First Cup of Coffee - November 5, 2018

Warning: politics. Midterm elections in the U.S. are tomorrow, so voting is on my mind, along with all the feelings coming up from the 2016 that was so traumatic for so many of us. There's also a funny story about Grace Draven and her story, A WILDERNESS OF GLASS, for our SEASONS OF SORCERY anthology, and what "playing the bone flute" means to me. And a bit of practical discussion on how I'm handling the move from an iPhone to android, and thus moving my music library from iTunes to Google Play Music.

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Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy and it is November 5th. Monday. Another week ahead of us. Election week. Let's just all hope that we're really happy on Wednesday. Really happy on Wednesday. It's about eight in the morning. So yeah, time change makes a difference for me. I was um chatting with a friend of mine this morning, Kevin, who is my my first love, my first boyfriend in high school, way back in the day. And his birthday was yesterday, and I meant to text him and forgot, so I messaged him this morning, which was nice because we got to chat a little bit. And uh and he asked me if I was going to at to watch the midterm returns tomorrow, or if I was going to bury my head in the sand. And I said, I'm going to bury my head in the sand. I don't think I can bear to watch. And I said to him that I thought it was funny because on um last Thursday, David and I went to vote early, and our voting place, polling place is the senior center in our kind of rural neighborhood. So it's not a place that we otherwise go. I mean, we just don't ever go to the senior center. So going there on Thursday, um, I realized that it had been two years since I had walked in there since the 2016 election. And I was so happy that day. I was so excited because I was just certain that Hillary was going to win. And I was excited for a first female president. Um, and I just didn't think I didn't think it was possible that Trump could win. Um, and arguably, uh, you know, a lot of people have theorized that Trump himself didn't think he would win. Um, you know, and it was it was painful to remember how excited I was about you know on that day. And I mentioned that to Kev, and he said that, yeah, he and his wife had thought that it would be fun to the his because of course his birthday is November 4th, that they thought that they would take advantage of the birthday discount at this great restaurant in Denver, the Fresh Fish Company, which is one that's been there a while and everybody loves it, and their birthday discount's amazing because they give you um a percent discount for every year old you are. So, you know, especially the older people, we love it. That's awesome. So he said, well, that they decided, made the very poor decision to go to Fresh Fish Company uh and get his birthday discount because they thought, oh, hey, it would be fun to watch the election returns from the bar. And he said, so now they have such a significant he called it a negative traumatic anchor to that restaurant that they haven't been able to go back since the election, and which I can totally sympathize with. Um his wife is Jewish and Kevin practices Judaism with her. So while, you know, there's always the people saying, oh, well, you should leave politics out of stuff. You know, when things like that are affecting, you know, people's lives, um, you know, it's not a matter of like arguing about fiscal responsibility, it's a matter of feeling like someone who has been elected who wants to see your people eradicated, whether it's politically, you know, I I don't know if Trump even cares, but you know, he finds it useful to cultivate those that kind of hatred, you know. So all of my friends who were, you know, practice other religions in Christianity and who are have, you know, are not um cis het, um, you know, which means heterosexual and born to the and displaying the gender that you were assigned at birth, that's what cis means as opposed to trans. It's actually kind of an organic chemistry joke, which I love, because you know, trans, of course, comes from like transsexual crossing over to a different gender. And in organic chemistry, you could have a uh a pairing of kind of a bond pairing, I'm trying to simplify, where it's either trans on either side or cis on both sides. So I've always lost loved that cis was decided to be the opposite of trans. A little bit of trivia first if you didn't know those things, maybe you did. Um but anyway, you know, for all of those people, um, you know, it wasn't just, you know, the I I keep hearing things like, you know, you lost the election, get over it. Well, it wasn't losing an election. It was finding that, you know, that maybe your very life is in danger, you know, and certainly with the mass shooting at the synagogue last week by someone who was, you know, blatantly encouraged by our president to go and kill Jews. You know, I can understand having a negative traumatic anchor. So I'm just hopeful that the midterms will see us overturn. I think that you know if we can overturn the House and Senate, we'll be going a long way. I think even if we don't completely overturn it, I think that we'll make significant strides. And um yeah, I think uh an unexpectedly political uh podcast today, I know, and we're all tired of hearing about it because with election day being tomorrow here in the U.S. But we'll get through it, we'll get through it. I had a woman come up to my door oh early last week, and and I really, you know, I have a lot of friends who are out doing door to door, and uh she started to come up to the door, and I and where the way our house is, we could see people coming from a ways off. And so I met her at the door, and I could see she had the you know, like the pamphlet in her hand and the clipboard, and I said to her, let me just stop you. I said, We already voted, or I said, we're we're going to vote, because it was like the day before. I said, We're going to vote. We're voting