First Cup of Coffee - June 27, 2021

Examining the trope of the Reluctant King (are there ever Reluctant Queens??) and what we're really trying to show with that characterization. Also some interesting comments I've gotten on paying presenters.

Happy Release Day to A GOOD DAY FOR CHARDONNAY by the fabulous Darynda Jones! Check it out here (https://darynda.com/books/a-good-day-for-chardonnay-sunshine-vicram-series-volume-2).

You can learn more about the Surrey International Writers' Conference here (https://www.siwc.ca/).

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/meicocf6ZAs).

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. That's excellent. It's been a busy morning here. I had to take the car in to get uh the oil changed. Oh, I should say it's um Tuesday, July 27th, 727. Sevens and 27s are my favorite numbers. So uh yeah, had to take my car in to get the oil changed. I um have had multiple appointments to do this. It's we we have sort of a little local account mechanic um that we take our carts to, and mine is an older Jaguar XJS convertible, my baby, and um so you know, we don't do like the Jiffy Lube thing. So we have to make an appointment because he's very busy, very much in demand. And uh I'd had an appointment before that I had to cancel, and then I had another replacement appointment that I totally spaced. I forgot. So this is my third try, and we took the car over early this morning, about seven after our walk, and dropped it off. And the mechanic called me at 7:30 and said that uh when he tried to pull it around, the car alarm went off. And I know why. It's it's a weird thing about about the jag that um because I locked it with the key fob, and if you lock it with the key fob and unlock it with the key, even the chip key, the alarm will go off. And vice versa. Actually, I don't know if vice versa, but definitely that way it will happen. So he was like, I woke up the neighborhood, it was a really loud alarm. So then David was supposed to have the oil changed in the camry too, so he went and took the camry down there and brought the jag back, and then he'll drop the jag back later. Um, because it turned out that uh the mechanic Dave, also Dave, uh did not have the oil filter, and he was apologetic. He's like, usually we have that oil filter, and we don't. And I said, Well, no big deal. It's a bit of comedy of errors trying to get this oil change done. So, so yeah, I am I'm running a little behind schedule. It's uh well, we're three minutes in. I started at 8.15. But we've got a little bit of cloud cover uh coming up in the east, so not quite as um sun in my eyes as yesterday. Um so it's um release date, date, release day for Ms. Dorinda Jones. Congratulations, Dorinda, on um a good day for Chardonnay, I believe is yes. It's funny, even she gets confused by the uh the names, but the first book was a bad day for sunshine. This is a good day for Chardonnay, uh releasing today. So woohoo. Woo-hoo, Ms. D. It was fun. I got to beta read that book and was with her for a lot of the writing up, so that's awesome. Uh I've been continuing to get uh feedback on my post the other day about paying presenters. Um sure struck a nerve. There's been a lot of interesting comments that people have come back with. Uh, one really cool one is uh the gal who uh runs the Surrey Writers Conference. She grabbed the tweet and quote tweeted it and said, Oh, I was trying to avoid that from happening. Maybe I can. There. I accidentally left Google Hangouts open from when I was chatting with the darling Kelly Robson. Uh so anyway, the um I would I was gonna see if I could grab her tweet. I should have done this before. Um because I wanted to get her exact uh wording on this. Okay, so her name is Kathy Chung. And I'll pull up her bio. Yeah, coordinator is her title, coordinator of the Surrey International White Writers Conference, um, among other things that she does. But so she quote tweeted this, and she said, the conference I plan is not for profit, and our budget is tight, all capital letters. We still play, we still pay flights, hotel food, a modest honorarium, the same for all presenters contributing the same, and full passes to presenters. If you can't offer that much, you can't afford to run a conference, in my opinion. And I think she is spot on. I think she's exactly right. And it's just they do it because that is their premise, that is what they figure into their costs. They don't figure their costs as being, okay, well, then we'll have people present for free. Someone else pointed out that uh for a professional conference that she wanted to, or professional, an academic conference that she was considering going to, that you had to register for the conference to even be considered for programming. And so it was a $300 registration fee, and you didn't know if you would be a presenter or not. Um so not only are you not getting paid, but you're paying in. You know, it's a it's an interesting thing. And I do think that it comes down to things like the market economy, you know, that uh plenty of people will do stuff for free, so then they don't have to, you know, it's like, oh well, but you know, it's promo. Exposure. Um in this case, one of my friends commented, you know, it's like, oh yeah, we're