First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy
First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy
First Cup of Coffee - November 20, 2020
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Join me for a chat with celebrity guest Grace Draven as we discuss writing process and our stories in UNDER A WINTER SKY. You can buy the book here (https://jeffekennedy.com/under-a-winter-sky).
The movie Grace mentions is The Door, here (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194577/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_26).
First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy and Romance and all of the perfect places they intersect. I'm here with my first cup of coffee, which is delicious. And it is Friday, November 20th, and we have a special celebrity guest who uh didn't make it yesterday but is here today, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Good morning, Grace Darling.
SPEAKER_00Good morning. I don't think I'm going to be overly uh bushy-tailed and bright-eyed at the moment. I still need to knock back some of this coffee, so we'll see how it goes.
SPEAKER_01No, let's see. And as I recall, you are a simple soul and you are a standard like drip grocery store coffee kind of gal.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's just because I'm lazy. Um, so I go for the Keurig if it's just me. However, uh my husband, Mr. Draven, is uh a barista in the making, so to speak. So we've got like an espresso maker, we have uh an ibric for Turkish coffee, we have a Belgian siphon coffee maker, which makes fabulous coffee, we have another specific type of coffee that makes lattes a certain way, or coffee maker. So we have like seven or eight different coffee makers that he'll use. Yes, and he spends the time on making this perfect cup of coffee, and it really is a perfect cup of coffee, it tastes absolutely fabulous. But when I'm first bleary-eyed and stumbling around in the morning, I just really don't want anything more complex than throwing a K cup into the little round thingy and pressing the button.
SPEAKER_01You know, and I don't know how I could have forgotten because when I came to visit you um in the last century when we were able to do things like that, he made me perfect cups of coffee. I'd forgotten that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a really good coffee. So if you ever um come back to my house, we will make you another perfect cup of coffee, or at least he will, and I'll be there to enjoy the benefits.
SPEAKER_01Yes, well, someday soon. I mean, we're almost through. Had this pandemic not happened, um, next week we would have been staying at the four seasons together for the romance author mastermind.
SPEAKER_00Yes, indeed, which I I'm still very much looking forward to since uh they are going virtual, so we'll still have access to it. But I was really looking forward to hanging out at the hotel with you and just having three or four days where you're very immersed in that kind of thing, you know, and I'm sure it's gonna be a challenge, not just for me, but for really anybody, because when you're at home, there's a lot of distractions that go on. I don't think we really think about it or notice them when we're doing our day-to-day task and so forth. But when you have something like this going on, you do become hyper-aware of it. So I'm basically going to have to threaten my family with blood, death, and tears if they don't leave me alone while I'm in this conference.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, yeah. And and we talked about that I would drive down there and stay with you and so that we could do the online stuff together at least. And then I decided that was too much of a risk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think probably right now, just everybody, you know, trying to stay as close to home as possible and only going out when it's absolutely necessary is probably, you know, the best level of caution to take. You know, you just never know. I myself have uh, and just like a lot of other people, have um, you know, elderly parents. So, you know, you want to, and of course, that is one of the high risk uh groups. So I want to be able to, you know, see them on a regular basis if I can, you know, within that friends and family safety bubble kind of thing. So we definitely have to be very cautious.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah. But and you said that you just had a sinus infection yesterday, you think you're allergy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you know, at first it's weird how our way of thinking has changed from last year to now. Before, you know, if you had a cough or you had a fever or anything like that, and every year here in this part of Texas, of course, and you know, really in a lot of other places, allergy season um usually is spring and fall, is when it's the worst. And I always get a sinus infection, I always get an asthmatic cough. So, you know, prior to 2020, I didn't think anything of it. And of course, now when you have a fever or you get a cough or something like that, you're like, uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01So it's all different things. Um, you know, like I have not gotten sick this year, you know, like even like the little minor bugs or sniffles and so forth, because I've been staying away from people and being so careful. It's kind of funny to have a year where I like didn't get sick barely at all. And those weird little dips, it's like, is this it?
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, I think you do become you know, just really once again hyperaware. You're like, oh my gosh, what is that? So yeah.
SPEAKER_01It also makes me aware of how many bugs I would pick up being around people, you know, just like the garden variety bugs, but it's like, uh oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And you know, the whole I have never sang happy birthday so much in my entire life than I did for 2020 because you know that's what they say. Seeing that to know that you've got your 20 seconds of washing your hands.
SPEAKER_01So you know, very early on, I saw a list of alternate 20-second clips of songs to sing.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_01And I yeah, I picked Landslide, the the chorus for landslide because I love that song.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's a little bit better.
SPEAKER_01Better, isn't it? Because I built my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a lot better. Yeah, because I was like, I'm really tired of the happy birthday song. Because they sing it for me and then my son, who is autistic, and that right there, let me tell you, is a special challenge trying to keep an autistic child, you know, from touching anything, touching their face, you're constantly washing their hands, you know. I mean, it's just he's probably thinking I lost my mind. So and we try not to take him out into public unless it's absolutely necessary, like one of these things, like if we all have to go somewhere, obviously, I cannot leave a non-verbal autistic child alone in the house. So there are just times where it has to happen. So we mask him up, you know, we're just like, don't touch anything. So yeah, but and he's actually been very good about that. He keeps his mask on and he does a good job, but at the same time, I actually uh opted in to have him um go through online school, so you know, a a what they call asynchronous learning, because uh there was the option to send him back to on campus, and I'm like, yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that just would not have gone well.
SPEAKER_00No, it wouldn't have because him trying to stay in a mask for that many hours a day, not touching things, you know. I mean, this that would have been just about impossible. So yeah, to have a more controlled environment, and I wouldn't see what was going on there, so I was like, Yeah, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01Well, probably wise.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, 2020's been a different year to say the least. Yeah, no kidding.
SPEAKER_01But but we'll uh we'll convene online for romance author mastermind, and we're here to talk about release of Under a Winter Sky.
SPEAKER_00That sounds great.
SPEAKER_01So I looked at our rankings this morning. We are at 3, 5, and 37.
SPEAKER_00I saw that, I was absolutely thrilled. Um, nice seeing how people I think I know when I wrote my story, I really wanted to write something that was very feel-good and gave hope. And even though it's a festival that doesn't take place in our world and can't be called Christmas, it's actually still a holiday season kind of story with that same sense of celebration and people gathering together and partying down and not worrying about the kind of things that we're worrying right about right now. So I wanted it to be an escape measure. And I think a lot of these stories are like that, and it people are gloming to that, and I like the idea that you know they want to be able to read the same kind of thing. I know I certainly do, you know. I've I've gotten to the point where I'm now watching Hallmark. So yeah. How about you? What was the thing for you when you were writing your story? Was it were you inspired um basically by the same thing? Um, was that a theme you wanted to try to capture with yours, or was it something else?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I definitely wanted to, well, you know, I'd written about this. We both had written about this particular holiday in our world uh in the Amid the Winter Snow anthology. And so I had done a it was almost like a pandemic version of the Feast of Moranu, where they're like snowed in at a castle and being threatened by monsters and stuff. And and this, because I'm doing kind of like a next generation reboot of the world, I wanted this to be the how a Feast of Moranu went in, you know, like a Camelot, the the perfect world, and you know, with the prosperous rain and uh, you know, all of the glitter and sheer enjoyment. And so that was why I wanted it to like coincide with this night of the full moon, which was partially inspired by the cover because I was one of the last to write my well, I wasn't the very last to write my story, you were the very last. Right. But I was uh last otherwise. So I had already seen the cover with that beautiful full moon and the couple embracing beneath it, and I thought, oh yeah, I want this to be like the perfect night where it coincides with the anniversary of the High Queen's reign and the you know glittering celebration and also this extraordinary full moon because I wanted it to be like our you know, like our super moons have been.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And I mean, that's a wonderful inspiration because that cover is amazing.
SPEAKER_01It's a pretty cover. Raven does amazing work.
SPEAKER_00I thought so.
SPEAKER_01And it was great. It was great hearing all the people saying, you know, seeing it saying, Oh my god, I need this book in my life right now.
SPEAKER_00Right. I mean, the cover was just incredible. When I know you had first shown it to me, um see, that's the perk of you know, being friends with another author. Is a lot of times you can see this stuff before it goes live. So when you sent me the cover and said, What do you think? I was like, Oh my god, that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and that was what made you decide to actually write a story after all, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I tell you what, it was certainly motivation because that was a pretty impressive looking cover. And I won't lie, yes, I have been inspired to write stories based upon certain artwork that I think is just stunning. And of course, I will buy certain books um based upon their covers. And you know, I'll at least I'll check out the summaries and so forth. This is why I think cover art is so, so important. So seeing that cover for Under a Winter Sky, wow, I loved it. I really did. Raven is very talented.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and so tell people a little bit about how you ended up writing this, not as short as you thought it was going to be, story, but we you and I had decided what back in August or something, that you just couldn't be part of the anthology, right?
SPEAKER_00Correct, because the original idea was that I was going to include um my story Gaslight Weedus, which is the second book in the Bonekeeper Chronicles. The first book is called Gaslight Hades. Gaslight Hades was about 38,000 words, so just shy of being a short novel. And based upon what I could tell with what I'd written so far with uh Gaslight Weedus, was that it was going to come in at about the same word count. However, with that being said, um, I was also under the gun with uh trying to get the Evil's King out the door and uh work on Raven Unveil for a Penguin Random House, which I'm still working on. And then yes. So I knew there was no possible way that I could get Gaslight Weedos out to you in time for you guys to roll out the book for the publishing date of November 19th. So I went ahead and figured I would tell you in time that you know, if you needed to go ahead and do a replacement slot for it, you could without it being any kind of an emergency. And obviously, you know, Kelly Armstrong, who is a stunningly wonderful writer, filled in that slot, which I think is you know fabulous. And boy, did that ever work out, you know, so well.
SPEAKER_01Um it worked out so great. Now, and tell me, were you sad when I told you that you'd been replaced by Kelly Armstrong?
SPEAKER_00Actually, no, I was sad um not to be able to participate in the anthology, but I mean, come on, with a replacement like that, you know, how can you possibly be sad? I mean, that that's just that's just a win for readers. So I mean, heck, I was like, yeah, that's a great replacement. So um then I think when you and I were discussing it, uh, we were talking about how possibly maybe me putting in a short story, and I thought, well, I can try and see. Maybe probably be 5,000 words, maybe six and a half thousand tops. Of course, in the back of my head is my editor Mel, evil editor Mel, going, Are you sure? Because I told her the same thing with Radiance.
SPEAKER_01Okay, right.
SPEAKER_00So, anyway, um, sure enough, the story ended up being like 14,000 words and change. So I just seemed to have a hard time reading the short 39 or something, yeah. It was, I wouldn't, you're like, Well, how long how long did it end up being? And I was like, Well, so a memory of summer ended up being a novelette instead of a short story. So that turned out, yeah, but I think it needed to be that. I know when you read it, you had the same idea, was that it really could not have been any shorter.
SPEAKER_01No, in fact, it flew by.
SPEAKER_00So, and that's that's good. That let me know that I kept it tight and you know, I didn't, you know, yeah, no unnecessary bullet. Yeah, no, but and it was it was actually fairly easy to write. I think I was inspired by that whole idea of you know just trying to escape our own particular grim reality at the moment with the pandemic and isolation and everything else. And I wanted to do something like this instead. So uh the other thing was that I really wanted to introduce instead of in the grim reality of the Wraith King's world, you know, which is still has a lot of things going on with it that are residual effects uh from basically a demon war. Um to show something maybe a little bit more lighthearted, and so I introduced or reintroduced the fourth Wraith King, uh, Garrus, just in a much lighter context. And he meets the future heroine of book four, and her name is Imerence. And I really liked playing with that dynamic when it's just the two of them at a celebration. It really is a meet cute, is what it is. So, you know, I just wanted to keep it lighthearted and so forth. And I love the idea of this couple quite a bit. She's older than him by about 10 years.
SPEAKER_01Which is an interesting choice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was one. It was weird. Um, in that as I was sort of fleshing both these characters out in my head, she always was older, you know, not necessarily in personality because he's dealt with a lot that has aged him internally for sure.
SPEAKER_01So right, not least of which is like all the events of idolum when they go to.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah, he he is uh far beyond his physical age. But at the same time, you know, I thought it would be really good because you know it's it's an odd thing in that societies worldwide still practice a form of ageism in that you know, nobody raises too much of an eyebrow when it's older man, younger woman, but you know, there's always commentary and so forth when it's the flip.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00So that was something I wanted to, I didn't really address it so much in this one, except coming from because it's all from Emirants' point of view. And you know, she remarks on it a little bit here and there, but um, it will come up in book four, you know, through dialogue and stuff like that. But I really like the idea of that pairing being what it is older woman, younger man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And where did you come up with the name Emirants? That's an unusual name.
SPEAKER_00It's actually French, and it means of merit, which I thought was really cool. I'd actually seen um independent film, oh my gosh, ages ago, and it had I think it was Helen Miren in it. Like I said, it's been a while since I watched it, and the name of the movie is Emirants, and I thought, oh, what a cool name! And that name always stuck with me, and so I I wanted to give it to this particular heroine.
SPEAKER_01Because, you know, even though you have been working on Wraith King's series for a long time, because what year did Radiance come out?
SPEAKER_002015.
SPEAKER_012015, but you've known all along your characters for the successive books and so forth.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for quite some time. Yeah, I mean, I probably right before I started work on Idolin.
SPEAKER_01And so do you keep like a world bible and notes of stuff, like when you see a name like Immerence?
SPEAKER_00I keep some basic information, definitely not the not to the level of detail that I think I really need, because a lot of times if I'm writing something, you know, like with uh the Epos King, there were certain things that I had to go back to in the other books because I was like a little bit foggy on it just because I hadn't, you know, revisited it in some time. So um I do have some basic, basic notes. I probably need to sit down, you know, with all that free time I've got and be able to do a world Bible if possible. I mean, look at your stuff. You have this massive, massive arc, you know, and this huge world. I mean, do you keep a Bible as well? I imagine you're a lot more organized than I am. So I'm sure if you do keep one, it's a lot more detailed than mine.
SPEAKER_01Um, I don't really keep one. Wow, really? Yeah, I probably should, but I do keep various notes, but you know, so my whole problem is I don't know what I'm gonna write until I write it. Okay, so that's me too. Yeah, but see, like you know your characters, it's a you know, like you know, you knew about Emirants, you know, four years ago or whatever, and and I wouldn't have known that. So for my own stuff.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, I do have assistant Corinne, and she is my great source. Uh when I can't remember things, I will ping her and ask her questions. And if she doesn't know, she will go and read the books and look and look for the information.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's handy. That's very handy.
SPEAKER_01And she's so funny because then she'll end up like she'll say, and then I ended up having to do a reread of the whole book.
SPEAKER_00That's good. That inspires.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, exactly. So it's uh this this particular series for me is unusual in that I did kind of know um the because I I wanted to do this prequel novella for the the children of you know the last generation that are now grown up. And so of course I knew about some of the kids, and then I had to figure out other ones that were born after the last book in the Uncharted Realms, right? But I wanted to assemble my cast of characters and introduce them in this novella in Long Night of the Crystal and Moon. So that was different for me to try to figure out who all they were. And then also it made me realize I had to make decisions about what had happened to. In the in intervening 25 years, right?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Which is uh a challenge.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure it was. I mean, when you consider uh the number of players you have on that board plus the intervening years and things that have happened, I mean, that had to have been difficult trying to keep everything straight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I um I I was bemoaning because now I'm writing book one, which happens, starts up right at the end of Long Nye, the Crystal and Moon, and it's called the Golden Griffin and the Bear Prince. And I was thought, why did I think it was a good idea to have a quest with a cast of seven characters?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. I mean, I imagine though you'll be able to handle it just fine, even though I'm sure there will be moments where you'll ask yourself that question a lot.
SPEAKER_01I finally ended up just making a list of the seven of them to keep on my desk. So when I write a scene where they are all present, I kind of have to tick through and go, okay, did I?
SPEAKER_00Well, when you what's up when you work on this, um, these particular stories where you're looking uh into the future and you are finding you know what each one is going to be doing? Do you find that, say like you tackle your first uh couple, uh, when you write on this, are you also springing up ideas for your future couples? Are you resolving issues? I know you said that you don't um you don't always know what's going to happen when you sit down and you write this stuff, but do you still find that you will get resolution to something or an idea while you're writing with the current couple for what's going to happen with the couple that's coming after, or even the couple after that?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes, and in this case, um I do know more than usual because I I made an effort to plan it out to at least somewhat, because the couple that are in long night of crystal and moon, they won't resolve their stuff because they have a long road ahead of them until the fourth book.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And so as the, you know, these are friends and cousins, and as they interact with each other, yes, I am getting the glimpses and setting up the dynamics for each of their character arcs, the things that they're going to have to learn and do, which is of course all intertwined with the overall quest of what they're trying to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's pretty cool. I mean, I like the idea of that as I mean, and I can totally see it happening that way. Although it sounds like an enormous amount of work and trying to keep everything straight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but as I'm saying this, I'm thinking, let's just hope I can actually pull this off.
SPEAKER_00I think you'll be able to, but yeah, I I don't envy you. I mean, I myself, I just, you know, I have the six book series, and I don't think I have anywhere close to the number of casts that you do in your story. But at the same time, I'm like, oh my God, why did I choose the six books? You know, why am I not going to keep everything straight? Who are all these people?
SPEAKER_01And so yeah, I was thinking that that I bet you had a similar challenge, especially in like uh Idolon, when you had you know your group of Wraith Kings and going into the the city and battling the demons, and you have your different players at different positions and doing things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a you know, trying to keep all that straight. And actually, each book after this gets more and more complex until, and I'd say complex just in not so much in you know how you read them, but in how I'm writing them, simply because everything that you have going in future books has to remain canon compliant with everything that came before.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00By the time I get to you know, book six, it's gonna be even more of a challenge because book six not only has to be compliant with the five books uh before it, it also has to be canon compliant with the events that took place in the Master of Crows world with the brush of black wings. So that's going to be interesting. I I there's still some things there where I'm like, I have no clue how I'm going to work that out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And you're like, oh well, I guess I'll figure it out when I get there.
SPEAKER_00That's right. I'm not gonna sweat it till I get to it.
SPEAKER_01So it's funny because uh I was having a conversation with Durinda Jones about writing a series, and it we both have this fantasy of one day being able to write the entire series, get write all the books in the series and finish tweaking them before publishing any of them.
SPEAKER_00Oh, there you go. That is a fantasy for me, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I don't see it ever happening, but you know, you know, it that used to be the model for writers, you know, like um Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. He, you know, that was originally one big book that they split up, but he wrote that whole story and went back and tweaked and layered and adjusted so that there's not, you know, you don't have those same challenges that way with the um early books uh setting canon that you then have to wrestle with in the later books.
SPEAKER_00That's true, yeah. I mean, they go and they build and they rebuild, and yeah, that's that's a luxury of time that I only wish I had. And I think that's actually also something that uh under the traditional publishing model, possibly with the advances that is supposed to contribute towards something like that. But you know, obviously, traditional publishing also wants you to roll that stuff out fairly quick as well, with the way they have it scheduled. So I I think the days of being able to be, you know, write a full-on series before and then tweaking it and having it all layered and so forth and ready to go, and then split it out afterward and then publish it, those those days I think are gone. I personally know that I will never be able to do it because in all honesty, I've got bills to pay. So I can't.
SPEAKER_01I mean, they would have to give us an advance big enough for us to live on for you know, like the three or four years or whatever it took us to write the whole series.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And I don't see that happening anytime soon, so no. No, no, that's true. But uh for as far as uh under a winter sky with five of us in there and all the various stories, you know, that take place, either we have like Victorian Christmas here on Earth, and we've got ones that take place in the fantasy world, we've got you know, like Melissa's, which have you got fairies and half-dead witches in New Orleans? I think it's a really great mix. Do you if you were to sum up the type of reader that you think would belong to these stories as far as like you know, genre preferences and so forth, what would you say would be the summary appeal? Would you say if you like this, this, and this, you will like this?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm never good at that. Um I think I think anyone who loves any kind of fantasy, whether it's alternate world or contemporary fantasy, um, you know, like our our own world, but tweaked, you know, like some magic and uh fantastic elements, plus romance, then this is this should be the catnip.
SPEAKER_00I like that. I think you know, I'd say you did just fine with that. That's perfectly A-OK. Um, I find that well, we follow along with uh similar themes and so forth. Uh the voices are distinctly different. Would you agree?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting when you pull together a collection like this, because of course everybody uh writes different things and has different voices. But this one feels like um a you know, like the serendipity of the true potluck. You know, I'm a believer in the real potluck look where nobody agrees on what they're going to bring, you know, and like sometimes the disadvantage is that you end up with only potato chips and dip or only desserts.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01But every once in a while you hit like that perfect potluck where you have this wonderful collection of foods that you wouldn't have thought to bring together consciously, but it just works. It just works. And this, I think, is really you know, very much that way that uh the stories are not all exactly fantasy romance, but the the different flavors that they bring make it just a really fun uh excursion, you know.
SPEAKER_00I agree. Yeah, I that's one thing I really liked about it as I was um reading through all the stories because uh I didn't start tackling it until like I think the day before the anthology went live, and I started uh reading all the variant stories, and that was one thing that I noticed and really enjoyed about it was that it was a different voice every time I opened the story. It wasn't just a matter of it being in a different world or a different time or a different place or anything like that. It was the fact that the voices were very distinctive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, for sure, and different paces and different uh um I'm trying to think of what the word I want is you know, like they they all deliver a slightly different um I don't know what the word I want is there different flavor, maybe, you know. That's yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I think that's true.
SPEAKER_01I looked up the movie and it's actually called The Door.
SPEAKER_00Is that what it is? I thought it was called Emirants. Well, see, that just goes to show that that name really stuck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Helen Miren, you had that right, yeah, um, plays Emirants, but it's a 2012 movie called The Door, and I'll put a link in the show notes um based on the Hungarian novel of the same name concerning the relationship of a novelist and her eccentric maid. And Helen Mirrin is the eccentric maid.
SPEAKER_00The eccentric maid, yep. And of course, Helen Marin being Helen Marin did a wonderful job.
SPEAKER_01She just she can't do a bad job.
SPEAKER_00I think that I think it's impossible for her to do a bad job, but she did a wonderful job playing the character of Emirants. It really had, I mean, it really had an impact on me. There's lots, I've seen plenty of movies that, you know, I wouldn't remember the next day what it was as far as the details were, but I remembered um, you know, the story about uh Immerence and the character of Imerence, and she just really stole the screen time. It was really a wonderful, wonderful movie. I would definitely suggest it to anybody to watch. It certainly doesn't have like car explosions and things like that. It's not that kind of film, but it's really a great, great movie.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, not every story is explosion suitable, exactly, and a good movie can still be a good movie without having them. So that's true, that's true. Different flavors. You not everybody bring potato chips or desserts to the potlock.
SPEAKER_00To the potlock. So yeah, it's a good film.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I'm so glad that you were able to get a story into the anthology, and I'm glad that we got to chat today.
SPEAKER_00Oh, same. I'm thrilled to be able to um be part of the anthology. I was very disappointed at first when I didn't think I'd be able to join it. So I appreciate um the accommodations to allow me to put in something that was not a you know a full-on, you know, novella. So uh, and having the option to do something else because I really did want to be part of it for sure. Just at the time, you know, schedule just wasn't allowing it. So being able to have that chance to do so has been pretty awesome. So thank you, Jeffy. Yes, yes, and thank you to the other authors as well for agreeing to it. So I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. You know, I'm I'm a sucker for you, so you know it's like I just can't tell you no, Grace.
SPEAKER_00So we'll we'll hopefully see um gaslight weedus come out uh in 2021 where I have more time. My schedule is slowly but surely freeing up so that I can actually uh decide, you know, make a choice. Okay, this is what I want to work on next, which will be lovely. So I think I'm once I get Raven Unveil finally turned into penguin. Um and of course that will come back to me to do correction and so forth. But when it actually comes to you know creating a story and so forth, I do have things in the hopper, but it's not like okay, shoot, I'm now three weeks behind on this. I have to jump on it. I don't have that, which is good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really nice. Very well, uh, I will remind everyone that first cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Media Podcast Network, and you will find more podcasts you love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And thank you so much for being here with me this morning, Grace.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Jeffy. It was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01It was fun, and I will talk to everyone on Monday. You all take care. Bye bye.