First Cup of Coffee – April 28, 2025

My non-paradisical experience at the Container Store (not their fault), my ongoing tribulations with purging and reorganizing, and also burbling about how awesome the Bramble team is and the ups and downs of this business.

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Transcript

00:01.42
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert. I have to improve my opening, my intro,

00:14.99
Jeffe Kennedy
oh because I need to make that a little bit more smooth. oh Since it occurred to me that I needed to really start discussing the new pen name, since we are a couple months out from releasing Never the Roses, my first book under Jennifer K. Lambert.

00:33.35
Jeffe Kennedy
Anyway, anyway, today is Monday, April 28th. And if you are on video, you will see we are doing the stripped in in process video.

00:49.17
Jeffe Kennedy
I am semi schleppy. I got my hair done on Saturday, so it's fully more red, but also like I don't know. I didn't want to wash it this morning yet because I wanted the color down some time to sit. Uh, and also I'm wearing my painting clothes.

01:09.16
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, the wall behind me is uncharacteristically bare. If you're used to watching this video, you will be like, what the hell? Uh, or maybe you don't say things in a silly voice like that.

01:21.05
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, yeah, so I'm going to get the painting finished today. ah Friday i fly to Toronto. i will be at the love and romance con in Toronto ah next Friday and Saturday.

01:38.46
Jeffe Kennedy
So I think I will do a podcast on Thursday. This will make my mother very happy um so that you can see the new backgrounds too. And then you won't get a podcast for like a week unless I do something with Kelly. I'm going to be visiting my darling friend Kelly Robson.

01:56.36
Jeffe Kennedy
and her wife, Alyx Dellamonica.

02:01.06
Jeffe Kennedy
And then later in the week, I'm going to be staying at Marianne Mohanraja's house, and Susan Lee will be there also. So maybe the three of us will be on the podcast together. That'd be kind of fun.

02:15.21
Jeffe Kennedy
I always say I'm going to do these things, and then I don't. So... ah but I know it would be fun for you all. I, you know, I used to do a lot of interviews and I kind of stopped and I know you all like them.

02:29.01
Jeffe Kennedy
So we'll see what we can do. But anyway, i am intent on finishing this project. ah The one that was not initially on my list of things I wanted to get done during this ah writing hiatus, but it kind of took over everything and my closet. So pretty.

02:49.57
Jeffe Kennedy
But let me tell you, ah regular listeners will know that I have been intent on finding an organization system for all my freaking bookmarks because I'm going to show you what I do with it.

03:06.95
Jeffe Kennedy
Well, right now it's a tote bag full of bookmarks that I at least have them rubber banded together. But I finally decided that i couldn't find here in Santa Fe the thing that I was looking for.

03:23.09
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm now thinking, did I even say I'm here with my first cup of coffee? This is a scattered morning. Like I didn't get the Wordle until five. I accidentally used, um, the hand soap. I have hand soap on the right side of my sink and my face soap on the left side of the sink and a little glass dispenser thingies.

03:41.50
Jeffe Kennedy
And I didn't realize that I put the, have one of those Clarisonic things for my complexion, which, um, It's actually one of the best things i've ever did. It's great. If you're thinking about getting one, it's fantastic.

03:54.99
Jeffe Kennedy
But I must have like squirted the hand soap onto it and didn't realize until I was already going. And I, it was a scent that got me and now my skin feels dry. It's just been, it's been a rough morning people.

04:08.20
Jeffe Kennedy
My life is, is really difficult. oh So anyway, I'm here with my first cup of coffee. and determined to get this project finished.

04:21.05
Jeffe Kennedy
So I've been envisioning this thing, like some sort of wall mounted thing where I can put all my bookmarks and be able to to see them and to grab them easily. So like if I'm sending out books, I can grab a few bookmarks and throw them in there.

04:38.94
Jeffe Kennedy
Back to this thing of making like mailing things out, which is one of my most hated activities. More... more frictionless. Can we say more frictionless? I want it to be frictionless. And yet I recognize that it's not going to be entirely frictionless. So like less friction full, something like that.

