First Cup of Coffee - July 23, 2021

How working slowly doesn't mean higher quality output, how what creators love best isn't always (or often) what their audience loves best or will buy, and how decoupling these ideas can be important for creative careers.

You can find WEDDED TO DARKNESS here (https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/product/B099BP5RC2).

You can watch this podcast on YouTube here (https://youtu.be/BQ2Si7Kvq1o).

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 back in my Great Barber and with my first cup of coffee. Oh, is that good? That's my first homemade latte since the beginning of the week. And that's uh, yeah, delicious treat. Nothing like the uh sleeping in your own bed, having your own homegrown latte. Uh today is, oh wow, say it with me. Friday! I didn't say it right. It's Friday, uh, July 23rd. It so does not feel like Friday to me. David and I were just discussing that, that it's um very strange because so what I didn't tell you guys, because even though David doesn't listen to the podcast, I didn't want to uh risk ruining the surprise. So David and I had planned for his birthday, which was Wednesday, to go down to Inn of the Mountain Gods on uh, which I've talked about before, and I posted some photos and stuff. Um we were gonna go down Tuesday afternoon, stay there Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and come back Thursday morning. And his uh brother and sister and their spouses decided to surprise him, and they drove down from northern Wyoming. And you guys, it was a total and complete surprise. Uh they arrived on Monday afternoon, and we went down to Inn of the Mountain Gods that afternoon, got there that evening. They drove all the way from Cheyenne to Santa Fe and got here about uh 1.30 in the afternoon, and David was out at the time, so I wasn't sure how to do this without tipping him off. But I'm actually very good at keeping secrets. It's like it's one of my superpowers. Which I know is odd because I I say I blab things, but I'm and I'm always trying to figure out what I can say and what I can't say. But when I know for sure that I can't say anything about a thing and I don't want to ruin a surprise, I'm I'm quite good at it. So I couldn't do anything like to get ready early. But Monday morning I did tell him to uh, you know, he was talking about maybe going in doing some driving and stuff, and I said, Oh, you know, since it's your birthday week, why don't you just relax, you know? And he'd mentioned he wanted to do several other chores. And I was like, Yeah, why don't you just hang out and do those things and don't worry about driving today? And he was like, hmm. And so that worked. Um, but he was out at the grocery store when they arrived, and I was texting with his brother. So uh they hid in the laundry room and then jumped out with the birthday hats and the noisemakers and yelled, surprise! And he was hugely surprised. In fact, we were all saying that as we get older, maybe we shouldn't do surprises like that because it was a little much of a surprise. So uh so yeah, it was big surprise, and then we had to hurry and get ready, and then we all jumped, all six of us, in uh my sister-in-law's vehicle, Rhonda's car, which I don't remember what kind it was, except it was big. And uh I'm terrible about remembering makes of cars. And so we drove down there, and and it was great. We had uh just a super fun time. Um it was beautiful weather. We played 18 holes of golf, all six of us, on uh Wednesday. Hung out on the deck at the golf club and had drinks. We loved drinks, there was much drinking. Um and I did a little bit of work here and there, but I had decided ahead of time that I wasn't gonna try to keep up with word count when I was there because I knew it would just be more stressful to me than just not. Um it's one thing I'm discovering is that uh when everybody else is on vacation, uh and I'm ostensibly on vacation, if I don't give myself that time off, it um doesn't work very well. So I did do a little bit of work. I dealt with some stuff with stuff. I uh I did finish the next episode of Wedded to Darkness, which I sent to Grace, but she hasn't replied to me on it, so I don't know if she read it or not. Um, but I think I might do a pass on that and get that put up this morning, and then I'll get more words. I'm trying, I'm sort of waffling. Excuse me. Do I go for get my 3K on Dragon's Daughter, which should be my prioritization? Um, or should I just do this revision of weted to darkness first so I can get it posted? Thinking short-term, just doing the revision and getting it posted makes a lot of sense. Um but yeah, um sorry, I started thinking about a couple different things at once. But for a long-term plan, uh I should prioritize whatever book I'm writing. So I think I should I think I just answered my own question, didn't I? Because I'm always in favor of making the choice that will lead to the long-term habit. So I'll get my 3K on Dragon's Daughter and then try to get um What It to Darkness, just make one more pass through it in case I have any missing words. Maybe I'll poke Grace Darling and see if she's going to read it or what, and then I'll get that posted today. If not, tomorrow morning. I think that's a good plan backup plan. I could always post it on the weekend. Um yeah. And let's see. Oh, yeah, and then meanwhile, Agent Sarah has been talking to some traditional editors, and we're going to talk on Tuesday. She and I, she's been sending me summations and updates. But apparently they want more of they really want to see one of my secret projects. And I know, I know. But I