First Cup of Coffee – April 21, 2025

More of me NOT writing. Reflections on purging, reorganizing, and thinking about my office space in terms of what *I* need from it. Also, responding to a comment, writers letting go of screen adaptations doesn't mean readers have to love the show!

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Transcript

00:01.44
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:11.69
Jeffe Kennedy
Hmm.

00:13.89
Jeffe Kennedy
I gave myself a little foam mustache. ah Today is Monday, April 21st, 4-21-25. How are you all doing? um I am. I'm doing well.

00:29.01
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm feeling good. am. Did not write all last week as the regular listeners will know. And I'm not going to write all this week either.

00:41.07
Jeffe Kennedy
In fact, I might not write for two more weeks. We shall see. um i am really, um excuse me. I'm wondering if enjoy is the right word.

00:55.03
Jeffe Kennedy
Enjoy the word I want. I am. Glad to be getting all of this stuff done that I'm getting done. I have completed all the tax stuff up to this point in time.

01:09.23
Jeffe Kennedy
And there's going to be a cat visitation here, which is ah problematic because one of the things I'm doing, you can't tell. I think it's funny that you really can't tell if you're on video from your perspective, just how completely and entirely disrupted ah my office is.

01:32.88
Jeffe Kennedy
And here comes the kitty. There's simply no room for him because there is stuff piled on this desk. like you would not believe. it It's in utter chaos.

01:47.36
Jeffe Kennedy
Actually, you may not have been able to see the cat. I think he went, oh, there's some ears. ah He went under the camera, like this huge pile of stuff that's immediately under my camera view and around the room.

02:03.67
Jeffe Kennedy
And I considered panning for you all, but nobody needs to see this. So yes, the closet of doom is in the process of being excavated.

02:14.77
Jeffe Kennedy
I did um complete a couple of things. I have this secretary and this antique secretary desk that um I really love. And it had become as these things do right. The repository for junk for things being shoved in there. And I could never find what I needed.

02:35.83
Jeffe Kennedy
and I got that purged and organized only now it doesn't look so nice because I've got it open and I've got things piled on there as I go through this whole excavation of the closet of doom.

02:52.16
Jeffe Kennedy
And I, I purged my files too. i have a little file two drawer file cabinet and I got that totally purged. So now he wants them.

03:05.08
Jeffe Kennedy
So um it's been a huge project. And unlike my previous reorganizations of this closet, I am... Now he wants back in.

03:17.90
Jeffe Kennedy
We're going to ignore him. ah I'm really making some massive changes. I have been saving all of this stuff, I realized.

03:29.12
Jeffe Kennedy
I've been making myself pull everything out and... I don't love that whole, does it bring you joy or not? Because ah do any inanimate objects actually bring me joy?

03:40.75
Jeffe Kennedy
The Marie Kondo thing. um But it's like, why am I keeping this? So I'm sending a lot of stuff to my archivist, ah Jeremy Brett. Shout out to you at Texas A&M.

03:54.13
Jeffe Kennedy
He keeps a my collection. And we actually had a very funny exchange that I should share with you. Okay, so in the midst of my like purging crisis yesterday, during which I was messaging some of my friends who are better at purging than I am and asking for advice, one of whom was on a plane from London, so I'm not sure she was actually disposed towards giving me advice. But hey, and you know, you pay a price being my friend.

04:25.58
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, so I sent, uh, Jeremy this message. I said, I'm purging my business closet and I'm going to send you a bunch of stuff. Feel free to recycle anything that doesn't seem meaningful.

04:36.81
Jeffe Kennedy
And he sent me heart eyes emoji. And I said, this is the correct response. And he said, well, you sold it so well. And i but I had to laugh. And I said, well, I'm in the right mood for purging.

04:49.84
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm asking myself, why am I keeping all of this crap? And he said, those are the moods that keep me employed. um I love that. so So it's interesting.

05:01.38
Jeffe Kennedy
i knew this was going be a big project. I've been talking about wanting to get to it. And, oh, so so this is what I was starting to say, that I had... been saving all of this stuff, like little tchotchkes for, like giveaway baskets and stuff. In fact, one thing that I'm saving and I can show you, or I had been saving is this basket.

05:27.82
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, for those not on video, it's like a bicycle basket with handles on either end. And it's got a little cardboard stand inside and some, a little cardboard, um,

05:41.84
Jeffe Kennedy
It's actually from a wine country gift basket. So people who actually make this gift baskets or BIF gaskets will recognize this sort of setup. It's not that complicated, but it's actually super useful if you're doing a gift basket for like a book giveaway at some event, because this is not the sort of thing i typically have around the house.

06:07.19
Jeffe Kennedy
The problem is I almost never do that kind of thing anymore. In fact, all of this stuff that I carefully saved away, like little toy fairies and this kind of thing, beads and shiny shit.

06:24.24
Jeffe Kennedy
ah I haven't done anything like that really since pre-pandemic. And I don't know why are we like not doing, is it related to the collapse of RWA? Cause it was really romance events that did that sort of thing.

