First Cup of Coffee - July 2, 2021

A #FaRoFriday shoutout to Jennifer Estep's CAPTURE THE CROWN. Also first experiences on receiving jewelry from people who aren't family, whether it should be GREY MAGIC or GRAY MAGIC, and other ditherings.

You can find CAPTURE THE CROWN  here (https://www.jenniferestep.com/books/capture-the-crown/).

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

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 0:02

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy Romance and Romantic Fantasy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Which came out weird this morning. I'm not sure why. The um frost didn't froth the way that it usually froths. And it doesn't taste as wonderful. I might have to do a redo. Maybe the milk was funky. Milk didn't seem funky. Doesn't taste funky. Who knows? Complex biological systems, even though this is not a biological system. All right, well, do you all know what today is? Today is Friday, uh July 2nd. Long weekend for many here in the US, being Independence Day. I believe yesterday was Canada Day for our neighbors up north. And uh we're not doing anything. I I kind of wish we were. We were looking around for stuff, but um, you know, drought here in New Mexico, so there won't be much in the way of fireworks. It might be rainy, which is infinitely preferable to drought. Um we thought about going to this um to the end of the mountain gods, which we like, uh, as longtime listeners know, uh, because they're having a big fireworks display over this lake. And, you know, we could, you know, it was like, oh, you know, cute balcony room. We could watch the fireworks for my room, could be cool. They were gonna have music and stuff. Um, but $500 a night, they were asking. And then they sold out while we were dithering over whether we wanted to pay $500 a night. Um, reader, we did not want to pay that much. Um, especially if there was a good chance that it would get rained out. I'm not happy with my coffee. I might have to go make another one. We'll see how I can how I do getting through this. Um, so uh thank you all for all the congratulations yesterday on being president of Cepha. Um there there is debate. Is it CIFA or Cepha? I say Sephwa. Um, I thought that was the correct way, and then people have asked me about it. Um it's not SFWA, I can promise you that. Science fiction, fantasy writers of America. Um, I think I default towards Cefa because I have a little bit of that Western drawl. I never thought that I did, but I um I don't know. In my old age, I'm becoming more aware of the fact that I have this um a little bit of Western drawl. You know what is bringing it out for me is trying to do like voice to text. Um voice to text is ruthless about showing where you slur your words and makes it into other things. Um like I did one this morning where I did open parenthesis, said my thing, and then closed parenthesis, and it came out as closet princess. It did the correct open parenthesis, but uh closet princess at the end, which, as you all know, I am not a closet princess. I am fully out as a princess. Um, yeah. So working on my enunciation. Let's do earrings before we go too much farther. Today's are tiny little studs. If you are on video, you might be able to see a small gleam in the distance. I think these are also too small for me. Um, I may give them to my granddaughter. I am not sure where they came from. I may have had them forever. Tiny little teardrop shape, possibly aquamarines in a gold setting. They they're pretty, but they're they're beansy, look, and they're like grain of rice. They're they're literally like the size of a grain of rice. So I I just never wear them. Um I think they are too small. They're meant for a little girl. I should give them to my daughter, granddaughter Arrow. Uh, but I also put on this ear cuff, which is also from the 80s, um, which I'm sure all of you recognized immediately. And it is uh this pretty gold ear cuff. Oops, I actually put it on the wrong ear because it should be this way. Um and it has on the cuff itself has a little uh etched design of kind of a stylized sun, sort of looks like almost like the the eye of God with the sun rays coming out, and then um a dangly with liquid gold, what we called liquid gold in the day, which is basically just strung together bugle beads in three loops. And this was a gift from my high school boyfriend, Kevin. Hi Kev. And I loved it at the time that he got it for me. He got it for me, so I wore the the ear cuff the other day that had the the blue beads and the stars. I'd bought that for myself and I loved it, and then he bought this for me. And I think it was like the first time that anyone ever bought a piece of jewelry for me. Um who was I'm remembering another story though, who was um like not family. So isn't that pretty? There's no reason I need to fuss with my hair. I was just uh enjoying the uh the gleam of my ear cuff. And it does show up in the tenebris depths of my hair. So, um