First Cup of Coffee - October 23, 2020

Musings on the push-pull of staying true to want you want to write vs. being aware of marketability of the work. A bit more on unlikable heroines and the challenges therein - and how these considerations fit into your goals as a writer.

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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. Excuse me. You're a little throaty this morning. Today is Friday, October 23rd. Day before my granddaughter Arrow's birthday. It's kind of we already said happy birthday to her because her presents arrived in the mail yesterday, and she texted me because she's has her own phone and texts now, which is funny to me for no good reason. And she asked if she could open her presents now. And I said, but it's not your birthday yet. And she said, I know. She's just a funny kid. She uh loves to get things the way she wants them whenever possible. Um really just a delight. Taking a picture of a rose, one of the last roses. Looks like we're going to freeze on well Saturday night. We're gonna be down in the 20s for a few days. We're supposed to get snow. That'll be nice. Some natural water falling from the sky is always welcome. But for now, we are out in the secret garden and enjoying that. I am um looking at this wisteria I planted him back here. His leaves are all yellow. I'm hoping it's just because he's cold. The one out front hasn't turned yet, so hopefully this is a natural change and not a uh giving up the ghost kind of change. Although all the grape leaves are gone too, so it's definitely part of this microclimate right here. Let's see what our forecast says. Oh, yeah, 60% chance of snow on Sunday, and 60% on Monday with a possible four inches predicted. Wouldn't that be nice? That'd be lovely. And then we're gonna be solidly freezing down to at least, you know, just like 31 Fahrenheit, but um colder than that, Monday. It's we're gonna have a low of 18 degrees Fahrenheit, so that'll that'll take care of the garden. But we've had a a good long, lovely warm autumn. So it can't begrudge it. I am very grateful to have had the garden during this difficult year, I feel for people who don't have that sort of thing. Not uh not the usual party that it's been the last few mornings. Very peaceful, soft breeze and the remaining grape leaves. The crab apples on the crab apple tree are shining a lustrous red and the garden with its variegated colors beneath. The autumn garden is pretty because of the way that the leaves are turning on the different plants. Some are still green, some have gone to a really lovely rusty burgundy, some to uh a vivid purple. The forsythia is a nice purple. And then a few roses blooming still. The purple Russian sage is still going strong. So so let's see. What do I have to say today, besides? Oh now I've just noticed a great big hole. Something has been chipping out a hole. Look at this, all of these wooden pieces in the grape arbor beam. Something has been making a nest up in there, like a woodpecker or flicker. Huh. Boy, drilling out all kinds of wood out of there. I'm gonna have to turn David on to that because they're gonna make a hole right through the the beam of the grape arbor. We can't have that. Huh. Well, I'm glad I noticed that. I'm surprised I didn't notice all the wood chips below. Huh. I don't think David could have been doing that. Hmm. Very odd. But it does look almost human-cause very strange. Well, anyway, let's see. So had writer coffee zoom yesterday and was not a very productive day uh writing wise. For some reason, I only got 2,000 words. This wood's really brittle, too. I just picked up one of these wood chips. It was pretty easy for whatever critter this was to chip this out of there. So, um, but you know, I've gotten 11,000 words this week. I'm like at 17. No, I'm more than that. Let's see where we are on Airs of Magic. Number one. It is flowing better. Um, and I'm enjoying the story. I think it's a good story. One of my struggles with it, um, and and you know, it's always an eternal push-pull of trying not to overthink as you're writing a thing, which is difficult when you're, I don't know, I don't want to say writing to market, but when you're aware of you know how something is going to read to people, you know. It's it's I know I talk about this a lot, but it can be really difficult to be aware of the opinions that people have on stuff. Come on. For some reason, Dropbox has been locking up lately. Okay, so I'm I'm a little over 17,000 words. I should hit the Act One climax today. But yeah, I mean, I think that separating those phases where you take a hard look at the marketability of something, or a hard look at what's working and what's not from the drafting phase, where it's it can be really harmful to second guess yourself during the drafting phase. It slows you down. And so one of the things that I've been worrying about with this book so far is whether or not my heroine is likable, um, which is something that books are criticized for very often. And and amazingly enough, you know, it's the the female readers who are really judgy about it. And female readers tend not to like confident female characters. Um, and I know that you guys are saying not you, and I do appreciate the comments. I'm behind on replying to comments, but you know, there's this whole thing that um if you're going to have a female heroine, she's got to have some sort of flaw. And if she's very beautiful and very talented, then she has to not know it or she has to be insecure about it. She can't be confident in that. And it's it can be a difficult line to walk if you're writing a character who is talented and confident, and maybe aware of her own attractiveness, and that is the character that I'm writing right now. And I'm having to like find ways that she is not secure. I'm looking over here. No, that's just sort of a natural part of the wood flaking way. I was looking for other evidence of the holes. I don't know why a um woodpecker would want to do a hole on a horizontal surface. It's not a vertical surface, it's one of the cross beams, and the hole is up underneath. And I'm not sure what the purpose of that would be, unless they were trying to get at some bugs, which I guess probably there are. This structure's been here, I don't know how long. Certainly, it was here before we bought the house. So, anyway, um it it is an interesting thing to be aware of these things, to be wanting to write the character faithfully as they come to us, but then also be aware enough to I don't know, craft them to add in the details. And some of that, you know, might be mercenary. You know, I talked a lot yesterday about your goals