06:40.29
Jeffe Kennedy
Am I not doing that sort of thing? um It's a good question, but I realized that the closet of doom, which I loathe obviously is not set up to be useful to me.

06:55.85
Jeffe Kennedy
It's not set up to be doing the things that I need it to do on a daily basis. And I feel like

07:04.74
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know what Marie Kondo was saying. I don't know the KonMari cleanup method, um but the Jeffe cleanup method, this um epiphany that I've come to, which is probably not a meaningful epiphany for most people, but is Why and do I have these things that are not useful to me? Why is my life, my office, my actual office, the beating heart of my career?

07:34.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Why is it not set up to do the things I need it to do? For instance, bookmark I want to be able to access bookmarks easily. So when I mail stuff out, I can grab bookmarks, right?

07:47.48
Jeffe Kennedy
Instead, I've bookmarks in this big bag and it's, it's a horrible system. So um as I am pulling things out, And getting rid of books that I never access, ah I'm starting to think that this is going to be end up being a complete office purge.

08:07.01
Jeffe Kennedy
And maybe I will go ahead and paint my office while I'm at it. And I have all of these stacks of books. This one, like if you watch this podcast regularly, you probably wonder about this book.

08:21.26
Jeffe Kennedy
stack my TBR paper books that never moves, right? um If I were you, if I were a faithful watcher, I would be like placing bets on when are any of those books going to move?

08:35.36
Jeffe Kennedy
I also have stacks of my own books all around the office. And And there's a bookshelf in the closet of doom that's containing all sorts of things that are not useful, like old mailing envelopes that I always think I'm going to repurpose and never do.

08:53.32
Jeffe Kennedy
So i'm going to put books on the bookcase and I think I'm going to paint the closet and then I may expand outward and paint the rest of the office. And I also need to do stuff in the garden. I'm going to try to do a balance of these things, but I'm just getting rid of things, uh, that are not serving this purpose. Like I'm, I'm torn, torn on the, the,

09:22.03
Jeffe Kennedy
gift basket thing because it really is a great gift basket thing. The other thing I need to do is completely overhaul the garage, which I keep talking about, I know. ah And I would like to create space in the garage for some of these things that I don't access regularly.

09:39.77
Jeffe Kennedy
But, you know like having that gift basket formed the next time somebody asks me to bring a gift basket to something, which... I don't know. Perjures, give me advice.

09:51.86
Jeffe Kennedy
I haven't been asked to do ah gift basket in a really long time.

09:58.73
Jeffe Kennedy
Should I just get rid of the thing? Maybe I should just get rid the thing. I do have a big box full of stuff ah to go to Savers and big pile of stuff to ship off to Jeremy.

10:13.64
Jeffe Kennedy
And... Yeah, i I think that this is going to be really good in the end. And I'm, we need a word. There's probably, probably Marie Kondo has a word for this.

10:25.60
Jeffe Kennedy
It's um the enjoyment of getting the job done. It actually sucks doing it. And I got really tired yesterday, but it's also the enjoyment of, I don't know, of purging.

10:40.91
Jeffe Kennedy
This house is clean. Yeah. I wish I had another room for a sewing room. I just built a whole casita and i still don't have a place to put all my sewing stuff, which I almost never do.

10:55.33
Jeffe Kennedy
Also, when we moved to Santa Fe, Lo these 16 years ago, almost I got of my... ah i got rid of my standing sewing machine table, which had been my grandmother's. I really liked that, but I knew we were moving to a smaller house and all of my fabric. I had so much fabric.

11:17.10
Jeffe Kennedy
And, I mean, it's a plague in my family. My aunt, my mom's older sister actually had a shed, an entire shed installed in her backyard in which to store her fabric.

11:31.92
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I, I don't know why that's in our genes, but it is.

11:38.18
Jeffe Kennedy
so I've got my half completed sewing projects and, um, who knows if I'll, I'll ever do them.

11:46.94
Jeffe Kennedy
So this is like the the whole process. And my friend, ah it was Megan who was on the flight from London and is a very good purger. I sent her a photo of the chaos of my office and everything that was pulled out.

12:01.25
Jeffe Kennedy
And she said she zoomed in and she could ah understand why it was confusing for me to make decisions about this stuff. So that actually made me feel better. Um, yeah. So the accumulation of tchotchkes, where the transcript will get that right the first time.

12:23.13
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, Yeah, making this all serve what I need it to do for me. It's yeah, there we are.

12:35.04
Jeffe Kennedy
i had other things to talk about.

12:50.05
Jeffe Kennedy
ah So the the video was frozen there a moment. Sorry if that was like a pregnant pause. ah Other things I wanted to talk about that are actually relevant.

13:01.11
Jeffe Kennedy
ah A neater segue is. oh I was saying that I might not write for the next couple of weeks.

