First Cup of Coffee - October 22, 2020

Congrats to L. Penelope for Song of Blood & Stone appearing on Time's 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time - and a shout-out to her podcast, My Imaginary Friends! Also thoughts on setting goals for your career as an author.

Here the specific podcast of Leslye Penelope's I mention, where she talks about ambition (https://lpenelope.com/2020/10/when-good-news-strikes-my-imaginary-friends-episode-90/)

First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy and Romance and all of the magical places they intersect. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. That hits a spot. Today is Thursday, October 22nd. Uh birthday of my stepfather Leo Kennedy. Gone these many years now, but often evoked on this podcast, which I find interesting. Leo loved doing voice work. He would have been a great voiceover guy. Had a big booming voice, which is why he was did the PA announcements, where he was vice pres vice president, vice principal of a middle school. And thus the It's Friday. He'd really roll that out. One year uh when I was living in Wyoming, our public radio station at the university was doing a fun drive, and the morning show host uh offered a guest DJ spot in return for a pledge of a certain amount. Um and so I got that for Leo. And he and my mom came up, and Leo got to do the the morning show for a little while. I think he got a real kick out of doing that. It was a fun thing. I think he totally would have had a podcast. He would have loved to have a he actually would have had a great podcast. It's kind of funny to to contemplate. Yeah. You know, it's um people who've passed on how they stay with us in certain ways. Um I don't buy the idea that we have immortality through people remembering us. I mean, I guess it's a kind of immortality, but I want the kind of immortality where I get to enjoy it, where I'm consciously aware of it. Um so I mean, I think that immortality by being remembered by your descendants or being remembered for your works is is nice, but I'm selfish enough that I just actually want to be able to continue to live myself. But I think we do. I guess that's my where I come out on that sort of thing. You know, it's funny, I've been thinking about work lately and why we do the work we do and what our goals are. Um I listened to Leslie Penelope's c podcast yesterday, My Imaginary Friends. Um, and I will have her uh cross-promo spot at the end today. I definitely recommend her podcast. It's um actually pretty much the only one I listen to because I just don't listen to podcasts much. I keep trying to find room in my life for consuming other kinds of media, and I just the podcast thing, I don't know, I don't like listening to people talk all that much. I think that's one of my things. Um, you know, like the the morning show DJs, uh, it grates on my nerves. I hate it. I'd much rather listen to music. Uh so who knows? I'm weird. Anyway, I do like listening to Leslie's podcast. Um, it's short. I I can listen to it on my like drive into town and get caught up. Um so yesterday I went and got my very important manicure. I was thinking again as she was, as my gal Ruby was doing my manicure, you know, and giving me the massage working lotion into my hands. I'm just just thinking, you know, that's that is a big part of me um taking care of myself as a writer. It seems frivolous, but I I just love having my hands pampered and my hands are working hard for me, so that's alright. So anyway, I did listen to Leslie's podcast from this week on my way into town, and I will link to it. But she was talking about her big excitement that the first book in her Earthsinger Chronicles uh made that list of um Time magazine's uh 100 best fantasy books of all time. I always think it's funny that they have to like put these names on it, but uh, which is absolutely nothing against Penelope, because it's uh that's a huge honor. And congratulations, Leslie. It's a really cool thing. I just think it's always funny that people want to say, you know, like of all time. Best fantasy books. But she was talking about being ambitious and wanting that from her work, and I think we all have different things that we want from our work, and one thing that I ask my mentees to do, especially when they're thinking in terms of should I apply to go to Clarion West? Should I go get an MFA? Um, what kind of agent do I want? Do I want to self-publish or do I want to go trad? And some of these decisions, especially things like do you want to self-publish, do you want to go trad? Do you want to get a degree? Do you want to learn how to write in an MFA style? Um, all of these things depend on what you want out of your writing career. Why do you want to write? And and I could expand this to be all creatives, um, but I don't understand those as much. I I I can draw a corollary to music. It's like, do you want to be Taylor Swift or do you want to be Yo-Yo Ma? Or do you want to be something in between? Um, you know, do you want to be uh oh, now I can't think of her name. Oh, um fetch the bulk colour cutters. I'm not gonna be able to think of her name. Let's go to Annie DeFranco instead. Somebody like that, something funky. Um, musicians are often accused of selling out, and people uh denigrate Taylor Swift's music all the time. And I think Taylor Swift is a brilliant uh songwriter. I think she does, um she has an amazing way of putting her life experience into songs that are very relatable. So you know, and and it's interesting that Taylor Swift gets denigrated in a way that Ed Sheeran doesn't, but then that gets into the whole misogyny thing. Anyway, you know, the actually I'm I'm going to stay on that topic just a little bit longer. Uh, you know, like my husband uh grew up in a small town in Wyoming and he was in a metal band, and he has like all of this, I don't know, respect and honor for rock and roll music, and that rock and roll music is not pop. And sometimes, you know, like say I'm listening to Taylor Swift, he'll say, Well, it's okay, but it's pop. And I'm like, Well, well, what makes it pop? And he says, it's just the sound. He says, it's not really rock and roll. And he has other things that he'll say, well, that's not rock and roll. And I'm like, well, what makes a thing rock and roll? I mean, and it's like, oh, well, you know, it's the lifestyle and everything. And I just don't get it. I just don't understand these things. Uh, I don't understand the, oh, what is um, I could absolutely recognize a literary style and a literary voice, but it doesn't read as more meaningful to me. So one of the things that I ask my mentees to do when they're trying to solve these problems is I say, okay, make lists and put categories at the top of the various columns of different things that you want from being a writer. And be brutally honest with yourself, because there are a lot of things that we want from being a writer that aren't necessarily um things we would stand up and say in a keynote speech, right? Uh, because we want that ego stroke. You know, we want to be um, you know, have JK Rowling's money and be venerated like Jane Austen. Uh, you know, we want to be the most important writer of our