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. And I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Today is Friday, November 8th. It's Friday. And there's cat here on my chair. So I am using the licked fingers method to at least get the big clumps off before I sit in.
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There we go.
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So I'm tired today. I had a great first hour yesterday. I did over a thousand words in my first hour, which is unusual for me in the first hour. And boy, did I discover all kinds of stuff that I didn't realize was going on. And it connects back to things that happened in the first couple of books that I knew had to be in there for a reason, but that I actually I even saw people complain that I'd never completely tied up some of those questions because they didn't make sense. And it was like, eh, I don't really know why some of those people did some of the things they did. You know, it got resolved, but as far as explaining the underpinning motivation, so I didn't know. And then all of a sudden, yesterday, as I'm closing in on the Act II climax, a whole bunch of that stuff, uh, my heroine, Andy, who I can now openly talk about, that's who it is. Andy suddenly figured out a whole bunch of stuff, and both of us were like, holy shit, holy shit. So after Writer Coffee, I came back and I had two really tooth-pulling hours. Um, it was a real struggle to get another 1200 words, and I made my milestone word count. But it was especially that final 600 words or so, I really pushed myself through it. And I thought that's fine, you know, I'll just lay the words down and I'll come back to it today and be refreshed and ready to hit it. And I am not. I feel like I overextended a bit. And it's one of those things. It's like, how do you know when you have? I don't know. Um, I went to, I was all ready to start writing. I looked at my document and I just felt a big no, um, almost uh revulsion. And I just felt like I cannot. I started to look at some of the words and I just like couldn't even make myself focus on them. And I really considered trying to push it anyway, but I'm feeling like no. I'm definitely getting a big subconscious no, and I suppose that's a big part of the whole panting thing, this method of writing, embracing creative flow, is it's a communication with the subconscious. And you have to learn how to listen to your subconscious, you have to know what your subconscious is saying, and you have to be able to separate it out from other voices. And if it sounds really difficult, it is difficult. I mean, that's why you know yogis and so forth spend, you know, decades meditating and trying to sort this. And I have spent a lot of time trying to sort out the different voices. Um, that's part of what we talk about when we talk about, you know, like kicking other voices out of the room. You, you know, you have to do that work on yourself to figure out what is the programming that you've gotten from parents and teachers and critics and so forth, and what is your true internal voice. And I think that's one reason why I'm a fan of silence, of eliminating external noise as much as possible, so that you can hear the internal voice. Um, so if the subconscious is what's feeding me the story and the subconscious is giving me a big no, then then I respect that. Well, I don't always respect it. I tried anyway, and I still got a pretty firm no. So I'm going to work on other businessy things today, which means that I won't get to fill in the words on the charts the way that I wanted to. But I'm really trying to do better in my life about not letting the metrics drive my behavior. The metrics are a good way of tracking behavior, but I don't want to let the metrics be the driver of decisions like this. And it does feel perilously close to burnout. Um, and I, you know, I've talked before about some of the um burnout ideas that especially got from that great panel at Nebula conference. And one of the symptoms of burnout was that exhaustion and that kind of sense of depression. And I, you know, have that slightly bummed feeling when there's nothing to be bummed about, right? So that's a sign that I pushed a little, maybe a little too hard, and now I need to sit back and let it flow again. I don't know why it works that way, but it is the way it works. And all of my protesting and striving will not change the fact that that is how it works. So there we are. I have Lyra tomorrow. I'm giving a presentation on using romance tropes and stories. So there will be no writing tomorrow. But I do have a lot of things on my list to get to today, so I'm going to work on those things. Um, Lexi, I'm gonna work on your thing. So I'm sure that will make you happy, even though you've been very nice about squealing that I'm getting the words down. I know the uh newsletter went out too, and people were excited to see the cover who hadn't seen it before. So the book is coming. I'm, you know, like I said, I'm at closing in on Act Two Climax. I'm right about at 70,000 words on it. Um I think it's gonna be awesome. That's again the drawbacks of talking daily about the book I'm writing. You know, there's so many ups and downs. But we'll see. If I'm feeling spunky on Sunday, and if I've gotten all of my works, you know, like all my household chores and stuff done today, then maybe I'll write on Sunday. We'll just see. We'll see how today's goes. I'm going to sort of follow the subconscious cues and just try to work on things that feel like are right to be worked on. So with that, I'm going to head out. Uh, but I hope that you all have a wonderful Friday. Hope that the weekend ahead holds lots for you. If you're catching up on NanoRimo, um, you know, do it, pace yourself, right? Do it carefully. Don't kill yourself doing this thing. Because, you know, it it is it is a tremendous effort to do this sort of thing. So reminding you all, as if you could forget, that first cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Media Network. Great bunch of people. We have a Slack channel and they're very nice. You can find more podcasts that you'll love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And I will talk to you all again tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye.