13:13.10
Jeffe Kennedy
And um that is because I'm not going write all this week. And then. A week from Friday, on May 2nd, I am going to Canada for the Love and Romance ah in Toronto signing and to spend a few days with my friends Kelly and Alyx, Kelly Robson and Alyx Dellamonica,

13:37.35
Jeffe Kennedy
And then i am going to spend a couple of days on the way back in Chicago with ah my friends, Susan Lee and Marianne Mohanraj, which is technically a writing retreat. Now, I never get anything done on writing retreats, so I'm not particularly worried about this.

13:53.55
Jeffe Kennedy
But we'll see if I'm actually writing. ah But it's it's freeing not to be thinking about writing. um And I realized, I know that I've been saying for regular listeners, ah that i would I've been saying for the first time in living memory, and for lack of anything better to say.

14:14.28
Jeffe Kennedy
But I think it's been something like, 16 years ah because when we moved to Santa Fe was when I got super serious about my writing career and actually getting something done, something written.

14:33.68
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'd been shopping that book that became Rogue's Pawn for a while. And that was when I really buckled down and got myself on a schedule.

14:46.18
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm kind of curious to see. and i'm not going to pause because it's being weird when I pause. If if it's on my progress count list here. One, um I don't think that I started keeping track right at the beginning.

15:09.01
Jeffe Kennedy
No, I didn't. I really didn't start keeping really good track until like 2013, which is 12 years. ah But I wrote, well, I wrote Mark of the Tall. I wrote that 12 Kingdoms trilogy all in there.

15:24.98
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, it was, that was when I really buckled down and made sure to um start producing on a schedule and, you know, got downsized from my day job. And so I got serious about trying to,

15:40.04
Jeffe Kennedy
um

15:43.01
Jeffe Kennedy
you know, make a living doing this, which I felt like was producing books at a regular rate, which worked. I mean, it totally worked, but ah this is ah the first time in, I'm going to say almost 16 years.

15:59.12
Jeffe Kennedy
Well, it's probably more like 15 and a half because there was the whole moving thing. We moved here in August and I was still doing a lot of um heavy, heavy day job work and,

16:10.07
Jeffe Kennedy
getting settled into the house, which is why some of it's in chaos. I mean, if I'd done some of it right, then, well, I don't know. Who knows? Anyway. ah Yeah.

16:23.24
Jeffe Kennedy
So this first time I have not had that queued up list of projects and I'm, it's good. I'm enjoying it. And I'm going to try to get as much done as I can. I have a feeling by the time i hit that two day writing retreat, three day writing retreat, and um well, I'll be getting edits back.

16:43.90
Jeffe Kennedy
So that will present itself, but I'll probably start getting the edge to write. I always do. The other thing i wanted to mention was one of you commented on an older podcast where I was talking about movie adaptations on, uh, from books.

17:04.24
Jeffe Kennedy
And I was talking about how the author had to let it go. And ah one of you made a a really excellent comment. This was from a podcast like back in February. ah But I appreciated the thought.

17:16.89
Jeffe Kennedy
I always love your comments. I just have to say, oh you guys, you all tag me all over the place. And and yeah, I always love it. ah So she, I'm guessing she, they, ah they said that they never like it when They don't like how the adaptation of the book went, which let's face it. There's a reason why there's a t-shirt that says the book is better ah because the book is inevitably inevitably.

17:49.45
Jeffe Kennedy
That's not even a word. This is what I get for not writing inevitably better. ah better they For a lot of reasons, and not just because we're readers. ah You can just put more in a book. Speaking of, and this is a tangent, but I promise to come back.

18:05.82
Jeffe Kennedy
I've been i felt i watched Heartburn over the weekend ah with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. Somehow I had never watched it And now, and I was telling Megan, ah not only complaining to her about my purging decisions, ah but telling her how much I enjoyed that movie. And I just think Nora Ephron is such a terrific writer.

18:28.68
Jeffe Kennedy
And she said, you should read the book. And I, to my chagrin, did not realize that there was a book. So I've been reading that book. and And I think Nora Ephron is, I'm even more in love with her writing.

18:43.07
Jeffe Kennedy
ah She's just, Yeah, just amazing and wonderful. So I'm enjoying that book. ah But that's a good example of she did the screenplay. She did the adaptation of the book to the movie.

18:56.67
Jeffe Kennedy
The book is way better. ah There's just so much more nuance and internal monologue that even the amazingly talented Meryl Streep Doesn't quite get across.

19:08.33
Jeffe Kennedy
But at any rate, my answer, I did answer on the comment, but I wanted to address it here is like, yes, you are absolutely entitled as a reader and as a watcher of the show to not like the interpretation.

19:26.08
Jeffe Kennedy
And very often I don't either. And I mean, that's just, that's an entirely different thing. It's one thing as a creator to let go the project and resign yourself to the fact that it's not going to be the same as the book you wrote.

19:45.89
Jeffe Kennedy
But, um, as a lover of the work, oh yeah, you get to condemn their interpretation. You feel free, go out there and say, and feel your feels because yeah, that's, that's a different thing entirely.

20:01.98
Jeffe Kennedy
All right. Um, I am going to get to work on this massive mess. I hope you all have a great week and I will um report back on my progress on Friday.

20:16.60
Jeffe Kennedy
You all take care. Bye-bye.