First Cup of Coffee - February 22, 2019

Quick update on progress on LONEN'S REIGN, and some exciting news on my upcoming Forgotten Empires trilogy. The photo is Jackson finding his way to the top of the high kitchen cabinets where he's never been before. Yeah - everybody is getting tired of being stuck inside!

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. It was my first cup of coffee. It's Friday, February 22nd. I was thinking yesterday, I may have never said what day it was. Definitely in brain fog here in Jeffy Kennedy Land. Um still not done with Lone and Threen. Although I made significant progress yesterday. Um although the word count doesn't show it. I got um a little bit less than 2,000 words yesterday, which leaves me a little over 4,000 to finish today. But I'm only a thousand words from the Act 3 climax, and the rest is all denouement. I'll wrap up. Um so I'll probably just push through and finish it so I can send it to my editor. I could get away with not, but I I'm ready to be done with this and have it off my plate. So I think I will do that. If I can't, I will finish it tomorrow. But um I think I can. I think I can.

unknown 1:17

I think I can.

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Uh I ended up going back and weaving some things in yesterday. I got some clarity yesterday and figured out a bunch of stuff. Um which is how my process works. Uh I couldn't exactly figure out why all the characters were doing the things they were doing. Uh and now I think it has all fallen into place and makes sense. And so now I am just finishing off uh that final Act Three climax, and then I've got a little bit of the epilogue already. So the that last chapter should be pretty straightforward, I think. I almost didn't podcast today uh because I thought uh I should just get straight to work and get that done while I have the the mental capacity, but I'm still a little foggy this morning, so I'm waiting for the coffee to kick in. That's after me saying probably just yesterday that I don't really use caffeine to fuel me, but this aigu is still working on me a little bit. You can probably hear it in my voice. David's been giving me an herb, that's helped a whole lot. Uh, but I did more work yesterday, and I think that kind of took it out of me. So I have to see if I can get this done today and then lay about and search for good romance movies. I did look at that year of the comet, I think it was Library Addict who uh suggested it. It's out on Amazon for $2.99. You know, and those old movies like that, where they have the watch trailer option, the trailer isn't a trailer at all. They just like take a snippet of the movie and they're like, here. They say, watch the trailer, and that's like, oh, here, have this weird snippet of the movie that tells you nothing. Um, so the weird snippet of the movie does not make this movie look appealing, honey. Um you should go look at it and tell me if it's representative of the movie. Because I was willing to give, I've never seen it, I was willing to give it a try. But um, yeah. It looks pretty dubious. I'm sure our parents felt this same way, but sometimes I look at those old styles and I think, oh, is that really how we dressed and wore our hair really? Yeah. Although I do agree on the topic of romance movies, that's very often the movies that are about something else that have a strong other plot where the romance is part of that, that are the the best and most satisfying romances. Um and it was the same person, I think was Library Addict. Sorry, I didn't go back and look and haven't replied yet. Um said that uh like the mummy and the mummy too, we're great for the romance in those. And I agree, I agree, but then that's kind of what I write, you know. That's the fantasy arc where the romance is a part of that. But you know, why don't we have more of those? We need to we would do need to make a list, since clearly no one is going to make the list for us. Um I ended up working later into the afternoon yesterday on um some things I'm doing for Safwa. So I didn't do early afternoon movie watching, but then uh David was home early and we decided to rent Green Book from Amazon. I know my mom is happy, she's been bugging me to watch it, so we sprang for the $14.99 to watch it on Amazon, and uh it was good. I enjoyed it very much. I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as my mom, excuse me, as my mom did. Um, I think because it was really fun for her to see the deep south in the early 60s, which is um she was living down there then, and so I think it was uh, you know, especially seeing the stuff um it was filmed all in Louisiana, you know, but they did a nice job of evoking the mood of the deep south and how the people behaved, and I think it was probably very interesting for her. And I did very much enjoy uh the the friendship between the two men and the buddy movie aspects. Um, you know, it's again one of those movies where, you know, they tried to give uh Tony's wife, Dolores, something of a role, but it was pretty minor. So, you know, it sort of falls in the category of those movies that it's like, okay, well, you know, it's all about men, men doing things. And I I just get um yeah, I get bored. I'm tired of seeing men doing things. I know that's probably not entirely fair, but you know, that's sort of where I am at this stage of my life. I won't see women doing things. So here I am with uh my men and women doing things in the book, and I'm going to, I think, cut this off and get to that. I'm trying to think I if I have much else to say. The the main reason I decided to go ahead and podcast today was for the verisimilitude, and to let you know where I'm at, I do get in this very towards the end of a book, very head-down phase and feeling like um I really need to uh I I can only think about that in some ways. It's hard for me to think about much else. Oh, I do have good news though. I wonder if I could share this. I think I can share this. It shouldn't be a problem. The ink isn't dry on the contract and so forth. But I found out yesterday that Tantor Audio is going to do the audiobooks for um all three Forgotten Empires books. So they'll start with the Orchid Throne and then they will do the other two as well. Woohoo! It's exciting because um sometimes, you know, like with uh 12 Kingdoms books, we have the audiobook for the mark of the tala, and then none of the ones after that. You know, because they just didn't do it that way. And uh and I get messages and emails periodically with people saying, when are the rest of the books going to be in audio? And it's not something I can control, at least for the other four books that I did with Kensington that are not on audio. So that would be The Tears of the Rose, The Talon of the Hawk, The Pages of the Mind, and The Edge of the Blade. I have considered um doing the audio myself on the shift of the tide and the arrows of the heart, and perhaps the perhaps the novellas. Um and the problem, the only problem there is that it's a substantial financial investment to make an audiobook, a lot more than self-publishing a book. So I have to decide. I I do have options there. I can do a royalty split and with the narrator and not have to pay any money up front and split the proceeds with them, which would at least get them out there without me being out the money for a long time. So that might be the thing to do, and I need to make up my mind on that. But uh the I think it's very exciting that they're gonna do all three Forgotten Kingdoms books. So uh you audiophiles out there can be guaranteed that you'll get the whole trilogy, and I think it bodes well for uh how they think this series is gonna do. So that's very exciting news. And I get more money for them, so that's great, isn't it? And I know I hear you say I should just take that money and put it into uh producing the audiobooks of the uh Uncharted Realms, self-published ones. Yeah, but you know, I have to pay things like mortgage. So we we shall see. At any rate, I hope you all have had a good week. We are for more snow this afternoon. There's keep ranging in their forecast, but they're saying inches and inches of snow. Um, the one thing they agree on is it's gonna start at like two o'clock. It's funny, all the predictors you know show the, you know, it's like on the graph, you know, no snow, no snows, no snow, and then all of a sudden it goes woof. So I think it's gonna be a wolf kind of storm. So probably a good weekend for me too. Once this book is done, I'm probably just gonna lay around and read and watch movies and eat cupcakes or something like that. So once again, I hope you all have had a good week. Happy Friday. Uh hope you have a good weekend. And it's the last weekend in February already. I was talking with um an agent friend last night about an entirely different matter, not Agent Sarah, but a different one. And I was asking her how she was doing, and she said, um, she said, well, you know, she said January lasted forever, and February has gone by in 10 minutes. And I thought, well, yeah, that about sums it up. So uh next week will be the last week of February. So, and I will talk to you all on Monday. Take care. Bye bye.