First Cup of Coffee - June 29, 2021

On Dread & Procrastination™ and why Shipping Things slides down my list. (Spoiler: it's not rational.) How habits help us overcome these weird blocks, and a story about baby quail and bad parenting. 

You can find BRIGHT FAMILIAR here (https://jeffekennedy.com/bright-familiar).
And THE LONG NIGHT OF THE CRYSTALLINE MOON is here  (https://jeffekennedy.com/the-long-night-of-the-crystalline-moon).

You can watch the You Tube video of the podcast here (https://youtu.be/G44RjOZlx90).

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. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Hmm. And I'm indoors today. Today is Tuesday, June 29th. I thought I could have a little drizzly Grape Arbor uh podcast, but unfortunately it's or fortunately actually, fortunately, it's raining too hard for that. Yay, rain. If you notice my slight pause, it's because Zencaster put a pop-up saying that Zencaster is using my camera and microphone. It's like, thanks guys. Thanks. Appreciate the helpfulness. This is like total trivia, but one thing I like about my phone is that it shows me the weather on the lock screen. So I just have to show you guys. See, look at that. Oh, it's all glary. Anyway. How can I not get glared? Let me turn off this light. Okay. It's saying I need to Okay. There we go. Well, still gonna be glary. But you can see the raindrops sliding down there. And yes, I have dark wizard as my wallpaper. Alright. Turn the desk lamper back on. So anyway, there's your corroboration that it really is raining. Um we went for a walk this morning in between rain showers, but uh the ground is getting nicely saturated. It's amazing. And so that's it for me today. Oh, just realized that my mind was a blank. So a few things, mostly stemming off of yesterday and reactions to yesterday, I made notes. Um my thing about shipping stuff, I appreciate people offering hopeful, helpful hints. And yes, um, I have told many other authors of the great trick, which is that you can use PayPal multimedia shipping to estimate weight and or to put in the weight and print out your mailing label and mail it direct from your house. This is not a going to the post office thing. In fact, I managed to go to the post office because I had a package that I was supposed to send assistant Corrine for a really, really long time. And uh for international stuff, I do have to go to the post office. And I managed to go and I mailed her a thing, and I mailed Kelly Robson a thing, and I thought, okay, I'm getting to this stuff, but then I still haven't dealt with the books. It's not rational. Why getting stuff shipped out is a block for me is totally not rational. You know how there's like these things on your to-do list that just slide down your list, like an email that you have to answer, or some task, like you've got to call the insurance company and find out about X, and you procrastinate day after day after day, and it slides down your list. And the thing about this, the really deadly thing about this is that the longer you procrastinate, the more it slides down your list, the more it builds up this, I don't know, dread around it. I mean, I talk about that with writing, right? I talk about that, maybe I haven't talked about it in a while, but the dread and procrastination. That if you build a writing ritual, it enables you to just you have the habit. So you just go and you start writing. And that dread and procrastination doesn't have a chance to build up. Whatever that is in human nature, that when we procrastinate doing a thing, it's like it starts accreting extra procrastination layers and it and it develops a dread force field so that you don't the more you don't do the thing, the more you don't want to do it. I don't know. Is this a natural selection thing? Maybe what what I don't know what purpose it would serve, but I think you all know what I'm talking about because I see people mentioning it. Because like when you finally buckle down and like the day before the deadline, you finally fucking call the insurance company and the task is done in like five minutes, and you're like, why did I wait six months to deal with this really stupid easy thing? Um, why that is, I don't know. Oh I just got a text because I forgot to silence the phone because I'm inside and not outside. I bet it's my mother, shall we see? It is my mother. Good morning. Happy Tuesday okay, and now I'm gonna silence so um shipping is something that slides down my list. And even though I ship from home and it should be easy, it's I I don't even know you guys. There's there's no logic to it. I mean, it's it's this completely irrational thing, but it's like I have to get the books out, and then I have to go to PayPal and I have to, and and usually I procrastinate enough that I have like 20 I have to do, and it takes me hours, and I have to go in and put in all of the addresses and print out all of the labels, and sometimes that means I have to fuck with the printer and I have to find mailing envelopes for them all, and make sure I have enough packing tape, and you know, probably if I were a well-honed operation where I was shipping stuff out every day, it would be no problem, and that's why I think I should just try to do this have a day once a week where I do this like Friday afternoon or something. Except that, you know, unless I've had a recent release, I don't even have that many print things to send out on a regular basis. I I don't know. I don't know what I can't tell you. Um but I am really hoping to get this off of my list. I have a bunch of things on my list. You guys would not believe how many things I have on my list. Um, I got through some things yesterday. I'm hoping to get through a lot more today. I am feeling tons better today. I'm much more rested today. It really helped to just do business yesterday and not try to write. Um, and it does help to get some of these things off my list as well. Doctor's appointments. I need to make some doctor's appointments, and this has been sliding down my list for months, months now. We need to find David a new general practitioner. Have