First Cup of Coffee - February 21, 2025

On the exciting Murderbot adaptation news, less happy ACOTAR adaptation news, and why authors have to expect to give up creative control on these things. Also, why I switched projects and the importance of being honest with ourselves as creators so we can hear our intuition through the emotional jingle-jangle.

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Transcript

00:01.75
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:13.22
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah, delicious. Today is say it with me, people, it is Friday! Woo-hoo! February 21st, 2-21-25. two twenty one twenty five

00:27.56
Jeffe Kennedy
Lots of them great options for catching cool times today. Get those small joys where you can. oh How are you all doing? I hope you're doing well.

00:40.82
Jeffe Kennedy
ah i know I know that the crazy times are hard on a lot of people. So hope your you're plugging along. I myself am plugging along.

00:52.18
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, exciting news. I don't know if you all saw, it I mean, we knew that they're making a TV series of our favorite antisocial, uh, cyborg murder bot.

01:06.71
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, and they announced yesterday, actually I saw Martha Wells, the author announced that the show will debut on Apple on May 25th. So there's much rejoicing over that, uh, big excitement.

01:22.81
Jeffe Kennedy
how you know, and of course, trepidation too. I'm just really hoping they won't turn it into just a basic sci-fi shoot-'em-up. And I've been having that conversation with several of my friends.

01:36.33
Jeffe Kennedy
And I want to talk more about adaptations and how that works. Um, because I was saying, and was lamenting with a friend of mine who was a big fan of Murderbot.

01:48.91
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, he was saying that expressing the same reservations, you know, he was saying, I don't know how they're going to do it because the internal monologue is so important to those stories. That's, that is the, the heart and soul of those stories. If you have not read them, um,

02:06.13
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah. And so, you know, when you have the internal monologue, you can, apparently I'm just going to voice, just go right into this and then I'll talk about progress and stuff at the end. um

02:18.80
Jeffe Kennedy
This is what I get for being disorganized. Let me tell you a little progress things and I promise I will loop back to this. um So I'll even make a note of where I was.

02:29.47
Jeffe Kennedy
There, if you're on video, you can see I even made a little sticky that says mbot int dia options. We'll see if Jeffe, five minutes from now, remembers what all those abbreviations mean. Since I'm famous for leaving myself notes that I don't remember what I meant.

02:46.49
Jeffe Kennedy
um So exciting news. We sold Hungarian rights to, I want to say to Murderbot. I wish I'd written Murderbot to Never the Roses.

02:58.14
Jeffe Kennedy
So that's exciting. It's um not a whole lot of money. And I have to share this all with you. I think it's kind of funny. Took me a moment to find it. of I know no time passed on your end. This is why the stories with time travel are always kind of funky to do.

03:14.67
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but when I said, well, it's not lot of money, it's not an amazing offer, but no reason to say no was basically what I said. And she said, um, well, that amount of money in a small territory like Hungary is really not bad.

03:29.39
Jeffe Kennedy
A lot of the smaller Eastern European countries offer much more modest advances. So I say we take it and run, Um, um And so, yeah, then I felt kind of chastened. It's like, okay, yeah, small Eastern European country.

03:44.84
Jeffe Kennedy
And they offered me nice money for it. So um I guess better than normal. So we'll take it.

03:53.02
Jeffe Kennedy
um The big news for me since Monday, for those of you who follow intently along, is I stopped working on Strange Familiar.

04:05.38
Jeffe Kennedy
um I had gone pretty slowly ah at the beginning of the week. And I passed the act to climax.

04:16.06
Jeffe Kennedy
And now I'm not 100% sure what happens next. And I know that some of you, like my friends, are probably out there being snarky, as is your want, and say to me, well, gee, Jeffy, isn't that always the case that you don't know what comes next? And yes, admittedly, that is true.

04:39.32
Jeffe Kennedy
um But there are times where I am There's a fork in the road and I'm not sure what the character should take. So I had an okay start to the week.

04:52.00
Jeffe Kennedy
um Tuesday was not as good as Monday. i could feel it slowing down. and and I try to talk about this when this happens, because I know a lot of you, you want a better answer from me than I give.

05:07.93
Jeffe Kennedy
um How do I know when it's time to stop? And it's a gut thing. It's an intuition thing. But I could feel that the story was poised.

05:22.87
Jeffe Kennedy
And I wasn't sure what they should do next. And I really have to finish listening to that audio book, which I've kind of been balking on too.