05:03.99
Jeffe Kennedy
ah So couldn't find the thing here in Santa Fe. And I finally determined I was going have to go down to Albuquerque to the container store. And every time I told a friend or somebody that I, this was what I was going to do, people go, Oh, the container store.

05:22.55
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, like seriously treating it like this was going to be ah fun excursion. Now, have I been to a container store before? I remember when I was in my youth in Denver. um So like,

05:41.91
Jeffe Kennedy
late high school, early college, that I remember there was a container store. Remember, Mom, like over by Tamarack Square, but on the other side where Loman's was? Wasn't there a container store there?

05:54.34
Jeffe Kennedy
I think I went there once. Anyway, I did not have this paradisical association with container store, but I was kind of excited to go because everybody else did.

06:04.68
Jeffe Kennedy
They're like, oh...

06:08.40
Jeffe Kennedy
So Sunday morning, yesterday morning, I had brunch with friends, the delightful Jim Sorensen and Sage Walker. ah We went to Sunnyside Op Cafe in Albuquerque, if you are local or want to be. And it was excellent. It was very good.

06:24.26
Jeffe Kennedy
And I met up with them. We had an excellent brunch, great conversation.

06:30.60
Jeffe Kennedy
and then we um A container store opened at 11. Now this is an incidental thing, but I'm curious to know what you all think.

06:41.74
Jeffe Kennedy
ah The container store was at Coronado Center, if you know Albuquerque Hall. But, you know, it's a mall. And there's a huge Barnes & Noble there. And I, you know, i I patronize indie bookstores. I, you know, don't really go into the huge Barnes & Nobles.

06:59.98
Jeffe Kennedy
But they also opened 11. And, And as I you know found my parking spot, I bet there were 20 people standing outside the Barnes and Noble waiting to go in.

07:13.88
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and, and as I pulled into my spot and I could see the doors, they opened it and people just went flooding inside. Oops. Why?

07:25.04
Jeffe Kennedy
Why? I mean, I know there's not a book release book releases aren't on Sundays. Um, Is it just to get into the cafe? yes Like, did they all want to, like, go get their good reading spot on Sunday?

07:38.52
Jeffe Kennedy
Inquiring minds want to know. If you want to know, please if or if you do know, please tell me. Or if you have theories. um Some sort of, like, free cocaine giveaway at the Barnes & Noble?

07:49.62
Jeffe Kennedy
I mean, books? Maybe it was a sale day? I don't know. Anyway, so I go to the container store, and I ended up spending an hour and a half.

08:00.50
Jeffe Kennedy
in the k container store. And it was, it was overwhelming. Um, I TLDR, I did not have a Nirvana like fulfilling experience.

08:14.80
Jeffe Kennedy
It took me forever to find a solution. Um, I foolishly, I took all sorts of measurements of dimensions. and foolishly did not bring one of my bookmarks with me. And I called home and asked David to,

08:29.81
Jeffe Kennedy
ah measure the bookmarks for me. And I said they're all the same size. And I said that forgetting that there were some like huge ones of pages of the mind. Actually, I should show you.

08:44.65
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay, a little bit of a pulse alarm there. I had to sneeze. So this is my current sorting system, huge flu ball, choke bag. And then I have all of my bookmarks bound up inside.

08:58.82
Jeffe Kennedy
for so many different books. And so I said to David, they're all one size because they're all like this size. Totally forgetting that I have like this random group of like five of the pages of the mind from way back when that were like floating on top because they're random.

09:16.68
Jeffe Kennedy
So if you're on video, you can see ah you're not on video, the random bookmarks are two inches longer and probably I don't know, half an inch wider than all of the others.

09:33.28
Jeffe Kennedy
Which one did David grab to measure? The huge ones. So I've realized that like one of my early solutions probably would have been the right size.

09:46.46
Jeffe Kennedy
um The thing that I ended up buying, despite the fact that I'd measured my closet, I made one miscalculation and...

