First Cup of Coffee - October 29, 2020

A microphone death, my new hair and makeup regime, the schedule for upcoming interviews, and musings on how authors tend write toward a core image, trying over and over to get it "right."

The video I mention on Cognitive Bias and The Dunning-Kruger Effect is here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y50i1bI2uN4)

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy and Romances and all of the perfect places they intersect. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Which is weird tasting because I ran out of my usual coffee and my Nespresso order isn't uh being delivered until tomorrow. So I am having to drink this sort of emergency stash of that Williams Sonoma pumpkin spice coffee that I bought. I don't know if I've mentioned it last year, I think like a year ago, Thanksgiving, and I didn't really like it. It's got a funky flavor. So that first taste was really strange, and then I remembered why. Alas, my life is a nightmare, you guys. Today is Thursday, October 29th, almost to the end of October. And uh almost to the end of election. I think we'll all be more than grateful to be done with the elections. A little bit of a snafu this morning on the recordings. I this may sound different, so let me know how it sounds. I'm using Zencaster, which I use for interviews, uh, because my microphone stopped working. It was being uh it was really funny. It would it was not recording. I guess that's not all that funny. Um, I need to silence my phone though, since you guys can probably hear message-y things since I don't have the microphone in. So in some ways, this is serendipitous. I mean, it's sad that my microphone died. It was just simply not recording anything at all. So something could have changed in the software in the last 48 hours since I recorded on Tuesday, or it could be that the equipment just lost its snuff. So I could buy a new microphone, but you all know that I had been toying with recording the podcast as an Instagram live at the same time. So I could do this recording on Zencaster and then also have Instagram live on the phone, and I might try this again. Um the big hang up there will be that I don't get wireless out in the grape arbor. Um, but maybe there's something we can do about that, and I've got time to figure it out, right? Because now that's winter, I'm going to be inside. Um, I'm also on a new regime, a new regime of doing my hair and makeup every morning. I know. Gasp. Um, I started thinking about that because um, well, for a couple reasons. My podcast last week, I think it was, could have been the week before, when I was talking about what a barrier it is for me uh to record videos or even to do um any kind of official type call, although those are scheduled. It's really the videos that um because I have to fix up to do it. But also sometimes there's a barrier for me just on leaving the house. It's like I can't just spontaneously run out and meet someone for lunch, um, back in the days when that was possible, pre-pandemic, um, or any of those things because I'm not fixed up. And so I decided I need to go ahead and fix up again. The other impetus is this new opportunity, um, and I'll be able to tell you guys more after this weekend. I'm meeting I'm meeting with a guy, seeing a guy about a horse. And if this opportunity comes through, I'll really need to be able to be ready to leave the house at a moment's notice, and um and it will involve working outside the house some. So I decided I just need to get my shoes together and get back in the habit of wearing makeup every day. Doing my hairs, doing my makeup, um, and it's good. That's good. Um, I definitely feel more put together, and it does remove a lot of those barriers. So, what all do I have to tell you guys? Uh, I completed Long Night of the Crystalline Moon revisions, sent those off to the proofreader, so all is good there. Um I also and then I went back to working on Airs of Magic 1, The Golden Griffin and the Bear Prince. So I saw uh Laura Darnell commented on Twitter that she was impressed that they were getting that you all are going to get both the novella and then the novel in December. I think I can do it. Um, that's what I'm aiming towards. Since I've got the laptop in front of me, I can actually open my progress count. I know I passed 20,000 words on Golden Griffin and Bear Prince. But let's see what it actually says. Yesterday was a long time ago. Yeah, I'm at nearly well, I'm I'm just over 22,000 words. I was gonna say nearly 23, but that would be overstating. So I'm at the Act One climax and feel like the story is rolling around along nicely. So I should be able to get it done and out in December, and then I will continue on with the next three books as well, because I don't have any other contracted books, and it would be nice to get these out in fairly quick succession while I'm not having to juggle anything else. So my intention, and and let me definitely qualify this as my intention, is that Golden Griffin and Bear Prince will be out at the end of December, mid to end. It's looking more like more towards the end now. Uh, and then book two in February, book three in March, and then probably book four in May. I'm not sure why that one's so much well, it's because it's sliding down, that's why. I have it for like May 2nd. I might try to get it out in April. We'll see how tightly I can do it. Because Promised Queen comes out at the end of May. And I'd like to give that a little bit of um marketing room. So, but that's what I'm gonna try to do. It's gonna be kind of like um a four installment story, um, different romance in each, and it should be really fun. So I've been working on that. And what else did I want to talk about? Ah, so to go back to the Zencaster screen so I can keep track of my um minutes here, since the minutes aren't on the phone. Oh, um, so along the lines of what I'm doing, I am also going to be having a number of interviews in the next month um for the upcoming release of Under a Winter Sky on November 19th. And pursuant to that, um, next Thursday, a week from today, I'm going to have Kelly Armstrong on the podcast. That'll be really fun. One of the contributors, it's all the contributors. Uh, so Kelly Armstrong's going to be on Thursday, November 5th. Leslie