think now, right now, this is the only secret project. Well, no, that's not true. I lied. There's more than one. I'm sorry, sorry. Um, I don't I need to think of a code name for it that doesn't give it away. Yeah, I I can't even. It's just gonna have to be the secret project, you guys. Um, so anyway, I've written up a small piece of it for Sarah to see and for her to be able to pitch it. So I've got 5,000 words on it, and um, she would like me to have, she said if I was going to write more pages, that would be the project to focus on. And so I'm considering it. I write more pages, but it would be she wants like a hundred pages, so and I've got um I think twenty, something like that. I always think in terms of word count, what and I know that most people think in most people who aren't writers think in terms of pages. Um, but I did figure it out yesterday that I would need to write about 19,000 more words. I was sort of doing the math on my phone and the car because I was in the very, very back seat and I was reading, and I was just thinking about the book I'm reading. I'm reading an interesting book. It was an interesting self-published book that I'm really liking. Um, but I don't want to talk about it until I'm done reading it. But I don't know what's wrong with my eye today. So um, I'm a little disjointed. It's probably like all of the days of of uh partying and so forth, and not amazing amounts of sleep. Um not always restful, right? Um, mom. I only remember what I was saying now. My mind just went blank. That's so funny. Deep cleansing breaths. Now I'm going back to oh, this secret project, yeah. So, yeah, I'd have to write 19,000 more words, which would be a little bit more than a week out of my writing schedule. And I'm trying to decide if I care. Do I care? Um, Sarah really wants me to do it. Um she wants to get me back in contract. She thinks this could be a big book. It's so funny. And I feel like this is a story of my life. I don't know if this is the story of everyone else's life, but it seems to me that it's very often the project that I don't necessarily care about that other people are interested in. Um, when I was in, so here's an example of this phenomenon. When I was in high school, I was on the speech and debate team, and we would do these tournaments every Saturday, pretty much every Saturday. And then it would build up to things like um, you know, like the state and national competitions. And so I did qualify for state twice my junior and senior years. But my coach was always getting frustrated with me because I would not do very well in the competitions where it really mattered. Um, like the one tournament, you know, just like the regular tournament I won, was like the rules tournament, which didn't actually count for state qualification or anything else. And I remember he got really aggravated for with me, and he's like, you do well when it doesn't matter. And to me, I always felt like I did the same. What did I do? Uh I did interpretation of poetry, um, interpretation of drama. I did duet acting, qualified with my duet acting partner uh for did we win state? Yes. I think we I think we I don't know if we won or if we placed. Boy, that's hard to remember. And it meant so much at the time. And anyway, my duet acting partner and I um won, oh, I think we won state. Um, but then he won also in humor, and he could only go to nationals in duet act in one. He couldn't go in both, and he chose to go in humor, which I totally understood. Uh although later, and I I seriously I had no recriminations. It was like I think that was just sort of um assumed that like if oh, the family is here to say goodbye. So I'm gonna do a pause and then I will be back. Hey everyone. So you could tell by the sundapling that time has elapsed. We make a lot of jokes about my husband's family. Their family name is money, and oh, anyway, yep. Uh, that they are uh the the money goodbye. The money good goodbye takes a long time. I made myself another latte. So the trick is remembering what I sang, because I think I was talking about speech and debate. Oh yeah, because I was talking about my duet acting partner and how he qualified for nationals uh in both humor and duet acting. And so he went to nationals, and oh, and I was gonna say that I think that was kind of understood that all of us who did um duet things, you know, like debate team, and you know, there were a few events that were duet, but if you qualified on your own thing, that that always took precedence. I don't know if he even I don't think anyone wrestled over the decision, was like, oh well he qualified in both, and so of course he's going in humor. But he told me later that he thought um that he wished he had done it the other way, that he hadn't gone in humor because he got knocked out fairly early on, and he said, you know, we were so good. We did a scene from the Rainmaker, the barn scene on the Rainmaker, and he was like, you know, we could have won. I said, I should have, I should have just gone with that. But I don't know if our coach would have let him. Anyway, that's all a very long story by way of saying that there's this thing for me that um the stuff where I'm not really trying that hard, maybe it just got fixed in my mind when I was a teenager and it's not real. But um I think that's an eternal conundrum over we I think we believe that if something is difficult, that that produces better quality. And when people talk about um how do I write fast or how do other people write fast, one of the things that I say to them is that you need to decouple in your mind the connection between that slow is better quality. Because