09:57.71
Jeffe Kennedy
doesn't doesn't work Uh, so I'm going back down there this afternoon because I want to get this project done. Uh, return the two things I bought.

10:08.48
Jeffe Kennedy
ah The one upside is that, uh, the other solution is quite a bit cheaper. Probably it's going to save me like $150 and I'll have dinner with a friend tonight. So Uh, it won't be ah total before you start cautioning me on gas. Although now I have my, my hybrid and it's amazing how much less gas it uses than the Jag.

10:33.99
Jeffe Kennedy
So, um, so yeah, that's where I'm at. Um, that's why I'm in my painting clothes. Uh, this t-shirt I wanted to mention, I put this on.

10:45.54
Jeffe Kennedy
It's from, um, Krusty's, Custy's, not Krusty, Custy's traditional music. You probably can't say it on video, but that's all right. Um, in Ennis, uh, Ireland.

10:59.48
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, my, I've had this since, oh, now the cat wants it. Hold on.

11:06.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, I've had this since college. There was a gal from Ireland who was a postdoc who went to work at Washington School and she stayed with us, oh was a roommate with us for, don't know, a spring and a summer.

11:22.42
Jeffe Kennedy
and Paula, I really liked Paula. And it was her birthday and I picked her up like a t-shirt from the campus shop, a souvenir. And I And I remember Paula would always sit outside our stoop.

11:37.46
Jeffe Kennedy
And this was St. Louis, so there wasn't a lot of sunshine. But boy, any time there was. And she was, you know, that beautiful pale complexion with the freckles and the red hair. And after her postdoc ended, she went back to Ireland. I think she was at Trinity College.

11:54.84
Jeffe Kennedy
But anyway, she she must have been from Ennis, which I visited since. I should have gone to Custys to see if they were even there. It didn't occur to me at the time. i And yeah, so Paula sent me this shirt for my birthday.

12:11.81
Jeffe Kennedy
It was sort of a shirt for a shirt. And then this the sad ending to the story is that after she went back, Paula had melanoma and she died.

12:24.86
Jeffe Kennedy
One of two friends of mine who died from college. And I've since found out, and I think I've mentioned it on here, but I'm still perplexed by it, you know that what I thought was a plague of melanoma from the 80s was actually a plague of AIDS, that melanoma was so bad because people were contracting AIDS.

12:49.94
Jeffe Kennedy
I remember when um COVID first started to hit and I saw somebody on social media respond to a post where they said, oh, is this your first pandemic? ah Referring to the fact that many of us had lived through the AIDS pandemic.

13:05.94
Jeffe Kennedy
But the thing about living through the AIDS pandemic was that it was so largely invisible. You know, it was treated as a problem that belonged only to homosexuals and homosexual men at that, or the IV drug users who were of course lowlifes.

13:22.70
Jeffe Kennedy
And then every once while, a random nice person got it. But part of it was because there was such a stigma of AIDS and also nobody actually died AIDS.

13:33.44
Jeffe Kennedy
AIDS, right? You would die of something else that was, that flourished because of the immune deficiency. So people died of melanoma and people died of pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer.

13:46.48
Jeffe Kennedy
I know a lot of people who died of pancreatic stuff and it was actually because of AIDS. so little interesting side details.

13:59.21
Jeffe Kennedy
Now we have a cat visitation. You can at least see the tips of yours on the, uh, the video ah come over here.

14:10.61
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah. on the way

14:15.10
Jeffe Kennedy
So, um, yeah, at least a large part of the purging is done. I think I'm going to have this good solution to my bookmark sorting system.

14:26.69
Jeffe Kennedy
So I'm excited about that.

14:32.52
Jeffe Kennedy
and And soon it'll probably be after, or it will have already happened by the time you watch this podcast, because I probably won't get it uploaded before that.

14:45.28
Jeffe Kennedy
But um there's going to be a really fun cover reveal of the end pages of Never the Roses ah here at nine o'clock my time, 11 Eastern. It's quarter to nine now.