I done this? No. I have to like go into because we got no insurance, so I have to go in and I have to find a new network doctor, and then I have to do research, and we have to find someone who will be worthwhile, and then we have to make an appointment. And all of this I know full well that it's gonna be like a couple months before he even gets in to see them, and it's like I really should do this. Have I done it? No, um, but I do write every day unless I'm taking a deliberate break like this. I mean, that's like my one defense, so I don't know. I don't know what to tell you guys. The human nature, weirdness being neurotic, who knows what it is. Let's talk earrings. So these earrings you will note if you are on video, are very small, and it's kind of a downside of them because they are um not easily noticed. But they are, I found these at a vintage store. They are teeny tiny little bluebirds. Look at that little cloison bluebirds. It's a bluebird with its wings spread in flight. Uh, and if you've been listening to me any length of time, you know that I love bluebirds. I love the bluebirds that nest around here, bluebirds of happiness. I love my little bluebird earrings. Um, they are definitely antique. And not once when I've worn them has anybody ever noticed them except, well, I shouldn't say not once, nobody ever notices them. This is when I edit when I wear them, except once. And it was Liana Renee Heber, if you guys know her, uh, who dresses up in Victorian styles, right? When she's at conferences, and I mean she just zeroed right in on those, and she goes, Are those Victorian bluebirds? And I said, They are, and I should have known that you would pick those out right away. I also have on an earcuff since these are so small that I felt like I needed a little bit more pizzazz. I've had this was the first ear cuff I ever owned, and I bought it when I was a teenager, I think at a Renaissance festival, and it's a gold ear cuff, gold colored, with a little bit of playful design on it, and then two strands of beads, blue and crystal with little breast stars on the end. Isn't that cute? Um, this began in an episode of uh earcuff wearing. Um because it was the 80s, you know, right? Um, but oh I I just love this thing and I wore it all the time. I don't wear it so often now. It might feel a little young. I'm also thinking with my bluebird earrings of giving them to my granddaughter because I think they would do better on a younger person. But I like them so much I don't want to give them to her until she's a little bit older. Because I don't want her to just lose them. But wouldn't they be cute on like a she's not 12 yet, but you know, like a 12, 13-year-old girl, they'd be perfect. They're a little too small, maybe, for an adult woman. Unless I like have my hair up. Yeah, even then they don't show up well. Oh well. Um so yeah, um I think it helps getting things off of my list because then there's not the weight of things that need to be done. Um and also I think that that that sort of dread and procrastination accretes on other things too, and it slows everything down. So, you know, I've been looking at why did I get slowed down um so much in the last couple months. Write Familiar was a harder write for some reason. I don't know if it's because um I'm feeling the accumulation of writing several books in a row like that. I I do have a more aggressive release schedule this year. So these are things that I look at when I'm tracking my own productivity and my own um energy levels and so forth. When I finished the Sorcerer's Queen and the Pirate Rogue in early April, and I was tired, and then we went away for the weekend, and it was really nice to have that weekend to decompress. And then I came back and I started in on Bright Familiar, and it was hard for me to make that transition. So that might have been a warning that it was um a little bit too tight of a schedule, a little too much. Um switching between worlds like that can be a palette cleanser, it can be rejuvenating, but it can also be more tiring in some ways because it's tapping different creative pools, if that makes sense. So um, and I've also been working harder on things like promo. It could be some of the taking on presidency of Cephwa. Although, I mean, we did have Nebula conference, we had a number of things. Also, we kind of kicked into conference season, even though it's online conference season. Um, and I traveled a couple times in April. You know, we went away for the weekend, and then we went to Tucson for a few days, and you know, it could be, I know I've observed a number of times with the surprise to me from pandemic year was how if I don't travel, how much more energy I have. So you would think conversely, I would not be surprised to discover that when I begin traveling again, I have less energy, and I'm probably gonna have to learn how to compensate for that. It's not my mother's fault. She's feeling bad. Um, first of all, that needed to happen. I needed to go get you guys, so that was high priority. My mom was asking me if I ever have migraines before, and I don't actually know that it was a migraine headache. Um, it's a particular kind of a headache, and my mom said that my grandmother had them and called them her sick headaches. And to me, they are it's not like your average run-of-the-mill headache, it's one that comes on fairly fast, and um and I become my eyes get very light sensitive, and I usually end up getting sick to my stomach, usually just like once, but I will throw up, and and then I have to sleep, and if and I'll go and I'll sleep for like 12 hours and I'll be fine. Um so I've had them occasionally throughout my life. The first one was when I was like 12 or 13, um, which I'm told is normal or is expected because it can be like a hormonal trigger. Um for me it's it's almost always when I've overextended when I am um giving a lot to other people. Um I get them more often in the summer when it's hot, usually late summer, but it's uh a lot of times it's associated with heat for me. Um yeah, and so I mean I get them like every once in a long while, like every I