First Cup of Coffee – June 17, 2025

The challenge of writing Romance - and really earning the reader's belief in love overcoming obstacles. Also, the #NoKings protests over the weekend in the US, power and corruption, and love conquering hate.

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Transcript

00:01.35
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:16.64
Jeffe Kennedy
Nirvana. ah Today is Tuesday, June 17th, 2025. um Implementing my new plan of ah doing this on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. So Tuesdays and Fridays.

00:30.10
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Let me know your feedback. I kind of think you all don't care. ah So um I think this works better for me. So how are all of you?

00:42.31
Jeffe Kennedy
oh I have been busy, busy getting stuff for the casita. I'm tired of hearing about the casita. oh But I ran just tons of errands like yesterday and Sunday and Friday.

00:59.63
Jeffe Kennedy
Saturday I was home all day. I did not get to go to the local demonstration um for multiple reasons, but I supported from home.

01:11.50
Jeffe Kennedy
So I figure we all do what we can. ah I was seeing a um post from someone in Coeur d'Alene saying that she was still recovering emotionally recently.

01:28.18
Jeffe Kennedy
from the protest there, which is just too bad because I love Coeur d'Alene. I've been there a couple of times. It's a beautiful, beautiful city and beautiful area.

01:41.87
Jeffe Kennedy
We did a my family birthday weekend there one year, i think 2019. Yeah, it was 2019 because it was right before pandemic. It's actually the last time that we did the full family birthday weekend.

01:56.88
Jeffe Kennedy
and So I have a fondness for it, but I'd also picked it for that reason because we like it so much there. But anyway, it is for those of you I know living living in other parts of the world who listen to this and sending me comments now and again.

02:14.00
Jeffe Kennedy
ah that part of Northern Idaho and Western Washington is just a viper's nest, which is insulting to vipers, of white supremacy.

02:28.61
Jeffe Kennedy
It's where the militia are, and yeah and it's all it's the it's the stereotype. It's the bearded white guys, and apparently they were lining the the parade route or the march route in Coeur d'Alene, you know, with their carrying their automatic weapons with their fingers on the trigger and shouting hateful things. And, you know, there were other places where, and that was kind of what this gal was commenting, you know, where it was kind of a party, kind of a celebration to do these big marches. And I feel like

03:05.35
Jeffe Kennedy
that's how it would have been here in Santa Fe that, you know, we really just have very few but white supremacists or at least vocal ones here in the city.

03:16.36
Jeffe Kennedy
There's more down towards Albuquerque way. And I guess, you know, like some of them were out doing their counter protest, whatever the hell that means.

03:26.37
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, they, they can't leave well enough alone. Right. But yeah. Anyway, uh, you know, she made the comment that it was a greater labor there than anywhere else. And I think that's really true that like their, their March in that place, letting people know that not everybody thinks this way was, um, that's, that's where the real impacts are. Not to say that the other ones weren't important and impactful, but, um, yeah,

03:58.35
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, the thing is, is that there are a lot of people who voted for Trump or who didn't vote at all that are now experiencing serious regret.

04:12.45
Jeffe Kennedy
And someone made the point. And I've brought this, they they kind of talked about this in a different way, but I know I brought it up here. What my friend Jim Sorenson says that no one is too corrupt for the right or pure enough for the left.

04:27.38
Jeffe Kennedy
And there people were bringing this up that we have really got to stop dissecting who's got the best values on the left and welcoming back people who are regretters.

04:41.49
Jeffe Kennedy
And because we're, we're going to need that to rid our country of this, this horrible disease. I mean, that's, it's this disease, right?

04:52.87
Jeffe Kennedy
And the And I've said this from the beginning, there are more people who disagree than think with them, but they are very, very loud. And they stand there and they yell horrible things with their finger on the trigger.

05:07.72
Jeffe Kennedy
And it makes them seem more potent and frightening. And they are frightening, but they're not more potent. And I think that's a thing we have to remember.

05:19.73
Jeffe Kennedy
So anyway, that's the political portion of our podcast. I'm actually, let me say one more thing. I'm really gratified that I'm not getting people, um,

05:30.23
Jeffe Kennedy
I got like one person commenting saying they didn't know how I could write the books I write and have the politics I have. And I feel like saying, hello how could you, did you read my books?

05:41.87
Jeffe Kennedy
Did you actually read them? Because i am always, I mean, like when people ask me what my major theme is in my writing, you know, that's most writers, we tell pretty much the same story over and over again. That's just part of being a human being.

05:57.07
Jeffe Kennedy
And that's what comes out of us. And one of my themes is power and the corruption of power. And I believe absolute power corrupts absolutely. And I am always talking about the exchange of power or the disruption of power or the corruption of power.

