the you know, the blue stocking gal who reads Mary Wallenstonecroft, and and all of that stuff would be awesome if these characters were have been more organically introduced to the story, but it's sort of like they've all been suddenly dumped in and they don't have the the richness of character that the previous characters have had. You know, uh Caroline is far more interesting as an independent woman. Even when she was like the 17-year-old frivolous heiress, she always had so much more character to her than this New Gal. So anyway, that's all a bit of a departure. But yeah, I'm going to uh Kelly and I were discussing how we would have ended the series had we been writing Pull Dark, and I'm now satisfied with my head canon on how it ends, and I'm going to stop so I can live with that and not see whatever they do to ruin the rest of it. Um, but that was all a tangent. Anyway, so that's what I did last night. I just took the time off, um, did all that reading, watched episode of that show, um, watched a little bit of Colbert, who has become our go-to on hearing what's happening with the impeachment process. Very good news in U.S. elections last night, with uh the US with the Virginia legislature being overturned. Uh a lot of very promising signs for the reassertion of the left of liberalism. Certainly something I'm in favor of and very glad to see. If we can get Mitch McConnell out of Kentucky, I will be super happy. That's yet to come, but the signs are looking good. So, anyway, sometime in the evening or the night or whenever, I don't know, uh, it came to me what I needed to do in the story. And so now I'm back on track this morning and getting it written in, and I went in and made some adjustments. So there's again a violation of my rule, and that I did go back and I did some tweaking. I realized a few things had to be adjusted slightly for all of this to cascade correctly, and now it's cascading again. So there's my um true to life confession and uh caveats on what I've previously stated are the ways to do things. But you know, that's part of the creative process is that it's always adjusting like that. And I think becoming a professional writer, refining yourself as a professional writer is learning to recognize what the slowdowns mean, you know, what and what you need to do about it. Knowing what your feelings mean when it's normal story frustration or when it's a sign of something else. And I don't know if that is something that can be taught. I think it's something that you have to learn of yourself. But today when I was writing, I had uh an insight revealed itself. So I did break through that wall and I added in some very important um depths to what's going on. So that's cool. And now I'm gonna go get back to work. Hope that you all are doing well in your lives, that you are making your way through the various obstacles that present themselves, and that uh yeah, you do it with a little bit of delight and gladness, right? First cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Media Network. You can find more podcasts that you'll love, I sure have been, at frolic.media slash podcasts. And I will talk to you all tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye.