05:33.40
Jeffe Kennedy
And sometimes if I balk at something, I trust myself that there's a reason for it. And that probably comes down to a whole lot of this. And I probably give this same advice over and over.

05:46.67
Jeffe Kennedy
ah And it's the only advice I have to give is that you have to get so that you are so honest with yourself that you know, when you're being lazy or when you are being,

06:02.73
Jeffe Kennedy
um

06:06.54
Jeffe Kennedy
what do I say? Procrastinating when you're letting the dread get to you. um when it's not an honest intuition, but it's instead some kind of emotional jingle jangle. That's technical term.

06:23.68
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, be careful using it at home. Uh, but there are times when your intuition is telling you, you need to refill the well. Um, you need to give this time,

06:35.37
Jeffe Kennedy
ah In this case, I had this other project, this revision that I need to do. ah Probably if I was only working on this one book, then I would have found a way to push through. I might have like gone back to listen to the audio ah your book. I might have kept chipping away at the wall.

06:57.82
Jeffe Kennedy
ah But it can go slowly. And on Wednesday morning, I started out and I like got 23 words And I could tell I was at that chipping at the wall part.

07:09.53
Jeffe Kennedy
And sometimes it works really well for me to keep chipping at the wall and breakthrough. ah Because I had this revision to work on. And that was...

07:21.88
Jeffe Kennedy
yeah for those of you who go to the optometrist, you know how like sometimes they show you the two things side by side and they're like, which one's brighter, which one's more in focus. And it was like, all of a sudden this second project, this revision of a rose in the mirror went, wo that's, um,

07:42.04
Jeffe Kennedy
an audio representation of it, like gaining brightness and I could feel the energy behind it. And it was like, this wants to be worked on. And so I thought, okay, then that's my decision.

07:54.62
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm going to let Strange Familiar simmer. I'm going to turn my attention to this revision because that's where the story brings wanting to go. And the revision is actually going great.

08:05.44
Jeffe Kennedy
um My editor had suggested cutting a whole lot of one POV at the beginning. And I did that. And it was about 5,000 words.

08:18.87
Jeffe Kennedy
So, but it's fine. And I rearranged some chapters. So on Wednesday, i did all of that. ah And I only got through like eight pages of revision. And I need to do like, well, I need to do a lot a day. Like at least I predicted it'll be 20. I'm hoping it'll be more.

08:37.64
Jeffe Kennedy
We'll see when I start to get into writing this third POV that I'm going to introduce. But um I'm still hoping I can get both done on time. But the revision is definitely the right thing to be working on. It feels good. um Yeah, I got through those eight pages doing all that cutting and rearranging of the first few chapters.

08:57.87
Jeffe Kennedy
And now I, yesterday, went back to the beginning to see if it even read right. Because I'm having to now, of those 5,000 words that I cut, I'm now having to weave information in, right?

09:11.69
Jeffe Kennedy
um And I made it through like 24 pages yesterday, I think. Let's look.

09:19.90
Jeffe Kennedy
Would help if I looked at the correct book. I made it through 25 pages. So, um, feeling good about that. Uh, I think that I can see now, i think I was may been grumpy sounding about this revision before.

09:37.30
Jeffe Kennedy
um I, I, you know, well, those of you who listen regularly, which I do think is most of you,

09:47.21
Jeffe Kennedy
you know, you heard when I was kind of disappointed about the editorial meeting and feeling like maybe I screwed this book up, but I can see now, and long time listeners will be laughing at me because I do this every single time, I think.

10:01.93
Jeffe Kennedy
um This was the path that I needed to travel, that I needed to find out these things that I found out about these characters. And now coming back with this revision, this is the best part of revision, is when it feels like you're moving things around and adjusting the emphasis of certain elements and it crystallizes and it's feeling like that it's crystallizing.

10:28.85
Jeffe Kennedy
And now I think this might actually be a pretty good book. So, so that's great. Um, I'm feeling happy about that. Uh, I'm going to get this revision done.

10:41.46
Jeffe Kennedy
You're really great. focus on that and see if I can get it completed. Go back to strange familiar. I've just got 20,000 words left on strange familiar. going to have to do a little bit of revising, but I think knock on wood, it should be pretty fast revising. I just have to layer in a few things. It's not like this particular revision, which is going to require quite a bit of work.