and why you're trying to do a thing. And for me, making my living as a writer is my primary goal. I don't know if I said that yesterday. You know, I I did the same exercise myself where I went through all of the columns. And I'll be honest with you guys, you know, there are lots of things that I would love to have, you know. I I would love various sorts of acclaim and ego strokes. And yes, it would make me happy to win awards, and it has made me happy to win awards. So, you know, I I fully acknowledge all of those things. Um, I think you probably can't succeed as a writer without a certain dollop of ego because you just don't make it through all the rejections if you don't have that, if you don't have that um faith in your work and certainty that what you're doing is valuable, because there will be plenty of people to tell you that what you're doing is not valuable. That's kind of the nature of the beast. There's some little finches come in to get some water. So finches made me lose my train of thought. Allow me to regather it. I might have a little bit of the Friday tired. I was definitely feeling depleted yesterday, but it's it's been a heavy word week, and I um I'm doing very well. I'm going to pass this will be my um, you know, for annual word count. I have passed my least productive year, and today I will pass my second least productive year. So I'm and I think I will be better than half the years by the time the year's over. So that's good. That's all good. All right, so now what was I seeing? I was thinking about what I was talking about yesterday, the goals, the things I want, that I like winning awards. Uh, but I finally settled on that my primary goal is to make my living as a writer. Uh, and so that means a certain kind of money focus. So I am not going to be the writer who writes a book in a vacuum vacuum or a vatum, whatever that is. Uh, I'm not going to write a book in a vacuum and send it, you know, just and and and cleave to my artistic vision. I mean, I guess I know that I am already cleaving to my artistic vision to some extent. Um, I was having a conversation with um the delightful Kelly Robson on chat yesterday, and she was asking me some questions about, I can't even remember what, but I was expressing some of my frustration because it's my eternal log jam in that I write too much romance in my stories for a lot of the science fiction and fantasy people to take my work seriously. But then my science fiction and fantasy is too dense for a lot of the romance people. And and I said to her, um, you know, I I have a choice. I can either change or I can live with it. And I don't I don't want to change what I'm doing. So that means that I'm not allowed to be, I guess I can be frustrated with that situation, but I also I have the power to to change it, and I've made the decision not to, so so I have to, you know, live with that. Um but for me, making my living as a writer, you know, the dream, right? You know, it's funny because we all talk about that being the dream, but there's a lot of other things that go along with that. Um, because the the people who really go for the the artistry of it all and the awards and so forth, the um what is a transformative work, what transcends genre. You guys know I hate that phrase. What is truly meaningful. Um those people will always be fighting the uh I make my living as a writer people. You know, and it's it's human nature. Um, I got a comment from a gal who's a self-publishing author when I was talking about the World FantasyCon stuff, and she was going bananas about that because she was talking about how the World FantasyCon people snubbed her because she's a self-publisher. And she had to throw in some stuff saying things like, well, you know, I'll just take my three USA Today bestseller list hits and my money, and I'll be happy. And it's like, well, if you were really happy with those things, you wouldn't have to like post it on Facebook and uh blister people's ears about not taking you seriously. It's the same thing that I'm talking about. It's like some of the criteria for being taken seriously are not fair. But you know, you you make your choices. You make your choices and you live with them. I don't know whose voice that was. So I don't remember how I got oh, I was thinking about so it's it's difficult as I'm drafting because I think about am I creating a character that will not draw readers in? Will will readers be repelled by this heroine because they will find her unlikable? And then it makes it more difficult to write because for me the characters come out very much full-fledged in who they are. And it's like I so I have to find ways to make you love her anyway. And it's interesting because you know, like The Tears of the Rose, Amy was easily a lot of people did not go on to read the second book in the Twelve Kingdoms because they didn't like Amy, you know, and I saw people remarking on that because she was young and vain and frivolous and shallow. Um, and I but I really wanted to write that character. She was the youngest and most beautiful princess and had been told all her life how beautiful she was, with the poets and the songwriters composing odes to her beauty, and you grow up with that kind of thing and you begin to believe it. And you believe that that's all you're worth. And that was what I wanted. I wanted to write that character. So I can't regret it, but from a marketing standpoint, it wasn't smart to have the second book of my essentially debut trilogy, my debut print trilogy, um, be a character that people didn't want to go on to read. So these are that's that push-pull. But I suppose I have a dollop of each, right? You know, that's um there are certain things that I am unyielding on. My mother will tell you that I'm stubborn. And one of my favorite quotes, I even have it hanging off of my monitor, is a line from a j from George O'Keefe where she said, Um, if you can find out who you are and hold to that line, then that's the best you can. My recording stopped, and I think it was because it was the ghost of Georgia O'Keefe reaching out because I was misquoting her. So I've come inside to read it. It's if you can believe in what you are and keep to your line, that is the most one can do with life. If you can believe in what you are and keep to your line, that is the most one can do with life. And that's beautiful. And one of my compass principles. So, with that, I shall bid you all a happy weekend. First cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Media Podcast Network, and you will find other podcasts you love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And I will talk to you all on Monday. Take care. Bye bye.