Democrat. Um, it's all good. And she checked it off in her clipboard and she said, Good, that's all I needed to know. And I said, I know. I said, I'm sorry, it's just that, you know, it's like so many phone calls and text messages and emails and people leaving pamphlets on our doors and mailboxes. Uh, and she was, I was glad she was out doing it. She's doing it for a uh Democrat um who represents our district uh and is up for re-election and is being challenged, actually, not by a Republican, because I live in a lovely blue state, but uh who is an independent and you know is running on this whole we have to clear out corruption platform. And frankly, I just have no patience for this guy. I I got a survey call from him, and he was like this survey was just like a uh political call in disguise, you know, where they're asking me things like, um, are you in favor of clearing out the corruption in DC? And it's like, don't you guys realize that's exactly how we got into this fix? You know, it doesn't do any good to like talk about this clear out the corruption in DC when you know the people who are wanting to take it over are the most corrupt of all. So anyway, and actually that was clearing the corruption in Santa Fe. I was like, you know, I just feel like we have bigger problems. So um speaking of not necessarily knowing what things mean, you all might be kind of amused by this story because um on a happier note, Seasons of Sorcery Anthology is almost done. Sorry, I had to adjust in my chair here. Um well, actually, it is done. All the stories are done. Um I read Grace's story last night, and we sent out arcs last night and today, advanced reading copies. So if you are a reviewer and have not gotten a copy, then let us know. Um and then we're doing the final proofing today and sending it a formatter. And it releases next Tuesday. Woo-hoo. So I was reading Grace's story fairly late last night. I guess it felt later than it was, right? Because of the setting of the clocks back. And I'd had a little bit of brandy. And Grace has been like awake for five days straight, finishing this story. And uh so we were both kind of punchy. But it's a really great story, it's a fantastic story, as all of her stories are. But she had a uh a woman who plays a flute made of bone. And so she kept recall, she kept referring to it as the bone flute, and then she would talk about how the heroine was playing the blow bone flute. And then when she separated from the hero, she says um that you know she missed him especially when she played the blow played the bone flute. And so I emailed Grace and I said, So did you know that playing the bone flute is a euphemism for blowjob? You know, like sucking that, and and she's like, Oh my god, you have the mind of a 12-year-old boy. I was like, Well, I didn't think up the euphemism, I just happened to be aware of it. So she she changed it. It's still a bone flute, but she changed some of the phrasing so that the heroine is not actually playing the bone flute, and I think it'll it'll be fine. But uh that was a pretty amusing thing. I hope you don't mind me saying that, Grace, but it's too late now. Uh I've also I'd read Jennifer's story, Winter's Web, a while ago, and then um Grace's is called A Wilderness of Glass. And I also read Amanda's this weekend, so I think I've got them in an order that they will be very satisfying to read. Um, I was gonna, I was thinking about seasonal order, but I think it's better for those of you who want to read it straight through. I know a lot of you go and read whoever is your favorite author first, which is, you know, legit. I would do that. I certainly did that with like every anthology I ever bought, so I don't know why I worry about reading order. I would always like buy it for the one author that I loved, read that story, and then I'd maybe look at the other ones. Although, you know, a lot of my experience with those would be ones that like um JD Robb would have a novella, and those were put together by the publisher, right? And I think a couple of the writers would sometimes be her friends. I know that um Mary K. McComas has been Nora Roberts, and JD Robb is Nora Roberts' pseudonym. I think they've been friends for forever since they were newbie writers. So she may have, Nora may have exerted some influence to get her in there. But otherwise, I think the publisher kind of puts those together by, you know, sort of to pimp whatever author they are trying to uh bring up in the world. And I don't know, I could be wrong, but with those sorts of anthologies, like the four-author anthologies, I don't think they pay much attention to reading order or care, um, which is too bad because I do think that putting an anthology together is kind of an art. I know that with Devil's Doorbell, we paid very close attention to the reading order, so that it would take you through a certain um sense of you know, a different experience, sort of an overall experience. And something I've really noticed with um, you know, with sort of losing the whole record album concept, uh, the advent of shuffle play. And I say this as somebody who who loves shuffle play. I I use shuffle play all the time. Uh, but there are times when I really have to, in fact, certain albums I would have to go in and change the settings. I finally figured out how to do it on iTunes, and now I'm moving over to Google Play Music because I have this Android phone. Uh and I I can talk about that some if you guys care. But um I would have I I finally figured out how to set an album so it would only play in order and not shuffle. Because some albums I really do believe should be listened to in order. Um, you know, it's great to do shuffle play with a whole bunch of albums and songs, so it sort of uh creates a sense of listening to the radio, like back when radio was really fun to listen to that way. Um maybe it still is. I don't listen to much radio. It it was very bad for a while there. It got really bad in like the 90s because of that whole clear channel nonsense. But and I think that it's better again. But