oh, the story I was thinking of. I was just remembering that um this sort of bizarre incident in high school, it wasn't that bizarre, I guess, but um that was before Kev, where this one guy who was on the speech and debate team with me, um gave me a necklace, and it had like a little heart on it um with uh it was not a diamond, which is what he told me. He gave me this necklace, kind of out of the blue, and um and he said it he says it's not a real diamond, not yet. And um, and I was so totally taken aback by this because, well, David teases me about this. I am I am oblivious to interest in me. Um, I used to think, I used to tell David all the time that um you know not that many men had ever, you know, guys had ever been interested in me. David was one of the few people who ever like actually asked me out on a date. And uh you know, and look what happened there. Um but so I was always telling him that, you know, it's like, oh well, you know, not that many guys have ever been interested in me. And he's like, no, they are. He says, I see it all the time, you know, like they're looking at you, they flirt with you, and you're just like completely oblivious. So apparently I've been completely oblivious my entire life, uh, because this guy, Robert, um just gave me this necklace, not a real diamond, not yet. And I was like, flabbergasted. I mean, you guys, I mean, let's you know, I'll admit I'm oblivious, but you know, like we had never been out on a date. We hadn't, you know, nothing, nothing. And I think this was like his way of asking me out, you know, and we did this whole weird thing in the 80s where you would like ask someone to go with you, and I was like in sixth grade, and um this guy Joel asked me to go with him, and I said yes, but then I had no idea what that meant. Um, I mean, you wanted a guy to ask you to go with him, and then I don't know. It was um I don't know what to tell you guys. Maybe you can tell me. You should explain this to me. Um, so yeah, Robert, Robert and his necklace and is not a real diamond, not yet. Um, and I did not accept it. I I gave it back to him um immediately. I think right in that moment, I said, um, you know, try to be nice. But you know, I said, Oh, well, you know, it's so sweet and I appreciate this, but um I'm I'm you know, not not interested in you that way, uh, you know, just a friend. And I think I kind of broke his heart. But then I I learned later he gave the necklace to a different girl. So, you know, apparently the purchase was not wasted. So that may have counted as like my first outfamily uh jewelry gift, but um but this one from Kev was welcome and and kept all this time, and uh, I believe Kev never gave me any diamonds, real or otherwise. So, but uh I loved him anyway, and actually I love him still. Kev and I are are still friends, and uh I dedicated the Promised Queen to him. So if you wonder, there's a little bit of inside information. If you wonder who the Kev in the Promised Queen is, um that's him. Let's talk about uh my good friend Jennifer Estep has a book coming out after the long weekend here on July 6th. Uh, congratulations, Jennifer! And it is called Capture the Crown. I'll have to try to get this up here so it's like not glaring with the light from the Great Barber. Uh look at that pretty cover, beautiful cover, Capture the Crown, and it's um for those of you not on video, it is uh in these wonderful ombre shades of teal going down to dark, and it's got uh a crown on a branch of thorns. So this is the first book in Jennifer's uh Gargoyle Queen series. Oh, and she got a nice blurb from Charlene Harris. Go you, Jennifer. That was great. Um she says this is action at its finest. Jennifer does action so much better than I do. Um we're always arguing about um Steam versus Scream. But this book, you guys, Capture the Crown, Gemma Leonidas, uh Be Still My Heart. This is probably my favorite um series of Jennifer's yet. I have to say that like book two is even better than book one, but start with book one because it's amazing. Um it is uh slow burn enemies to lovers. Um it is oh, she just really outdid herself with Leonidas. Uh, she's got a great magic system. There are gargoyles, there are um giant birds that people fly on, magical kingdoms. This is um related to her world in Crown of Shards. I think I got the series title right this time. I always want to say shards of honor, and I'm always wrong. Jeffrey's like, no, Jeffy, that's Lois McMaster Boujalt. I'm like, I know, I know, I'm sorry. Um Same World, uh, that one star with Kill the Queen. Uh but this is like Same World many years later, and it's just it's it's her most romantic series yet, and it's it's delicious, you guys. I'm I'm envious of all of you getting to read it for the first time. So, you know how that is? Yeah. So capture the crown, guys, check it out, and uh happy release, Jennifer. So, um, what's going on in my world? Here we are already at Friday of my week off. I still have tons of things on my list. I've