First Cup of Coffee - June 18, 2021

Some discussion of the elephant in the room and what we don't talk about regarding whether or not our books are successful. Also why we must learn our artistic process and own it, then improve without trying to change it.

Grace's Facebook post is here (https://www.facebook.com/grace.draven/posts/10222439615552000) and the Passive Voice article I mention is here (https://www.thepassivevoice.com/gaming-the-publishing-industry/?fbclid=IwAR20cQwRWIIKnys-XbFi2b7TqUCHr59Q_fGh3ezROsFe9uzfPVv1SnhwW_M).

You can watch the You Tube video of the podcast here (https://youtu.be/d_AnQ0jZdLY).

First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy Romance and Romantic Fantasy, here with my second cup of coffee. Alert watchers among you may note that it is um later in the morning than typical. It's about 9.20 here, and I am sundappled. I have to find the right place within this. It's nice though having the garden behind me. I can actually enjoy looking at it from there too. So yeah, I've been dealing with things this morning. Um my folks are having to uh bail on their trip. So I got a uh flight this morning. I had to be on hold for 40 minutes to get my stepdad a flight from uh Colorado to Tucson. Because I think because it was the same day, I couldn't book it online. Um and so yeah, 40 a minute whole time. The times we live in, right? I should stay sitting up because then I'm a little bit less mottled looking by the sun. Uh sun dappling is good though, right? And these earrings show up nicely. These are, oh well, I should finish what I was telling you. No, let's talk earrings and then I'll finish. Um, but they are pretty. They are unfortunately clip-on, and I've considered having these changed to posts because I know you can do that on some. Uh, except if you're what if you're watching the video, you can see that the clip comes from the bottom, and I'm not sure it would work with a post. I think they would rotate. Uh, they're very interesting earrings though, kind of deco. Um 50s maybe, maybe earlier, maybe like 30s or 40s. Uh, also from my grandmother's costume jewelry collection. Aren't they pretty how they catch the light? It's a um an almost full globe. It's a little bit flattened, but cabuchon. Uh, if you read my books, you know I talk about cabochon jewels a lot. I love cabochon, and and you don't find them very often, certainly not well done like this. Um, so beautiful cabochon crystal, and then with a couple of half circles beneath, semicircles beneath one which is uh has some Pave crystals in it, some of which are missing. Uh I've thought about trying to replace those two. Um, except that these are the clip-on earrings, which means if any of you have ever worn clip-on earrings for any length of time, um you you just can't they really hurt after a while. These have a fairly gentle grip, a pretty good spring on them. They might have been pretty good earrings. I mean, pretty expensive earrings once upon a time. I don't know, but they sure have a wonderful glow to them. And I have worn them from time to time for party occasions, and um, they're definitely fun for retro, but sometimes I feel like I should give them to someone. I should give them to someone like Mary Robinet, who does lots of um 50s dress-up. She's uh heading out as president of Cepha. So um, so yeah, uh she's been on my mind lately. She has done a lot for Cepha and her time, coped with uh a very unusual couple of years for her term. We did the board transition yesterday, and that that went great. So so we're getting things handled. Um, and then this weekend I will spend, uh I'm gonna drive up to Colorado in the morning. David and I will do that and get my mom and bring her back to Santa Fe, and then I will drive her to Tucson on Sunday, and then we I will fly back home on Monday. Fortunately, however, the book is going very well. Um, a big change from yesterday, right? Uh I got 3,000 words yesterday, and it felt pretty good. Uh felt like I had my clause in the story again, rather than it having its clause in me. And and the ending occurred to me. I was like, oh wait, the ending, I think I know what the ending is. And then Emily Ma, who has been beta reading it for me, had finished reading what I'd written so far, and she texted me and suggested an ending, and it was the same ending I thought of. So I was like, okay. So as my mom this morning was saying that she was sorry for disrupting my life, I said, Well, you know, fortunately the book is going better, so I can handle a few more things. Uh and I said, I figured out what the ending's gonna be. And she said it that's so funny. And I said, Well, it's not funny from this end. It's a view good from the cheap seats. Um, but she said, well, that she thinks that just most writers know what these what the ending is gonna be before they even write the book. And I said, It's not true. So some do. You know, and this all comes back to knowing what your process is and owning it. And I will caveat that me angsting about it, I feel like still counts as owning it. Um, I reserve the right to uh both understand my process, own it, and and still thrash over it. I feel like that's legit for any of us. So, yes, I do know some writers who like write the ending first. Um, this is not me. Uh I for whatever reason, and sometimes I think it um comes from like however we start writing, or I who knows. I mean, it would be interesting to look at how we form our process and all of the influences that go into