06:17.82
Jeffe Kennedy
And so, yeah, if um it's a it's very difficult for me to understand how someone could read my books and think that I am not...

06:29.00
Jeffe Kennedy
wholly and utterly against fascism, against anything that deprives other people of their rights, of their ability to lead their lives exactly the way they want to lead them.

06:41.58
Jeffe Kennedy
but I started out by saying a nice thing that I appreciate that um I am not getting more mean comments than I am, that all of you are so supportive.

06:52.20
Jeffe Kennedy
And, you know, obviously you, you comprehend my books when you read them and you listen here. So you know what my message is. And that's, that's great. I'm, you know there's so many things going on with other authors being attacked for speaking out this way. And,

07:09.59
Jeffe Kennedy
I appreciate that you all are are here with me in solidarity. So cheers.

07:16.82
Jeffe Kennedy
So the big news is the long awaited edit letter is coming. I have a editorial meeting actually in an hour.

07:28.56
Jeffe Kennedy
um my agent Sarah and I poked them at the end of last week because, i mean, technically yesterday was originally supposed to be my due date for the revisions.

07:41.26
Jeffe Kennedy
And they told me they were running behind, but we don't think it was going that much behind. ah The good news is, is we're not so behind that we'll lose our publication date. My editor assured me of that.

07:54.60
Jeffe Kennedy
And she said that it's interesting because she said to me that it was all her fault She got behind and traveling and so forth um And let me share with you. Let's see if I can open this easily yeah my editor said to me um Just a very short to do Apologizing Travels through a wrench in all her good editorial planning. She asked if I had time to chat today.

08:27.20
Jeffe Kennedy
She was going to send me some bullets ahead of time. that we were originally going for an August 1st transmittal, meaning turning it over to production. And she said, but that's not a drop dead date and we can look at the revised schedule when we chat today.

08:42.12
Jeffe Kennedy
But then interestingly, she said something slightly different to my agent. And I don't know if she was probably, she was counting on agent Sarah to decide how much to cushion the blow as it were.

08:55.41
Jeffe Kennedy
um But Sarah just passed it on whole hog because Sarah knows that I am fine with knowing how the sausage is made. And I guess I should clarify on that. Like I had one author friend who would always say that she did not want to know how the sausage was made.

09:13.66
Jeffe Kennedy
She did not want to hear the actual editorial comments from ah Her editors, she wanted to live on in a blissful ignorance, and I am not that person.

09:28.41
Jeffe Kennedy
So what she said to agent Sarah is the holdup is on me. Same thing. But then she said, Jeffe made excellent progress in this draft and the story is killer, but the romance is just not hitting, uh, the way we need it to hit.

09:42.68
Jeffe Kennedy
And I was having trouble getting to the root of it, which actually makes me feel better because I had a feeling it wasn't hitting, um, But the answer wasn't obvious to me.

09:54.14
Jeffe Kennedy
So Diana and she chatted and she'll have notes for me. And so we're going to talk about it today. So while I was kind of sad, uh, when does, when did we do all that? Like last Thursday or Friday, I guess I could tell you since I was just looking at it.

10:18.08
Jeffe Kennedy
Um,

10:21.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Let's see here. yeah, this is the email I could have grabbed to begin with. Oh, yeah, this was um yeah all on Friday the 13th. Go figure.

10:32.91
Jeffe Kennedy
Well, such is life, right? And it's not really terrible. it's um But, you know, like you always hope for when you do a revision like that, that it will come back to you and people will say it's great.

10:48.85
Jeffe Kennedy
And that has happened to me before. I'm actually pretty good at revising. And so I have had people, editor other people, come back to me and say that I have nailed a revision.

11:00.38
Jeffe Kennedy
And that is, it's fantastic. So, I mean, at least the story is killer. ah I had to do a challenge with this romance, right?

11:11.89
Jeffe Kennedy
I just had to do it And that's on me. um But I did have a couple of people read it for me over the weekend. Assistant Carien read it.

11:24.22
Jeffe Kennedy
And my friend Marcella Burnard, who writes science fiction romance and has a really interesting kind of alternate history coming out soon. Kind of a new world Temeraire, which is pretty exciting.

11:39.06
Jeffe Kennedy
But she read it for me over the weekend too. And so they both had I asked them to read it because I knew that they would have feelings about the romance. And so, uh, yeah, so that's great.

11:54.07
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay. Um, yeah, so they had ideas for me and, um, It's interesting because, and I've said this many times, but it's a totally valid quote, that when somebody tells you something is wrong with the story, they are almost always correct.

12:12.99
Jeffe Kennedy
And when they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. And... And I think that's interesting because Corrine and Marcella both identified the similar problem, although they both came at it with how to fix it.

12:29.95
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm not sure either of those fixes are correct, but agent Sarah was going to read it over the weekend too. And so we'll see what she thinks.