don't know, like three to five years, maybe I'll get one. So they all they're surprised when they come on, and I'm always I can feel it come on. I'm like, shit, I overextended, I did too much. Um in this case, I I mean it was too bad that I felt bad about missing the panel. Although I'm going to be doing the World Builders Chat uh a week from today, next Tuesday, if you want to tune in for that. It'll be at um, I just know it's at 11 mountain time. So that's my that'll be my makeup session. Um it's uh I needed to get that book done, and so I knew that I was pushing really hard to get that book done, and and I did, and I and I knew that the odds were high that I would crash afterwards, and I had already kind of figured that if I took this week off into my schedule that it would be alright, and I know this is something I come back to a lot that I feel like I might have to plan to take time off between books, um just the way it is, but not writing yesterday, I feel much better. Slept a long time last night, that helps. Rain, rain helps. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think it's just it's not a huge deal, it's just you know, one of those things. And I have friends who deal with migraines on a regular basis, and I am oh forever counting my blessings because that that is not me. Because on those occasions when I do get one, it just lays me out flat, and I don't know how people manage to work through them. I have um one friend who gets them regularly, like weekly, sometimes daily. Um, you know, and she's done everything. She's like gone to Mayo Clinic, she's done the you know all the drugs and everything. Um, Kelly Robson, my friend, gets them periodically. Um I don't know how often she would say. To me, it seems like she gets them maybe like once a month, once every couple months. Um, they seem to come in in groups, and and she's got medication for that, you know, and so I'm kind of I count my blessings that mine are so infrequent, and I just it just means I have to take care of myself. The other thing I was gonna tell you guys, just because I think this is funny, um, you know, we have these quail, wild quail that come around here, blue-scaled quail, and they're they're so funny because they they run and they they run real, and I don't know why it's funny the way they run, but they run really fast and their little legs are and they they clutch around here, they lay their eggs and we'll have little chicks. And so I got to see a batch of chicks the other day, and and we usually get to see the chicks every year, and because they live in this area, you know, I know that a lot of the coil I'm seeing are the chicks grown up, and I've gotten pretty accustomed to seeing them at their various life stages. The little tiny chicks, and then sort of the juvenile chicks, and then the young adults, and I can tell the young adults from the older adults because the young adults are slimmer and um their crests, their feather crests aren't as dramatic. So we had saw a mated pair with just like four chicks. Last year there was one clutch that I swear I never did count them all, but I swear she had almost 20 chicks. She had so many chicks. Um this year we saw this mated pair, and they've been hanging around a lot, and I saw them, and I'd been watching them because I thought they were gonna turn up with chicks, and they brought chicks into the water fountain, and they just had like three or four, and I was like, Oh, I hope that you know it could be that like that that's only as many as hatched, but it's also like more of them got picked off. I mean, you guys, these chicks, these chicks are they are this big. They are, I'm trying to think for those of you not on video how to describe it. I mean, the size of the palm of my hand, like the inner palm of my hand, and they are fluffy and they're like popcorn on toothpicks in in the wilds of the desert. And you know, you just know that they are so easy, and and they're they're hapless. I mean, they just like run around after the folks and they kind of peck at stuff, and then the the bigger quail move on and they look around and they're like, oh, oh shit, and then they go running after. I mean, it it's clearly a uh if you're familiar with ecology, you know, like all the money is on uh having large clutches and just producing so many that you hope a few make it to adulthood. So they only had a few with them, and I was like, oh, but and I could tell that these um that the parents were younger quail, not the older quail. And I was like, oh. So the other day, Jackson's out on his harness on his long leash, and I heard the quail. And you've heard me mention it on the podcast if you listen a lot. You know, you can hear the quail train, and you know, they're going, which basically means come on, let's go. And so I heard the quail train, and it sounded like they're right out front, and Jackson's like lying there in the shadows, and I thought, well, those quail aren't going to trot the chicks right across in front of Jackson, are they? Because the quail are are normally very, very leery of Jackson. You know, they they watch him and they they actually know how long his leash is and they circle around and all of this. And and I'm looking out there and I see Jackson pounce, and I can't see what he's pounced on, but I have this terrible feeling. And so I go running out there and uh tell him to let it go. And he did have a chick, and I made him let it go, and it did go running off into the weeds, so let's hope it's okay. Um, but I felt really bad about it, and I told David the story, and he says, Well, that just sounds like bad parenting to me. I was like, Yeah, I'm afraid that these young quail are kind of bad parents. But isn't that true of young parents? I mean, you don't know what you don't know yet, and it's a wonder that any chicks survive, right? So, on that note, I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday. I hope you have your chicks in a row and uh keeping an eagle eye on them. I'll remind you 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. I will talk to you all on Thursday. Take care. Bye bye.