anyway, um, you know, there's something to be said for that experience of listening to um sort of different components of an overall thing that creates a sense of an arc. And so with Seasons of Sorcery, you know, we talked a whole lot about what our stories would be like and you know, the level of sexy times in them, and the uh sort of our themes and what we were trying to do. And I think Amid the Winter Snow did a really nice job on our anthology from last year of sort of creating that overall user experience. So funny that we talk about users now. But you know, it's um I think it's a it's a valid thing. So anyway, um, if you like the authors, uh if you know that you like all of us, or if most of us, um I suggest reading it in order and let me know what you think. Because it was interesting for me to try to figure that out. What the ideal order would be. Um, and I was gonna mention Google Play Music. So for forever, like many people, I've had all of my music in iTunes grudgingly. I have not been happy about it. iTunes drives me up the freaking wall. I ripped all of my CDs to iTunes and uploaded them, and um, which was a massive effort because we have a lot of CDs, you know. With Dave and I come from an you know, I remember, shake my cane here, I remember buying my first CD. And I remember David and I discussing it uh somewhat extensively because we had so many cassette tapes, and you know, we were like, okay, should we buy one of these newfangled CD players? Because we're gonna have to convert our music collection. We're gonna, you know, and we already kind of had gone through that because David had tons of record albums, and I had some, and we'd so we'd gone from record albums to cassette tapes, um, which was not as good because the cassette tapes, of course, wore out. Uh they would always, you know, they'd get tangled and out, and even if you were very careful with them, the tapes would begin to stretch over time and the music would get kind of warped. Um, and the CDs promised they'd give us the same sound quality as vinyl. Um, and they reminded us of records, and they were just easier to deal with. And of course, the car started coming with CD players after not long after that. So when we converted, you know, we committed to the fact that it was going to be a financial investment because we would have to um replace cassettes with CDs, and it was interesting, you know, like which albums I eventually replaced and which I could let go. But all of those wonderful mixtapes, you know, we used to make each other mixtapes all the time, which we could eventually do on CD, but we couldn't for a while. A lot of those mixtapes were lost in that transition. So when I ripped all of the CDs to iTunes, sort of my ongoing quest since then had been a, you know, how can I listen to my entire music collection? Because I went to buying things digitally. And some albums I even broke down and just bought them digitally because iTunes made it so freaking hard for me to listen to the thing that I'd already bought, and it made me so mad. But, you know, they kind of had me over a barrel. But I never could get absolutely everything to play through my devices. I didn't have enough room, or you know, like the iCloud was supposed to let me play, but some things it just wouldn't, and I think some of it had to do with digital rights management. DRM. So anyway, with the Android, I'm gonna sneeze. Thank you. Um with the Android phone, I finally figured out that I can use Google Play Music, and Google Play Music will allow me to host up to 50,000 songs for free through them. And I have uh somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 songs, so I'm good. So over the weekend I have been uploading or transferring, and Google Play Music made it pretty easy. I've been just transferring all of my music over to them. And um, yeah, I think they're just so now Android has gotten my business, and Google Play Music is gonna get my business. I'm really happy to be liberated from iTunes. Uh you know, and so so it goes. And I I won't be I just find that very interesting that I'm moving away from so much of the Apple stuff, most of which I didn't really want to have to begin with, but it was the the best and easiest thing to have. And now that's no longer true. You know, I love more competition in the marketplace. Um I have my books up on Google Play and selling more and more of those all the time, and people are telling me they're reading them on their phones. So I think that's um that's significant too. So I sent off, so I'm all done with Dragons of Summer. I got the copy edits yesterday and did those for the anthology. Done with that. Um sent off Twin Star, the collaboration to my collaborator to read. Um and I suspect we'll be sending it to the agent pretty quickly and get her check on it. And so then today I am going into Sorcerer's Moons. Yes, I know you're all happy. Um I still haven't finished reading The Forests of Drew. So hi Jackson. That was a kind of a yawn meow. He's ready to go out, I guess. Yeah, he says so. He has that high-pitched neutered boy meow. That's so cute. Because he's a really big kitty. Um oh, so I have to finish reading The Forests of Drew. So I think today might be a fairly laid back day. I'm going to uh do a lot of reading and making notes, and I'll start writing some, but it won't be a major word count hit. Which sounds pretty leisurely, doesn't it? So I hope you all have a wonderful day. I hope you have a wonderful week. Um I hope that good triumphs over evil. Uh if you didn't know my politics already, you know them now. Um and yeah, yeah. Um I hope you all I hope you all have, you know, find something something to be hopeful about. Regardless of politics, I hope that we all can feel good about where we're going and what we need to do to each other. What do we owe to each other? I love that. From the good place. Such a great show. Oh, and I didn't talk about a starsboard, but maybe I'll I'll make a note, talk about it tomorrow. Hope you all have a great week. Talk to you later. Bye bye.