11:08.61
Jeffe Kennedy
So kind of circling back to that thing of how do I know Um, how, or more importantly, how do you know? Right? Because that's the question you all have is like, when are you giving in to the emotional jingle jangle and not putting in the work? Because we certainly know all those people who like want to write their novel and don't.

11:33.47
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and, and I'm probably, don't mean to minimize by calling it emotional jingle jangle. There's a difference between depression, um having difficulties in your life, having stresses that you are trying to work through or around, and the kind of emotions that get in the way of getting the work done. That's the jingle jangle is where it's like, oh, I don't want to.

12:06.06
Jeffe Kennedy
I'd rather watch this movie. I'd rather read this book. You know, I'd rather, you know, go out and play in the sunshine because it's spring, spring here. um Those are the kinds of things that get in the way.

12:20.34
Jeffe Kennedy
but it just takes, it takes work over time. Um, you know, that's the, uh, I learned a long time ago, the literal translation of Kung Fu. If you've studied martial arts, that Kung Fu means work done slowly over time.

12:37.89
Jeffe Kennedy
And we tend to want to do things fast in our culture. We tend to want things to be done already. Um, we want to use chat GPT to write our book for us.

12:50.03
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but working through that emotional jingle jangle, figuring out what's real and what isn't what to listen to and what to discard.

13:00.87
Jeffe Kennedy
That's all part of the growth of being a creator. That's part of what we're doing this for in the first place. Um, cause we could otherwise be in banking, right?

13:12.44
Jeffe Kennedy
So, um, so that's where I'm at. That's where I'm at on these things. Um, so now let's go back to talking about shows and creative control. Cause I'd actually had a note already to talk to about this stuff.

13:27.08
Jeffe Kennedy
And here I am going back to my sticky note, um, murder bot, interior dialogue, internal dialogue. You basically have, if you're making a film TV or what have you of,

13:41.69
Jeffe Kennedy
a story that is very heavily focused on interior monologue. You have ah only a couple of options. Um, you can do the dreaded voice over, which I call the dreaded voice over because very often the voiceover does not work.

13:59.57
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, it is a, it is an over the top approach. It can be a ham handed approach. ah But the voiceover, you all are probably familiar with this. You know, it's like when you see, you know, they they show you the, let's say the meadow and the young girl is walking through the meadow.

14:20.44
Jeffe Kennedy
And then you get that voice of God. We call it sometimes the voiceover where she goes, I was seven years old the summer that I learned that not everyone is a good person, that kind of thing.

14:32.84
Jeffe Kennedy
Right. um I think I am not a filmmaker. I think that, so there's my caveat, the filmmakers will agree that the voiceover is, is a crutch, right? right Because the, the medium of movies with the visual and the audio, including music, um, is meant to tell the, tell the story by showing you the story.

15:03.69
Jeffe Kennedy
Whereas the voiceover is giving you this, it's like, Let me blame these words in your your face. um But sometimes sometimes it works and sometimes you really need it, especially if it's something with a lot of internal dialogue.

15:19.73
Jeffe Kennedy
um Other options for that is to make the internal external. So you can have the person talk to themselves, which can work. And I kind of wonder if they'll do that with Murderbot.

15:32.54
Jeffe Kennedy
um You can also give other insights. That's why people use things like diary entries. um Star Trek, the the opening captain's log, blah-dee-blah, here we are in the something sector.

15:46.63
Jeffe Kennedy
That's an example of giving you some information that the character would otherwise know in their heads, but they use a device like recording it for history or telling it to other characters as a way to do it.

15:59.48
Jeffe Kennedy
to reveal what's going on in their head. The thing is, this was something like murder, but it's very, very personal. So it'll be interesting to see what they do. Hopefully they won't eliminate it altogether, but I've already gone over that part.

16:14.90
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, but my friend, as we were chatting just this morning about our excitement over murder, Bob and our trepidation that, that, that part will be lost or won't be done. Well, um, Hey,

16:28.00
Jeffe Kennedy
I said, yeah, but you know, at least Martha got money. You know, Martha Wells. Which is great. I know it's like we like money. We like writers getting money. and And he said, um yes, hopefully.

16:40.12
Jeffe Kennedy
have to get this exactly. He said, here's hoping you get your own chance to lose creative control of a TV series. Which I thought was sweet, right?

16:51.28
Jeffe Kennedy
um and And it's funny, but it's also true. And I had already had this, as I mentioned on my list to talk about because, ah The Hulu ACOTAR adaptation has been officially scrapped.