Penelope will be on Tuesday, November 10th. And Melissa Marr is going to be the week of November 16th, I believe. And then I have um I had scheduled a long time ago, due to listener requests, uh, to have Nalini sing on uh the week of November 23rd. But when I recently emailed her to confirm that, she has not replied to me. So I don't know what's up with that. So that may or may not happen. I do have a question for all of you writer types out there. Um I am I've been asked to teach a master class um online uh that would be in February. It would be like a day-long masterclass on a weekend. Interactive. Uh, we would like I would talk and then we would and then you go off and do exercises, and we'd come back and we would discuss and so forth. So, what I'm doing is I'm putting together ideas, they're letting me do anything I want. So that's kind of cool. And so I'm wondering uh if you guys could take a masterclass with me, and you would be able to take this if you wanted to, um, what would you want to learn from me? Uh would be really helpful to hear as I shape those ideas, and I'm going to throw that up on social media too and get some feedback on that. So, so there's those things. So now let's go back to the memo and see which of these things I want to talk about. I think I'll talk about this one since we were already mentioning Laura Darnell. Uh, she had also tweeted me that she had uh finally read Lonan's War. I don't know if she's continued on to read the rest of the Sorcerer's Mo's books, but she'd had Lonan's War like on her Kindle for a long time and finally got around to reading it, and commented that it was very different from Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms, which I find interesting. Um I mean it's dual perspective and third person, so I could see how it's different that way and maybe a different thematic feel. She said that she did notice some similarities, however, to Orchid Throne and Fiery Crome to Forgotten Empires. And there is a reason for this. Um because both series come from the same root image. And I think a lot of authors do this. I know I've seen um Robin McKinley talk about this, that she has written two versions of Beauty and the Beast so far, and she wrote the second one because she felt like she didn't get the first one right. And she said she still feels like she didn't get the second one right, and so she may end up having to write a third one someday. And I know exactly what she means because I have this image in my head, and I think that it wouldn't hurt to tell you guys what it is. I think I've I've talked about it before, actually, so uh, but I have this image of a woman who is a queen or a ruler or a leader of some sort, and she's standing on the edge of a cliff with a roiling ocean beneath her and the wind blowing, and she is watching an enemy as it is arriving on her shores. And wherever this comes from, this is a very strong image for me. It has a lot of impact to it. And I have been writing towards this image uh for a while. I have painted this image, uh and when I went to write, I'm trying to think of the different iterations. Mark the Tala has some of it in it, but Mark was based on a different image. But Sorceress Moons was definitely based on this image, only I very deliberately um made it be desert instead. And then Uriah kind of took over the story and ended up being a very different person. So that's part of what happens is you start writing towards this image, but then the story kind of goes its own way. And maybe there are some writers who are able to more ruthlessly direct the story than I can, but that's just not how it works for me. So Sorcerer's Moons ended up going in a very different direction. And when I went to write Orchid Throne, I took another stab at it. And Orchid Throne comes closer to that image. Uh although I still don't have the actual scene, neither one of them could I get in that actual scene of the woman standing on the cliff. Um, Orchid Throne, there are a couple of close analogies to that moment, but not that exact scene. So that's why I'm thinking I may yet have to do a third attempt. Um, and possibly do like I did with Dark Wizard, and just start with that actual fucking scene. Instead of writing towards it. Um Sorcerer's Moons, Lonan's War, does start with Orias staring out across the desert. Um, but it just doesn't have that same feel as that scene. And it's funny, it's like, why can't I just capture that scene and write it already? And I don't know, it has to do with the mysteries of creativity. It's a it's a weird thing. So what can I say? So that, Laura, is why you recognize some similarities there. Um still writing to that particular image. Dark Wizard has some elements of it also, um, although not though more distant. Um Andy being stuck in Wind Roven while Rafe's armies are outside um in the Mark of the Tala has a similar aspect to it. Um, all of them about strong, powerful women, or ones who will become strong and powerful women, um being somewhat immobilized, being trapped in a way and awaiting the advent of a man who will be who is their enemy but also their lover. And you guys know that I love enemies to lovers anyway. Um and not because not only for the romance trope. I think it's an underestimated trope in some genres because enemies to lovers is really about learning to understand the other, you know, about learning to overcome your inherent biases and understand another person. Cognitive bias. I watched a very interesting video on the Dunning-Kruger effect about cognitive bias and why people who know just a little bit about a subject have a tremendous amount of confidence in it. And it's something I've referenced before. Um, you know, like the that people who think that they are very interesting conversationalists, um, other people think that they are not, whereas people who tend to rate themselves low as being interesting conversationalists, other people rate them high. Uh, the same way with driving. So this video covers the driving thing as part of this Dunning Kruger effect. So I'll link to that because it's interesting. And on that note, I am going to go get to work. Let me know if you have ideas for what you'd like to learn in a master class, and I will talk to you all tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye.