First Cup of Coffee - May 7, 2021

Musings today on the reverse harem trope and certain logistical issues - but how I kind of want to write one anyway. I'm in a bit of a reading slump and looking for recs. And being on the Paper & Vices podcast.

You can check out the Paper & Vices gals here (https://paperandvices.com/).

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy Romance, and Romantic Fantasy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Which is adequate. It's not wonderful. I'm having almond milk today. Um I might have been happier just going with the plain uh espresso yesterday with my happy Starbucks, which was delicious. Um, and then at Ryder Coffee, I had two more lattes, and it was a lot of cow milk, and it was too much cow milk, and it just crashed me out. Um, I hit tired later. I didn't get my 3,000 words. No latte is worth not getting my word count. You'll like that saying, and I know it annoys people, so uh content warning uh for body image, but you know, like that you can never be too rich or too thin. Well, um, I feel like you can never be too careful about getting your word count. It's not so bad. It's not so bad if I'm like paying attention to it or not paying attention to it. I'm tired, I'm still tired today. I it could be end of week tired as well. I did have a couple of 3,000 word days there. I'm at about 36,000, no, a little shy of 37,000 on Bright Familiar out on the front portal today, and I'm noticing that the cushion fell off the chair. I should fix it. I'm gonna fix it. Is that silly that that's bothering me? For those of you on video, it's like, look, there's a chair with no cushion. I'm gonna fix it. You guys probably didn't even notice anything until I said so, but I'm am I the only one who notices that stuff, like in the background of people's videos and photographs, like when there's a pile of dirty laundry there or something like that. I'm like, really? You didn't clean up your background at all? I know my backgrounds are not always perfect, but I do kind of notice. See my hanging basket? It's pretty. So yeah, not the grape arbor, but still um outside. It's a very pretty morning. We're supposed to have thunderstorms by later today. It's um a little bit of a hay is coming in. Could be that shift in weather, too. No, I think it's just allergies that have been getting me. Blah, blah, blah. The the ragweed has kicked in, which is my personal nemesis. One of them. I have a whole bunch of nemeses, but ragweed's one. So I'm running a bit behind this morning. Slept long. I slept like the dead last night, and that was good because um I needed to. So earrings today are another pair that I like very much. They are these turquoise set in silver, sort of like little silver flowers in between um a vertical string again of uh three teardrop shape turquoise stones. So the whole thing is probably about like three inches long, something like that. I bought these for myself, my own self, here in Santa Fe just a few years ago from uh jewelry store Silver Sun that was up on Canyon Road, sadly out of business now, which is too bad because it was where I would take my friends when they came to town, because it was where you could buy um jewelry at really great price. Ah. So I'm gonna keep it short today because I am running behind, and um I am also almost out of buzz sprout minutes for some reason or another. There's like two, well, there's multiple levels, but there's two I go between where I can either pay $18 a month or $24 a month, and which I know you know it's like six bucks difference. Does it really matter that much, Jeffy? I don't know. But I wasn't using my full allotment for the 24, so I took it back down to the 18. And so now I have like an hour and 15 minutes left for to upload today, Monday, and Tuesday, I think, and then it'll renew by Thursday. So with 20 minutes an episode, it's it's tighter than that. Anyway, if I did like like yesterday, I went 22 minutes. Um, if I did that for each of the remaining podcast episodes, I would not make it. So I was trying to be budget-wise and take that into consideration. And it is silly because I could like buy an extra hour for only $3 if I needed to. But I figure it's a good incentive to uh get ye old rear in gear today. Uh tempting as it is to sit here on the portal all day and just drink coffee. I did a um podcast last night with uh the paper and vices gals, Victoria and Lee. They had me on their show. They recorded it. Uh it won't come out until the last week of May, but um it to coincide with release of the Promised Queen, which is very sweet of them. So that was fun. We had a fun conversation and uh talked all things writing in books, so that was good. I feel like I'm in a little bit of a reading slump. Um not which, you know, how is that possible, Jeffy, when you have over 300 books in your TBR? Let's see how many are in it. And I don't even think I've been doing a good job of keeping it updated. 330. 330 books. Oh, but like I haven't even taken some of these out of the TBR to put them in books read. Uh, I need to do that. I've read 41 books so far this year. Well, actually, I've read a little bit more than that, but I need to update this, obviously. Um yeah, I've been sort of trying out some different things, and I started reading, I was telling the papers in Vices Gales about, you know, that I was reading one of these um reverse harem books, and I liked the first book okay, and I got the second one, and I feel like the second one is really not living up to the first. And I think it's one of those perils of reverse harem. And library addict mentioned, and I think I haven't replied to your comment yet, so sorry about that, um, that I did not, or that she doesn't like the name of the troupe, which I agree. I mean, reverse harem is a little bit of a creepy term. And for those of you not in the know, it's about like one woman with multiple men. And and we were laughing about it on paper and vices last night, because it's like, you know, in some ways it's not a compelling fantasy to me, because it's like, isn't one man enough to manage? And sometimes one man is exhausting. But but there is something to the fantasy about having many, many men interested in in one woman. And um, but one thing that I notice in this book in particular, because uh in the first book it was a lot of of teasing. I mean, there was like some sex, but it was all like poor play and kissing type sex. And in this book, they get into the full thing, get into sealing the deal, and and I feel like there's a lot of of a cop out there because um in this particular book, it's uh there's like more men than is possible to manage. I'm not getting given number because I don't want to give away which book it is. I don't know if you guys will be able to guess anyway. I I'm not sure what the typical number for reverse harem is because I really don't read that many. I know that I don't always like to read menage like with two men and one woman, because I always feel like one guy's getting left out. And so with reverse harem, it actually feels a little bit more egalitarian in that everybody gets left out all the time. Um but you know, having like more than five, and this is more than five, more than five men having sex with one woman at the same time just gets logistically impossible. Sorry if this is not what you are here for on first cup of coffee in the mornings. Um ruminations on how exactly one does an orgy. Um and so, I mean, you have to have, you have to be a pretty meticulous writer in order to pull that off because you have to keep track of whose part is where, and and that's not happening. And and there's been a little bit of a cop-out with like a couple of the men just like uh standing back and watching. Uh, but what's funny about it is it does make me want to try to write one because I keep thinking, how would I do this? It's the funny thing about tropes, even the ones you don't like is that they do feel like story challenges. And so when you come, you read something, you're like, oh, I could do a better job with this trope. It would be interesting if. So now I have this idea for one. Um like I need more writing ideas, but I do have an idea for one that I'd like to do. It's actually an idea that I've had before, and now I'd kind of like to play with it. But um, I'm not allowed to because I have to work on Bright Familiar, uh, which is it's coming along fine. Um, it's just being a harder book to write for no good reason. Sometimes they are. So, um what else can I tell you guys? I am gonna keep it short-ish today, uh, which I've only talked for like 11 minutes now. Um I did I left my notes inside too. I don't think I even had any notes, so I'm just sort of brain empty. Uh, this weekend is going to be a lot more gardening. Um very happy to work with uh the plants, get some stuff. It's supposed to be really nice tomorrow. We're supposed to get the rain today, so that'll be good. And then hopefully tomorrow will be lots of working in the garden plus Lyra meeting. And then um Sunday is supposed to be stormier, so that'll be. I'm hoping to get some of these projects wound up indoors. And I've got to record a couple of videos today, which shouldn't be that hard to do, but I haven't figured out what I'm going to say. I have to do um one of Stuff with Solstice Award uh speeches for the Nebula Conference coming up in a at the beginning of June. If you haven't registered for Nebula Conference, you might consider doing that. It was um shaping up to be a good conference. Writer coffee yesterday was very fun. Um almost too fun because I kind of came back and was no longer in writing mode. I need to figure out a better way to manage that. I I feel like it it might be just getting used to peopling again. I mean, I that might be partly why I was tired. It's you know ramping up. You know, we were got so tired of um the pandemic slowing everything down and now it's like it's speeding up and it feels like a lot sometimes. You guys hear that? Those those are the baby bluebirds getting fed. Mom and dad fly in there and then they send up the cheaping saying, give me that bug. Mom and dad, they work so hard all day long, just back and forth ferrying the food. All right, well, on that note, um, I feel like I just don't have that much to say today, so I'm not going to sit here and not say it. Uh wish me luck on getting those words. I really need to do that um so I can stay on schedule with this book. Uh although I've reserved a lot of time for revision that I may not meet it, need it. I was worried that I was going to have to revise the beginning a lot, and I think I'm not necessarily gonna have to, so should be alright. You guys should just come over and we could sit here on the portal and and talk and drink coffee and get nothing done all day. Very tempting. Beautiful. Maybe you saw the bluebird fly in there. Alrighty. Well I'm not gonna procrastinate any longer. I'm gonna go get to work. Yeah, that's uh we were laughing on paper and vices because Victoria at least listens to her first cup of coffee. Hi, Victoria. And uh I was saying, I always imagine you guys talking back to me, so uh you can all tell me go get to work, quit screwing around. So, on that note, I will remind you all 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 I will talk to you all on Monday. If you have any good reading racks, tell me. Um I'm missing reading Jacqueline Carey. I need to find something else that's really absorbing like that. Uh so let me know. Uh you all take care, have a wonderful weekend. And uh set aside a little time. Sit on the porch and enjoy the beautiful weather. Talk to you Monday. Bye bye.