17:10.32
Jeffe Kennedy
ACOTAR, of course, being ah Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. It has been in development hell for a long time. There's a reason we call it development hell because a lot of shows go there to die. I mean, a lot of shows never make it out of development hell.

17:28.40
Jeffe Kennedy
And it's, It's interesting that the adaptation has been officially scrapped. and There have been rumors for a while. And then I saw a piece saying that the gossip level news is that the author was difficult to work with, difficult to work with, which can be code for a lot of things. And I know we're all sensitive to that now because, you know, in the age of,

17:57.07
Jeffe Kennedy
being clear about me too and Harvey Weinstein and all of these things, um, you know, that women who would not capitulate to his sexual demands were labeled difficult to work with.

18:11.58
Jeffe Kennedy
But I have no idea. Don't know Sarah J. Maas. Have no idea what happened anyway like this. But my friend's quip about here's hoping you lose creative control of your own series is very true.

18:25.45
Jeffe Kennedy
It's like when you sell your story, your option to screen adaptation, you lose creative control.

18:36.09
Jeffe Kennedy
That's why they buy it from you. You wrote the book. You got to write the book. You got to have full creative control of your book. um you do not get to have creative control over the show.

18:47.74
Jeffe Kennedy
And for those of us who have been around a while, we will remember the famous incident and great cautionary tale of Anne Rice and the adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, ah where she was hugely, hugely upset about Tom Cruise being cast as ah Louis. Louis.

19:07.57
Jeffe Kennedy
Louis or Lestat. Lestat. Sorry, he was cast as Lestat. She was hugely upset about that and tried to stop it. Did a huge social campaign. This is a little bit, you know sort of quasi social media era.

19:21.67
Jeffe Kennedy
um And she ended up sort of getting thrown off the show, really. And of you know, now they've come back and done some, we won't go into the whole adaptation drama of all of that.

19:36.64
Jeffe Kennedy
But the thing is, is whether or not the show retains everything that you want it to from the book is just not up to the author anymore. Um, you know like Martha Wells has gotten consults.

19:49.77
Jeffe Kennedy
She, you know, I think I told you a while back, you know, like she showed me pictures of Alexander Skarsgård dressed up as murder bot on her phone because she'd gotten to go visit the set and everything. And it was cool to get to see those very unofficial shots and it's exciting. And, but,

20:06.76
Jeffe Kennedy
to The people who are the authors, let me be very specific, the writers, the authors who are very successful at selling their projects to, we'll just say Hollywood, to screen adaptation um are the ones who let go.

20:21.78
Jeffe Kennedy
And so ah i don't know and you know. Sarah J. Maas is is fairly young. She's fairly young in the industry as such things go. i don't know if she had anyone giving her advice on this.

20:35.46
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know if she actually was difficult, but I did see one of the people who reported this said, well, you know, good for her because she should hang on to having that adapted the way she, you know, according to her vision and really know.

20:51.44
Jeffe Kennedy
No, she shouldn't. She shouldn't. um That way lies misery. if If you are so wedded to it being adapted in a very specific way, then you have to either do it yourself, which most of us don't have. see Not only not the wherewithal, but the skill to do um Another cautionary tale is E.L. James, author of Fifty Shades of Grey, was so upset by the adaptation ah of the first book and caused quite a bit of ruckus over that and then took over the film adaptations for the second two.

21:24.72
Jeffe Kennedy
um How many of you saw the second two of those movies? How many of you this saw the first? ah The thing is, it was not badly done. It just wasn't the book. And it's not going to be the book. That's why they call it a screen adaptation.

21:39.28
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, so, so yeah, either it yourself. You may not have the wherewithal. Yeah. James had the wherewithal. Um, I would say arguably she didn't have the skill, you know, it's, it's not the same skill. And there are people who are very good at directing and producing.

21:57.82
Jeffe Kennedy
And there are people who are very good at writing books. So, you know, stay in your lane, you know, or be ready to learn the lane, uh, And then your other option is is don't sell it.

22:10.09
Jeffe Kennedy
You don't have to sell it. You don't have to take that sweet, sweet option money. um But it is an exercise in giving up control. And I've gone long again today. So on that note, I'm going to go get to work on my revision.

22:25.45
Jeffe Kennedy
Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. And I will talk to you on Monday. You all take care. Bye-bye.