supposed to, you know, want to do it for exposure. And I said, you know, and at this point, this particular one, their attitude seemed to be um, not that I was desperate for exposure, but that I'm somehow so rich and successful that I can afford to donate my time. Which, you know, it's they kind of get you coming and going, people. So um it's been interesting hearing everyone's comments. What I would love to see, and I know that this is a change that isn't easy to make happen, but you know, if we all refuse to work for free, then they're gonna have to start paying people to do stuff. Um I I don't know uh it would take it it would take a while, but I do feel like this is a standard we have to cling to. And then of course, some people get massive speaker fees. Um, you know, and like Neil Gaiman has faced criticism for charging fifty thousand dollars for a speaker's fee. And the reason he does it is A, he can, but because people have paid it. And B because he needs to have time to write. And if he accepts all speaking engagements, oh your Joey has strong opinions. Yes. Oh, I see. Looks like we're feeding babies. Got a big bug in the beak there. I don't know where that now is. Trying to see where Tohi's going. We have the curve to build thrasher babies on the front porch again this year. Um when the parents are working hard to feed them. Hardworking parents. I've got to salute you all. Keep those hungry little mouths uh fed. Um oh, but the main reason that he does that is because to create uh a prohibitive barrier, because otherwise he would be having to uh you know either be spending all his time speaking and not writing, or um refusing and upsetting people because he you know you accept some and not others. So at least the prohibitive fee creates a barrier. And I'm put in mind, you know, I mentioned yesterday that I have assistant Corrine filter offers and requests and how people try to go around her, which is always interesting. But I'm reminded of that story, I don't know if you guys saw it, where David Tennant, apparently in his early acting days, invented an assistant for himself. And he confessed to this in an interview. I'll have to see if I can find it. But he said in an interview that he um had created an assistant, I can't remember what he made the assistant's name be, but that he would uh use the assistant, the mask of the assistant to be meaner and uh more definite about refusing things than he would have been on his own. Um but he said I think that it it came apart when people figured out how to um be nice to the assistant and they could kind of get around the assistant and he would end up caving. Um you know the thing is is people will always take as willing as much as you're willing to give them. And and I feel like this isn't always a malicious thing. Um some of it's the marketplace. I brought this up in the Facebook thread, but you know, when I was VP of programs for my local chapter, my uh local RWA chapter, Land of Enchantment Romance Authors, uh I did that for two years, and I put our speaker honorarium at twenty at $200 because I felt like $200 is is really kind of a basic amount to offer people for their time and expertise. And it's still not very much, which is it's why you call the call it an honorarium instead of a fee. For those of you who don't know that the honorarium is basically saying we know this is a this is a pittance, and we're just offering you this to show that we we honor you, but we're not actually paying you what you're worth. So, you know, I figured $200 honorarium, and then some people we would pay more, um especially if we brought them in from elsewhere. If it if they were local, it was $200. But if we asked people to travel, we would pay their expenses, and then we would generally pay them a little more. And then the board that came on after me decided to take it back down to $100 because that's what other RWA chapters did. So it was interesting when um Angela James, who is one of my first editors, um published my first fantasy romance with Karina Press. She commented on the thread, and Angie said, you know, RWA chapters tend to be really bad about paying very, very low fees. And I was telling that story. You know, and it's like it becomes part of the community group mind. And, you know, it's like, oh, well, this is the market rate, and so then we'll just pay the market rate. And when the market rate goes down, then you know, it's like, oh well, it ties into a whole lot of things that we're struggling with in our society right now about not having raised minimum wage. I mentioned some of that yesterday, but it's like um, yeah, at what value do you do you set things? And and being aware then that that percolates throughout the culture because other people will be like, oh, well, that chapter is only paying $100, so we should do that too. Ah, alas. So, but I won't spend a whole another podcast ranting about this. Uh, one thing I was thinking about, this came up in the masterclass I was teaching on world building, and I was thinking about it myself in writing The Dragon's Daughter and the Winter Mage. Um, is the idea about it's it's a trope about the person who is in line for the throne and doesn't want the throne. And it's interesting because two of the