gotten a lot done this week, and yet I feel like I still have lots to do this week. Um, so I'm still trying to decide if oh well, I should give you an update. I did get uh proofs, copy edits spec. I think I mentioned that yesterday on Bright Familiar, and I did go through those all yesterday. I did not do a read-through. I resisted, and so I just um did my bounce-through track changes, got everything fixed up, got the pre-order done for Gray Magic. I keep waffling on this, you guys, because I chose the title Gray Magic, and I think I wrote it down habitually because I wrote it as G-R-A-Y, Gray Magic. And that's the Americanization. That's and that's how I've always remembered it is that it's it's bugging me that this side of my hair is sticking up. I should stop fussing with it there. Um so British spelling for gray is G-R-E-Y, American is G R A Y. And you can, and I remember it that way for A for American, E for English. And but I like EY better. But when I wrote down the title, I I think I just habitually did it as AY because I'm always supposed to use Americanization spellings, even though I Britishisms creep into my writing for whatever reason. Too much Mary Stewart in my youth. Jane Austen, who knows? But I had decided that I was going to make the title BGGR EY because it looks cooler and because I can. But then I defaulted to AY and I set up the pre-order with it being AY, and this would be like my last chance. I could go through and change it, and I'm trying to decide if I kind of waffled on it yesterday and I was like, oh, just go with AY. So should I go in and change it? This is like my last opportunity because um it'll I mean the cover's not done, so it's probably not the last, very last, but I should I should change it now if I'm going to change it. Or should I mean does anybody care? Am I the only one who cares? I I don't know. I'm I'm on Tenter Hooks, on the horns of a dilemma. Um so I don't know. What do you guys think? I might I might throw it up on social media. Is it worth changing at this point? I would have to tell my formatter to change it to EY in the back of the book. Uh I don't know if it's worth it. See? See, I just can't decide. So that's done. At least uh pre-orders all um are in. Should be getting stuff back from the formatter. Um and then I can upload it, and so it'll be ready to go for July 9th. I have um passed a thousand pre-orders on Bright Familiar. Thank you all. That's uh that's really good for me. So I'm excited about that. Um yeah, I've been, you know, crunching royalties and stuff and really happy with how Dark Wizard has performed. And someone asked me a while back, I think I even mentioned this, that one of the authors that I'm coaching asked me if I would stop doing the Heirs of Magic books because Dark Wizard, because Bonds of Magic was doing so much better. And I said no, partly because I'd committed and I want to write the Airs of Magic books. But also I felt like I should probably say that um Golden Griffin and the Bear Prince and The Sorceress Queen and the Pirate Rogue, you know, both earned out my financial investment, you know, almost immediately on release day, which is how I like it. And I know not everybody um is that fortunate, but but those books have. So it's like it's a matter of scale. It's I'm not losing money on them, I'm still making money on them. And so I um yeah, definitely keep going. Uh I would I'm trying, I was about to say that I would keep going even if I was losing money on them, but that's patently not true because I did not keep going on misconnections. Although, I don't know if I told you guys um the misconnections books, I'm finally in the black on those. So it's like, yeah, shall I turn around and sink some more money into those books? Um, one of my friends, Katie Lane, says that I should because she says once I have that complete series, it will so much better. Hello, Hummer. Always wonder if she'll get caught on the video here. She's sitting up on the grape barber limb. Did you see her? I think she flew away. She doesn't want to be on camera. That's a prettier view though. We'll do that so you don't have so much of my head in the way. Oops. So, um, so yeah, I keep thinking maybe one day I'll go back to Miss Connections. What's weird is those sell really well on radish. Those like do the best on radish of any of my books. But you know, time, time and time and time. So yeah, I'm kind of waffling on what I'm going to do today. Clearly, I'm in a didhery mood. I'm not being decisive today. Should I devote it to just catching up more on business? Should I work on the secret project? Is it worth working on the secret project? Um, I worry about getting too deep in that, not being able to keep going. You know, I really should start Dragon's Daughter on Monday. I uh I can't decide. All opinions welcome. So um, I guess I'll instead of sitting here wondering about it, I'll go make some decisions. I'll 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. Take care. Bye bye.