that. One thing that I feel fairly certain about is that while our own process may migrate over time and it may change from book to book, I don't believe that it's um something that we can really change. And that's why I talk about learning what it is and owning it. I just know so many writers who have tried to change their process because they don't like what it is. They want to be able to write faster, they want to be able to outline first, uh, they want to be able to do all kinds of things that the process is, their current process is not lending itself towards. I think sometimes we think we want to change our process because we think another process will be easier, um, less angsty, more fun. And um, I don't know, maybe, maybe it would be. I kind of think it wouldn't. Um, I think that kind of comes from the you know, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I think it always looks like other riders are doing it better and having an easier time than we are. Um, any such. Okay, so like already these earrings are starting to bug me. Um they like cut off the blood circulation to your earlobes. Um, I'm just gonna take them off. Yeah, see. So I really would change them to the post, but don't you think if I if they were on a post and they were just on that little thing, wouldn't this heavy circle rotate down? Maybe not. Maybe the balance is right. I should take them to a jeweler and see if I could do that. Massaging my earlobes to get the blood flow back in them. Ah, alas. So, process. You guys are here for process, not earrings, right? Maybe you're here for both. There are so many things here that fall under the first cup of coffee brand. So I think that there's always a desire to improve our process, and I think that's that's a good desire. I think the desire to change our process, hoping that we can find something that would be better or easier, is understandable, but is it really possible? I feel like no, because I've just seen too many people really dash their heads against the wall trying to change their process. Um I'll always get when I say this, I always get someone say, Well, my process changed, you know, because in order to get this book done, I had to. But sometimes I think that's the book driving the process, not the um the conscious mind of I want to be able to write faster. So um, but my process is definitely linear. I write beginning to end. I almost never write scenes out of order. Every once in a while, of a scene from later on come to me, and sometimes it'll come to me strongly enough that I will go ahead and write it down. But the thing is, is by the time I get to it, the story has changed enough that I end up rewriting that scene anyway. Um, and even Dorinda has said the same thing. Uh, she'll she'll do that too, and she always always ends up changing it. I don't think it does you that much good to write down those scenes. But there are writers who write scenes out of order. Uh they like to use Scrivner and they like to do the puzzle piece thing. Uh that kind of gives me hives because I don't understand how you can um shift scenes around in a story. Stories feel very linear to me. Uh and because of that, I usually know my beginnings. Um, I almost always know my beginnings. I know my characters and their situation. But the ending is something I discover as they discover it. And um while it occasionally drives me crazy, as it was last week with this book, it's um just kind of how it goes. That's um art ain't easy, right? Um I only know, actually, I can only think of one offhand. One writer I know who says that writing is not angsty for her ever. Um take that for what it's worth. Uh I guess I feel like if if someone feels like I'm trying to find a non-dappled spot. Oh, look, this one's good. Uh if you're I'm gonna turn the computer. There. If your writing is super easy, with the exception of this one person because she writes good books, but I think um, you know, maybe you're not digging deep enough. Something to think about. Oh, I'm gonna sneeze. Thank you. Um Grace Draven, bestie Grace, big name author. You'll understand why I mean if you watched, I think it was yesterday's podcast. She uh shared an interesting article from the passive voice on Facebook about uh something that she and I had been discussing. And I think I mentioned it on the podcast here. In fact, I know I did, and I got pushback from quite a few people. But I'll I'll share the link to the article because it's a very good article. But they said, and I can't remember who writes the passive voice, I don't really look at it very often, but at any rate, the author brought up the fact that um there are always these conversations from authors wanting to know how to improve the books that they have out there, and that there are these conversations, and and Grace and I are part of groups where there are these conversations, and this is why I referred to whenever it was last week or something, uh where you know authors will say, you know, okay, so I've done all of these things, you know. I changed up the covers, I changed up the blurbs, I um, you know, have you know put the first book free, I you know, did all, you know, I poured all this money into Facebook ads and all of these things, and the series is still not selling well. And and what's interesting to me is that sometimes uh these authors will say things like, you know, it's gotten very good reviews. And you go and you look at it, and it'll be like, yeah, they got a few good reviews, but