generation, maybe. There are all of these things that you can want from it. Um, we often talk about that the dream is to make your living as a writer. That's my dream. I want to make my living as a writer, which is a laudable goal because it's not easy to do. But if you really want to angle for the awards thing, if you really want those nebulas and those Hugos, then a lot of times what you're looking towards is investing a huge amount of money in an MFA because you kind of need to be part of that MFA network for people to really look at your work and say, oh yes, this is a laudable contribution to the genre. Uh, it can't be commercial, right? You know, Taylor Swift is not going to win the music version of the Nebula award. Uh, even though music industry has different categories, right? You know, she could win for uh I don't know, music industry seems to be more generous that way. But I got a little snagged on my analogy there. I'm not sure what the difference is. I wish that there were more um commercial fiction type awards in science fiction fantasy. I think romance is more tolerant of commercial side fiction, but science fiction fantasy has really in recent years gone towards the more literary side. Even the fan awards, like um The Hugo and so forth, tend to be, they tend to all be the same books, you know, like Locust and Nebula and Hugo. There's some differences, but they tend to be like celebrating all the same books. So you make these columns and you put, you know, like do you want money? Do you want acclaim? Do you want the respect of your peers? Uh, do you want to be famous? There are all of these different things that we can want. And then you put into the various columns like what it would take to get there. Because really, the fastest track to making your living as a writer is to go the self-publishing route and write a whole lot of books in series that people will buy. Um, but very often uh you if you do go that route, then you won't necessarily be in that respect of your peers of lauded with awards category. And what kind of agent you want really will be affected by what you want from your career. You know, do you want someone who really goes for mainstream commercial fiction? Or would you rather have an agent who um, well, here's another way to put it. This, and this is I've I've noticed that there's sort of two major categories of of agents, and and I don't think it's a binary, but I do think that there's maybe two ends of the spectrum. That there are the agents who say, um, give me something when you have it ready. And there are agents who say, Let's talk about your ideas for what you want to write next. So my agent's more the latter. Um, she and I look at ideas, we talk about what would be marketable, what she can sell, and I tend to write the things that she says that she thinks will be marketable. The other kind of agent, um, you know, you write the book and you give it to them, and they might say, uh, no, I don't think I want to sell this book. That's I don't think it's sale. But there are authors who really love that model because they don't want anybody influencing their work. They want to work without the influence of the concept of marketability and the those kinds of pressures. They want to be able to focus on the on the art, on what they want to create. Uh, for that kind of writer, um, an agent who says, let's talk about your ideas, and comes out and says, Well, no, I don't think that's very marketable, that kind of agent's not going to work for them. So that's why it's important to know what you want. And the unfortunate part of this is, as with many things in life, is that really we want all of that stuff, right? I mean, all of us want all of those things. We want to be, you know, we want to have Taylor Swift's money and fame, and we want to have Ani DeFranco's hypness, and we want to have Ed Sheeran's respect. Uh, we want to be able to do amazing things and be celebrated as the best in the world, like Yo-Yo Ma. But none of us get to have everything. I I don't know if there's a writer who gets to have everything or an artist who gets to have all those things. And so you have to pick and choose what matters for you. And and I think it can change at different points in your career. Uh, I often say that I am uh truly blessed to be making my living as a writer. Um, sometimes it's uh a near thing. Sometimes I'm making a better living as a writer than at other times. Uh, although it is getting better all the time. Having substantial backlist really does help. That's one of the best things you can do. But there are times when, you know, it's easy to look at what someone else is doing and getting and thinking, well, maybe I want that too. And I suppose that there's a point at which maybe you are comfortable enough that you can try to reach for something else. And that's something that we all want to do, right? Is continue to reach and learn and grow. I do think that the worst fate for an author is for somebody to be um simply recreating the last thing that they did so that they're not pushing themselves to grow in any way. So uh I guess that was a long screed this morning that's been on my mind lately. Uh uh things are going well on Airs of Magic number one. I'm up to 15,000 words. Uh struggling a little bit with um worrying that my heroine is unlikable, which drives me crazy that I don't like thinking about whether or not she's unlikable. But I think she is um I like her, and I think that that's what's what matters. Um yeah. Yeah, I like her. So it's coming together, enjoying that. Uh this weekend is Mile High Con. I I'm doing a couple things, not much. There will be a reading online and stuff. And otherwise, we're going to be um well, I guess we're getting snow Sunday, so probably trying to get some of this landscaping finished out as best we can. So I'm going to go on my way and get my words in. It was lovely chatting with you all this morning. I'll remind you all that first cup of coffee as part of the Frolic Media Podcast Network. And you can find more podcasts you'll love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And stay tuned for a little snippet of the fabulous Leslie Penelope and her show, My Imaginary Friends. And congratulations again, Leslie, for having a book on that list. That's a truly amazing accomplishment. Go you. And you all take care. I will talk to you tomorrow. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Hi, I'm Elle Penelope, and I'm an author of Epic Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. My podcast, My Imaginary Friends, is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. On the show, I give you, dear listener, a weekly look behind the scenes of my life writing and publishing books. I talk about creativity, inspiration, writing routines, this week's best thing, and more. One reviewer said it's like sitting down with a writer friend to have coffee and discuss all the writerly things. So if you're an established or an aspiring writer, or a reader who always wanted a peek into an author's life, please check it out. New episodes post on Mondays, and you can find me at My Imaginary Friends Show dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.