15:00.67
Jeffe Kennedy
oh And I just, you know, it's been fun talking to my friends about everything Bramble's been doing for me. ah It's really just one of these many years that I have been published, both for Traditionally, in all sorts of formats, like everything from Red Book to Carina Press to St. Martin's, you know, I've been with a lot of different publishers different media and so forth. have cat hair on my face, sorry.

15:36.60
Jeffe Kennedy
yeah Um, you know, it's just been amazing to get the Cinderella treatment. It's, uh, the way that everything that they've done for this book and they're doing for me, it's just incredible.

15:50.68
Jeffe Kennedy
Just even, um, I want to say little things, but they feel like big things. You know, they're sending me on a week long book tour and they're setting up all of the travel for me.

16:03.85
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, it's just, um, yeah, it's really something.

16:10.94
Jeffe Kennedy
They, you know, i think maybe because I've been out of the corporate world for a while, but they, um you know, of course, outsource their travel arrangements. And so they got from me, you like, what is my airplane seat preference and my frequent flyer numbers and, and they're just booking everything for me.

16:32.97
Jeffe Kennedy
It's yeah. Yeah. Cinderella treatment, ah which is really amazing. And, it's so funny because we were talking about this at Apollycon. So we had dinner, uh, my friend and roommate there, Jennifer Estep, who has been in the business for a long time, very successful author.

16:55.85
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, Dina Ray, who is an aspiring author and who was serving as my assistant at the con. The three of us were, we were, we traveled that day. We were tired. We went and had dinner at the steak restaurant at the hotel, which was perfect because it was nice and quiet and we needed quiet.

17:12.59
Jeffe Kennedy
And, Jennifer and I hadn't seen each other in a while. We talk on email and message, but we were just sort of catching up on things, catching up on gossip. And Dina was absorbing it and being the fly on the wall, which I totally get. That's a rare opportunity to, especially when you're a newbie author or aspiring author, to listen to two people who've been in the business for a really long time, just sort of exchanging professional talk.

17:41.03
Jeffe Kennedy
And she was asking us questions and stuff. But, you know, inevitably the conversation is about ups and downs. And she at one point commented that she found it kind of depressing that there are so many downs in the business, ah which is just really true. It's a, it I want to say grim reality, except I don't think it's grim, but it is a painful truth for many that there is no making it. I can't tell you how many times people have told me that I've made it.

18:15.08
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and you do, you have wonderful successes. You hit these milestones, these wonderful opportunities and things are great. And then you go back down again and it's, um, it's inevitable. It's a cyclical industry. It's based on people's whims.

18:33.39
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, there's so much you can't control, which is what I always talk about on here. And, You just sort of have to accept that there are going to be the downs. And so when people ask me how excited, excited I am about this release and that it's going to be amazing, that it's already been amazing.

18:53.25
Jeffe Kennedy
And I am, I'm thrilled, but I also have this taking it all with a grain of salt because I don't expect it to last. And I also, part of me expects it to crash at some point. You know, like I've had so many times when I was excited about something and thought something was really going to hit big and it hit medium or it didn't hit at all.

19:15.12
Jeffe Kennedy
And you, you grow kind of, I don't want to say inured because it never stops hurting, but you sort of treat it with a level of of expectation.

19:28.68
Jeffe Kennedy
and And Jennifer and I both said to Dina that it's not, we don't find it depressing, that it is, it's like life. You know, I don't know, wearing Paula's t-shirt today.

19:41.35
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, it's like we We live a little and then we die, you know that sorry, this is a bummer. I didn't mean to like have this be the sad podcast, but you know, you, you have to enjoy those moments of joy, savor the joy because it's all transitory. Right?

19:59.52
Jeffe Kennedy
And so being aware of the ups and downs is good. Sometimes it turns out that the container store is not Nirvana and that it disappoints you terribly.

20:10.64
Jeffe Kennedy
ah But I am hopeful that I will be happy on my return visit. oh We will see. So on that note, I'm going to get to painting and i will talk to you all on Thursday this week.

20:27.18
Jeffe Kennedy
You all take care. Bye bye.