people in that fairly small master class had that trope where the um hero, the prince, in both cases, uh was going to be thrust into the role of kingship and didn't want to be king. And they're and and when I asked both of them, well, why? Why doesn't he want to be king? Uh, they both said things that I found not quite convincing. Um, and this is nothing against them, because I see this all the time, uh, where they said, um, oh, well, you know, he's just a warrior. He, you know, he just uh would prefer to fight. He prefers to be straightforward and not have the political wheeling and dealing. And um, or it was that he prefers books and he would rather be in the library. And I thought it was interesting because it's it's a fallback trope that I think is meant to convey something that it doesn't quite convey. And that's why I wanted to talk about it a little bit. Because I think it is intended to show that person as being a good and honorable and admirable person, because we have this idea in our culture that the people who want power are um the people who shouldn't have it, which is um arguably true, right? You know, we look at the people currently in political office, and a whole lot of them are there to serve themselves. Uh, you know, you look at people like that horrible Marjorie Taylor Green. I'm just so embarrassed that she's from Colorado, my home state, um, you know, going on and on about still being an anti-COVID vaccine, and she's just, you know, she's almost a monster. She's like a caricature of herself. And, you know, there was a photo of her being in an airport not wearing a mask, you know, she refuses to wear a mask. And she thinks that she's proving something, but I don't know what. Proving that she's an idiot, in my opinion. Sorry, uh, you know, you you knew my politics when you came out, loaded up the pod podcast, I would hope. Anyone who is a science denier, uh I just have no interest in. So, anyway, uh, so there is this idea that the people who who want to be have power, if you want to rule, that you're somehow um power-hungry, greedy, megalomaniacal, um not a good person. Is that true? I mean, and it's it's an interesting trope, especially in fantasy, that we often have monarchies, which I think are arguably um bad governmental systems, but like in my books, I always make them be a good thing. Well, not always, but generally my rulers, either uh the rulers who supplant the existing system or the ones who uh are in place are invested in being good rulers because they have the idea of of serving, that they feel that uh sense of responsibility and that onus to do their best by their people. It's it's really the shiny fantasy, fantasy in that sense, uh, version of a monarchy. So what we're trying to convey when we have the person who is the reluctant king, or I you know it's always the reluctant king. I can't think of any stories where there was a reluctant queen, which is interesting. So we're trying to show a man. I'm gonna stick with this, that it's a man, that we're trying to show a man who um is somehow good and admirable because he's not like other men. And and we do this, right? We we do that a lot, you know, she's not like other girls, he's not like other men. Uh this makes him unique and interesting. But is that really showing what we want it to show? And I think that's I'm not saying don't do this, I'm not saying that it's not worthwhile, but in both cases, I was pushing the author to be like, well, but but why? What why does he think he, you know, and they're like, well, he he just thinks he wouldn't be a good king. And I'm like, but why? This is this goes to the because I was getting at, I was teaching world building from a character-driven perspective. So it's like, let's dig into the character. What is it about his makeup? It has to be more than he would rather be in the books reading, you know, in the library reading books, or he would rather be fighting and not dealing with politics. There, there has to be something more to that because it's possible to be king and still be both of those things, right? So, so it's an interesting question. Um, why people do and don't want the things that they want. And and that's partly what makes character interesting is if you dig below this surface level trope of, oh well, you know, the reluctant king, and to why is he reluctant? What is the underlying psychology there that's driving this very unusual behavior, right? Because uh, you know, being being king should be a pretty sweet gig. Oh, here's the Tohi finally going into the nest. I think it's in the lilac bush. Interesting. So so anyway, those are my thoughts. If you guys have thoughts, let me know. Um yeah, uh I haven't heard comments in a long time from Darkstorm. I don't know if you're still out there. I hope you're doing okay. Uh certainly no onus to comment, but it's always nice to hear from people, and then I I worry about you when when I don't. So hope you're all doing well, all of you, comments or not. So, on that note, I will remind you all that first cup of coffee is part of the Frollic Media Podcast Network. You will find more podcasts that you love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And I will talk to you all on Thursday. You all take care. Bye bye.