then there will be other reviews saying, you know, like on that first book, that first free book, saying, Well, I read it because it was free, but um, you know, like I couldn't finish it. And it was kind of a muddle. And if people aren't finishing that first book and being super excited, they are not gonna go on to buy the second book, um, no matter how deeply discounted it is. Um, and that's that passive voice article brought up is this is the elephant in the room that nobody will talk about. And and Grace and I have both felt very much in this position that what you want to say to these authors is the problem is that the book isn't very good. You're writing, your chops aren't there yet. That doesn't mean that they won't ever be there, but they're not there yet. And and you guys know me. I mean, if you've been listening for a while, you know me that like my least favorite piece of advice, and it drives me crazy uh when I hear some author respond, you know, when someone says, How do I get my book published? or how you know how how do I become a successful author? And they're like, Well, the first thing you have to do is write a really good book. Makes me want to run screaming from the room, makes me want to hurl rocks at them. Because, first of all, that's not the only thing it takes. And second of all, that's a huge thing, you know, tell people write a really good book. That there's a lot to that, you know. That's like um telling people, well, in order to have a successful marriage, um, first of all, you need to marry the perfect person. It's like, well, yeah, but how how do you find that person? How you know, this is like this thing that's enormous that is easily encapsulated in a few words. Write a good book. What does that even mean? And this is the pushback that we get all the time is that people will say, well, reading is subjective, and that uh, you know, look at these books that aren't very well written but have been hugely successful. And the Passive Voice article touched on those too. Hello, Tohi. You know, that yes, there are exceptions, but there's also uh the reality that if the book is not written well enough to compel readers to keep going, then no amount of art marketing is going to save it. And you know, and I'm I guess I wish that wasn't true. Um teaching writing isn't easy, it's you know, suffer for your art. I don't know. Um it's not enough to have a great story. I have read a number of books that had um terrific premises that I wish that I had liked them better. But it takes time to learn to be a good writer. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry it takes time. It sucks. But, you know, like Grace and I are both people who we've both been writing for, oh my God, you know, like I mean, my first I first started trying to creative write in the early 90s. I mean, not counting school stuff and everything, but like when I decided to try to be a writer, it was it was the early 90s. So, you know, it's 30 years and and Grace is very similar. And you know, the thing is, is while we decry the gatekeeping of traditional publishing, which you know, sometimes they gatekeep, I feel like the mottled monster here. Um it probably doesn't look so bad on your end. Uh while we I think traditional publishing, as I talked about yesterday, sometimes they screw up. Do to do do I keep trying to find a good spot. How's this? I could just crane my neck down. I'm just gonna have to suffer with being modeled. Uh grape leaves, right? Grape leaf modeling. Um traditional publishing makes mistakes, obviously, and I don't agree with that. Um but there's a difference between them rejecting a book because it's too cross-genre and because it's not well written enough. And one thing about the traditional publishing gatekeeping was that it made you have to up your game. And with self-publishing, the only the only feedback that you guys are gonna get or that authors are going to get on upping your game is the fact that people aren't buying the next books. And if that's what's happening, if you've tried all the other things and people aren't continuing with the series, then you have to look at maybe that's a problem. And you know, sucks, but but that's life, right? You know, you you don't get to play for the NBA unless you practice. I don't know. Whatever, apply your and your favorite analogy. But writing a whole lot of words, um, you know, if you have a series that isn't selling, my best advice to you is let go of it, leave it up for sale if you want. Uh, it's not hurting anything, uh, unless it's so bad that people are deciding that they'll never read you again. And and then in that case, you'll know. But otherwise, put your energy into write something new. Um, improve your writing. There's lots of ways to do that. Um, I won't go into that because I've already talked for 20 minutes. But uh, if you guys want more advice on how to improve your writing, maybe I can talk about that. I will not be well, I may podcast on Monday because I'll be at my parents' house. So maybe we'll do that. We'll see. At any rate, I hope you all have a great weekend. Um go do something fun, practice something you want to get better at. And oh, crash. Oh, clank your coffee cup into the table. I'll remind you all that first cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Media Podcast Network, and you will find more podcasts that you love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And I will talk to you all Monday or Tuesday. Take care. Bye bye.