we really do believe that it's it's embedded that if you do something slowly, that means it's going to be better. If you do something fast, it's going to be worse. And that's not necessarily true. Those things are not necessarily coupled. I have a hard time shaking the idea that um when I really care about something that other people don't appreciate in the same way. So that and that was part of it with speech competition, is that inevitably, every time when I felt like I had done a really great job, um, I would get lower scores. And when I did not feel like I did a good job, I would get high scores or win. Uh I don't I don't understand what that is. Uh so this was sort of a long, long tangent, but that's what we do here at first cup of coffee. I am curious if any of you experience that same syndrome. But yeah, this book that uh Sarah says all these editors are really interested in uh that they want me to write, it's a different genre. Um, it is it is an idea I want to write. I mean, don't get me wrong there. This was something that was on a list that I gave Sarah a long time ago. It is a story that's near and dear to my heart, but you know, it's sort of like um I don't know. It's it's just funny that this is the thing that people are like, ooh, ooh, yes, that's what we want Jeffy to write. And it's like, really? You don't want my my dragons and my unicorns and my uh feisty heroines who defeat everyone with magic. I know you guys want that. Um, and there are people who do, but it's just it's just funny how that works. But I also refuse to be that author who I've met many times, um, wearing many different faces, where they complain about there was this one woman I remember saying um she was going on and on about how she had written this very successful series with I don't remember what it was, elves. It wasn't elves, but it was something like that. And and she's like, all my readers want is more books about these elves. And she said, I'm sick, I'm sick of writing these elves. And so I wrote these books about, I don't know, orcs instead. And nobody wants to read my orc books. And she says, but I'm not gonna write any more of those elf books, no matter how much readers ask for it. And I and I this was a while back. I was a younger, younger in my career then, but I was like, really? You've got readers clamoring for something, and you're by God not gonna give it to them because you're offended? I don't know. So I I promised myself then, and I reaffirmed to myself now that I'm not going to be that author, that if somebody's you know very interested in a particular story from me, then you know, okay. Well, as long as I don't hate writing it. I mean, I guess maybe that's where she was. I I don't know. It didn't make sense to me the way she was so adamant about hating writing it, but I do think that that's a thing creatively. You know, you can't hate what you're writing. Um, but I do recall, and I've told this story many times, that uh when I was first shopping, my first fantasy romance, not knowing what it was, uh, which became Rogue's pawn, um, that I I I thought that book was gonna be big. I thought it was going to be amazing. I thought it was gonna be twilight, you know. Well, don't we all think that? And then I ended up my first trad sale of any, you know. I I'd done some short stories and essays and stuff, and I did sell this one science fiction short story, which I don't have published right now. Um, that's the story Pearl. Some of you may have read it, but it doesn't have a happy ever after, so I took it down. Let me write rewrite it someday. But I felt like Grace and I discussed it, and I felt like it wasn't um, you know, my readers wouldn't be happy with the lack of happy ever after. So I'd sold that, but then for years I tried to sell the book that became Rogues Pond. Um I actually, it was named Obsidian, was my title for it, which Jennifer L. Armantrout stole from me. Not really. Uh she just happened to have a book published by that same title. But uh boy, I just keep losing my train of thought today. Um yeah, I'm a hummingbird. What was I saying about Rogues Pond and oh, but then the first book that I actually sold, and it was really a novella, but my first sale was Petals and Thorns, because I wrote this in response to a call from Sam Hain uh back in the day before they folded. Um that was you know the BDSM, they wanted red hot fairy tales, and I wrote this BDSM Beauty and the Beast, and Sam Hain didn't want it for that collection, but then I sent it to um Lucid and they bought it. And it was that that got me into my RWA pan. I made so much money on that story. But I'll tell you what, when I got that trad acceptance, um, I burst into tears. I started crying, and they were not happy tears. Uh, I cried because I really thought that Rogue's pond was going to be the thing, um, and not my smuddy beauty in the beast. So it's a it's an enduring theme, and I haven't decided yet what it means or if it's even a thing or just my perception. But it's a funny thing that the things that that we personally care about most, and I do hear a lot of artists say this, that you know, like when people ask, what is your favorite book? It is almost never the most popular, most successful book. If you ask Grace, can you guys guess? Maybe she's said Grace's favorite book of hers is Entreat Me, and it's easily her, it's one of her least popular. Just so it goes sometimes. All right, on that note, I am going to go get to work. Um, I will 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 um, oh, well, have a fabulous weekend, and I will talk to you all Monday. Take care. Bye bye.