12:42.47
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but I've also been mulling and i think I know what the problem is. It's an interesting thing with writing romance because there is so much derision for the genre, right? Oh, you know how it's going to You know, it's always a happy ever after.

13:01.30
Jeffe Kennedy
And there's, and also there's a contempt for anything too female, anything, um, of the softer emotions of the joyful emotions, right? Um,

13:15.76
Jeffe Kennedy
But the thing about writing a romance that is the enduring challenge of writing a romance is that it has to be earned in order for it to land. And that's, that's what editor Alley is getting at with the getting the romance to land with getting it to really hit you in your heart, to really believe that these people need to be together, that they're meant for each other, that they are,

13:46.96
Jeffe Kennedy
Two people who come together to enrich each other's lives that they make the other a better person. Oh, actually that idea is really helpful and I'm going to write it down because I'm not sure I don't I have that element in there.

14:03.93
Jeffe Kennedy
ah

14:08.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, it's really important that their strengths complement each other's weaknesses, right? And this is kind of what we look for in our lives, right? That we want someone who makes us a better person, not just happier, but actually more capable of the things that we want to be capable of doing. Yeah.

14:37.54
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah. I mean, and we kind of see these with these echoes of, of the politics that I'm talking about, you know, with the white supremacy and the whole MAGA movement, um, or I don't even want call it a movement because I don't feel like it's that big, but it's, it's based on hate. It's based on, uh, fear and hatred as opposed to love.

15:03.53
Jeffe Kennedy
And, finding ah story, finding a way to not just convince you that these people have fallen in love and that they make each other better and that they enrich each other's lives, but that but that it's inevitable that this powerful force overcomes every obstacle.

15:28.14
Jeffe Kennedy
And maybe I'm going to write that down too.

15:33.27
Jeffe Kennedy
overcome obstacles

15:40.05
Jeffe Kennedy
there's um kind of this argument that's been it's it's new to me i think in the genre world where there's a contingent of readers and writers who dislike the third act breakup which means that in romance Generally, you will, the arc is that we'll stick with couples for now that your couple meets and is attracted.

16:08.14
Jeffe Kennedy
They break up, they get back together again and happy ever after. ah But often the conflict is in act two, right?

16:18.95
Jeffe Kennedy
So we talk about that act one is you get your protagonist up a tree. Act two is you throw rocks at them. Act three is you should get them down again. Well, very often in romance, there is that act two, the throwing rocks is the, this romance will will not work out. That there's, that there are other things. Sometimes there's other arcs, like if you're writing fantasy, there's other rocks flying, but also there are reasons why they cannot be together, right?

16:49.17
Jeffe Kennedy
And then they finally get together. But when they overcome those final obstacles, depends on the story and on the author and also the subgenre. But there are a fair number of readers who like the obstacles in the third act and that last 25% to be external to the love affair, to be the two of them together and solid and facing the external problem.

17:17.42
Jeffe Kennedy
not within the romance itself. Whereas in, I want to say like straight romance or pure romance, um certainly contemporary romance, very often it's only about the romance.

17:32.59
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Often historical romance is the same way. There aren't that many external conflicts, you know, like you don't have a serial killer chasing them or you don't have the guy Kingdom on the brink of war, right?

17:48.53
Jeffe Kennedy
You have, uh, it's, it's more solidly about just the romance and very often. Yeah. There is that towards the end where you think that, you know, where they break up, where we think all is lost and having them overcome those final obstacles and make it to, um, that yes, I will sacrifice anything to have this love, which makes me a better human being.

18:15.48
Jeffe Kennedy
That's where you really get that romance punch. Yeah. So, ah yeah, that's what I've been mulling about. And after today's meeting, young going to be revising.

18:34.17
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm afraid it's going to be a I don't know. It's going to be the like the last one, hopefully, but i have to hear what editor Ali has to say, but this might be a revision that's going to take more time than is ideal, especially when I'm going on book tour in three weeks, but it is what it is.

18:56.70
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, And it'll be interesting to see what kind of timeline she suggests. So you all will have to wait until Friday to find out about these things. I know that you will be on tenterhooks until that point.

19:12.28
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, you know, I looked up tenterhooks cause someone, I used it and someone didn't know what word I meant, which is like the story of my life. Right. Uh, and I found out that the tenterhooks are actually the hooks that they used to like stretch, um, a canvas, like for a sale or a skin of an animal. So you actually pierce it with the hooks and stretch the thing.

19:33.89
Jeffe Kennedy
So there's a visual for you. I'll leave you with that. Uh, I hope you all have a wonderful week. And I will talk to you all on Friday. You all take care. Okay.

19:44.71
Jeffe Kennedy
Bye-bye.